When Silver Burned: Chapter 50-51 (FINAL) (Patreon)

50 - A New Dawn

Kalsin screamed, ripping the knife from his boot and slashing upward in an arc sharp enough to fillet a fish.

She lurched back, more out of surprise than concern for her own well-being. “Kalsin…”

“Who are you?” he snarled, keeping the pointy edge between them. It wasn’t meant to cut her. It wasn’t even meant to come out. Ghosts, right, it’s not like ghosts could bleed. “Why—why are you wearing her face?”

“I’m Cinder, Kal,” she said. “I’m exactly the same older sister you knew. Only… from a different perspective.” She bit her lips. “Yours.”

The knife threatened to slip from his fingers as the world tilted sideways. Kalsin caught himself, grabbing the handle with both hands to stop it from trembling. “No, you’re… Cinder is dead. You’re a—an illusion, a pantomime. I saw it, she’s dead!”

“Yes,” Cinder whispered, looking at him sadly. “Back when you were just a child, your sister died in that cellar. Bloodloss. Anise and our… your parents tried everything to keep her clock ticking, but life had left her long before her body was retrieved and moved back to your home.”

Kalsin shook his head, refusing the absurdity of being told that she—that she no longer drew breath. Not when the same person seemed to be standing right in front of him. It was too much.

“You’re right. I’m not the same person. I’m Cinder, but not exactly the same as she was,” she said, answering the things he didn’t even say out loud. “I’m everything that is your recollection of her, given life. I’m the result of a power gone haywire when a child experienced a night worse than most adults could bear without breaking. I’m a comfortable place for you. I…” She held up a hand to her face. “Damn it. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.” Kalsin somehow forced the word out through a choking throat.

Cinder slowly lowered her hand from her temple. She took a step toward him. “I am a ghost, yes. The first byproduct of the first scar you have taken in that dark alley. A manifestation of your power—like the Herald, like the Captain, and like all of them, completely unique and singular. I am my own person, but I’m connected to you in a way that’s more than physical. I have memories, I have thoughts and emotions and everything that makes a person themselves. I am your sister, Cinder. Because when you were hurting and alone and damn near ruined, that’s what you instinctively shaped me to be.”

She stepped closer, putting her chest against his trembling knife. There was a body there, resistance. He wanted to withdraw it with a jolt, but her hand was suddenly there and the knife was pried out of his fingers.

“Did you know that the sister you grew up with—she smoked brickleaf?” She said, gently putting the knife aside and taking another step toward him. “Because I don’t. She might have, and she might have not. But I don’t know because you never knew. When your power made me, when you made me… you poured into me everything you knew about your sister from your consciousness. Who I was to you, the memories we shared, the role I played in your life. Losing one Cinder and knowing he wouldn’t survive the pain, the traumatized child made another one for himself.” She smiled softly. “A Cinder better in some ways, worse in some others. I was a similar seed you planted in the same pot, but who grew up to be someone different. I am Cinder, a version of your sister, and in the beginning I only knew about myself as much as you gave me. But then… then we lived, didn’t we? The years flew by as we traveled, hunted mythos. And the woman who lived alongside you—she, too, grew to become their own person.”

She folded his outstretched arm as she stepped up to him, pressing it against his chest. “Yes, the flesh-and-blood sister of your early childhood is dead. Yes, the ghost you made in that dark alleyway was a cheap copy of the sister you lost, an idealized replica. And yes, again; right now, standing before you, I am not the Cinder your real sister would have been if she had somehow survived that night. Because the little seed you have planted, over the years we had spent together, blossomed into more than just a caricature of a concept it had started out with.”

She reached up, gently brushing the scar between his eyes. “No, Kalsin. Your sister is not dead. She never abandoned you and she never will. The funeral songs they hummed in Parlest and the flowers Mom and Dad tossed down into the grave, it all happened. None of it matters, though. Not in a way that makes a difference to us.”

Kalsin broke down and he wept.

