The road back to Herb-Foot Village felt gentler than when we'd first stumbled along it, weeks ago. The fields rolled in green humps beneath the late sun, and the air was heavy with the smell of wheat ready for harvest. For once, my chest didn't ache at every step. I breathed deeply, savoring the clean currents as it hum with sweet elements in my lungs.
The sack of gold clinked at Vikra's side.
"You don't have to give them everything," he said for the fifth time since we left Veyra.
"I know," I said.
"Then why?"
"Because they gave me everything when I had nothing. When the world called me cursed, Luther gave me shelter. Talren gave me work. And, although the others gave me wary glances, they didn't give me exile. That's worth more than gold."
Vikra snorted softly, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward. "You're a terrible mercenary."
"I told you before, I'm not one."
We came into the village just as the sun tipped below the hills. Children ran ahead shouting, their laughter carrying. Doors opened. Faces appeared. There was less fear now, more curiosity, cautious but bright.
Luther waited near the square, leaning on his cane. His silver brows arched when he saw us.
"You returned," he said simply.
I stepped forward, the sack of gold heavy in my hands. "We went to Veyra. We sold the diamond-cores from the serpent-chimera. This… is for the village. For the roofs, for the winter grain, for whatever it is you all will need."
The hush that followed felt like a held breath. I opened the sack, and the coins gleamed in the firelight.
Talren muttered a prayer under his breath. Delsey gasped and clutched her apron. A boy darted forward before his mother could stop him, staring wide eyed at the gold.
"You would give this away?" Luther asked, eyes narrowing not in suspicion but in wonder.
I nodded. "Without HerbFoot Village, I would not be standing here. This is yours." I push forward the bag of gold.
For the first time, the elder's mouth softened into something close to a smile. He raised his cane, tapping it against the earth. "Then let it be known…" Luther announced, "the cursed girl is not cursed at all. She is Saint-blessed, returned to us in new life. Pray to the Saints. Give thanks to Sylphi. This gold will keep us through winter and beyond."
The villagers murmured, awe replacing old fear. A few even stepped forward, bowing their heads. My throat tightened.
Behind me, Vikra shifted his weight and muttered, "Intriguing."
I shot him a look, but he only grinned.
That night, the village celebrated. Children tugged me into dances. Women pressed bread into my hands until my arms were full. Vikra sat against the well, drinking something strong and watching me with his usual half-smirk. Except… when our eyes met across the firelight, the smirk faltered into something softer, almost unguarded.
I looked away first, feeling horrible that this man could give me butterflies when I am still longing for my Theodore.
*
The gold has gone into good hands, and we,too, were gone. Herb-Foot faded into memory behind us, but I carried their warmth with me like a second cloak.
One night, as we camped in the frosty desert, I decided to dig for some answers.
"Vikra?"
"Yes?"
"I know, you know that I can wield more than I'm revealing."
"oh…you can?" He said sarcastically.
"Shut up. I know you've seen it."
He siged, "Eriden, I'm not you. If you're choosing not to reveal that information to others, who am I to question it? Besides, with you by my side it's easy gold."
"I would like for you to keep that information about me between us. Is that possible?"
"I never ask and never will. Ignorance is bliss. If interrogated, I can only tell the truth… and the truth is… it's none of my business. But if you'd like to strike a bargain with me to keep my lips sealed, I'd say 70/30 would do."
"70/30, aw hell naw!"
"Hell…naw?" Vikra repeated my words with great confusion.
"Were are in this 50/50 all the way!"
"Sheesh, calm down, I was just jesting."
"Its never a joke when money's involved."
"Money? What's money?"
"Gold."
"Gold is called money in Herb-Foot?"
"It's nothing… don't worry about it."
Vikra stared at me, wide-eyed in uncertainty. I shot him an overly dramatic smile, grinning my teeth in display as my lip tucked into the pockets of my gumline.
Vikra burst out into laughter, "Oh the saints! You…" he bellowed, "you are too cute!"
My smile dropped and my whole face stills. "I'm what?"
"Funny!" he replied.
"Thats not what you said."
"I said that you were too cute." He caught himself and went silent.
Both of us sat quietly around the fire, our faces burning with heat not caused by the fire, but the idea of us.
I quickly changed subject, " Vikra, Have you ever seen anyone like me?"
"I've never seen anyone like you, but I've heard about Hans and her corruption of power. She can wield more than two elements, you know?"
"Hans?"
