When Silver Burned: Chapter 1-5 (FREE preview) (Patreon)

ACT I.

HUNTER

"A trap-maker, I thought, the way he roved over things with eerie efficacy. Rare in one so young—a'know, rich, coming from me? Still. Had you been there, you'd intuit the same in my stead.

"He scoured, pried, always that something. Even long before I met him...

"I wonder if he's still looking for it."

- The late recountings of Noémi Slipfall

1 - Gentlemen Graverobbers

The door slowly swayed back and forth, eliciting a creak with each turn. The sound stopped when Kalsin steadied it for a moment, then pushed it fully open. He stepped forward carefully, gripping the hilt of his sword still snug inside the scabbard strapped under his arm. The creaking resumed the moment the door fell closed behind him.

Faint silver light shone through the dirty window panes, setting the stage for humble furnishings. A three-legged table huddled in one corner with only a seemingly untouched bowl of soup resting on top. Dried apples, pears lined a shelf above the window with an empty stove yawning near. A woodsman's axe hung from a pair of thick nails on the wall.

He approached the table, stepping with the rhythm of the creaks. He dipped a finger into the soup. Cold. The table was clean, no dust on its surface. Good craftsmanship, too. Sturdy looking thing, sturdy enough to break a tooth or two if he'd set up a meeting between them. Assuming the teeth in question were of human origin. He eased his fingers from the hilt, stretching them out, then into a fist, then stretching again. Frowning at the sweat that coated his palm, he wiped them dry in his trousers.

He burst into the connecting room, trading subtlety for haste. His sword wasn't halfway out by the time he assassed everything in front of him. Not a difficult job, that. Save from the man lying in a narrow bed, asleep or dead, there wasn't much to note. 

Kalsin readjusted his sword sling so the scabbard hung at the small of his back, the finicky thing having slipped. He then sat on the side of the bed to check the man's pulse. 

Dead. But dead how? His clothes that of a Clenn, albeit a poor one, didn't have a single spot of blood on them. Kalsin rolled him on his side, but couldn't see injuries. Calloused hands. A man well into his years, but too early for time to take its final toll on him. Sickness? Folk should've been tending to him. Poison in the soup? No, the bowl was filled to the brim. Must've been something else entirely.

A thin veil of fog had descended on the village by the time Kalsin got back outside. Sap, his bahten, gave a soft nicker as he walked up to him. He opened his saddlebag to stash away the coins he'd looted. "Don’t balk, now." Kalsin said as he patted Sap's neck, the bahten’s blue skin cold and slimy under his palm.

"About making a living, or speaking as if our gilled companions could cognizance your words?" The words came from behind him. 

Kalsin took his time finishing up with the bag. "Deathbeds everywhere?"

"Yes. That, and the valuables townspeople left behind." Kalsin turned just in time to catch the sack thrown at him, one considerably larger than his own haul. He lifted it, gauging its weight, then arched a brow at his sister.

Cinder was leaning on the hay bale sprawled at the roadside, her arms folded in a way that hid her stump. A mischievous face, blonde hair unkept and wind-tossed, she looked half too charming for their grim surroundings. But looks were deceptive. Kalsin's sister could only ever hope to charm shadows, and they both knew it.

Kalsin nodded. "All dead, no injuries. Not even the faintest sign of struggle. It's like they just decided to lie down for the evening, and forgot about the small matter of getting back up."

"Rattles the mind, doesn't it?" Cinder said. Kalsin could hear the excitement in her tone. A sort of excitement you only get when sniffing the trail of a mythos.

"What are you thinking?"

"I've heard of such a thing before. Nocnitsa. Night maiden. Dream eater. They're called many things throughout many stories, but it's always the same way of killing, with sleep and nightmares." She looked up, as if the shrouded night sky held the answer. "Sometimes the victims die the moment they close their eyes. In other tales, it's a conundrum. Those caught in her nightmares appear as if they're dead, unable to wake as the maiden feeds, but they're very much alive. You kill the maiden, and the dreamers die with her. You interrupt her feeding, and she might as well put you to sleep with them. A cautionary tale that sometimes there's no right choice to make."

"An invention of tales is hardly required to prove something as obvious."

"Something as obvious is hardly expected to go unembellished by poets, writer-downs and their pens."

They stared at one another for a hanging moment.

"Well. You had me on the academic part," Kalsin said at last, feeling the wash of bahten-breath upon his neck. He ducked out of the way before Sap started sampling his hair. "What about the pragmatic one?"

"Heh, not bad. Some pay generously for a live nocnitsa, ‘specially kept for their tears," Cinder said, pushing herself from the hay. "And just so we’re rectilinear, I have you on all parts, be it academic, pragmatic, or protoaesthetic."

Kalsin turned toward the road when staccato clamps reached them, the sounds drawing closer. The fog parted to a woman on bahten-back, her plated armor dark and glinting with dew. She pulled on the reins, hardened fins sliding on the stone as the reptilian horse came to a sharp halt. 

"I'll scout around," Cinder said, already walking in the other direction. Good ears, Kalsin’s sister had, and even better sense. She quickly disappeared into the fog.

Kalsin waited for the woman to dismount. She was breathing hard with sweat beading on her sidecuts, several locks having escaped the bun at the back of her head. Her Scar was a small thing, a black incision sitting on her jawline.

One look at Jack's face was enough to tell she was irate. Kalsin folded his arms. In his battle to hold back a smile—as well as trying to avoid looking at her Scar—he failed to notice she wasn't interested in calming down this time around. 

One moment Kalsin was standing, the next an armored foot crushed down on his, making him buckle. Before he could even as much as fall, Jack got around and behind him, her muscled arms firmly locking around his neck. It kept him from hitting the ground. Unfortunately, it kept him from drawing breaths as well. At first Kalsin didn't struggle, but lacking the vital ability to replenish his lungs quickly changed his mind. The headlock tightened and he wheezed. He tapped at the iron wrist rapidly. 

As if to make a point, it took one more second for Jack to let go. Kalsin fell forward, sputtering. He shot a half apologetic, half mad look at her. Jack snarled in response, raising a middle finger. A gesture he's become quite familiar with the past years. He probably deserved worse, but after that one time when she'd bashed him with her shield, she had likely come to the conclusion that inflicting permanent brain damage as his bodyguard wasn't the wisest way to go about her obligation.

She stalked up and down as Kalsin caught his breath. The violence having calmed her down just a notch, she shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her and pointing an accusatory finger at him.

"I know," Kalsin said, aware his words were a false mockery of his intentions. "But we have to move fast if there are lives at stake."

She shook her head, though less certain this time, raising a fist and spreading her fingers.

Kalsin snored. "Horseshit. You care as much as I do. But we're not hauling around a boulder's weight in armor to slow us down." It might've been a low blow, but he had spoken true. Jack rode Hollow, a midnight-black warlander bahten with a bulky frame and more stamina than most of their kind, but considerably slower in short bursts than Sap. Kalsin didn't like leaving his bodyguard behind, but on those rare occasions when they got word before, and not after the mythos started their slaughtering rampage, time was a currency weighed with the lifeblood of innocents.

It was rusted and irony that, in their line of profession, the already-spilled contents of said lifeblood usually resulted in better pay. Hurry to save people, or stall to fatten the pickings? The forever warring question they had to deal with.

Jack hooked her kite shield off of Hollow's saddle and looped her arm into the enarme straps. The shield was long enough to cover her from chest to toe, and she was a tall woman. The unpainted metal gleamed wet in the night, a dark layer of wood coating the edges with nicks and slashes marring it by the dozens. The weight didn't seem to bother her, though Kalsin had hefted the thing plenty of times, and it had bothered him plenty.