Grief and helplessness swept over him in a single crushing wave. No barriers remained to hold back the truth that had been obvious from the beginning. He was clever—too clever—and that cleverness was his undoing. His mind had assembled the puzzle pieces on its own, confirming the lie he had lived in. The mechanism was plain now, the logic undeniable. A boy stripped of his home, his parents, his only friend, had been forced to bend reality to his will. It was survival. A warped kind of therapy. An impossible power fashioned into a patchwork crutch to keep him standing.

Of course he decided to avoid confronting his power at every turn. Of course he was instinctively averse to the idea of taking up scars. When the first cut damn near takes off half his arm, it teaches the child to fear the knife forever.

It hurt to breathe as Kalsin gasped for air. The ghost-memory of his sister held him, soothing him as she cradled his head against her chest, and though it shouldn’t have—the physical contact somehow felt grounding. An anchor to grab, and, slowly, pull himself back together.

“How are we,” he gasped, using her shoulders to keep balanced. “How can I touch you? You feel so… real.”

Cinder huffed out a laugh, though she was teary-eyed too. “That’s because I’m real, little bud. How do you think I chopped off that goat’s head and arranged your gear before so many of our hunts?”

“But you’re a… a ghost. Right? You, you exist in my head. I remember it all, Cinder. Nobody else can see you. Nobody.”

“Eeeh, that’s debatable. I get along perfectly well with Captain and Herald, but then again, they’re technically part of you, so maybe that doesn’t count.” She hooked a thumb at herself, striking a proud pose. “It’s true that humans cannot perceive me. That’s the tiny little limitation—or blessing, depending on how you look at it—of being the Scout.”

“Scout,” Kalsin muttered, recalling things that made no sense at the time. “The Captain called you that. She spoke to you, during the storm.”

“Yes, she’s direct like that.” She reluctantly let go of him, testing whether he would stay upright. After a moment, she pulled back to her perch on the rise next to him, crossing her legs. “Lass is as stiff as a pole. She’s all, ‘Careful, sir, that apple pie may be poisoned, sir.’ She couldn’t spot a joke if it slapped her in the face.”

Kalsin let out a slow breath and wiped his eyes with as much dignity as a man could muster—though to anyone watching from afar, he’d have looked like a fool muttering to himself. Not much dignity left to save, there.

“I didn’t mind her appearing whenever she did. She’s been… nice, so far,” Kalsin said. He looked at his sister—or, Cinder. Who was a separate, ghost-version of his sister. “So. The Captain is my only manifestation who’s visible to other people?”

“Yeah. That’s her specific quirk, basically. As Scout, I can only interact with the real world in a way that doesn’t affect humans. Abandoned objects, animals, it’s all fair game, so long as there’s no people watching over them. I can also travel pretty darn far from you, which makes me incredibly useful for non-cutthroatery situations. Whereas Cap’n is, well…” Cinder thought for a moment. She then shook her head, thrusting a mildly annoyed finger at Kalsin. “Oi! I know you’re listening. How about you stop twiddling your thumbs and come out here, eh?”

Nothing happened. In the distance, Sap raised his head briefly, then went back to munching grass.

“You have to command her,” Cinder said. “She’s, uh, she thinks she’s your guard dog or something. Pretty much the only things she listens to are your direct orders.”

Kalsin gave a half-hearted little snort at the peculiarity of that. “Why? Isn’t she supposed to be ‘her own person?’”

“Hey, don’t ask me. It’s your subconscious that made her. Maybe you secretly wanted a puppy or something.”

Kalsin just shook his head mutely. Conversing with ghosts and summoning manifestations of his repressed desires. That was his life now, somehow.

“Captain?” He breathed, speaking with a hush barely audible on purpose. “Are you here?”

“I am, sir.”

The voice came from his other side, and Kalsin turned to see the silver-haired woman sitting beside him, mirroring Cinder. Her spear was loose against her shoulder, clearly unthreatening but still close at hand, as if trying to make a point.

And her uniform still had that window above her…

Yeah. Now that he thought about it, Cinder’s theory did sort of make sense. A prodigious chest has no intrinsic merit, unless inordinate eye-candy be considered a virtue.