"Hans is the only living mana user that can wield more than three elements, recorded in history. Wielding more power is like controlling all the powers of this world." one of his brow rises and he eyed me while continuing, "Hans appeared twenty years ago from Mount Kunnis and has slowly corrupted the land, rivers, and people around it. No one can stop her… no one dares to. Those who tried, have failed. Hans is still in Mount Kunnis, living up there as the Queen of the darkland. Her minions carry her orders and cater to her every need. I hear people are being taken and offered to her as a sacrifice. Prince Rekhart claims he has met her before and she is like 200 years old. But who knows what the real story is."
"Sad to have such powers and use it for bad."
"I think it's because the power you have, eventually it becomes you."
"Like an addiction?"
"Addiction?"
"uh… nevermind. I get it."
"The saints gave you such a weird tongue. Does everyone speak like you in Herb-Foot?"
"No. No, they don't. Because like you said, the saints did bless me and so did Sylphi, herself."
The next few months came and went as it was the real start to our adventure.
Vikra and I became partners in truth. We took contracts from guild boards, from desperate farmers, from frightened merchants. We cleared spider dens, put down corrupted hounds, banished flickering shades. Nothing grand. Nothing that would reach the capital.
Each dungeon tested me. Each village taught me. With fire, I burned. With air, I shielded. With water, I doused and iced. And with the unnamed element, I bent the very laws beneath the others.
This was power and it screamed danger. It let me stitch wounds cleanly, mend broken stone, even still poisonous gas into harmless vapor, however the more I used it, the more the world trembled at the edges. My vision blurred with silver light, my hands shook, and my lungs howled. It was too much. I learned quickly to whisper its power only when there was no other way.
I named it, because naming things makes them real. "Ether," I said one night to the empty dark. The name settled in me like a seed in soil.
One quiet evening, after clearing a cave of hybrid moss-bats, we camped at a clearing beside a small stream. I washed soot from my face, hands and shoes while Vikra started the fire. Fireflies glimmered in the bushes nearby and the water hissed gently over stones.
"You always look at the water like it's alive," he said suddenly.
I blinked. "That's because it is."
He set the flint down as the flame rose, watching me. His eyes caught the firelight, turning them molten silver. "No. I mean… you look at it like it's yours. Like you and the world are just having a conversation."
Heat prickled in my cheeks. "That's… because we are. Molecules are never silent. You just don't hear them."
"Molecules?" He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The firelight traced his jaw sending glimmering light down the scar on his cheek and the soft furrow of his brow. "You're something else, Eriden."
The way he said my name made something flutter in my chest, but I laughed it off, splashing a little water toward him. "Something troublesome, you mean."
His grin curved slowly, eyes warm in a way I didn't quite understand. "Yeah. That too."
I missed the weight in his voice, too busy trying to still the flutter in mine.
*
Not all eyes were kind on our quest achieving adventure. Riders followed us more often now, appearing on distant ridges and vanishing when Vikra glanced too long their way. Algren's men, always watching. I had to be very careful when wielding.
One dawn, as fog curled low across the hills, a royal courier found us. His horse stumbled with exhaustion, his cloak heavy with the weight of authority.
"By command of His Majesty," he panted, kneeling in the road, "Slayer Vikra and Mage Eriden are summoned to the capital."
The seal on the letter was black wax, pressed deep with the sun-sword crest.
The king had taken notice of us. It was he, who had sent out all of those spies… Algren's men.
The palace was grand, but it smelled of roses masking rot. The king never appeared, only his chamberlain with too-polite words and too many smiles.
The quest was simple in speech, damning in truth. A banshee haunted the dungeon beneath the keep, her cries unraveling soldiers' minds, her wails curdling wine and curdling sleep.
"Slay her," the chamberlain said. "Bring peace again to this court."
We descended through the wine cellars, where barrels lay rotted and rats scurried around overgrown and fat. The air grew colder with each step.
Then came the sound. A cry, not constant but rising and falling like a tide, mournful enough to strip skin from bone. It clung to the air like frost, wormed into my chest like sorrow that wasn't mine.
Monsters met us in the dark. Twisted shadows, half-men with claws, beasts with eyes like dying embers. Vikra cut them down, his blade flashing arcs of silver flame. I shielded him with air, burned paths cleared, doused creeping fires. Each cry of the banshee rattled the walls and made the monsters go berserk.
By the time we reached the last hall my lungs ached and my head rang with whispers.
The banshee's chamber waited beyond a broken iron ring. Mist curled and in the center lay the shredded remnants of a pale gown and a crown tipped sideways like a fallen star.
The cry rose again, shaking the stones.
Vikra set his hand on his sword. I drew in breath, steadying myself.
We stepped forward into the chamber where rage and grief itself waited.