Fire Emblem Fan Fiction ❯ Fire Emblem Tellius Saga: Book 1 ❯ CHAPTER 3: TRAINING ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The next day, Soren and Sileas tested the well water, set poison for mice, beat the dust out of curtains and blankets, and purchased food, vulneraries, candles, lantern oil, and other supplies. Sileas met with the town mayor and some neighbors, finally regaling them with the details of his journey to and from Daein. All the while, Soren did what he was ordered to do and—even more often—did not do what he was forbidden from doing. 

His strict obedience seemed to alleviate the townspeople’s initial fear. The rumor of his birthmark had quickly spread, and he heard whispers of ‘curse,’ ‘demon,’ ‘bad luck,’ and ‘evil’ wherever he went. But Sileas persuaded the townsfolk to let Soren stay. Very few of them seemed to genuinely like Sileas, but they all respected him. They saw the sage as a powerful protector against the subhumans that haunted the woods, and they were relieved he had returned from his year abroad.

Soren soon discovered that there’d been a debate among the townsfolk concerning whether Sileas would come back at all. Apparently, people often went to ‘visit’ their families in Crimea and never returned. Now that Sileas was back, bets were settled and money changed hands.

As Soren saw more of the town, he realized that people leaving was a major problem. Butchers were pulling double-duty as candle and soap makers. Farmers sowed fields in the morning and clothes in the afternoons. Woodcutters fashioned furniture in the twilight hours. Even the children (of which there were few) were put to work darning socks, tending gardens, and cleaning chimneys. Once their concerns about his birthmark were settled, the townsfolk grumbled about Soren being another mouth to feed. 

“He’ll pull his weight,” Sileas vouched. But to Soren’s ears, it sounded like a threat. The words ‘or else’ were unspoken yet audible in the way he glanced at Soren out of the corner of his eye.

And Soren did pull his weight. In that first day of hard work, Soren not only helped Sileas rekindle his old home, he also aided the neighbors under Sileas’s watchful gaze. No matter how exhausting the work, he tried his best to do what was asked of him. He told himself it would be worth all the effort to learn wind magic.

 

Twilight found Soren scrubbing the floor in Sileas’s house and wondering if his master would keep his promise to begin lessons today. He glanced at the sage periodically, hoping he would say something, but he continued to ignore the boy while sorting through letters and missives left for him during his absence. If not his training, Soren hoped Sileas would stop him and say it was time for dinner. He was hungry after a hard day of work, and his fingertips felt raw. The hunger he was used to, the worn hands he was not.

Finally, Sileas sat back, coughed, and said to Soren: “Stop that now.”

Soren dropped the brush in the bucket and stretched. Sileas went to one of the shelves and selected a large tome. He pushed this into Soren’s arms, and he was momentarily surprised by its weight.

 “Come,” Sileas said next, clipping on his green cloak. He walked out of the house without waiting for Soren, who scrambled to don the threadbare gray cloak Sileas had given him.

Running to catch up to the old man at the bottom of the hill, Soren then followed him down an abandoned street and out of town. Sileas didn’t stop until they arrived at a meadow at the edge of town, which was dotted with dormant fruit trees. There was a picket fence along the far side of the meadow, a paltry barrier against the dense forest. Soren knew from his role as egg-collector earlier today, that this was where the baker kept her chickens. They were sleepy and quiet in their coop now, and Soren wondered why Sileas had brought him here.

Sileas stood with his back straight and his legs apart, banishing the frailty of his sickness. For the first time, Soren could see the shadow of the colonel he’d once been. “That’s a novice’s tome. If you’re not a complete failure, you’ll be finished with it in a week.”

Soren dared to peek at the yellowed pages, each of which was crammed with tiny, ancient script. He didn’t see how that would be possible.

“Meditation, concentration, but most of all, repetition,” the sage announced. “That is the key to becoming a mage: practice. You must condition your body to contain enough magic to influence the spirits of the wind. You must expand your mind to connect with the words of power written on the page. You must make your spirit steel on the battlefield.”

