“Yannveceny?” Damien looked to her with the expectation she would know the goddess.
Amma winced. Yannveceny wasn’t Abyss-cast, but the goddess still wasn’t particularly popular in Eiren, at least not for direct worship. She only knew the name because of a particularly nasty parable told to warn against taking retribution that had stuck with Amma over the years and how Yannveceny could help with retaliation—for a price. “She’s the goddess of vengeance,” Amma said, heart speeding up.
“You’ve got one of those?” Damien cocked his head.
“And doesn’t she sound lovely?” Xander was folding his cloak. “But she’s not terribly popular it seems, so her followers all converge in one boring, little town in the middle of this awful jungle. Only benefit is, they condense their power to place a radiant essence inside their vessel-type thing where it’s housed for half a century, and then just sits around being worshiped. Useless, they do nothing with it, but the last one was too difficult to get, too evolved. Plus, I didn’t know what to do with it exactly. But now, thanks to the two of you, we’ve got a splendid corruption spell to turn it.”
“And then?” Damien asked.
“Who knows!” Xander threw up his arms, continuing ahead through the trees. “We could fail, I suppose, and accidentally destroy it, but that’s part of the experiment. If we succeed, then we have a weapon. Maybe we use it in Eirengaard, or I’ll just keep it safely tucked away in the tower. The shadow imps can care for it until it’s more useful.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, it’s just quite fragile, and weak too, at first.” Xander was smiling. “That’s why now is such a good time to take it.”
“I don’t feel good about stealing something,” said Amma carefully even as Damien shot her an unbelieving glance.
“Of course you don’t,” mocked Xander as he led them through the wood. “But, if it helps, the thing’s already been stolen once.”
While she tried to puzzle out what that meant, Damien grunted. “And how are we supposed to get this thing these zealots care so deeply about? Walk into town and start blowing the place up?”
Amma’s eyes widened, flicking from Damien to Xander. At her side, Kaz’s tail flicked madly with excitement.
“Ah, you know me so well!” Xander chuckled. “That’s what I’ll be doing, yes, and all of their attention should be on me since I told them I’m coming.”
“You what?”
“I leaked my whereabouts, used the shadow imps to run along ahead under an illusion to spread whispers that the terrifying blood mage Xander Sephiran Shadowhart was making a trek to Durendreg with the intension of burning it to the ground. I sort of declared an anti-crusade against Yannveceny, I guess. Hope I don’t get smited. Or is it smote? Smitten?”
Damien had caught up to him, hands out in bewilderment. “Why?”
“They’ll be focused on me, and the two of you can sneak around back to their temple and snatch the vessel.”
“You don’t think they’ll have increased security at their temple too?”
“Probably, but I assume you can handle whatever’s there. Can’t you?”
“Of course I can, that’s not the point.”
The two of them continued to bicker as they walked along, and Amma let herself fall a few paces behind. She took a deep breath of the woods and stretched her arms above her head. The Accursed Wastes had been heavy on her, and for all the tower’s comfort and luxuries, she had missed the freshness and wilds of the outdoors. There were massive sable oaks here and ashes with wide trunks like they had in the north-easternmost dutchy of Eiren but a species or two she hadn’t seen before, further suggesting they were outside of the realm proper. When a small something fell out of a tree and bonked her on the head, she grunted, but that, too, she supposed she had missed.
She picked up the acorn that had attacked her. Holding it between two fingers, she rubbed its exterior, the smoothness of the shell and the rough dappling over its top, and then there was a third feeling, something that pulsed into her fingertips. Amma came to a stop, lifting up the acorn as a slight vibration worked its way down her hand. That was…that was new.
She blinked, eyes refocusing ahead instead of on the seed, and Damien was looking back over his shoulder at her, head cocked, watching. She grinned and tossed the acorn over her shoulder, continuing on.
The day fell into night earlier in the forest than it would in the open plains, and they made camp around a small fire. Xander and Damien continued to argue about the plan to sneak into the temple, but Amma was too distracted to properly listen. Instead she lay on her back on her cloak, now dry, and blinked up at the tree branches overhead. They swayed lightly in the breeze, dark against the deep blue of the evening sky. She had the urge to wave back at them, but that was incredibly silly, she knew, and she kept her hands firmly folded on her stomach until the sounds of the forest lulled her into sleep. Her dreams that night were vivid, filled with colors and moving trees and breathlessness.
Amma woke suddenly, blinking into the dark. The fire had gone out, and she held still, listening. There had been a noise, something, that had woken her, and her heartbeat was pounding hard in her chest. But there was nothing but the gentle night sounds of the forest, crickets, wind, and an owl calling far off in the trees too low to be alarming.
Amma dared to sit up in the dark. She could make out the forms of Damien and Xander sleeping opposite one another. Kaz was gone, likely prowling the perimeter as he did when they slept on the road before, and if the shadow imps were about, they had the perfect spots to hide in. The weariness was all out of Amma, though, and she leaned back on her hands to gaze up at the starry sky between the branches.
Under where she placed her hand, there was a hard knot, and she pawed at the bump in the dark, gathering it up and bringing it to her face. Between her adjusting vision and the feeling of it, she could tell it was another acorn. Well, not another, the same acorn as what had fallen on her before—that was what her mind told her, at least, even though it was impossible.
No, of course it was a different one, it was only that all acorns looked pretty much the same.
“You want to stay with me?” she asked it in a whisper, chuckling to herself but needing the absurdity of the idea after the solemnity of the last week.
Yes, please, a voice whispered back, and Amma nearly chucked the seed as hard as she could into the dark, but she continued to hold on and just stare.
