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They didn't strike out for Caed Nua right away, and that was the first thing that surprised Edér.
"Little out of the way, isn't it?" he asked, when Kit told them that they were making a detour to Anslög's Compass. Not that Edér wasn't glad to get out of Gilded Vale with his neck unbroken by means of any which direction, but the so-called Watcher seemed very antsy about the whole thing. Almost more twitchy than her Aedyran friend. Edér decided to observe them, because he had nothing better to do, and because it was good to get a feel for who he was traveling with.
Kit walked at a pace that fell precisely between speedy and measured, the kind that could sustain her for miles. The travel pack on her back was worn, but cared for, and just shy of large enough to be a burden. There was a bow strapped above it, and a sword and quiver hanging at her side, and she had no other adornment save for the green adra wheel hanging from her neck. She'd been on the road for a long time, and she looked like it.
"I owe someone a favor," Kit said, without slowing or glancing around. As she said it, there was a thread of tension running through the way she held herself -- so not the kind of favor that involved borrowing your neighbor's salt. "A day's trip or two."
"That's just fine," Edér said amiably, lest he come across as complaining. He refrained from asking what that favor might be. He figured he'd see it, or Kit would tell them, in due time, and Kit appeared to be in a hurry to leave Gilded Vale, a sentiment that Edér shared.
There was still a melancholy knot tightening somewhere in his chest -– familiarity and its allure did that to you. It would pass.
Kit took a few more steps and came to an abrupt halt. On either side of her, Edér and Aloth stopped too, and Kit turned to face them.
"Need anything else before we go?" she asked.
Edér shrugged, and his own pack shifted, light and easy. They'd stocked up at the Black Hound Inn, and he neither needed nor wanted much. There hadn't been much in the way of cherished possessions to grab before heading out, either. "I'm good."
"I have everything I need, thank you," Aloth said politely. A little too politely, and as they left Gilded Vale, heading south along the muddy road past trees growing thicker and more numerous, Edér's eyes drifted curiously between his two traveling companions.
It just wouldn't do to let awkward silence become the norm, now, would it? Aloth didn't look he was going to initiate anything soon, and Kit walked with a troubled set to her face, a few steps ahead of them and seemingly unaware of it, so it fell upon Edér's shoulders to set the mood.
"How'd you two end up traveling together, anyway?" he asked.
Aloth's eyebrows arched at being addressed, and he offered an answer when it looked like Kit wouldn't be forthcoming. Edér wasn't sure she'd even heard him. "It was only yesterday, actually," Aloth said, and Edér wasn't surprised. "Kit was kind enough to intervene when I had an... unfortunate misunderstanding with some of the locals. I thought it would turn violent, but she managed to talk them down."
Kit seemed to realize that a conversation was happening behind her, because she slowed down, and they parted enough so that she could slip in between them. Edér, meanwhile, nodded appreciatively. "Talking down a Gilded Vale mob? That's no small feat."
Something flickered at the corner of Kit's mouth. Probably a smile. "Hardly a mob."
Modest? No, that didn't seem quite right. Genuinely unbothered by angry Gilded Vale denizens, was more like. Edér got the feeling that she'd seen worse, wherever she was from.
"It was impressive," Aloth said. "They were certainly out for blood before you scared them off."
"What kind of talking down was this?" Edér asked.
The thing at the corner of Kit's mouth was more strained now. "Cipher," she reminded them.
Like Watchers, you didn't hear much about that sort of thing out here in the Dyrwoodan backwater nowadays, leastways not out in the open. Edér wasn't inclined to judge, given his position as the local Eothasian, but it seemed that someone was.
"Ah... how does that work, exactly?" Aloth asked, his fingers playing with the edges of his long hair. He looked a little startled, as if it hadn't occurred to him that the ability to tame unrest in a place like Gilded Vale probably had some abnormal root. He seemed twitchy by nature, and there were plenty of reasons why someone would be nervous around a person who could, if rumor was to be believed, hijack minds. Even if that person had saved his hide.
Kit's gaze was on the road ahead. "It's... hard to explain," she said. "I just... applied pressure. Gave them the impression that it'd be a losing fight if they tried it. It wouldn't have been so easy if they'd been sober." Her eyes flicked to Aloth. She'd noticed the same thing. "I didn't dig around in their heads or anything. I don't do that to people unless they're a threat." Her lips drew thin. "If that's what you're worried about."
"Not at all," Aloth said, just a tad too quickly. "I didn't mean to appear ungrateful. I have no doubt you spared us some bloodshed."
"Must be pretty handy in a fight," Edér added diplomatically.
A quick grin flashed across Kit's face, framed by the light of the afternoon sun sinking down on the right side of the road. Edér had never seen a dragon, but he imagined that such a creature baring its fangs might look similar.