Soren bobbed his head to accept these terms. I’ll do whatever it takes, he promised himself.

“Let us begin,” Sileas declared ceremoniously. He then instructed Soren to open to the first page and read the spell written there.

Soren recognized some of the words and most of the letters, but there were some he could not remember, and as he struggled to pronounce them, Sileas scolded and insulted him. But amidst his barrage, he also managed remind him of the correct pronunciations.

Soren uttered the spell from start to finish and managed to create a gust of wind. As before, this unlocked the meaning of the words, but Sileas was not satisfied. Now he ordered Soren to channel the wind, narrow it to a point, and cut a single blade of grass.

It was impossible. The sun set, and Soren stood holding the heavy book until his back and legs aching. He was hungry, tired, and frustrated. Despite Sileas’s shouting, Soren could do nothing more than stir the brittle grass. He could not focus the wind to a sharp edge, let alone channel it to a single blade of grass. He worked his way through three pages of spells, and with each one, he felt weaker and weaker. He had never suspected the strain magic forced on the wielder’s body.

Eventually Sileas snatched the book from his arms and said with finality: “We’re done.”

Soren was desolate in the face of his failure. He would have remained here, practicing on his own all night if he’d been able. Despite the pain, he would have kept trying. But Sileas had taken the tome, and there was nothing he could do but follow timidly at his heels.

Once they were inside the house, Sileas replaced the tome on the shelf and gave Soren some bread and cheese, which he ate ravenously. “Fetch water for the morning and then you can sleep,” Sileas growled, making straight for his bed.

Soren obeyed and fell asleep the moment his head hit the thin mat.

 

Now that they’d begun, Sileas didn’t hold back. They returned to the field, and Soren practiced wind magic every day. After a week, he could sharpen the wind and aim it in a sweep parallel to the grass, but he could not always hit the grass where he was aiming. And he never narrowed it to even a few blades, let alone one. Pages flew past Soren’s fingerstips, but even by the end of the week, he had not finished the tome. Sileas made his disappointment clear.

One the last day, however, desperate not to fail, Soren remained planted in the field even after Sileas had taken the book away. He turned his attention the grass and uttered the incantation his lips knew so well while extending his mind toward the inky words he saw burned behind his eyelids. To his astonishment, the spell succeeded. The grasses blew, and a swathe at the center was cropped short. It wasn’t the success Soren had wanted, and he was about to try again when Sileas said: “Stop.”

He was standing six or so feet away, looking intrigued if nothing else. Taking a large step back, he ordered: “Try again.”

Soren did, to the same result.

Sileas took another step back. “Again.”

Soren uttered the spell again, but it was noticeably harder. He felt like he was stretching muscles he hadn’t never used. It hurt, but the spell still worked.

Sileas took yet another step. “Again.”

Soren tried, but his head immediately felt split with sharp, hot pain. He stopped mid-sentence, and pressed his hands to his temples.

“Stop,” Sileas ordered, although it wasn’t necessary. “Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “You may be an imbecile, but you are still a Spirit Charmer.” He sighed. “Most students don’t practice breaking contact with the tome until their second year of training. You may not be able to cast the simplest spells, but at least you have some talent.” Sileas turned around briskly. “Come on.”

The experiment over, Soren followed him home. He wondered if Sileas would have given up and sent him away if not for this small victory. He did not want to find out and determined he would try harder, even while his head thrummed with a dull but persistent ache. 

 

Eventually Soren mastered the small wind spell. He exhausted all the spells in the book, and Sileas produced a new one. As the months passed, Soren lost track of the number of primers he burned through. Sileas seemed to have an infinite number of books, most of them magic tomes, and he purchased new ones every time Crimean traders visited the town.