“It’s not required that you speak out loud, sir. We are always in your thoughts. What you know, we know as well.”

“Eh, again, with caveats,” Cinder added. “Herald and Cap’n can’t stray very far away from you, but for me, your thoughts become a bit muddled after a mile or so.” She leaned forward to see the Captain on my other side. “Chop chop, now. Brother-and-almost-sister bonding time is over. It’s your turn to be all informative and shite.”

The Captain’s face remained impassive. “I find that hard to believe. From the limited interactions I’ve had with you, Cinder, you seem to enjoy the sound of your voice in endless capacity.”

“Perceptive,” Kalsin agreed.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Your insults slide right off me. I bloody love my voice—who wouldn’t? That bard lass in your crew would go green with envy if she had the ability to cognize my spectral harmonies. Also, ew,” Cinder mock grimaced. “Please wait until I’ve turned my back before you start metaphorically rubbing up against my childhood relative.”

Kalsin smiled softly. “I thought you were not that Cinder.” 

It was still hard to accept that his real sister was long dead. But different or not, the Scout’s familiar presence filled a part of the hole that grief had left behind.

“That’s why I said ‘childhood relative’. You know. Back when Cinder was your half-sister. Now you’re a child no longer and I’m twice removed from the concept of a full-on female sibling.”

Kalsin closed his eyes. “My head hurts.”

“No it doesn’t,” both of them replied at the same time.

Silence.

“Sir.”

Deceiving a pair of ghosts magically connected to your own consciousness wasn’t an easy task, apparently.

Kalsin leaned forward, propping his elbows and giving the silver-haired woman next to him his full attention. “So, Cinder cannot intervene in a way that people would notice, but can affect the world otherwise. She can gather intel, forage, and sneak into places with ease. What do I need to know about you?” Kalsin asked. He added, “Also, uh. Do you wish for an actual name? The Captain seems a bit informal. Sounds like a title more than anything else.”

The Captain tilted her head. “I have noticed you call your companions by charactonyms. Pike, Littleguy, Wardoll. They’re titles, but they also mean the person as a whole. Do you find those informal, sir?”

“No. Not particularly. Maybe I did at first, but I think I’ve grown fond of them.”

“Then just Captain will suffice, sir.”

Captain then pursed her lips, shifting her spear from one shoulder to the other. A silver braid glinted with dew, draped across her forearm. “Of us three, I am singular in a way that my body is fully present in the fabric of reality. My mass can collide with another. If something cuts me, I bleed. I am anchored by the same rules as everyone in this world.”

“You showed up like a ghost, though, just now. Us regular fleshbags cannot simply blink around the place.”

“I can exist in a small radius around you, in which I have the ability to appear and disappear anywhere. Once manifested, I am bound by the same rules as you are.”

Kalsin shrugged. “Appear for a thrust, make yourself vanish, and skewer the next fool from behind?”

“Not how it works, I’m afraid. After I disappear, it’s like… like going to sleep, sir. I cannot simply will myself to a different location. It takes a bit of time—an hour or two—until I can manifest again.”

Kalsin hummed in understanding. He didn’t exactly understand, of course. Existence that wholly revolved around another person was an alien concept to humans. But he could try to empathize.

“My limitations are also unique.” Raising her hand, Captain began to count on her fingers. “One: I can die, temporarily. Should my physical body perish, I will disappear and slumber for the duration of a few days. Two or three, maybe. I cannot entirely say due to the lack of practical evidence.”

“I’m always here to help,” Cinder called wryly.

“Two: I am not human, and therefore, I am outside of your species’ preexisting power system. In short; I do not have the surge.” She stared deeply into his eyes, and Kalsin felt kinship there. “We are alike more than you know, sir.”

Kalsin glanced away, taken off guard. He gave her a weak smile.

“And three: I cannot stand in the direct rays of Warmlight. Should the sun shine on me for even a second, I will be destroyed as surely as a blow to the brain.”

Kalsin recoiled in place. That was not something he expected. “You mean… like the stories about some of those blood-sucking mythos?”