"So," Edér continued. Aloth was averse to having someone in his head, and that could be any normal person's reaction, or it could mean something. It was hard to tell, these days. But Kit didn't pry, and Edér would follow suit. "You guys decided to band together after that?"
Aloth nodded at once, as if eager to move on. "Safety in numbers seems prudent," he said. "Particularly when you have no other allies."
An Aedyran alone, deep in the Dyrwood, prone to angering locals. In that position, Edér would find someone to watch his back too, though he couldn't for the life of him place where Kit was from. She had an ocean folk look about her, but that wasn't saying much, and her accent was hard to pin down in a way that seemed deliberate. In fact, aside from her adra pendant now worn openly, her habit of staring down corpses, and her apparent fondness for sticking her nose into the business of folks who'd gotten on the bad side of Gilded Vale's populace, she didn't stand out much. Even her name gave away nothing. Edér would bet his meager savings that it was intentional.
"I know the feeling," Edér said. He meant it to come out lighthearted, and maybe it did, but something twisted in his gut with it. He took a chance and nudged his shoulder against Kit's, and she didn't seem to mind the intrusion into her personal space. "You in the habit of picking up strays?"
Kit smiled faintly and warmly, which surprised Edér. She came across as bit of a grouch, but maybe she was just having a bad time of it lately. Understandable, all things considered. "It's a new habit," she answered, and she tilted her head at Aloth. "Numbers and all."
She was a stray too, Edér would bet, and she'd honed in on two people in Gilded Vale who had no one left in their corner. Maybe it was a cipher thing. "Well, I'm glad for it," Edér said. "Feels nice to stretch my legs, see some sights."
"Yes, whatever happens," Aloth added, "at least we're out of that mudhole."
"I grew up there, you know," Edér said.
"Quaint," Aloth amended hastily. "That's what I meant to call it."
Edér shrugged. "You had it right the first time."
The smile lingered on Kit's face. "We're not done with Gilded Vale," she said, and Aloth repressed a not very well-hidden sigh. Edér wasn't too keen on coming back this way, either. "I told Aufra I'd get medicine for her."
"Aufra?" Edér asked. Häthort had passed recently, which meant that there weren't too many people in Aufra's corner, either, especially not when she was expecting and that sort of thing was an ill omen all on its own, now. "You know her?"
Kit no longer smiled. She stared ahead at the road, her face set in hard lines. Her shoulders were tense again. "I knew her sister."
Past tense. Edér would have asked if it didn't feel vaguely like striking a match near tinder. The favor in Anslög's Compass was no doubt owed to the sister, and it bothered Kit enough that a cloud now hung over them, coming on as quickly as a summer storm.
Edér and Aloth exchanged a glance and silently came to an agreement to change trajectory, but the easy atmosphere had evaporated. There was a touch of cold in the air that brushed against their skin, the grip of winter not yet fully relinquished even as spring marched forward, and it seemed to deepen as the conversation trailed away.
And for all that Kit's appearance suggested a desire to blend into the background of wherever she found herself, she certainly had an effortless way of commanding a room.
In Magran's Fork, they had a little advanced warning when Kit's head snapped to the left, her eyes roving across the trees lining the road. Evening was bleeding into blue night, and it was past time to seek out a nice place to camp, but this clearly wasn't it. Edér's hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aloth grasping at a wand.
But a crackling bolt of energy slammed into Aloth in the next moment, and Edér's stomach dropped, as someone in the trees shouted, "There, that one! Get that one!" Aloth stumbled back with cry, but he didn't look like he was out of the running just yet, and as Edér drew his sword and surged protectively in front of him, Kit stepped out ahead of them.
There were shadows coming out the trees, three of them if Edér judged it right. But Kit raised a hand with fingers splayed, and one of the shadowy figures, wearing what Edér could dimly see was the armor of a Goldpact Knight, turned on its heel and swept its sword as its comrade instead. The two Goldpact Knights were suddenly locked in combat, the other trying desperately to fight off its beguiled partner, and Kit yanked her sword out of its scabbard.
The third assailant was a woman whose wand identified her as a wizard, who looked aghast at the sight of her knights turning on each other. Edér darted around the dueling knights and rushed her while she was distracted, and he landed a hit that snaked past her armor and drew blood before she dodged away. There were words on her lips, and jagged blades of mist blossomed in Edér's face, slashing away at him too quickly to parry them all.
He batted all but one of the blades away, and when it pierced him, his sword nearly dropped from his numb hands. He held onto it through sheer force of will, but it was as if great stones were tied to his legs and arms, as if his will was communicated to his limbs sluggishly and slowly. The wizard was saying something else, and Edér tried to back away, but he moved like he was underwater and wobbled dangerously.