When he wasn’t practicing wind magic, doing chores for Sileas, or being rented out to the neighbors, Soren was given other books to read. Sileas demanded he study history (especially important wars and great battles), battle theory and strategy, and the anatomy of living creatures. He also seemed to think it important that Soren have an understanding of the seven nations, their cultures, their governments, the composition of their militaries, and their imports and exports (or, in the case of the four subhuman nations, the little that was known).

He studied diligently under Sileas’s unforgiving tutelage, harsh criticism, and rare praise. Any significant failure meant being beaten with the knotted rope that hung by the door, but Soren swiftly learned to read Sileas’s voice and body language to determine which lessons were the most important. He applied himself most to these tasks, in an effort to avoid the rope’s bite. Unlike Galina, Sileas didn’t beat him out of boredom or bitterness. He seemed to honestly consider it a teaching tool.

 

Over time, Soren became used to the village. The subhumans stayed away, although Sileas swore they were always watching from the trees. They only entered the village once a month to distribute rations of meat, since humans were prohibited from hunting, trapping, or fishing in the Gallian forest.

The villagers ate the rations grudgingly, aware that the game had been slain by subhuman claws. Soren often heard them grumbling about how these lands had once belonged to Crimea, citing the fact that many of their parents and grandparents had hunted in these woods.

Soren had seen illustrations of subhumans in Sileas’s books. They were monstrous creatures which stood taller than a man and were covered in hair, feathers, or scales. Their eyes were feral, their fangs long, their claws curled, and their features grotesquely semi-human. But he had never seen one in person. Each time they came to town, Sileas had Soren in the field practicing or locked indoors studying. Soren wasn’t brave enough to ask for a break.

That being said, he considered it an important part of his education to see the subhumans with his own eyes and he was determined not to miss them today. Noon came when Soren was scrubbing the laundry, and he knew the beast-men would be arriving soon. Sileas was in a wooden chair in the center of the sloping yard with his eyes closed in the sun and heat. Soren didn’t know if he was sleeping, but he tried to be as silent as possible as he slipped away from the washbasin. He broke into a run when he thought Sileas wouldn’t hear his footsteps.

 

The rustle of urgent whispers led him to the central square where it seemed the entire village was assembled. Soren squeezed between two women, who made room as soon as they recognized him. (Just as in Nevassa, adults never wanted to touch him). From here he had a good view of the old stone table at the center of the square. There was no sign of the beast-men yet, and while he waited, he considered the stone table and the story behind it.

Not long after arriving in this village, Sileas had bid Soren learn its history by heart. A hundred or so years ago, Crimean peasants living along on the southern border had grown tired of unpredictable raids and missing cattle, on which they blamed the subhumans. Taking the law into their own hands, dozens of towns’ militia had banded together to invade Gallia, intent on seizing the forestlands and sending a message to the beasts who lived there.

Their invasion had been surprisingly successful. The Crimean king had condoned the attack, although no royal order had been given, and the Gallian king had conceded the land—albeit grudgingly—for fear of inciting total war if he tried to reclaim it. 

For decades, the human settlers had lived in conflict with the subhumans who’d been forced to relocate. The humans had sometimes formed hunting parties to enter Gallian lands and kill the beasts for sport. Other times, the subhumans had formed parties of their own and voyaged north in hairbrained attempts to oust the settlers. In either case, if a subhuman had been captured alive, they’d been strapped to this table with iron bonds, tortured, and killed as an offering to Ashera.

The raids had died out over fifty years ago, but Sileas claimed to remember seeing his parents and grandparents trotting into town dragging a subhuman behind their horse. He reminisced with bloodlust that scared Soren. 

Twenty years ago, King Ramon had taken the throne of Crimea, and one of his first decrees had been to return the stolen lands. In the agreement with Gallia, it was determined that the humans would be allowed to stay, as long as they abided certain rules. At first, most had chosen to remain. But over the years, many had given up and fled to Crimea. Only the truly stubborn ones like Sileas refused to abandon their dying towns or forget their bloody history.

Now the subhumans were forced to place packages of meat on the stone table each month as a gift to the ex-Crimeans. Soren supposed it was an arrangement neither party enjoyed.