Kalsin glanced back at the house, unease creeping back in. The unnatural slumber reeked of mythos, but this power to put an entire village under permanent sleep—he'd never seen the like. He shifted his scabbard under his arm in preparedness for likely conflicts. 

With Jack at his side he started down the road, delving deeper into the village. They kept an eye out, peering through the fog that revealed buildings ahead of them just to let them sink behind, like a magician's cloak during a particularly vaporous stage performance. The rattle of Jack's armor, as well as her éj-glass lantern dangling from her hip, would give away their position faster than a drum beating procession on celebration day, but there was nothing to do about it. She'd proven time and time again the tradeoff between adequate protection and the element of surprise was one worth the barter.

"Your shoulder plate is rusting," Kalsin said. Jack spared a glance at the piece of armor, but when she didn't acknowledge it otherwise, he started fishing around in his pockets for a piece of sandpaper. She slowed her pace to let him scrub at the discolored patch.

"You'll have to get your steel in shape once at the capital. We’ll make time." 

Jack frowned, but Kalsin continued. "This haul nets us some spare coin to spend. The plan remains unchanged—every lead is pointing to Remallon—and you might as well be productive as I make my turns through the underworld." Her frown remained in place, but she made no protests otherwise. An agreement, albeit a grudging one.

They only took a few more steps into the town when Jack froze. A second later Kalsin heard as well, voices from ahead. Talking, yelling, a human commotion. Kalsin raised a brow at Jack, but she only shrugged. Cinder had fast disappeared, as expected. Him and his sister always made sure not to be seen together. 

With Cinder being a Clenn, keeping a pair of Scarrd company would push her below the lowest pariahs of society, and lower still for being a cripple.

The sounds hushed, then came a shout. "Who goes there?" A man's voice.

"Vultures," Kalsin replied, using a common, though somewhat stigmatized name for their profession. "Heard mythos nested here. We came to investigate truth from rumor."

The mist thinned to unveil the road widening into an intersection large enough to hide the buildings on the far end. A low wooden platform occupied a large area in the center, the sort they ready for special occasions, whether they be village festivals or executions. A man wearing an army uniform stood at the base, looking their way. He waved a gloved hand and the soldiers around him resumed their activities. Men and women moved with purpose, some rolling kegs, others hoarding sacks of grain and crates packed with cabbages. Their uniform was a rare combination of grey and blue. Grey meant they were part of a Scarrd division, but the blue marked them as soldiers outside the standard military ranks and beholden only to the Arches. The forcing hand of the greater side of politics, if you will.

"A ghostly eve, is it not?" the leader asked, tracking their arrival as the pair made their way to him. His face was clean shaven, free of blemishes. Did he value it as treasure? How would it feel to have the luxury of hiding his hideous scar under his uniform instead of having to wear it on his face? Lucky bastard.

Kalsin replied with—despite his thoughts—no trace of venom in his voice, "Evening. Ghostly's an apt description. With respect, sir, men of the Arches were the last thing I expected to cross tonight."

"That so? No fault to that, I suppose. For one chasing word of mouth from civilians, you likely note half and half again of what they say, and believe a quarter of it. An Arch lifts a finger, and, hm..." he trailed off as one of his men approached him with a ledger in hand. He looked it over, then passed it back with an absent nod. "Logistics. I've no head for them." Even as he talked, he never let Jack out of his field of vision. If his mind was intent on deciphering which of them posed more threat, he was successful. Jack might've had the powers of a dirt only, but she had the strongest physical surge Kalsin had ever seen. 

The man said, "You arrived through the fractures? The waters calm these days?"

Kalsin nodded. The fractures were narrow, bottomless rivers splitting the Republic like an intricate system of spiderwebs, creating an archipelago of a thousand islands shuffled so close that you could jump from one piece of land to another with little effort. Some used spear-like boats to traverse the fractures, but creatures such as bahten were natural at navigating the thin channels as well. The rivers provided a convenient way of transportation, though their narrowness also created complications aplenty. A fallen tree blocking the way. Mythos surfacing from the endless depths. Bandits lying in wait, safe behind a rise. The list went on.

Their passage has been calm, however, and Kalsin said as much. The man grunted in response. Kalsin asked, "Is it true, then? Arch Belamina is taking a sixth husband? The Civil House and the Arches are gathering in Remallon to celebrate the wedding?"

"True as it gets." He spit to the side. Clearly, the man enjoyed the sound of his voice. "When everyone has their eyes on the sparks and rifts, and the Clenn delegation escorting the Arches to form pretty lines when they parade through the city, they always forget the dirtier side of the coin. The Scarrd Arch Militia. Ain't that a mouthful? With the high-profile marriage right around the corner—may her Archness and her husbands live long—we've been double timing it towards the capital for the past month, covering the tails of our betters as per usual."

"The Clenn delegation came through the village as well?"

"They had no need for it. We, however, have been requisitioning supplies from settlements along the way to keep us from going hungry. Perks of the job," he said, matter-of-fact about his legal robbery.

A quality that would get him far in Kalsin’s profession.

"I see," Kalsin said. "Everything's in order in the Republic, then?"

"Yes. As far as you hunters are concerned." His voice turned rankled, a twitch of annoyance on his lips. He glanced at Jack standing beside Kalsin like an unmovable tower, the tip of her shield resting on the ground, then back to him. "This all common knowledge. Don't think yourself special. In fact, I think we might've just taken care of your mythos problem."

He stepped aside, drawing their gaze to an unmoving body behind him. It was a woman, her head lifelessly drooping from the edge of the platform with a puddle of recently dried blood gathered underneath. Kalsin stepped closer, lifting her head. The throat was slashed open. Save from the white and wooden textured hair, the nocnitsa looked just like a human. He saw her back had been lashed brutally, causing only a ragged field of torn skin and meat to remain. Kalsin’s eyes fluttered in a barely noticeable expression, trying to quell his rising anger. 

"We found this one alone, chained up and delirious. At first we thought she was just a common criminal driven mad by the pain of the lash, but then we heard the chanting, the sacrilegious wails. She was in a trance, convulsing, unnatural. Two greets two makes four, it didn't take much to figure her magic was somehow responsible for all the dead."

Kalsin listened, pretending to inspect the mythos whilst holding back words and curses he knew he would regret immediately. Killing the nocnitsa would've been Kalsin's last resort. Not for the sake of the mythos, but for the village folk. According to the stories Cinder had mentioned, there might've been a way to save these people, a faint one, but still worth trying. That's why you call for hunters. That's why you don't let soldiers to their own devices. 

Calm, keep calm. They're common footmen. They don't know better.

Jack gave her opinion with an almost unnoticeable shift of her leg, pulling it backward. The message was brisk even for her, but Kalsin could figure the meaning. Leave it alone. What's done is done.

"Didn't put up a fight, this one, but we did save you the trouble of getting blood all over your hands," the leader said, concluding a matter that probably made his requisitioning duties less burdensome. What with all the dead people lying in their beds.

Kalsin stared at him, silent. He knew his strange, bright silver eyes unnerved people. Or his Scar stretching between his sockets made their stomach heave with disgust. One of the two. 

"Anyway. We're done here." The man turned to address one of his soldiers, unwilling or unable to maintain his gaze. "I doubt you'll find much of value left, but feel free to sniff around."

A trifling victory, but a victory nonetheless. 