Captain shook her head. “I’m unaware if that’s the same or not. All I know is that Warmlight—even through armor and cloth—will send me back to that state of temporary slumber.” She gestured up at the murky clouds above. “This weather is not ideal, but I can manifest, and then disappear on my own volition before the sun comes out to play. Indoor locations work, too. But me joining you during the night is likely your safest option.”

“My safest option?” Kalsin arched a brow.

Captain’s face remained stoic. “I cannot die, sir. The concept of ‘safety’ does not exist for me. However, if I’m sent to forceful slumber, it would leave you vulnerable for a duration longer than I’m comfortable with.”

Cinder snorted. “Just so you know, her comfortable duration of not babysitting you is approximately three point seven seconds.”

Captain sniffed. “If we take averages across the year, direct sunlight lasts roughly eight hours and twenty-one minutes per day. That means I am forced to leave Kalsin unprotected for more than one-third of his lifetime, if spent out in the wilds. The first two limitations are pittances compared to this.” She looked at him with a grim expression. “This is my greatest failing. I am strong, and I will become stronger still, but Warmlight renders me null. This is why you need all three of us.” She nodded toward their camp. “And all your friends besides."

A low breeze swept across the tundras, ruffling the flaps strung above the army tents. Kalsin hadn’t known what to expect from this place, but for all his eyes could tell, he might still have been at the Old—only here the red grass grew in thicker, heavier pastures.

“Herald?” Kalsin said quietly. Maybe he called her, or maybe he just spoke out loud to himself—he wasn’t sure which. He even felt a bit of embarrassment about having to ask that question in the first place.

“Heh. Miss Scary-Pants doesn’t come out that easily,” Cinder said. “Kind of a recluse, that one. Which is sort of understandable if someone gets constantly assailed by gruesome visions of impending death. Mostly, though, she just wants to…” she snapped her fingers a few times, searching for the word. “...acclimate you!”

“To create a habit via repetition,” Captain said. “The Herald wants to train your mind so that when you see her, you instantly know your life is in danger and that you react accordingly.”

“Oh.” Kalsin rubbed his thigh. “I see. That… makes sense.”

He would have liked to talk to her a bit. She was by far the strangest of his ghosts, and part of him was disturbed by the suggestion that his subconscious would want a figure straight out of a horror story to scare the goodness out of him on a regular basis.

Cinder softly patted him on the back. “Eh, don’t mind her. She might be a smidge crazy in the head, but she’s a big softie deep-deep down. She likes to show off during times of ambiguously impending threats.”

Captain nodded. “There was no future in which you would have been outright executed in Atlas Nevor’s office. And neither was she required to appear in the distance before the Veiled attack. She simply has… a bit of a flair for the dramatic.”

The manifested offshoots of his mind had preferences and personality quirks of their own. Great.

But on the bright side, he supposed, it pretty much confirmed that they were truly sentient beings.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said after a long pause. “All three of you.”

Kalsin had felt isolated since the prison. He was already born without a surge, and this new curse regarding scars only deepened the wound. After being ripped away from Jack and thrown into a pot of misfits bound for a short training regimen and a shorter lifespan on the battlefield… he had felt truly lost.

Knowing these women lived inside his mind should have been unsettling. Instead, it calmed him. There was a strange freedom in being laid bare before people who, on a fundamental level, were bound to be on your side. 

Kalsin guarded himself from growing close to others—whether that was individuals or ideals. The potential of betrayal was always there, and he’d been burned one time too many in the past.

This was something different. Comfortable. Symbiotic on an existential level. And maybe it was exactly what a hardened man like himself needed to learn to trust again.

At some point Kalsin had taken off his boots, setting them aside to dry and letting mud ooze between his toes. Cinder beside him had relocated, stretching out on the grass like she owned the whole damned tundra. The storm was long gone, nothing left of it but the chilly air and the glint of morning dew clinging to the ground.

Kalsin had missed this, and to hell with the dangers and the Veiled lurking somewhere out there. He had missed the solitary open road where thoughts replaced the busy noise of chatter and industry. A city boy, he was not.