 

Finally, the procession appeared, slowly marching from the woods to the altar. Soren squinted for a better look, and the first thing he noticed was that they were nothing like the illustrations in Sileas’s books. They stood like men, walked like men, had faces like men. Some grew beards, while others were clean-shaven. They were covered in skin, not fur. They wore clothes and shoes, and each carried a basket. Soren thought they were human at first. Then he noticed his mistake.

Their faces and arms were patterned with random colored markings, and Soren knew better than to think they were tattoos. Furry, pointed ears poked out of their hair, and catlike tails swept behind their legs. When they drew closer, he could see their nostrils flare, their ears swivel, and their tails twitch. Soren was entranced.

One of the big ones slowed when it neared Soren. Its eyes scanned the crowd, and its mouth parted, revealing distinct canines. It seemed to be scenting the air, like a cat. It had stopped walking entirely now, and its gaze fell on Soren (much to the boy’s horror). The one behind it reached out and gently pushed it forward. The first one immediately lifted its gaze and resumed walking.

Soon the entire envoy had passed, and none of the others had spared Soren a passing glance. The entire episode had only taken a moment, but it had left him shaken. He took a step back, and the shoulder-to-shoulder line of villagers closed in front of him.

He considered running back to Sileas. He had seen the subhumans; his mission was accomplished. But then Soren heard a voice that kept him rooted in place:

“Alright, drop it here, boys!” someone called from the altar. Soren was shocked that anyone would talk so casually to a subhuman, so he pushed through the townsfolk again for a better look. (Again, this was easily done because would rather push their neighbor than be touched by him.)

“That the last of it?” asked the voice, and to Soren’s surprise, it belonged to a subhuman standing beside the village headman.

This one was shorter and leaner than the one that had paused next to Soren. It had light blue hair, ears, and tail, and its markings were the same color—a slash across either cheek and one down the bridge of its nose. It had mismatched eyes like a stray cat Soren had once seen. One was lavender, the other turquoise, but both were piercing.

But what really transfixed Soren was the wide, good-natured smile that adorned the subhuman’s face. Such a human expression seemed incongruous with the cat ears and facial markings.

The headman stepped forward uneasily. “W-we thank you, as always, M-mister Ranulf,” he stammered.

“Uh, no problem,” the subhuman said before rolling its eyes at the others. Soren was appalled, having assumed until now that sarcasm was a singularly human trait. The subhuman held out its hand, and the headman slowly extended his shaking arm to grasp it for a fraction of a second before dropping it.

The subhuman rubbed the back of its head and grinned. “Well, back to the forest then, boys,” it commanded the others, and the procession retreated the way they’d come.

Soren watched them go and was so focused he nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Sileas.

He twisted to see his master’s face and was surprised to see he didn’t look particularly angry. He just looked tense like everyone else. “See those big ones?” he whispered, pointing to a specimen like the one that had paused in front of Soren. “Those are tigers. Insanely strong, even in their unshifted forms. Incredibly hard to kill, impossible when they’re in their animal forms. And those skinny ones—” he pointed to the leader “—Those are cats. Smaller, but quicker. Don’t underestimate them. The worst though, are the lions. I’ve never seen one. They’re rare. Gallia’s subhuman king is a red lion—most dangerous and terrible subhuman on Tellius.” He cleared his throat, adding, “That’s not counting the dragons of Goldoa of course. The worst of the worst.”

Soren glanced around and saw that several villagers were leaning in on the lesson.

Sileas continued his solemn murmuring: “Monsters, all of them. I pray every night for Ashera to wipe them all off the face of Tellius forever…” The others nodded and muttered agreement. Soren had never seen Sileas do anything resembling praying, but he had no doubt the sentiment was true.

The subhumans disappeared into the woods beyond the lumbermill. The villagers finally broke formation and went to pick up their rations. Gradually, they drifted back to their daily work. Parents let their children run off to play games of heroes killing subhumans.

