The trek through the dense forest was oddly uneventful, which was weird for an island hidden in a wandering body of water called the "Lost Sea."
Miri hacked at vines and tree branches as she marched forward, Yun in tow. She pulled him along with the rope around his wrists, and together with his supply pack, he was like her little beast of burden.
What am I, a cow?
Natural cows had all but gone extinct, existing now only in the illustrations Yun had seen in history books, where they were shown hauling loads as beasts of burden. Modern synthetic cows were too delicate for anything like that, kept solely for milk and meat.
The thought that animals had once been numerous and robust enough to work alongside humans was something Yun could hardly comprehend.
What am I even thinking about right now?
Aside from a snake attack here and there, Yun was still in high spirits. Things were looking dark for a moment there, but after thinking about it, it wasn't that bad. Miri was basically his personal guard, freely escorting him to his destination. Yes, she nearly paralysed him by kicking his back in, but why hold a grudge? Mother would be proud.
And there was something else.
He summoned the fragments just to be sure.
Lineage Path: [Cloud Servant].
Path Description: [Servants of divine beings are often blessed with a sliver of their master's power, but only in their presence. Otherwise, servants are weaker away from their masters than if they didn't have one at all. The same applies to the Cloud Servants.]
Yun's body had begun feeling lighter and more nimble. Strength he'd never felt before slowly built up in his muscles like sediment. Although not much now, it held true the further Miri dragged him forward—the [Incubant] Trait was becoming less and less restrained.
It wasn't just the Temple; the Itheon drew closer too.
Well… thank you, dear master.
Miri came to an abrupt stop. Yun dismissed the fragments. In front of them, the world had turned white.
Snowflakes fell from the sky at a steady pace, blanketing the ground ahead. Yun reached out his palm to catch a few of them. Once a few of them were collected, he closed his palm and felt a warm and fluffy sensation.
I've never seen snow, but I at least know it's supposed to be cold.
Just then, the fluffy flakes dissipated and poured out of his fists like mist. Only to then reform and drop to the ground.
"Jade clouds," said Miri, eyes forward. "Your master's quite the welcoming host."
The snow thickened past the treeline, where the forest gave way to an open plateau that stretched toward a mountain base. The plateau was eerily quiet. No wind, despite the snowfall. The jade clouds Miri had named drifted low, luminous and slow, trailing wisps of warm, fluffy mist.
The flakes descended in perfect, unhurried columns, accumulating on Yun's red head wrap and the shoulders of Haska's cloak. Somewhere ahead, a mountain range rose in tiers that were barely visible through the jade-clouded air.
They reached the plateau's far edge, where the ground began its first gentle incline toward the mountain. A cluster of boulders jutted from the snow, arranged in a rough horseshoe. Behind the largest of them, Mortin sat with her back against the stone and her blade across her knees. A strip of cloth had been wrapped tightly around her left thigh, already darkening with blood.
Mortin looked up when she heard them. Her jaw tightened when she saw Yun.
"They took the map," she said, by way of greeting.
"I saw." Miri crouched beside her, examining the wound without being asked. "How far ahead?"
"About half an hour." Mortin's gaze hadn't left Yun. "The old one caught me off guard. The other one just looked confused the whole time; I'll be surprised if the old man didn't get rid of him. I did my best to chase them, but I could only reach this far."
Mortin's gaze began to wander, craning her neck like she was waiting for someone else to appear.
"Where's the captain?"
Miri finished her examination and straightened. "Can you walk?"
Mortin's jaw tightened further, which Yun was beginning to think was just her default expression. "I've walked on worse. Where's the captain?"
"Good." Miri looked toward the mountain. "Then we move. It could be days until we reach the peak, assuming the terrain cooperates."
"Days." Mortin let out a humourless snort. "It could be more without the map. Where. Is. Captain?"
"I'm the captain now," said Miri, without so much as looking at Mortin. She then turned to her and said, "My brother is gone, but we'll manage. I'm guessing that thing didn't pass by then. Which means it's coming up behind us. We should start climbing."
Mortin's face had been in a constant scowl this entire conversation.
"But… Captain. His vital essence burns the hottest out of all of us. How?"
"The Plague does not discriminate, I guess. It corrupts all vital essence. Even purple-cores."
Mortin slumped against the boulder, muttering something to herself.
"But as I said, we'll manage," said Miri.
"Will we?" Mortin rose slowly, testing her weight on the wounded leg. "Because without the map, we're just two and a half people…"
Her gaze cut to Yun.