Cinder hummed some off-key tavern tune, staring up at the clouds. “Y’know, Kal… all that doom and gloom about heretics and civvie unrest—very atmospheric, don’t get me wrong—but it’s wasted on you.”

He cracked an eye at her. “How so?”

“Mate. Kalsin, dear. I don’t know if you noticed between all this brooding you’ve got going for yourself, but you’ve got quite a spectacular parade of women orbiting you.”

Kalsin dragged a hand down his face. “Cinder…”

“No, no, let me finish.” She sat upright, maybe with a bit more glee than he would’ve preferred. She jabbed a thumb toward the place where Jack had settled near Hollow, part of her bedroll visible from here. “First there’s your goody ol’ bodyguard. Big, badass, and with a heart of gold. Did you know she watches you in your sleep? Been doing it for years now. And that letter didn’t just write itself.”

“And then,” Cinder went on, sing-song, “there’s Ringtail. Gods above, in the beginning she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to stab you or kiss you. Maybe both. Probably both. Some girls just don’t know how to show affection, Kal. It can terrify them. But once she’s past that hurdle… whew!” Cinder whistled. “I don’t envy you. She’d make the wedding ceremony itself a competition to the altar between your prospective brides.”

“She’s insufferable,” Kalsin muttered.

Cinder snorted. “So are you. Perfect match.”

Kalsin didn’t dispute it. He knew he had innumerable faults—but he wasn’t about to add disloyal to that list.

“No,” he said. “Jack is the one who’s been with me through thick and thin. I don’t know how long we’ll last against the Republic, but we’ve been given a chance, and I refuse to fumble it.” He slowly shook his head. “I like Ringtail. I do. But if it comes to that, I won’t allow her to come between the two of us.”

“I’ve seen that letter too, you know. She knew she couldn’t keep you just to herself, if you went down this route. She said as much.”

“You think she wants that?”

“I think she wants to see you succeed, beyond anything else. I think she wants you to live.” Cinder shrugged. “She’s already got more than she could’ve ever dreamed of—her scar gone, being with you.”

“Hm.”

“Your Jack is not a complicated woman, Kal. She’s the ‘you get what you see’ kind of gal, and you love that about her. Ringtail is the one who’s gonna be tying your mind in a knot.”

Not false, that observation about Rin.

Captain stirred, not quite interrupting, but her gaze flicked toward Kalsin with the faintest trace of curiosity—as if even she wasn’t entirely immune to the conversation.

Cinder rolled to her side, propped up on an elbow, and fixed the Captain with a sly look. “Well, Cap’n? Don’t tell me you’ve got no opinion on my brother’s intense romantic entanglements.”

Captain’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. “My concern lies with his survival first, his wishes second. So long as the latter doesn’t actively endanger the former, I will be content.”

“Right. Got no sudden urges to call him Master or something? Maybe get down to polish an additional spear?”

“He is my Master.”

Kalsin winced. “Do not call me that, please.”

“Regarding your love life, sir, I do believe that accepting the advances of several powerful women is a good thing. Attraction is a powerful soil for cultivating loyalty. And loyalty is the bedrock of every successful campaign.”

“Yeah. Well,” Kalsin said. “Charm will be the least of my tools. I’m already an ugly fucker, and I doubt that taking on every single scar in the Republic will improve that.”

“Oh, Kal,” Cinder gave him a pained look you typically reserve for a particularly stubborn housepet. “You really are clueless when it comes to the feminine mind.”

Even Captain nodded at that. “Listen to them. Love them. And you will be a good husband.”

Kalsin humphed, noncommittal. He never understood why the martial state of high-status individuals was such a big deal. Common folk not only accepted, but they expected the Arches or command figures to take multiple spouses, because, apparently, having the ability to attract and manage several partners was a sign of competent leadership.

Kalsin always thought it was a ridiculous notion. He just wanted peace and quiet.

But then again, he was not the most romantically well-adjusted person. And peace and quiet was pretty much out of the picture with the path he chose to walk.

