The girl sat on the rotting steps of the crumbling inn's terrace, her back against the railing, staring at the glowing orb of light in her palm. It flickered in and out of existence, sometimes vanishing completely, only to blink back into being. It had been nearly a month since they escaped the village, and they had cleverly evaded their pursuers in that time. They had come far enough that ambushes were no longer an immediate concern. Not that they didn't have other problems—Milo, for instance, was still in the same half-living, half-dead state he'd been in since the forest.
Daiya didn't know what else she could do for him, so she spent more and more time getting to know the strange power she had acquired—an ability that turned out to be surprisingly multifaceted.
There was, first of all, the light. With a little concentration, she could summon it at will from her mind, though she had yet to recreate a beam as strong as the first one. Over the past few weeks, she had also discovered that when she was nervous or focused intensely on an object, she could move it—ever so slightly—just with her will. And the ability grew stronger the more she used it. Where she had once watched in awe as fallen leaves danced in the air at her command, now she could knock over a full glass or an empty bucket with a single glance.
So it wasn't entirely surprising that shortly after moonrise, when they arrived and the innkeeper commented that she shouldn't keep speaking for her friend, the contents of a waiting beer mug somehow ended up spilled all over his apron. Not that Milo could speak for himself, of course—but the innkeeper didn't need to know that. No matter what shady dealings the local elves were involved in, none of them would dare host a walking corpse.
And truly, since the moment he kissed Daiya beneath the sacred tree, Milo hadn't spoken a single word. If Daiya walked somewhere, he followed. If she wanted him to sit and rest, she gently pushed him down by the shoulders onto a stump or, if they were lucky, a chair—and he would remain there, motionless, until further instruction. Though Sylun had promised to return his body, the young elf was still not alive. He didn't need food. He didn't need sleep. He simply did whatever Daiya wished—and nothing more, aside from a few strange, inscrutable quirks.
Daiya sometimes wondered if this counted as a broken promise. But the body wasn't rotting. It kept its form. For now, that had to be enough.
In the days that followed, Daiya began paying special attention to the boy's subtle gestures. Though the young elf didn't seem capable of coherent thought in any meaningful sense, her words still elicited reactions from him. The twitch of a facial muscle, the slight rise of a hand when—even in death—he embraced her: these were remnants of his life. As if the body had remembered the movements her voice had evoked so many times before.
Perhaps that was why, when Daiya grew tired of toying with the light and stepped into their shared room, a faint, uncertain smile appeared on the boy's face. His body began to shift, as if stirred by excitement.
She returned the smile with quiet sadness, then walked over to the couch where Milo was sitting. Kneeling on the rug at his feet, she laid her head in the lap of the other elf. It didn't surprise her when, a few moments later, she felt a cold hand in her hair.
"I wonder where your soul is now," she whispered. "Even if you don't speak, sometimes it feels like you're alive."
As expected, there was no reply.She must have fallen asleep sitting there, because when she next opened her eyes, the moon was glowing in the sky again—where before there had been only darkness.
Her head still rested in Milo's lap several minutes later, and Daiya had no intention of getting up—until her nostalgia was suddenly cut short by the sound of loud knocking. She tried to wait quietly, hoping the noise would die down, but it only continued. Reluctantly, she made her way to the door and opened it carefully, only to be met with the towering figure and scowling face of the innkeeper.
"How can I help you?" Daiya asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
"Young lady, the room was only paid for until this morning. Pay up or leave," the innkeeper said, with not even a trace of kindness or courtesy. He was a cabinet-sized, elderly elf with countless wrinkles across his body and face. Not even the cheerfully patterned aprons—which he always forgot to take off outside the kitchen—could make him seem any more pleasant.
"I paid two silver coins for two nights," the girl replied.
The innkeeper simply shook his head. "Two silver is for one elf, two nights. Two elves means four silver."
"But it's the same room," Daiya protested, clearly baffled.
"It's in the house rules," came the curt response. "Pay or leave."
"Fine," she sighed, pulling two more silver coins from her pouch. Only a few clinked faintly inside the small leather bag.
"Excellent," the innkeeper nodded, satisfied. Then his gaze flicked toward the pouch. "If you are short on coin, young lady, perhaps your friend would be willing to help. But if not… I do have a rather interesting guest right now who could use the help of two strong young elves. He drinks in the bar every night."
"Thank you," Daiya said with a nod. "I appreciate your generosity."
Having been so rudely awakened, Daiya began her day by trying to come up with a plan. She wasn't sure which direction would be best to take. There was the northeastern route, which would get them most quickly to the heart of the region known as the Grey Lands—the Whiteglow Mountains. But there was also the eastern road, leading to the nearer Möllnar Fortress. Their ultimate destination, of course, was the Whiteglow Mountains, where rumors said a route to the Upper Realm began.
Only two major problems stood in their way: they had no money, and no map—making any journey nearly impossible. And that's not even counting the bounty hunters likely already waiting for them along the road, hired by Nexus. All things considered, the first thing Daiya needed was money.
With that conclusion, she went for a short walk in the forest with Milo, gathering a few bundles of medicinal herbs. Fortunately, her upbringing had taught her to distinguish the various plants and understand their effects. As she handed the bunches to Milo, the boy instinctively raised his hands to receive them.
"It really is as though you're still alive," whispered Daiya into the cold night.