The walk back to their horses was somber. The thinning mist revealed Cinder halfway back as she joined them.

Before Kalsin could speak, Cinder said, "I heard."

Kalsin made a noncommittal hmph in reply. Jack shifted uneasily. He didn't need to look at his bodyguard; she always wore the same expression around Cinder. He knew it by heart. Her brow crinkled, her lips hung slightly downturned. She never gave a definitive answer why she treated his sister the way she did. Kalsin could easily guess it, though. A Clenn had no business living her life alongside a pair of Scarrd. Jack never acknowledged Cinder directly, always communicating through Kalsin instead. Treating his sister like she was a pariah among pariahs.

And it rested on Kalsin to make it so that Cinder wouldn’t deserve such a treatment. The solution was leading them to Remallon.

"Stop it, Kal," Cinder said. "Don't tangle yourself into a mess over a few idiots who trained all their lives only to follow orders. All that warfare, it makes for some colorful tales, but they've had it easy. They never learned to think for themselves."

"When you notice a crevice splitting your porch, you call a carpenter. When you find a hole in your shirt, you visit a tailor. All they had to do was send for us," Kalsin said. "Their lack of ability to handle mythos isn't the issue. Their lack of ability to admit their shortcomings is."

The silence was absolute. Kalsin brushed through his hair. He shouldn't vent his anger at those who don't deserve it.

"It's just..."

"I know," Cinder said. "I know. It's a hunter's lot. Always one step behind disaster—and profiting from it. Killing the mythos doesn't bring back the victims, and to take their belongings and all they've tolled for throughout their lives as payment? It's unthinkable. But there's no other way. You think ordinary folk would pay handsomely for the death of some beast they might or might not have seen from a distance? Some baseless rumor they've heard? No. Like everyone else, they barely spare it a thought. Accidents happen to other people. Always others. It's never them. But come face-to-face with a mythos with their life about to be snuffed out, as they would give their body's worth in gold to be saved, by then it's too late.

"People see the bodies, people hear the carnage. There's been a killing, they say. Misfortune befell other people again. Word spreads and reaches our ears. We come and we kill the beasts and we take our toll from the dead."

"Just to save people for once, you know? To make a difference for the better. I'd like that." Kalsin said quietly. Was he genuine, or just deluding himself to ease something? Immaterial, maybe. Only the end result mattered.

Cinder put a hand on his arm, squeezing. "We put an end to monsters that would sooner or later carve another bloody path in a rampage. We do make a difference."

"Maybe," Kalsin shrugged off her hand, giving a smile he didn’t feel. "Some days I wish it felt that way."

2 - Laying the Foundations

In the year 785, Kis of Summer, fifteen days before Blindlight, Remallon, the capital of Grenstel region of the Ember Republic smelled of hot sweat and not much else. The city was the peak of civilization, a haven for commerce and religion, for law and tightly controlled crimehouses. Its foundations were built upon twin-fractures, the two rivers dividing the city into three parts. Eastside, the largest part housed most of the population, poor to middle-class Clenn and Scarrd living in tightly packed shelters ranging from dirty sleeping corners to respectable accommodations. They formed the local underworld. Westside, considerably smaller, was a pristine stretch of land with manors surrounded by gardens, grand squares with high-reaching sculptures looking down on the rest of the city. Parts of the Civil House, made out from the strongest and wealthiest of the Clenn, as well as the rest of the overworld resided there. As for the last part, Midlane, it was nothing more than a three-feet wide stone wall separating the two, built between the pair of narrow fractures.

Kalsin had barely taken a handful of steps inside, and he already wished to be gone.

He wore a nondescript cloak as he made his way through the streets, heading for a darker neighborhood that suited his purpose. Jack had gone to reserve a balcony spot for the meeting with their intel, a rot, the Scarrd equivalent of a root; their mind-enhancing surge made them suitable as spies and informants of the underworld. Only after years of tracking, bribing and scouring all the different underworlds of the Republic did they manage to set up a rendezvous between someone who might know more. Someone who might know something. Anything. Since that fateful day, he'd been chasing a fool's phantasm, a drawn curtain. But he was so close to finally stepping ahead and taking a peak behind it.

Less and less people spotted the streets as he advanced into a rougher side of the city. When the last patrol of guards disappeared around the corner, Kalsin drew his hood deep into his face, suppressing his distaste at the thought of committing the grave crime of covering his scar. Old habits. It did grant him anonymity, however. 

It was a short, but no less nervous walk until he found his first target, a kneeling beggar with a scar marring his bare chest. To a regular civilian, he might've appeared just a simple beggar, but the muscle on his body told Kalsin a different tale. A dirt who wouldn't be afraid to put his strength to use, laws and morals omitted. Assuming the price was right.

Kalsin approached, bowing deep so his face was obstructed entirely. He slipped a few copper pieces in the dirty cup. "I need men for a job," he said, rasping his voice. He couldn't gauge a response, his face downturned as it was, but he spilled out the same amount of coins again. "Meet me at the Eastern gate. Tomorrow. Not a word to anyone." He let one last copper slip from his fingers. "If you're able, bring something that burns."

"Who should I look for?" asked the pretend-beggar, and Kalsin gave the name.

He found the next one two streets down, a woman, her nose broken and badly healed, sitting with one bare leg extended to display the scar on her foot. He bent down again, disposing of another stack of coins. "I've a job for you." Coins fell. "Three weeks from now, return here at dawnbreak. It's a sensitive matter, so keep shut about it. Have a knife, a cudgel, any sort of arms on you. Blood will flow." She too asked about his person, and he answered.

That's how Kalsin spent his morning, going through the shadier streets of Remallon, dodging into an alley and onto a different lane when crossing the occasional guard patrols, searching for the next Scarrd outlaw to make richer and his pouch lighter with every encounter. By noon, when Warmlight crested the sky, his coppers had nearly run out, but he felt more content for it. 

He had the comfort to eat when and where he pleased, but not everyone was so lucky. An unjust world is all the more reason for humanity to try and balance it. Not with raving about some higher purpose like priests, creating an ideal to lure the naive, but with doing. He knew that one person could never change the world, but aiming that large was a fool’s plan. 

Far as Kalsin was concerned, idealists could go and bite glass. The reason people engaged in the act of charity was to make themselves feel better. The act in itself, admirable. Do it privately, inhale the high it gives, and leave without a word. Shouting it to the world, preaching hope for the masses? The underlying construction of a pedestal for the world to view them as being better? Fuck right off.

Jaded, maybe. But most who are, they tend to have their reasons.

Kalsin still had time before the meeting with the rot, and even more so if he wanted to be fashionably late. Cinder, as per her usual routine, had split off from their group miles before entering the city only to cross the gate by herself. She would search for the local hunter's respite where Clenn hunters gathered for anything and everything regarding their profession, be it sharing jobs and rumors with those who want to hear it, or fetch a price for the magical trophies their battles netted them. All in likeminded company and drinks to go around.

Naturally, the respite was a safehouse only of the Clenn. Hunters of the Scarrd gathered in a scoundrel's pitfall, equal in terms of function, but the flow of drinks less and the filth more defined. Being a Scarrd himself, Kalsin only needed the hideous ticket plastered on his face to grant entry.

The pitfall in Remallon was less a building and more a walled-off square with dusty benches arranged to form lanes crowded by people looking to do business. Kalsin wasn't intent on shouting his way through the rabble in the faint hopes of squeezing out whiffs of mythos footprints. He only had eyes for the benches stacked with curios and marked for sale.