“Eh. Romance and shite. Don’t worry about it,” Cinder waved it away eventually. “Of all your problems, I think this is the one that’ll work itself out the easiest.”

As his eyes drifted shut, Kalsin hoped his sister was right. He adored Jack more than he could ever say, and—surprisingly enough—had grown to enjoy Ringtail’s antics too. Both had followed him into the endless tundra, leaving only the Republic’s wrath behind. 

Dreaming in the light of dawn, he figured there were far worse people he could have ended up with standing by his side.

51 - Seb Hordozó

“You ever notice how soup tastes worse when you’re already wet?”

Kalsin glanced sideways at Fals. “...What?”

Fals had her knees pulled up, a wooden bowl balanced neatly on them, stirring it slowly with her spoon. “Wet. Sogged through. Boots that don’t dry in the span of a single morning. Boots that you then gotta pull on your footsies because there’s no darn alternative.”

Jack let out an amused huff from where she was saddling Hollow, and Kalsin had an inkling that his bodyguard was letting him stew alone in this one on purpose.

“Nobody likes eating cold soup, Fals,” Kalsin murmured. “It has nothing to do with your boots.” His hands were occupied with cinching straps on a sodden pack that didn’t want to cooperate. The leather was damp, knots slipping.

It was early in the afternoon, and the company was busy breaking camp. After a brief discourse, they had come to the conclusion that setting up a campfire wasn’t worth the risk, so the soup was cold and their resident bard somewhat cranky.

“I’m just saying,” Fals continued, digging the spoon in. Not to eat, mind you—but to scoop that congealed layer of fat and oil to the side. “It’s criminal. We’ve got spice packs, dried herbs, even that half-block of kelp salt that Cyanfish nicked from the border depot. Still tastes like wet dog.”

“Cooking is math,” Cyanfish said in passing, adding Kalsin’s empty bowl to the collection on his arm. “Imagine an equation where temperature is the final multiplier. Too hot or too cold; and the whole shebang comes out as a big fat zero in the end.” He waved away Kalsin’s thanks and wobbled off toward the thin fracture where Shoreline was waiting with a sponge.

Fals muttered, “I hate math.”

Kalsin tugged on the leather strap again. It bit into his palm before finally settling with a squeak. The pack still bulged like it wanted to vomit its contents into the mud, but it was stable enough.

Fals sighed. The soup stubbornly remained in the bowl. The surface was starting to look like abstract art.

Kalsin said, “You could just leave it. Littleguy is always hungry for more.”

“I could also bite you, Ghost, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna.”

Ringtail and Dweller came over from where the lads were wrestling the laundry back into their bags. Ringtail dropped into a crouch, the top of her shirt breezy enough to give Kalsin a look down south. She watched him set aside the pack with fox-bright eyes.

“Didn’t you hear, Fals? Our savior boy is called Kalsin,” Ringtail said, smirking. “A fancy-ass overworld name, if I ever heard one.”

“Oh?” Fals mused. “I don’t hate it, actually. It has a cartain… a certain prose to it. Like a heroic schmuck straight out of a ballad.”

Ringtail’s button nose wrinkled. “Ugh, what? What kinda ballads do you listen to?”

“Oh, no-no-no. I don’t listen to them, girlie. I make ‘em!” Fals nearly spilled her soup on Jack in the background as she swung her arms around. “I’ll be the first chronicler to record the events of the rebellion! How it started and how our leader was truly like, told by someone who’d been there from the very beginning. Not just rhymes and pretty words: I’ll tell his story, his personal journey, the man behind the myth! Because above all else—Ghost, Kalsin, the seb hordozó—he must be humanized in the eyes of the common man.” Pike and Crux glanced over at the racket, then promptly returned to their chores when it only turned out to be Fals. “The recountings of one Noémi ‘Fals’ Slipfall will echo across the Republic, one day. And don’t you forget it.”

Kalsin shrugged at Ringtail. Now she was stewing in the soup, too.