Sileas steered Soren back to the house, but he seemed deflated now. “Come on, boy,” he said with a ghost of his usual gruffness, “You’ll work ten times harder for slipping off like that.”

Soren was pleasantly surprised. At least he wasn’t going to be beaten.

 

Over the months of his apprenticeship, the old sage often referred to Soren as a Spirit Charmer. Eventually, through his course of studies and the multitudes of books Sileas ordered him to read, Soren discovered what that meant.

A Spirit Charmer was a person who invited spirits into their body, creating a magical contract. Someone else could also enter the individual into the pact, and in extremely rare cases, the spirits initiated the contract with the individual. That was what Sileas thought had happened to him, but Soren wasn’t so sure. He thought he would know if spirits were feeding on his soul. In return, the spirits offered the mage great power. Sileas sometimes called him a prodigy, but Soren didn’t think he was that skilled. (After all, he often failed Sileas’s own tests.)

The sage’s sporadic reassurances were hardly reassuring, and it seemed Sileas was trying to convince himself rather than Soren. “There’s the proof,” he would say, swiping aside Soren’s bangs to stare obsessively at the mark. “Spirit Charmers always have a mark and that one’s yours. Can’t be anything else.”

Soren often wondered, if it truly couldn’t be anything else, why other people were disgusted and afraid of it. Nothing he read about Spirit Charmers indicated they were particularly disliked. But Soren was not brave enough to voice these doubts.

 

A year and a half after arriving in Gallia, Soren’s routine was much the same as it had been when he first arrived, save for one important factor: Sileas’s condition had gotten worse. He breathed heavily at the slightest strain and coughed constantly. As his health deteriorated, so did his temper. Vulneraries had stopped sufficing months ago, and he’d become an avid drinker. Soren grew used to the smell of booze on his master’s breath around the same time he became used to beatings with little or no provocation.

He knew Sileas kept his liquor, his vulneraries, and his remaining gold in the cellar, where Soren was forbidden. He sometimes disappeared there for hours, and Soren bided his time reading or doing chores. Sometimes Soren thought about leaving while Sileas was lost in one of his drunken reveries, but he could no longer recall the way to Crimea. And even if he could, he didn’t know anyone there. He was stuck with Sileas, and training was his only consolation. He found he enjoyed learning what the sage had to teach him, despite the accompanying abuse.

 

One day, an entire afternoon passed without a sign of his master. Soren stared at the cellar door, sometimes placing his ear against it. He couldn’t hear anything. Stars appeared in the sky, and another hour passed. Soren couldn’t wait anymore. He was hungry but forbidden to eat anything unless Sileas gave it to him.

He lit a lantern, heaved the cellar door open, and crawled down the wooden ladder. The ceiling was low, the walls made of stone, and the floor packed dirt. The air was musty and difficult to breathe.

In the lantern’s glow, Soren could see broken pieces of furniture, a couple of old chests, a set of shelves with even more books (although these seemed mildewed beyond repair). There were also shelves of preserved foodstuffs in jars, racks of dried herbs on the ceiling, a couple barrels of ale in the corner, and a wooden lattice suspending glass bottles.

Soren observed all of this while closing the distance between himself and Sileas, who was draped over a lopsided chair. The old man looked as limp as a rag doll, silhouetted by the lantern he’d hung behind him. The casks of ale sat on his right, and the puddles beneath their spouts made Soren wonder if they were empty yet. There were also bottles, some broken, some empty, some only half-drunk, scattered on the ground.

Soren ventured closer. Only a sliver of Sileas’s eyes could be seen, and Soren wondered if he was asleep. A moment later, he groaned and took another swig from the bottle he was currently nursing. Soren froze.

The seconds ticked by, and finally Sileas’s eyes widened. “Boy?” he croaked. Soren stepped forward, holding the lantern aloft. Sileas hiccupped, then growled, “You’re not supposed to be down here, boy.”

Soren did not retreat.