He passed a basket of gelatine eggs, green-tinged leathers with scales the size of his head. A row of bottled liquid sat in a display case, looking too much like bubbling blood for comfort. A wrinkled hunter proclaimed to everyone in a five-foot vicinity that a vile mythos had turned his partner into a figurine as he poked the doll with a finger. A pair of rat-like creatures clawed at one another in a dirty aquarium filled with murky water. Carnivorous pets, two-or-nothing sale.

Kalsin looked through the attractions, stopping when something caught his eye, though he never asked a question. He watched the wondrous, sometimes monstrous things he'd never seen before. But above all, he watched the people. 

He drank in their fascination, their disgust flash as they filtered the sensations each their own way. Their attuned perception clashing with the new and previously unknown to form blank expressions into a mirror of their thoughts. He smiled when they did. Wrinkled his nose on command. And he was invisible, blissfully invisible.

Some time later Kalsin left the pitfall with fewer coins on him, but his pocket weighed down by a red-capped vial of colorless liquid. Who knows. It may come in handy if things get bloody.

Their meeting with the informant was to take place in Jon's Hostelry, a place with a reputation respectable enough as far as Scarrd establishments were concerned. People milled on the outside without a single Clenn in sight, the comings and goings of Scarrd mildly paced among their own. A line started forming before a pastry stall, luring the street with a sweet smell. Nearby, a priest of Hadúr, god of conflict, life and death, chanted their religious teachings for those who were willing to listen. 

"Remember not to look to the past, nor the uncertain future for guidance. There's only one with power to reach into the middling of your lives, into the currents of now, and allow you past the heavenly gates of Éden. Devote your earthly possessions to Hadúr, so that war and de-creation may follow in his fall!"

Kalsin joined the gathering with the inn's balcony in view and scanned through the guests until he found the telltale, half-shaved mane of Jack. She was seated with her back to him, but he'd recognise her broad shoulders and statuesque posture from anywhere.

Kalsin got his pen and notebook out, his fingers deftly running across the paper and glancing up occasionally. The man facing Jack was the opposite of his bodyguard; a scrawny, jumpy fellow who had his eyes constantly shift from one point to another. His scar split his upper lip, stretching above, as if trying to crawl into his nose. 

Kalsin shivered. Some people always have it worse. 

He slammed his notebook closed, detached himself from the priest’s listeners, and entered the inn to make his arrival to the single link standing between them and their goal.

3 - Springing the Trap

The pub was a neat little establishment, balcony and all, Kalsin thought as he ascended the stairs.

Jack kept thoughtfully chewing away at a piece of brickleaf with no outward sign that she had noticed him. She was lightly geared with her vambraces slung over her neck on a string like a steel-clad scarf. The man shifted in his seat as Jack spit the spent leaf to the floor, placing a fresh, rust-colored piece in her mouth. Her teeth were tinted pink.

Having had enough entertainment for the moment, Kalsin took the empty seat next to Jack facing the man. "Apologies for the delay. A city so large, I can rarely tell one street from the other. Sinew, yes?" Kalsin narrowed his eyes, recalling the transaction code. "Six three nine seven seven one four, blue scimitar."

The man currently wearing the alias Sinew, had been fiddling with a spoon, but the motion stopped as he scanned Kalsin's face. His eyes clouded for long seconds. Kalsin patiently waited. When the rot's memory-scouring surge took its full course, he blinked and his fingers continued their dance. "You're one Blindlight out of date, so that'll be another silver on top of the standard fee. Savvy? On hand, before you ask your questio– Good, 'priciated. Now, I've got people to see in a quick hour so be hasty about it."

"Naturally," Kalsin said, drawing the string of his coin pouch closed. It was beginning to feel a touch light. He stretched his neck to look around. "But, ah, are we entirely safe here? No ears listening in? I'd appreciate it if you put our minds at ease. It's the first time we're deviating from the lanes of law."

"Simple. On your part, that is. Ask your questions, and then I'll see what I can scour up. Keep my name off your lips while I'm away. Pay the second half of the fee when you receive your answers, and that includes a twin brother of the additional silver on top for keeping me waiting." He punctuated each of his points with tapping the spoon on the table.

Kalsin made a face of surprise. "Your name? But I thought it was just—"

"'Course it's just an alias, kid. But that's how I'm known around these parts, and I don't need no guards kicking up the nest I cobbled together for the duration of my stay here." 

Jack bristled, and Kalsin wasn't sure if she was exasperated by his show of cluelessness, or amused by him being called a kid.

"Remedies," Kalsin said. He eyed the scar parting the rot's lips. "Physicians. Healers. Are you acquainted with any of those circles?"

"Depends. If it’s classified info, it could fall in line with my expertise, yes."

"What I need isn't something you find yourself tripping over by chance. Even for someone like you. It's rare. Delicate. Elusive. Something of a legend, really, but you've heard of it. Must have, sure as Warmlight rises with the morning."

"Spit it out."

"A cure for the Scarrd."

The spoon in Sinew's hand clattered on the table from nerveless fingers.

Kalsin continued. "They say many things in dark places, whispers only, but they say it anyway. Hope. Redemption. A salve for the soul."

"No," Sinew said, interrupting. He laughed, then stopped short just as abruptly. "None of that. You flogged in the head, boy? Blindlight sear the senses out of you? There is no cure."

"Is that what you believe? Why? Doesn't sound any more unlikely than preaching in the name of the gods. But I'm not here to change your mind. Stop with that damned spoon. I'm not paying you to indulge in my views, I'm paying you to lead me to another who might. So? How about it?" Kalsin smiled. "Humor the crazed wish of a youth, eh?"

Sinew was nervous. Kalsin could see it from the fervent snaps of his eyes, the accelerated restlessness of his body. A sheen of sweat on his forehead. It confirmed Kalsin's suspicions; the rot wasn't as clueless as he wanted them to believe. Just the mere possession of some knowledge seemed to terrify Sinew. 

"A cure for my scar," Kalsin repeated. "Give me a name."

"We're done," Sinew said. 

Just as he made to stand, Jack surged. In a blink, she was behind the rot, a muscle-corded arm on his shoulder pushing him back in his seat. With her blade sheathed, she wasn't threatening enough for the inn's inhabitants to interfere—but threatening enough to make them look the other way. 

"It's truly a lovely city," Kalsin looked out the balcony, all the way up to the giant wall separating them from the overworld. "A part of it must be, if only to balance the miserable, rank filth of your very own Eastside."

"There's not a thing you can do to me," Sinew said, baring teeth and contempt. "You put a blade to my neck, I'll tell a lie of what you want to hear, and then you'll never find me again."

"Walking the streets has become a dear pastime of mine; don't ask why. Just walking. Watching. Have you ever noticed the way people act when they feel like they're not being watched? Like the consciousness of others is a physical weight attached to their limbs and wearing them down until they either crack, or become desensitized of it."

Jack clicked her tongue.

"Right. One thing led to the next, I'm talking to a bunch of dirts looking for a bloody job. Common thugs. I paid them for their services, as well as for their silence." 

"You're not going to get either of those," Sinew said.

"Precisely what I was hoping for." Kalsin let the suggestion of a grin surface. "A man, his face covered by his dark and ominous hood, recruiting muscle for a shakedown with his purse full and generous? News couldn't have spread quicker if I torched the local leechouse. A hooded man, who incidentally, called himself Sinew."

