That made sense.
I couldn’t believe I was on a train destined for Fenmyr. Two weeks ago, I would have balked at such an idea.
I stroked the wolf sculpture on the handle of Val’s blade.‘Why didn’t you help me in the first trial?’I asked her.
Her voice was soft, as if she were fading away.‘I needed you to trust Kaelric. To win the Arcane Trials, you must trust him with your life.’
I reflected on that. I hadn’t trusted him before that trial, but by the end of it I did, so I guess her plan worked.‘I trust him now. So why not use your power in practice so I can learn how to work with it? I don’t even know yet what I am to wield.’
Would fire shoot out of her blade? Would she strike every man dead I pointed at, or cut? The rumors about her power were so vast that I didn’t know what to expect.
‘There is a cost to using magic. I do not pull on the Creator’s power just for show. When you truly need me to display my power, I will. You can trust that.’
That statement had my mind spinning for the next hour. Pull on the Creator’s power? What was she implying? That her power came from the Creator himself? It was too wild a thought. And yet she was right about there being a cost to magic. I’d seen that toll taken on the Elites of Aerlyn. They were weary after using too much magic. I hadn’t thought it would affect a steel blade, though.
In the darkness of the rocking train car, I fell asleep and dreamed of riding Kaelric’s wolf into battle with a scream on my lips and a fierce love for him in my heart.
I awoke with a jolt as the train stopped in Grimreach. Grabbing my pack, I leapt off before the dock workers could find me and scold me for being a stowaway.
Grimreach was the kind of place that maps forget about, a small, wind-worn village crouched right at the edge of the Fenmyr border. It was where the Fenmyr Mountains flattened into bleak Aerlyn marshland, and Elite magic users were nowhere to be found. A crooked wooden sign marked its entrance, letters half-faded by time. Most of the buildings were timber-framed andmoss-covered. There was a single inn, a lopsided structure with a tilted roof and a red lantern over the door. A soft mist clung to the crooked rooftops and curled around the base of the water tower. The streets were unpaved, just packed dirt and stone.
I inhaled. The town smelled like pine, rust, and coal smoke. I slipped between the buildings, my boots crunching over brittle leaves as I scanned for anything or anyone who might have seen a group passing through with a prisoner.
But the town was empty. Or pretending to be.
‘He was here,’Valkaryn murmured in my mind.
I paused.‘Kaelric?’
‘His energy lingers like smoke after a fire. Tense. Focused. Tracking.I can feel him through our bond.’
She could? I wanted to feel him through our bond, but there was nothing but static.
She guided me down a narrow path behind the train station, where rotten freight crates were stacked and long forgotten.
‘He passed through, but so have others,’Valkaryn said.
My breath caught.‘Elia?’
‘Yes. And… there was magic. Heavy, cruel magic. They cast a veil to mask her energy. That’s why she hasn’t been able to reach him.’
That’s what the wolfkin had told Kaelric, that Eliahadn’t reached out because she’d been cloaked. Why was an Elite working with the wolfkin? It wasn’t normally done. They kept to themselves, only coming together when it was mutually beneficial, like the Arcane Trials.
I moved closer, pressing a hand to the side of one crate to see that there was a smear of blood.
“Elia,” I whispered, hoping it didn’t belong to her.
‘They are headed southeast, by my guess. Toward the Boneridge Crossing,’Valkaryn added.
I didn’t know how she knew, but I trusted her.
‘If we move fast, we can intercept them before they cross into the no-man’s lands,’Val added.
I tightened the strap on my pack and turned towards the fading trail. Every instinct in me was on fire now. This wasn’t just about Elia anymore—this was about Kaelric, too. About proving I wasn’t weak.
And no one was taking that from me.
I stepped away from the bloodstained crate, eyes drawn to the faint indentation in the dirt. There were boot prints trailing off toward the eastern edge of Grimreach. They led past a crumbling stone wall and into dense trees where no real path remained.