Someone else was speaking too, faster than the wizard before him, and three shining projectiles, brilliant against the deep shadows of evening, darted around Edér and slammed into the wizard, cutting off her spellcasting and sending her flying. Edér felt a hand steadying him, but whatever the wizard had done to him was wearing off quickly, and Edér heaved himself forward, bringing his sword around again and slipping past the wizard's attempt to deflect him with her wand.
He wasted no time in going for the kill, lest the wizard have a chance to get another breath in her lungs, and her spirit left her with a shudder.
It had been a while since Edér had fought to kill, and he swallowed thickly as he turned away from the wizard's body, just as one of the Goldpact Knights toppled over under the onslaught of its comrade and Kit's joint attack. The still-standing knight stumbled back, wounded, and Edér thought that maybe it was out of horror, too, because the knight's helmet had been knocked off to reveal his face, just visible in the moonlight and in the dying red glow on the horizon. It was clear, from the look there, that whatever Kit had done to him was waning.
But there was something different about Kit now, something that Edér couldn't quite see head-on, glimpses caught of misty purple cloaking her weapon and her form, visible at the just the right angle of moonlight and indirect glance. Kit stepped back and made a motion as if hurling something, and a wave of pure force radiated outward from her with a noise like the groaning of trees in a storm.
The tail end of the wave's backlash hit them, because Edér's hair stood on end and his teeth hurt, and he felt Aloth flinch behind him. He didn't hear the crack, but the knight hit the ground and lay prone, neck twisted unnaturally.
The silence that fell was punctuated only by harsh breathing, and Kit stared down at the knights, a shadow against the horizon's glow, while Edér and Aloth stared at her. Then Kit rubbed at her forehead and turned, and her eyes immediately sought out Aloth. "Are you okay?"
Aloth stepped up to Edér's side and waved an absent hand. "I'm fine," he said. "A necrotic lance is far from the worst thing I've been hit with." There was a grim-looking hole in his leather armor, like something poisonous had eaten away at it, but it didn't appear to have reached the skin beneath. He looked Edér over, a furrow between his eyes. "And you?"
Edér experimentally moved an arm and a leg as Kit's concerned gaze moved to him. "All better," he said, when his limbs responded like usual. "Thanks for the backup." Aloth dipped his head in acknowledgement. "What was I hit with, exactly?"
"Ghost Blades," Aloth said. "Nasty in the thick of it, but no lasting effects."
Edér nodded like that meant something to him. Ghost blades. Of course.
Kit's eyes shifted between them, like she was making sure that they were alright, and when she seemed satisfied, she jabbed her sword into the ground and left it standing there, then stepped around to search the wizard's body. She rubbed her forehead again as she crouched down, a little unsteadily, and it didn't take her long to extract a piece of parchment from within the wizard's pockets. She frowned over it, squinting, as she rose to her feet.
"Does the name Kolsc mean anything to you?" she asked.
Aloth shook his head, and Edér let the tip of his sword, still clutched drawn and bloodstained in his hand, droop to the ground. "Raedric's cousin. He's looking to stir the pot."
"Well, someone's after his men," Kit said, handing the parchment over. Edér took it, and Aloth leaned in for a look. They nearly knocked heads in an effort to make out the words in the evening shadows. "Guess they thought that was us."
Considering the wording of the orders now sitting in his hand, Edér surmised that they probably wouldn't be finding any more ambushes of this nature waiting south of Gilded Vale. But he still took a cursory glance around them, as if something might be lurking in the trees, in the shadows. Raedric's lackeys weren't the only things out here. "No fire tonight," he said lightly.
Aloth made a face at the idea, but Kit nodded her approval. She returned her attention to the wizard's body and scooped up the wand still half-clutched in the woman's hand. She turned it over a few times, probably evaluating whether it'd be worth keeping to sell, and a pinched frown still resided on her face.
Edér wasn't entirely sure how he felt about stripping the dead of their useful items, but he wasn't going to question it. It wasn't like they hadn't done so when necessary, during the war. This wasn't war, but Kit was clearly the one with experience making it out on the road, and he'd follow her lead. Edér tossed the orders aside. "Hey," he said, "are you okay?"
The pinched expression on Kit's face looked more like it was from pain than anything. Her hand, which had strayed to her head again, dropped like a stone. "Yeah," she said, pushing a thin, hard smile forth. "My, uh... my cipher powers rebound on me sometimes. Feels like a rod jammed into my sinuses, you know?"
Edér didn't know, and his traveling companions talking about their magical and psychic what-nots like it was an everyday thing would definitely take some adjusting to. But he was nothing if not good at going with the flow. "Anything we can do to help?"