A dark cloud rolled over Sinew's expression. He pried away Jack's grip from his shoulder, but was content enough to stay in his seat otherwise. "Listen here, you little guttershit. Think yourself smart? The authorities will spend the next month looking for a man called Sinew in hopes to prevent—whatever lawlessness it is you rumored to start. My contacts will deny any and all connections with me. People will stop associating with me. That's fucking inconvenient, but that's all it fucking is." He shook his cheeks, like a dog shedding wet droplets. "Trouble will pass. I don't like lying low, and then having to go through the busywork of changing identities and building up a fresh network of informants. But you have nothing on me. Your machinations accomplished nothing, done nothing but cost me time and money. Bloody amateur."

Kalsin listened silently until he pulled out his notebook, opening it. 

Sinew's life-like portrait stared back from the paper, a drawing he’d personally penned down just minutes ago while blending in with the priest’s followers. The black-and-white face of graphite was awfully identical in its awfulness to that of the real person.

Sinew's lips parted in the most satisfying incredulity. Before the rot had a chance to get ideas and tap physical surge, Kalsin made the notebook disappear in the safety of his inner pocket. "Would be a screamin' shame if this little piece of art found its way to a lawman. I'd wager even the local Collector himself wouldn't say no. Changing names is easy. Changing faces—not so much. Both? Improbable. If not impossible. We'll see how you manage to disappear afterwards. You will, of that I have no doubt... disappear into the bottom of a deep, dark cell."

Jack carelessly strolled around the table and planted herself back in her seat, shooting Kalsin a red grin. At this point, Sinew wouldn't hope to gain anything by escaping; a fact obvious to all three of them. 

"Scars. Talk," Kalsin said.

Whatever had fueled his twitching had evaporated from Sinew as something different, more certain took its place. But even as he acquiesced, he didn’t give off an air of defeat. The man had a rich reserve of professional dignity. "I wasn't lying. There's no cure to my knowledge. None. You could ask me what lies on the bottom of a fracture with the same breath."

"But you know of someone who could give me an answer."

Sinew licked his lips. "Out of my reach. Clenn business."

"Make an effort," Kalsin said. "Sneaking letters under closed doors, donning a decoy mustache to cover yourself, I don't care how, but you will send word to this person. You will tell him or her that I want to meet. One-on-one, sometime before this month's Blindlight. The place—hell, I'm not familiar with this city, anything private will do." Kalsin inclined his head a notch. "I'm not unreasonable. A lowly Scarrd such as myself would never dare tarnish the reputation of a Clenn by asking for public association."

Sinew watched Kalsin for a long while. "You're setting the board for a dangerous game, kid." If Kalsin wasn’t imagining it, there might’ve been a note of respect coloring his voice. He was probably imagining it, though. 

Sinew slowly stood, keeping a wary eye on Jack, as if to avoid spooking an animal. "I'll do what I can. But there's no guarantee my contact will agree to the meeting."

Kalsin patted the notebook under his coat. "For your sake, I hope they will. Be here at noon to give me the location. I'll check in daily."

The wind picked up as Kalsin watched Sinew leave the inn, howling in his ears and ruffling his hair. He rested his eyes, allowing a serene moment of satisfaction. A chance. He grasped at that small branch of hope like a man being pulled into the depths of a fracture, drowning. For too long he'd been chasing a mirage, a torturing what-if. 

What if there was a way for a tarnished, filthy Scarrd who deserved nothing but scorn to rise back into grace? Was it the gods who decided his path? Did they scar him as punishment for crippling Cinder? If so, he'd defy them. He'd cut a burning hole through the heavens to stand among the Clenn again.

To stand with his sister again, shoulder to shoulder, not scorned but accepted.

Kalsin became aware of Jack having leaned closer, staring out in the distance and chewing in an exaggerated manner that assaulted his ears. He flinched away. "I thought you wanted to stay off brickleaf."

She held out her little finger and thumb, shaking them. She thought the same, apparently.

"You're not doing anyone a favor, least of all yourself. You know I hate the thing." The stress-reliever was all the rage back when they visited the exotic region of Határ, and Jack was quick to follow fashion. A taste of brickleaf, and it had stuck with her ever since.

As Warmlight colored the sharp edged buildings of Remallon in dusk-red and the first stars appeared in the sky, Kalsin talked about the near future. 

His friend's addiction notwithstanding, he was glad for the effects of the southern herb. She might've strangled him otherwise.

4 - Children of Tomorrow (INTERLUDE)

Thunder cracked, echoing through the streets. Cinder paid no mind to the rain soaking her, sliding from her hair and getting into her eyes. She was too intent on hopping from island to island, the ships of her feet landing on uncharted territories, avoiding the seas where nothing but monsters of the deeps lurked. Her boots kicked up mud with another successful arrival. She scrunched her nose, wondering if perhaps the explorers before her failed, their ships sinking, leaving treasures in the infinite depths of those mysterious waters.

Another rumble boomed, rattling the unsteady beams of the wooden shacks lining the dark alley. Cinder set her eyes on the next island, this one large enough to be a continent. Cinderland, she would name this one. The rain had uncovered two little peaks of jagged rocks around the middle, shining and wet. Maybe she would build his capital there, high in the clouds. Unless there was a dragon's lair around those parts. She grinned with anticipation, piles of gold and emerald adorned swords before her. No, she needed to defeat the dragon first. Then she'd get the swords. Magic swords, actually. She lifted the stick in her hand, burning with brilliant fire that was the legacy of a rift phoenix slayer. Or was it another dragon? Her next sword will be a lightning sword, she decided. Just as soon as she defeated this new dragon. A lightning-dragon with storm clouds for wings and thunder to summon with his roar.

Cinder stepped back, ready to leap over the puddle-ocean, but there was another flash of light illuminating the alley. Just for a moment, she could make out a bundle of rags further down the road, tucked in the crook of a half-ruined stairway leading into a veiled backstreet. That wasn't an unusual sight in itself, and the light was only present for a second, but it almost appeared as if the rags were moving.

The world returned to Cinder, boring and uninteresting with no treasures to find and islands to uncover. Only the mud and the rain and the city streets. She was again aware of the cold. Night had fallen and the streets were empty, dark without the presence of moonlight still being held captive by the storm.

She looked back to the bundle of cloth. Could be rats under there. Rats, or maybe cats. Stray dogs, those too. Her hand clenched the stick tighter, but it didn't stop her from stepping closer to the bundle, even as water squeaked out and rushed back into her boots. She couldn't hear anything but the drumming water, and the occasional growl in the distance. She was always good at listening, relying on her ears more so than her eyes, but now her skills were useless. Hmph. Stupid storm.

Carefully, Cinder crouched at the bundle, leaning over it. She poked it with the stick. It was still dark, but she could tell it was definitely moving. Cinder sniffed. The other kids would have surely jumped away by now, thinking of monsters and alligators with sharp teeth on their tails. She'd never actually seen an alligator, but she'd heard they liked water, and it was raining. But she wasn't afraid of them. She hadn't come into her surge yet, but she had a stick-sword, after all.

Still, Cinder wasn't daft. She liked her fingers exactly the way they were, hers, so she didn't touch the rags. She set her eyes on them, and waited. When another flash of light came from the lightning overhead, she might've cried out in surprise, but nobody would ever know, swallowed by the storm.

The dark returned, but the pale face of a baby with his mouth open and crying was taking up her mind's eye that was normally reserved for monsters and magics. She let the stick fall from her fingers, and she hesitantly reached down. Her fingers touched skin, cold and wet from the rain and maybe from tears. She was so entranced, she jumped when another thunder rolled through the street.