Sileas hiccupped again. “What life is this?” he asked ceiling. He ran a clumsy hand over his face. “It’s a joke, must be a joke… After years wasted in the army, I finally make colonel, just to be discharged a couple years later. They don’t like my ideas, they say. Fools!” He shook his head. “Fools… So I join the ruddy militia, nothing else to do. And the king gives our bleedin’ land to the subhumans! So here I am, on the frontlines, living off daddy’s coin until the day comes…” His anger spiked again. “And I know it’s coming! I’ve seen it! Humans fighting subhumans. Subhumans fighting subhumans. Humans fighting humans. A war like Tellius has never seen! And then…a bright light. I’ve seen it.” He took another swig. “I’ve dreamed it, anyway… I know it’s coming. But they never believe me. They’re not ready. But me- I’m ready.” He sighed, then spat out a chuckle. “I’m the only one ready. And I’m gonna die before the war hits!” He coughed. “A joke. It’s a joke, I tell you,” he wheezed.

Soren had heard most of this before. The villagers talked about it too behind Sileas’s back. They gossiped about his paranoia and his obsession with a nonexistent war.

Soren considered returning to the house now that he’d confirmed Sileas was still alive down here. And if he stole some food, it was possible Sileas would think he’d eaten it himself in a drunken stupor. He turned to go, but the sage’s next words stopped him in his tracks:

 “And then there’s you, my apprentice.” Sileas raised his unfocused eyes to Soren’s face, and disgust colored his features. Other people looked at him like that, but never Sileas. “A Sprit Charmer? Pah!” The sage spat on the ground. “An old fool’s false hope. It was the one thing that could make this life worthwhile—passing on all I know to a student who could really become someone. I was fooling myself, leading myself on… You’re no Sprit Charmer.” He forced a laugh. “You’re supposed to see it, you know? You can see the spirits at work when a Spirit Charmer does magic. I watched you recite spells for a year, and I tried so hard to convince myself… Ha! I’m a fool.” He took another swig. “And here is the really good part,” he giggled and hiccupped. “You’re a filthy Branded!” His laughter was hysterical now, but it was far from a joyous sound. “Goddess forgive me,” he wheezed between bouts of laughter and coughing. Self-pity burned in his red-rimmed eyes.

Soren’ stomach went cold. For the second time in his short life, he feared his caregiver was going to kill him. But Sileas went back to his bottle, his words becoming too garbled to understand. Soren slowly retreated, and when he reached the ladder, he climbed as quickly as he could. Slamming the trap door behind him, part of Soren hoped Sileas would never emerge.

 

Of course, Sileas did eventually leave the cellar. He sobered up for a while before getting drunk again. Days passed, and Sileas did not kill Soren. But he never called him a Spirit Charmer again either. Nor did he call him ‘Branded’ or explain what that meant.

Soren could almost imagine nothing had changed, but there was one major difference. Since coming here, Sileas had defended Soren from the town’s other children. Particularly troublesome were two boys in their early teens, each counting the days until they were old enough to start their own lives in Crimea. They were bitter and bored, and tormenting Soren was their favorite pastime. Sileas had always protected him from the worst of it, but that stopped now. As if sensing the new vulnerability of their prey, the boys pursued him like hungry wolves. Soren dreaded unchaperoned errands around the town, but Sileas would push, prod, or strike him until he left the house.

Sometimes Soren would lie very still beside the road, after having been beaten and pissed on by the teens, and he would listen to people’s footsteps hurry past. He imagined he was a piece of refuse nobody wanted to clean up.

 

It was more important now than ever that he become a mage, so he could defend himself, so he could leave Sileas’s sorry excuse for care, so he could have some measure of value. Soren strove to study harder, imagining that if he just worked hard enough, everything would change.

 

Another year passed, and things started to fall apart. Sileas’s disease took a turn for the worse. He drank faster than he could refill his stores. The trade caravans were coming less often, and the local woman who’d made moonshine left town. She wasn’t the only one. Traders came more rarely because there wasn’t enough business for them here.