“I hate you,” she muttered, shuffling closer to him and farther away from the erratic bard. Her shoulder touched his.

“Likewise,” Kalsin said. He rose, stretching his back.

Ringtail jumped up, following. “Wait, really?”

“No.”

She huffed, hands on her hips as she glared up at him. She really was tiny. “Hmph. This whole legend-thing is going to your head. Don’t make me smack you.”

“Try it, and I’ll clap you right back,” Kalsin said. 

He paused when he saw an aggressive blush spreading on Ringtail’s cheeks. 

“Um. I don’t mean, like, uh, in an inappropriate way or something…” Kalsin muttered. He then said, “Wait, how did you mean it?”

“Uuuuh… a smack?”

“To the back of the head, right?”

“Yes, well… yes. Like, an affectionate pat or sumthin’.”

“Aha. The sort of smack you give your pals when they’re being silly.”

“Yeeeah. The good ol’ back rubber!”

“Except to the neck.”

“The neck. Exactly. All buddy-pal way and shit.”

“Sure. Nice.” Kalsin cleared his throat. “Glad that’s clear. Sometimes I have trouble discerning what goes on in your head.”

“Heh. Right? When you said uuh, that you’ll clap me, that’s exactly what I imagined in my head! And not like, you know, something crazy like, I don’t know, you clapping my cheeks over ‘n over again as you violently fuck me into the ground, typa’ deal.” Ringtail grinned nervously, eyes a bit too wide. “Heh.”

Back at her perch, Fals made finger-going-into-hole motions.

Kalsin was saved from the awkward tension by a muscular arm wrapping around his hip and pulling him into a taller, bigger, and noticeably curvier body. Kalsin glanced up to see Jack smiling down at him. When his bodyguard didn’t have armor plates donned, she was a veritable cuddle-bear.

Her arm locking him in place was soft and firm—and pretty much a public claim on him. The smile she leveled at Ringtail was pleasant, confident, and made Kalsin feel like a man worth staking a claim on. Confronted by a giant like that, most women would’ve backed off with a hasty apology.

Ringtail, to Jack’s misfortune, was not most women.

Ringtail tipped her head, appraising Jack like she was a pig in the butcher’s way. The corners of her mouth curled in a way that was almost a smile. “Well, ain’t that cozy,” she said. “You two sharing body heat now or is that just part of your employment benefits?”

 Jack remained looking down at her, eyes half-lidded, a hum of amusement—or maybe warning—escaping her. She didn’t move, either. Didn’t need to. The arm across Kalsin’s midsection tightened by a fraction, drawing him imperceptibly closer, as if in defiance to Ringtail’s words.

“Nah, I get it,” Ringtail said. “For such a big idiot, he’s reeeal cuddly once you get to know him. Soft at the right places… and hard at the others.”

Kalsin felt Jack’s shoulders stiffen for just a moment. He squeezed Jack right back, reassuring. “Jack and I are together now,” he told Ringtail with enough conviction to make it sound like that alone should make her back off. “Deal with it, eh?”

Raingtail ignored him, no longer attempting to maintain that smile. “I hope you remember what I said last night when we met, Jack.” She thrust a finger at her. “Once everything is nice and rolling and tied with a bow on top, I will be the first in the pecking order.”

Jack’s lips twitched in the universal ‘doubt’ expression.

“You better believe it. I’ll be the first to charge in with him and the first to steal a kiss. The first to order the lesser bitches around. The first to his bed and the last to leave.”

“There’s no ordering around anyone, Ringtail,” Kalsin said. He tugged a bit, trying to extract himself from his bodyguard’s embrace. He failed. He opened his mouth, then closed it when he realized he was about to ask them both to calm down.

Even he knew that you never tell two competitive warrior women to calm down if you actually wish for that to happen.

Meanwhile, Jack had been giving some very pointed gestures to Ringtail about where to shove it.

Thankfully, Ringtail’s sharp retort was prevented by Dweller walking up to them with a bundle of knotted firewood in her arms.

“So how exactly are we planning to build a sea-worthy vessel without any trees around?” she asked with a nod toward their general grassy surroundings.