She had found many things in the past, among the trash, left behind in the wake of rolling carts, but a baby was a first. She looked down the road, then into the narrow backstreet, but she was alone. Strange. 

She sniffed again, and after some thinking, she bent down and lifted the bundle and the baby nestled inside. From this close, there was no doubt it was a little human, shifting, eyes blinking open from time to time.

Cinder stood with the baby in her arms, her quest completely forgotten. Was this where babies came from? A storm sweeping over a busy city, and then pop, there it is, an unexpected treasure to find. She never wondered before, until now. Was it possible to tell the difference between a girl storm and a boy storm? Mom would know the answer. When she gets home, she would ask her. When she'd brought kittens home in the past, dad never let her keep them, but maybe they'd let her keep the baby? She had many friends already, but a friend at home would be even better. 

Cinder walked faster, and by the time the next boom of thunder arrived, she was already making plans for the next quest. 

But in this one, she wasn't skipping alone.

<><><>

Warmlight found the city of Parlest in the usual state of rousing, like a well-worn wheel spurring into action. 

Mera hurried along with Kalsin holding her hand as if the tide of humanity threatened to sweep him away. Soon the cobblestone road beneath their feet fell away, replaced by dirt as they entered the heart of the underworld. Even without guards, without walls or any sort of blockade separating living quarters of Clenn and Scarrd, the difference was obvious. Chiseled brick houses gave way to wooden structures, some well maintained, while others stood worn by time, crooked, breaking into the wide streets like jagged teeth of a bestial angler fish.

Mera instinctively pulled Kalsin closer, but she didn't slow her stride. She ignored the calls from beggars sprawled along the road, as did most people, knowing that even the smallest amount of contribution wouldn't amount to anything. Or they just didn't care. It was hard to tell nowadays, the divide between those with spoilt, and those with a whole surges having grown in the past years, as well as the number of Scarrd in the population. Mera could feel Kalsin drag occasionally, slowing down, pulling whenever they neared one of their kind, their tattered clothes required to display the black lines marring their skin.

That's why she'd brought him along today. At the age of five, the boy was much different than their Cinder. While Cinder had jumped headfirst into the swirling city life since she could walk, Kalsin was short on words, and even shorter on taking initiative. She could tell he was curious, trying to stare at everything and everyone at once, but still he squeezed her hand almost painfully. Cinder often teased him about it, and Tűzmother only knew if Kalsin noticed the twinkle in his sister's eyes, the smiles tugging at her lips. Curiously enough, she managed to draw him out of his shell more than often than not, her efforts ending with laughter in the end.

They turned a corner leading on a less populated path, and not a minute after they walked up to a homely looking house with a fenced off garden stretching next to it. Mera entered without knocking. With the opening door, the familiar chime of bells welcomed them inside.

"I'll be right there," Anise said with her back turned, prodding at her patient, an old Scarrd man who couldn't have been more than a weak dirt. A colorful assortment of anointments rested on the table nearby, some of them bottled up, with a hastily left pestle and mortar in the room further back. Mera watched as Anise took a piece of wet cloth and held it to the man's face, covering the black scar running across his forehead. "Hold it, just like that."

Mera held back a shiver of nausea. She didn't envy her friend's profession. 

When the herbalist finally took account of the newcomers, she was quick to pull them into a hug with her frame large enough to envelop them both at the same time. "How've you been, loves? Didn't expect you today." 

"Busy week?" Mera asked.

"It always is, after Blindlight had come and gone." She was already back to work, scuttling with age-defying speed between the maze of tables farther inside. "You can never have enough remedies prepared for burnt eyes, temporary blindness and the like."

Mera's hand instinctively twitched toward her waist before she stopped herself. Her days as a huntress, one with the powers of an abyss, had long passed her. Her éj-glass lantern was stashed somewhere deep in a chest back home, but she could easily recall the constant weight pulling at her side from years stretching far behind. She still used it occasionally when they had to run an errand on Blindlight, which emerged for a few days at the end of every month, but mostly people stayed inside until the cold, blinding sun finished its course through the sky and gave way to the pleasant shine of Warmlight.

"When was the last time you treated yourself to a holiday? You can afford it. Light, you could afford to pack, this instant, up and away to a lovely overworld resort until your hair grays and falls." Mera avoided looking at the Scarrd, only gesturing in his direction. "You can certainly do better than... this." She didn't doubt the old man made himself small, purposefully not listening to his betters, good and proper.

"If my hair grays any more than it already has, your nagging won't have helped a pinch." Anise didn't look up as she ground a bowl of violet berries into paste. "Give up, will you? The only reputation I have to uphold is one as a healer. Prodding at scars is no less vile than showering yourself with mythos guts. Emotional scarring is not infectious." 

Getting ahead of Mera's sullen reply, Anise held up the pestle like a knife, shaking the wood in her direction. "Girl, do you remember the day you stumbled in here, bloody from stubborn head to toe and on the verge of collapse? Well, you can be grateful that my stomach is solid as rock with years of practice to withstand both gore and scars."

Anise ground away for a short minute, then looked up. "Quick now, love, why'd you come then?"

Mera lightly bit her tongue to stop from pushing the point further. Fine. There will always be a next time. "The usual. Terrin's back is acting up again."

Anise hmphed, but otherwise her cheerful demeanor was back in place. She opened a set of drawers, taking out a sack no larger than her palm that Mera knew contained a green poultice with a sharply bitter smell. She took it, handing over a handful of coins in return. The moment Anise made them disappear in one of the many layers of her robes, she took Mera by the elbow, leading her to a stool and settling on the one next to her. "Now. Are you well? You are? Good, good, happenings've been rosy here quite the same, if only you decided to visit an old woman sooner. You won't believe who I had the pleasure of treating while you were gone."

"Tell me, then. The heart is racing," Mera smiled.

Anise leaned close, whispering. "Two weeks back, a man walked into my shop. An intimidating one, well into his years, but I never would've guessed before he surged with a manifestation. Guess, love. It was no less than a prism, I’m sure."

Mera gave an impressed whistle, exaggerating her own surprise for Anise's sake. Though she was surprised to an extent. It wasn't often that the overworld sought the services of any underworld practitioner, and Anise was only a root. As an abyss, Mera was just a step above her, and a prism was right at the top of the overworld food chain. "What did he want?"

"He was polite, though clearly someone who was used to being obeyed. Maybe a member of the Civil House? At any rate, he needed balms. He had a finger stuck in a coat of ice, other digits showing signs of mild frostbite."

"Could’ve been just a spark, maybe?"

"Don’t think so. Access to a manifestation, yes, but a spark can only hold it for a few seconds. This man, I practically had to mine his finger out of a frozen tomb."

"Just as well," Mera said. "Underworld, overworld or Arch, it's good to have a reminder that we're only human and we all make mistakes."

"Though he didn't give his name, he said he was passing through the city and on his way to the nearest fracture."

"Just him, alone?" Mera asked, Anise nodding. "Not even a bahten to carry him?"

"One hell of a riddle. We're practically a toenail of the Republic, a city with an underworld and nothing besides. The nearest fracture is only a trickle with barely enough space to squeeze through with the thinnest of boats. Where'd he come from? There's nothing west of here, and, ah... Spurred my brain like it hasn't for years."

"Not sure if that's a testament to your guest, or how little happens around these parts of the..." Mera trailed off, her eyes falling on Kalsin.

He was balancing on the tip of his toes not a step away from the Scarrd patient, arm extended and little fingers grasping toward the old man, who was doing his best to ignore him.