But Sileas stubbornly refused to leave. An infestation of wood mites seized his house, chewing through one of the legs of the bed. Bed flees colonized the mattress, and Sileas burned the whole thing. He reappropriated Soren’s sleeping mat, which was now worn down to almost nothing, and Soren was left only with his moth-eaten blanket and the bare floor. Book worms devoured Sileas’s library, ruining the tomes’ fragile pages. The old warhorse got sick and died suddenly.

Worst of all, Soren could tell Sileas was running out of money. The pantry was never full, and the sage never purchased any new books when the traders did come. Instead Sileas attempted to sell some of his possessions, but he had nothing of real value to barter.

 

Then, one morning, it happened. Soren woke up early to draw water from the well, as he did every day. Sileas lay asleep on his mat, as always. He tiptoed past his master five times until the water barrel was full. Then he poured Sileas a cup and placed it on the floor next to the him. He was about to scrounge something out of the pantry before Sileas woke up (Sileas wasn’t alert enough to notice a missing scrap of bread these days) when he noticed something wasn’t right. It was too quiet. He hadn’t really noticed before, but Sileas’s labored breathing had always filled the little house. Now that was no longer the case.

Soren crept closer and stared at his aged, poorly-shaven face. He waited for some movement to cross his gaunt, bristly cheeks. He waited for a burst of Sileas’s horrible-smelling breath to fill his face. But nothing happened. He was completely still, completely limp. His chest didn’t rise or fall.

Dead, Soren thought in disbelief, then adding bitterly: Took the him long enough. But then panic blossomed in Soren’s chest, and he couldn’t move a muscle. Although he started to sweat, his hands and feet felt cold. His eyes were pinned to the dead sage, but his peripheral vision turned to grey. When he could finally move again, he stood, paced, and shook the corpse repeatedly as if trying to wake the man up.

Soren had known this was coming, and yet he hadn’t been prepared for it. He couldn’t have prepared for it. He may have learned a lot during the past couple years, but he was still only a child. How could he provide for himself here at the edge of Gallia? None of the villagers would take him in. In fact, they would probably run him out of town once they found out Sileas was gone.

A sudden idea shot through Soren’s mind like a lightning bolt: No one must find out he’s dead…at least not yet. That would give him time to figure out a plan.

He rolled and dragged the corpse to the cellar door. This was fairly manageable, because disease had wasted away the sage’s body to almost nothing. Then, with a final shove, Soren pushed the body into the dark. It landed on its head with a crack that sent a shiver down his spine. He closed and barred the trapdoor.

 

Soren spent five days in that house, and despite his best efforts, he could not form a suitable plan. He did not know the way back to Crimea, and Sileas appeared to own no maps of the immediate area. Even if he did return to Crimea, he had no idea where to go or what to do. But he couldn’t stay here either. This town was dying, and the people hated him.

When the last crumb in the pantry was gone, he was forced to leave with or without a plan. The smell of decay drifting from the cellar was another incentive to depart.

He used wind magic to break into Sileas’s wooden chests. He knew the key was on his person, but he refused to go into the cellar to retrieve it. Inside Soren found dusty black cloaks and trousers. All were too big for Soren, but he cut off the hems and tied them tight around his waist with a belt. He found a worn leather satchel, in which there was room enough for a single wind tome, a canteen of water, the last of the bread, and a handful of seeds he’d found at the bottom of a basket. 

When he was as a ready as he’d ever be, he set his shoulders and left the house. After days of racking his brain, Soren was fairly certain he and Sileas had entered the town from the west road, so he set off in that direction. But whenever he saw villagers ahead, he abandoned the road, only to loop back to it later. He gave the lumber camps a wide berth and managed to avoid notice. Not long after this, the cobblestone path turned into packed dirt scattered with conifer needles. And as the day wore on, the shadows between the thick trunks grew darker and more menacing.