“There should be more wild vegetation as we draw closer to the gulf,” Fals said. “An’ I suppose we can also chop any timber we come across, then make a sled or some such to pull them along.”

Dweller chewed on her lips. “You a carpenter, Fals?”

Fals pointed over at Shoreline washing their bowls. “No, but she is.”

“The word is shipwright,” Shoreline answered without looking up. “And even then, I’ll need some serious manpower of the non-dumbassery kind to put everything together.”

Fals looked back at Dweller. “We’re fucked.”

Kalsin gave Jack’s back another rub before she deemed to free him from the chokehold. He scratched at the new scar on his jaw, thinking. “We’ve got a few hives among us, right?”

“Yah. I’m abyss now, thanks to you,” Ringtail said, perking up. “Used to be… you know, before. I used to be overworld. Spark.”

Kalsin nodded. “That may be our ticket, too. With the right manifestation, who knows what other advantages we can get. If we get a single metallist who can turn wood into some kind of durable alloy, we could cross to the other side of the Republic easily enough.”

“You make advancement sound like soft candy,” Dweller said, folding her arms. “There won’t be time to meditate during the march toward the sea. Not to mention, for that to happen you still have to… remove our scars.” She got that last one out a bit nervously, as if mentioning such a monumental event in passing was wrong on a profound level.

Hearing that, both Jack and Ringtail reacted similarly.

“Like hell he will! Not now, not yet. You don’t know what it costs him.”

Jack’s face remained impassive as shifted her feet, resting one hand on the grip of her sword.

Kalsin looked around the breaking camp, and met the watching eyes of many of his mates. Those who had followed him on a whim, and threw their futures on the gambling table for the sake of something that resembled hope.

He didn’t have the surge, and his dreams of becoming Clenn had been scorched in the bud. He remembered the looks of his father, the expectant gaze of his mother, both whispering in their own ways how useless the silver-eyed kid they never wanted was. The wasted years he spent drifting, searching, looking to fix part of himself that was irreparably broken. Anger, grief, and denial at the injustice of it all.

He could be more broken still. But maybe he could help fix others in the process.

Kalsin rested a hand on Jack’s shoulder. He gave Ringtail a soft smile. He appreciated them both, trying to protect him from the difficult choices. It'd be so easy to nod and agree with them and let inaction take its course.

He was done letting the circumstances choose for him.

“You want that, Dweller?” he asked. “Want to be Clenn again?”

“I do. Gods, yes I do,” Dweller stepped forward, chin up and back straight.

“Line up, then. All of you,” Kalsin said. “And prepare some rope so that Sap can carry me across the flatlands. This… won’t be pretty.”

Pretty or not, he was ready to finally do what was necessary.

It was time the horns of rebellion began to spread.

### END OF BOOK 1 ###

Well, there we go.

That was the first time I tried my hand at more traditional type of epic fantasy, and the scale is kind of daunting. It's difficult to set up so many moving pieces early on, and let the payoff circle back around in a way that feels satisfying. This book was about Kalsin's personal journey - how his past shaped him to be the jaded guy he is, and his acceptance of walking down a path that goes against every base instinct that he has.

I have so many ideas and plans for the second book already. For how his powers will evolve, the intriguing culture of the Veiled, and the godlike destruction the Arches can bring down on the battlefield.

But - and here's the bad news - I am unfortunately a very slow writer. If I focus too much on one thing, I get burned out incredibly fast. Between juggling my cyberpunk series, work, my video game, and health complications irl (the tumor they took out was NOT cancerous, thankfully), I need to pace myself and refresh my creative palette from time to time.

When Silver Burned will continue with book 2! But not immediately.

For now I'll be focusing on developing my adult RPG game further. Maybe do some creative writing; just a pen, and empty paper, and see what comes out. Eventually I'll want to build up a backlog for book 2 before I start posting the chapters.

Thanks for reading this story, everyone. When Kalsin, Jack, and Ringtail returns, it will be a mad race through the hostile tundras.