Mera was up in a heartbeat. She surged with speed, pulling Kalsin away with no regard to being gentle as she shouted curses at the Scarrd. The old man cringed back, still holding the damp cloth to his face.

Mera could feel Kalsin shivering pressed to her, but she paid him no mind, venting her anger at the man. How dare he stay in the presence of those who are Clenn, thinking himself worthy of being in the same room as them? His shattered, putrid soul soiling her son with his closeness. She'd sooner see Kalsin roll in sewer mud then let him come in contact with something so vile.

"Enough," Anise's shout rose above her voice, cutting her off. "Calm yourself, Mera. You're too old for a mouthwash, but I swear I'll get it done. Those are words unfit for the ears of a child." Her calloused hands took Mera by the shoulder, leading the way to the door. "Kalsin's fine, girl, only pray your growls didn't give him a headache."

"I... Anise, I'm sorry." With a rush of embarrassment, Mera let herself be herded out, though she was still holding onto Kalsin like he'd slip through her fingers any second. She didn't know what had come over her. They were lesser human beings, true, but she held no particular grudge against the Scarrd. Given the opportunity, when politics dictated, she even leaned towards lessening the burden of those who were unfortunate enough to have had their surges cracked. She had responsibilities now beyond herself; she couldn't afford to lose her head like that again.

She softly brushed a hand through Kalsin's hair. She had to do right by her children. Kalsin was curious, and that was proper; it showed a thirst to learn about the world, to discover the unknown. To him, one human was just like the other. 

So naive, so wrong.

She'd been slacking with his education, but that would change. They were Clenn. It was time he understood its meaning.

<><><>

A loud crack snapped the silence in half from behind her. Terrin turned to see his daughter frozen mid-step, her feet right on top of a broken branch, a sheepish expression on her face.

"Sorry," Cinder said, then winced. "Sorry," she repeated, whispering this time.

Terrin set his sights back on their prey, just in time to watch the disappearing backside of the deer as it fled deeper into the forest. He held back a sigh, slowly releasing the bowstring, then sliding back the arrow in the quiver at his waist. There went another day's work, hours of creeping and trailing with no result.

"It wasn't on purpose, promise," Cinder said. She was clutching her bow awkwardly in her hands, gazing wistfully ahead. Barely thirteen, she already had a strong resemblance to her parents, with piercing eyes that gave her an air of seriousness, but a mouth made for laughter to compromise.

"Matters little, doesn't it?" Terrin said. "That right there was the first deer I've seen in a month, a good week's worth of meat. Gone, just like that." But he wasn't angry, not in truth. When Cinder accompanied him on his hunts, his main priority was to teach his daughter the way of the forest, hunting, putting food on the table. Scoring dinner would've been a blessing, but he'd expected things to go wrong from the start. Still, it was important to scold her. Let her know she had made a mistake so she'd learn from it.

"Doe," Cinder said, pushing next to him, not even pretending to be quiet anymore.

"What?"

"It was a doe." She held one of her hands to her head, index finger extended. "No antlers."

Terrin turned away, hiding the stirrings of a smile. "And just where'd you learn that, huh?" he asked. "And don't you say school, because we both know you spend more time interrogating travelers in whichever tavern you happen to fancy."

Cinder shrugged. "Could've been any of them," she gave him a sidelong glance, mouth quirking up. "It was, doe."

Gods above and below, he prayed for another grain of patience to keep himself from cuffing the smartass in the head.

Shadows stretched in the late afternoon, falling on the lines of white birch trees standing at attention. It was quiet, save for the sounds of nature hugging them like a warm blanket, so different from the intrusive atmosphere of the city nearby. They drank it all in as they walked, letting their minds wander from the straining concentration of the past hours. Now with their hunt over, Terrin wished for the coming of rain, the light smell of petrichor a guest he would always savor.

"Dad?" Cinder asked, deep in thought.

Terrin kept walking in silence, only raising his brow in question.

"Next time you bring me along, could Kalsin come as well?"

And just like that, worries flooded back inside Terrin, the peace of the forest gone in an instant. Kalsin, Cinder's brother-by-raising. The boy that despite all his trying, all his time spent with him, he couldn't truly love. He still remembered that dark night years ago, Cinder coming home with a babe clutched tightly in her arms. A single look from his wife, Mera, taking the sleeping child in her hands, smiling and giggling not unlike when she'd held Cinder, and Terrin knew the future was set in stone.

They had argued. Him, saying they should give him to an orphanage, and her, that inextinguishable heat of hers. Terrin smiled despite himself. Of course, she knew he loved that about her. She'd always wanted another child, a brother or sister for Cinder, and that night it quite literally fell into her hands without Terrin having a say in the matter. 

It wasn't Kalsin's fault. Not Cinder's, not Mera's. If there was anyone to blame, it was the heartless bastard who left a child in the middle of a storm, abandoned. Yet the lack of blame did nothing to change the harsh reality; Terrin didn't care for his children equally. And he hated the fact that he didn't. He hated that when he took in Kalsin’s odd features, his otherworldly silver eyes, they were so alien from his own.

"Dad?"

Terrin tried his best to meet Cinder's frown with a smile. "Sure. He can come." 

Then he tapped into his surge, snatching away Cinder's bow in a single, impossibly fast move. Seeing Cinder's stricken face, the smile came naturally this time. "He'll learn, like you learned at that age. But there's a condition. This time, it'll be you," he touched Cinder's forehead with the end of her bow, making her almost cross-eyed as she tried to follow it, "Doing the teaching. What do you say, do you think you're ready for that burden?"

Cinder slowly reached up, taking her bow back. Walking again, she held it as far away from Terrin as possible, without it being too obvious. "I think... What was the order? Tracking and walking and shooting. No, walking came first. Right?" She shrugged, somehow making it look like an agreement. "Fine. But he'll have to make his own bow."

"And here I was starting to think you'd expect him to draw that string." Terrin said. "You had it right the second time. And by the looks of it, you yourself could use a few more lessons in walking. You're rousing the entire forest."

"Not fair, I already said sorry. Twice. Three times, now."

"And how many times have I told you? Never apologize. If you're not in the wrong, it makes you look guilty, and if you're guilty, people won't give a coin's worth about what you have to say in any case."

Cinder stretched her step to avoid a thorny brush. She'd always loved jumping as a kid, but Terrin noticed her doing it less as time wore on. Now, he only caught a glance of the occasional hop when they were alone. "You say the weirdest things sometimes," Cinder said.

Terrin smirked. "Smartass."

"Dungbrain."

"Froglegs."

"Scarrd."

The moment it was out of Cinder's mouth, she winced, as if expecting punishment. Terrin ignored it for a while, just following the beaten path without a word. When he finally spoke, his voice came out quiet, without a trace of lingering amusement. "Don't you ever say that to a Clenn. Not even as a joke. Not even to your worst enemy."

"I know. I'm sor—" Cinder snapped her mouth shut, face red. She stopped suddenly to turn her shining eyes on him, questing, desperate for an answer. "Why do we hate them, dad? Aren't they just like us?"

Terrin looked down at his daughter, with hope that her innocence would never leave her, but knowing she was growing up faster than he could blink. He knelt down before her, gripping her shoulder. "We don't hate them."

"But the others in school, everyone—"

"We don't hate them," Terrin repeated, firmer now. "But we are more than them. We're above them. It's the job of the Clenn to rule over the Scarrd, those who are burdened by pain and weakness. Do you feel the surge?" He held a hand over his own heart. "This gift of strength and endurance and speed, and more for those gifted enough. It's inside each and every human being, ready at your command. Ready to climb higher." 