 

The bread and seeds were gone by the end of the next day, despite his attempt to ration them. He had no compass (Sileas’s had been in his pocket when dropped into the cellar), so he relied on the sun. But it was lost most of the day behind the tall forest canopy. Sileas had told him once that moss tended to grow on the north side of trees, but moss seemed to grow on all sides of trees here. Ultimately Soren could only pass through the hall of redwood columns and hope it was leading him somewhere.

Sometimes the path dwindled to almost nothing, and other times he lost it completely and had to double back to find it. When this happened, he could not be certain the path he rejoined was the one he’d left, and he couldn’t help but fear he was going in circles. He passed two abandoned lumber camps and three abandoned shacks. But these places were long deserted, and he could scavenge no food.

 

On the third day, the path widened, even if it was covered in decomposing leaves and needles, and the trees thinned. He walked into an eerily silent town. No smoke floated from the chimneys, and there was no sign of animals other than the droppings left by birds and rodents. There were certainly no humans around, and Soren realized the village must have been completely abandoned. Sileas’s neighbors and fellow townsfolk had spoken of towns like this, always with an air of disapproval.

Soren explored the vacant houses and yards looking for food, and although it was clear no one had been here in years, some of their vegetable patches and fruit trees continued to sprout unruly offerings. Soren collected what he could find.

He stayed in the ghost town a couple days, and when there was nothing left for him here, he took the north road out of town. He knew Crimea was to the north, and so this was his best option. However, the path soon curved, and before long it branched. Soren tried to continue north, but he soon lost his way again.

It was late summer, and in the humid forests of Gallia, that meant it was hot. Soren did not have to worry about building fires to stay warm at night, but finding clean running water was always a concern. He forced himself to leave the path when he heard the trickle of a brook, despite his fear that subhumans lurked among the trees.

He was hungry and thirsty, but above all, he was afraid. He constantly imagined a feral subhuman would appear behind the next tree trunk. Every rustle and snapped twig sent his heart pounding like a rabbit’s.

 

One day after leaving the ghost town, the usual rustle was accompanied by a growl, and his worst fears came true. He spun toward the sound and saw a massive beast standing only a dozen yards away. It was a huge, red-furred tiger with saber teeth and a face of whiskers. A tall ruff ran from the top of its head, between its shoulder blades, and down its spine. Its slinking pelt pulled against muscle and sinew as it took two steps closer. Its long tail flicked left and right like a metronome. Soren knew he was seeing a tiger subhuman in its animal form

He dropped to the forest floor as quickly and quietly as he could, hiding himself behind a large root. But he could not stand not to look, so he peeked over the edge to see what the beast would do.

The tiger seemed to be staring in his direction, mouth slightly open as if scenting the air, but it had not taken another step. Frozen and with his heart beating fast, Soren nearly yelped when a second tiger suddenly pounced in front of the first. This one was gray and even bigger, but Soren had not heard it approach.

“Lieutenant Gira,” a woman’s voice emerged from the red beast’s softly articulating lips. It inclined its head.

“Shanrua,” the gray beast acknowledged in a man’s voice. Soren did not know what was stranger—that the subhuman’s animal bodies had no distinguishing anatomy, or that they were able to speak human words from these fanged mouths. “Stay with the patrol,” the gray ordered. Its voice was lowered in warning.

The red lowered its body in a submissive response. “My apologies. But I smelled something that-”

“You smelled nothing,” the gray cut her off. “Understand?”

The red bobbed its shaggy head. “Yes, Lieutenant.” 

“You are still a pup yet,” the gray sighed. “Let us return to the patrol.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” it repeated. The pair bounded off in the same direction.

Soren remained frozen long after they were gone, and when he finally moved again, he found he was shaking. He was glad to be alive, but he wished he knew why he ‘d been spared. It seemed impossible that the red tiger hadn’t seen him, and both should have smelled him if their senses were as acute as Sileas’s books claimed. Whatever the case, Soren could only keep moving. The sooner he reached Crimea, the better.