"… wandering up a mountain behind two escaped prisoners who have a head start and everything we need to find the Temple."
"The map wouldn't have helped us anyway," Miri said.
That stopped Mortin mid-thought.
"… Excuse me?"
Miri was quiet for a moment. She looked at the mountain, not at either of them. The jade clouds thickened the higher up it went.
"I've been thinking about it since we made landfall. The records Brother kept. The accounts he'd collected over the years from other clans who had attempted to find the Falling Sky Temple." She paused. "None of them made it. Not even the ones who found the island. The island can be found, the Temple can't."
Mortin stared at her. "Then what use is a map at all?"
"I didn't say it was useless. I said it wouldn't help us."
"That's the same thing."
"Not quite…"
Mortin opened her mouth, then closed it. Her hand rested on the pommel of her blade out of habit rather than intent, probably a thinking gesture. "Then why bring one at all? Why did Captain—"
"Because Brother believed that the right map, in the right hands, would be enough." Miri finally looked at her. "He assumed himself to be the right hands."
The silence that followed had some weight to it. The snow fell through it unhurried. It was at this moment that Yun decided he had been quiet long enough. He shifted his supply pack, rope pulling taut at his wrists, and looked toward the mountain.
"The prisoners aren't escaping," he said.
Both women turned to him.
"Smoky… uh… the old one. He volunteered to get captured, right? I heard Haska say so." Yun kept his eyes on the tiers above. "He came to this island on purpose, looking for the Temple."
"Then he's a fool with better luck than he deserves," Mortin said.
Yun noticed that Mortin didn't bother asking about her crewmate's whereabouts, even though she couldn't have known what happened.
Haska, say it ain't so. Nobody gave a damn about you, huh?
"Maybe. But he's also somewhere up there right now." Yun paused. "And he's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
Yun looked down at his bound wrists. Then up at Mortin. Then at Miri, who was already watching him with that flat, careful expression that meant she'd already started to arrive at the same place he had.
He said it simply.
"Me. I'm the other half of the map."
***
Mortin stared at Yun for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, the scowl softened. Not into warmth — nothing about Mortin suggested warmth was in her repertoire — but into something that approached approval.
"At least you had the sense to keep him tied," she said to Miri.
I'm standing right here.
Miri said nothing. She was already reading the mountain again, tracing some invisible line upward through the jade clouds with her eyes. Mortin rolled her wounded leg experimentally, testing the give of the bandage.
"He's lying, you know. About being the other half of the map."
"I'm not."
It made perfect sense. Of course, someone sharing the Itheon's Lineage would be able to find its Temple. But no, it wasn't about sense with this lady.
"You're a lure, that's all you've ever been. Something to lower the Itheon's guard." She turned to Miri. "Let's take what supplies survived the Maiden, and find a way off this island. The clan still has its name and a leader. Why not just leave him here and take our chances? Captain is gone, the mission died with him."
Mortin's voice had shed its edge, replaced by something flatter and more tired. "We don't have to do this anymore… Captain."
"We can't. Not yet, at least." Miri said.
"Why not?"
"The map." Miri began moving toward the incline, testing the first slope with her boot. "Mortin, the prisoners have it. We let them walk away with a record of the Maliki clan's life work. I won't leave it on this island."
She paused without looking back. "And my broth— that thing is somewhere behind us. None of us can survive it if it reaches us."
"Besides," Miri added, "the ship is destroyed. There's no leaving until we find another way off. And the only structure on this island that might give us one is up there."
Mortin exhaled slowly through her nose. Her gaze dropped to Yun, lingering. She clicked her tongue, then pushed off the boulder and tested her full weight on the wounded leg. It held. Yun decided to chime in.
"After finding the creepy old bastard, and before False Maliki climbs far enough to become our problem, let's keep moving towards the Temple, and find my master, the Itheon."
"Why would we seek out a divine beast again?" Mortin argued.
"If you're with me, my master can guide us out of the Lost Sea. It doesn't stay in one place, right?"
Mortin looked at him flatly, then turned to her leader, to Miri. After some silent communication, it was Mortin who replied, "Glad you worked that out for us."
… The three of them turned toward the mountain. The jade clouds rolled slow and low across its face, and somewhere above, buried in that luminous haze, Smoky was waiting with a stolen map and no intention of going anywhere.
… Behind them, the beach was quiet. The Blood Maiden listed in the shallows. And somewhere between the waterline and the plateau, hidden in the dense forest, something that wore a dead man's face and walked with his confident swagger was beginning to find its footing on solid ground.
They started climbing.