He drew a line on his chest. "When your soul is hurt, really hurt, sometimes it leaves a scar. A black, rotten line on your body and soul. And with it, you become something less." He drew another line above, at his collar bone, then he moved on to his face, tracing similar lines on his forehead, across his eyes, his cheeks. "Anger. Fear. Shame. People can break in many different ways, over and over again, and with each crack, their surge weakens too. They become Scarrd. They become less than we are. Forever denied the advancement to overworld. There's no justice about it, having to bear the marks of your sorrows for the rest of your life, but reality is rarely just."

"It can happen to anyone? Even the Arches?"

"Even them. Spark, rift, prism... No matter your strength, no matter if you're one of the overworld, or even one of the Arches." Terrin said. "Though I've never heard of an Arch falling back to the surge of a hive, back to underworld."

"What about the scar on your back?"

Terrin snorted. "The wildcat that blessed me with those scratches had one twisted sense of justice. No, that's just a good old, regular wound. Makes for a good story though."

"A wildcat? Not even a lion, or a wyrm, or an eastern savage?"

"And just what do you know about eastern savages, eh? Tavern-dweller."

But Cinder was somewhere far away, gaze burrowed in the distance. She remained like that for a while. "I wish there was a way to heal them."

Terrin got back to his feet. He gave Cinder's shoulder one last squeeze, then they started back toward the city. "Then you're a better person than most."

5 - Sisterly Advice

People intent on making it in this world are varied, but in the end, only three types fall through the sieve: the resolute, the weary, and the charitable. The first are those who think they have all the necessary information at their disposal and pursue their coin one at a time, focused, obsessed to master a singular trail. The second always seeks new paths to lead them toward wealth, no matter how much they have cobbled together in their nest, the backup plan of a backup plan of a backup plan formulating before the first stage had taken its course. The third, well; the third is the exception. The unlikely few who—in the grand scheme of things—don't exist.

Kalsin thought himself resolute, so perhaps that's why, for his benefit, Cinder took great lengths to stand among the weary. 

"A goat?"

"A goat."

Kalsin eyed the white, horned head of a dead mountain-hopper strapped behind Sap's saddle. "Now you've just got me confused. You're tracking a mythos with—the severed head of a goat."

"No, not tracking it, I've got that part figured out. This, we'll need for later." Cinder shrugged. "Superstitious folk call it a summoning. That's all nice and easy if you believe some such deity watches over every nook of the world at every given moment. Summoning? Please. So before the discussion turned sour—with me being the respectful cynic that I am—I compromised with my own, somewhat less far-fetched definition. Bait, I call it."

"How diplomatically pragmatic of you."

Cinder was waving a map she'd bought when they crossed into the Republic's region of Grenstel. It had been fresh paper in the beginning, but by now the map could've been mistaken for a half-hearted attempt at abstract art, crowded by circles and lines and scribbled words in no apparent order. Kalsin could just about make out Remallon around the center.

"Right there." Her one functional hand full holding the map, Cinder automatically raised her stump before she caught herself trying to point. "Uh, slightly north-west from the city. See? This fracture leads right along a forest-island. Rumored to be haunted, as of two Blindlights past. A small piece of land with no documented inhabitants, and with only a few smaller settlements bordering the general area. A smaller fracture branches off and into the forest, leading to an idyllic little waterfall. Apparently folk used to visit it, back in the day."

No inhabitants meant no coins left behind, but Kalsin held his mouth to hear Cinder out.

"You're thinking what I was thinking, but. But. I stayed around the hunter’s respite long enough to catch another piece of news. Tragedy befell one of those settlements I mentioned. An entire family just poof, disappeared, gone. Until the father's body was found farther down the fracture, carried by the current. With a very... peculiar cause of death."

Kalsin gave an anticipatory hum as he gently patted Sap's neck, taking care to avoid the vertically slitted gills. The bahten gave a low neigh, pushing his long snout into his face. A serpentine tongue nibbed his ear.

"Tendons, Kal. The man had his ankles gaping open, and he was missing his tendons. Like something had sliced the skin, grabbed the cords, and wrenched ‘em right out of his body."

His sister’s fervent excitement only made Kalsin silently shake his head. Come on, Cinder. That was just fucking disgusting. "I assume you're about to make a point with all this?"

"Forest. Rivers. Waterfalls, "Cinder listed on her fingers. "A mysterious disappearance. Mythos being mythos. All the events line up with each other. I'd bet it's a fossegrim."

"That doesn't tell me anything," Kalsin said. "Look, I'm about to stand face-to-face with someone who might have the answers we've been seeking for years. Answers about a cure to being a Scarrd. And things could go ugly, or they could go deadly."

"So what, am I better off arranging your funeral instead? Let me finish," Cinder growled. She paced below the stable's rickety planks like a caged lioness, in and out of the beam of moonlight shining through the hole above hazardous remains of the long abandoned place. "So—yes. The family, they were Clenn and quite wealthy. The wedding ring they found on the man's body was worth a fortune. White gold with deep-pearl accents—you could imagine the drama for the spoils. Which means, there's another one of this same ring..."

"...resting with the—likely deceased—wife," Kalsin concluded. The story did have potential. But if Cinder figured it out, others would soon see and follow her line of reasoning. 

Maybe a job for a later time. While getting their hands on fresh coin was important, it wasn't their highest priority at the moment. 

Cinder, weary to a fault.

Kalsin voiced his concerns about her plan. Cinder waved them away fast as they came. "Hunters tend to overlook legends about benevolent creatures, and the fossegrim falls in that category. But we know better, don't we? To sword-point with every last one of them. We..." She trailed off for a moment, eyes falling on her severed hand. She cleared her throat. Shrugged. "Can't let you have all the excitement. You go right ahead sniffing after the cure, and while you're at it, I'll make sure we have everything to summon—excuse me, lure this creature. We're hunters by profession, after all. And we've got time."

Kalsin hummed thoughtfully. He didn’t answer otherwise, though. Just breathed slowly for a moment or two, eyeing the moon above.

Cinder stepped up to him. She put her good arm around his waist and, after a moment of hesitation, rested her head on his shoulder. “How are you and Jack doing?”

“She agreed to the plan.”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “She… she’s worried about you. More than just a bodyguard. More than just a friend.”

His gaze stayed directed firmly above for a second longer. He looked at his sister. “I… I don’t know what you want me to tell you. There’s just so much to do, and you want to bring this up now?”

“There’s never a bad time to bring up matters of the heart, Kalsin.”

“You know the heart has nothing to do with this. She’s…”

Kalsin shut his eyes, trying, trying to get the image of her scar out of his mind. He let out a slow breath. “She’s incredible. Of course she is, I know that—but my body just doesn’t seem to. And I don’t think it ever will.”

Cinder drew up a brow. “Hey now, don’t talk in absolutes. We’re hunting for a cure, after all. Things could change like that,” she snapped her finger. She then squeezed her arm around him a bit stronger. “Look at you, Mister Broodster over here.”

“Are you just messing with my love life because you’re too lazy to get one of your own? For an older sibling, you sure don’t act like someone nearly a decade ahead of me.”

“Older sibling-by-home, little pal. And more years just means that I’m seeing things more clearly than you. You need to get a sweetheart, and you need to do it yesterday.”

Kalsin just shook his head. There was no point dwelling on this topic. Not until they learned more about the cure.