Kit shook her head and seemed to regret the motion. "It'll pass," she said. She tucked the wand into her belt, then scooped up the fallen grimoire as well and stood, handing the book to Aloth, before stepping past them towards the dead knights.
Edér felt a rustle of movement at his side, and Aloth circled around Kit to crouch down next to one of the knights. He set the grimoire down beside him and starting gingerly poking at the dead knight's accoutrements. Kit stopped, gazing at him in surprise, then took charge of the other one, a contemplative expression on her face.
"Well, if there is one thing I know for certain," Aloth said, withdrawing a handful of pands from a string purse attached to the belt of the knight he was searching, "it's that I am very glad that you're on my side."
A hesitant peace offering for earlier lurked somewhere in the words. Kit paused again, another string purse dangling from her hands. Then something in her relaxed, and she tossed the purse to him with a nod. "You can handle our funds."
Edér could only agree with Aloth's statement, recalling the look on the beguiled knight's face as he'd come back to himself. He set his pack on the ground and dug around in its many compartments, pulling a cloth out. He wiped down the blade of his sword and watched as Kit and Aloth made short work of assessing of the knights’ valuable, carriable goods -- which, as it turned out, was only pands, their armor and weapons too clunky and heavy to be worth the extra weight.
It didn't feel particularly good to go through the belongings of dead men they didn't know, but it was practical, and they hadn't started the fight. Edér didn't know much about what a necrotic lance was, but if it had hit at just the right angle, as Kit's powers had decimated that poor bastard with the broken neck, it could very well have killed Aloth.
Nope, Edér thought, sheathing his cleaned sword and taking the wand from Kit, to stuff into his pack for later selling. In light of things, he didn't feel too bad about it after all.
They made camp at the edge of Magran's Fork, before the road delved deep into thicker wilderness again, and they made do with no fire and cold, dried food. They did risk lighting a torch, however, sticking it into the ground so that Aloth could work on repairing the hole in his armor. Edér had decided to take first watch, and that turned out to be a rather useless offer, because Aloth didn't seem inclined to sleep just yet, and Kit had walked off into parts unknown.
Aloth worked steadily but slowly in the light of the torch, his stitching interrupted by his study of the dead wizard's grimoire. It didn't seem to hold much of use, if the unimpressed look on his face was anything to go by. Every so often he'd glance up too, his eyes combing the trees around them, a muted kind of anxiety on his face.
"Do you think she's alright?" he asked once, when Edér made one of his tighter circles around the camp. Edér could probably just pick a rock to sit on and achieve the same effect, maybe have a smoke while he was at it, but it gave him something to do.
Kit had left after saying something about checking out an adra formation they'd passed by earlier, somewhere west of the road. Edér hadn't seen any such thing, which begged the question: just how much could Kit detect with some sense beyond the usual, besides enemies lying in wait and adra formations lying out of sight? She'd insisted on going alone and had promised to be back in an hour or so, and Edér clocked the time at right around that, as the torchlight shrank.
"After that fight," Edér said, "I'd say she stands a better chance at being alright than either of us."
Aloth nodded, though the anxious look on his face didn't shift much. He really was a twitchy sort, and because Edér was starting to get bored with circling, he decided on a rock and sat himself across from Aloth, on the other side of the torch. He kept a hand draped over the hilt of his sword, just in case.
"So what's your story?" Edér asked. "Looking to settle?"
Aloth nodded again. He glanced down at the grimoire once more, then unceremoniously snapped it shut. His hands returned to the armor and the half-finished stitches, but he didn't pick it up again. "I came looking for land, same as many newcomers around here," he said. "Clearly, that was a mistake."
Edér chuckled, dry as a drought. "Better luck elsewhere, maybe. We shouldn't be too far from Defiance Bay by the time we reach Caed Nua. Might be better prospects there."
But Aloth didn't look too interested in that. He resumed stitching, and Edér was starting to realize that the frown between his eyes was customary. "This whole country has been touched by the Legacy," Aloth said. "And everything that follows. I don't know if there are good prospects anywhere." He sighed. "Perhaps Kit has the right idea, staying on the move."
"Who is she, anyway?" Edér asked. It wasn't like Aloth had known her for much longer, but maybe she'd told him something.
Aloth, however, shook his head. "She only told me that she's a traveler."
"And you're thinking of hitting the roads too?" Edér asked, plastering a grin on his face. "Fancy guy like you?"
He couldn't be sure, but he thought Aloth's ears looked a little redder in the torchlight. "I beg your pardon?"
"Aw, I'm just teasing you," Edér said. "That was some nice magic earlier. Kept me from getting skewered, I bet. Thanks again." And he couldn't resist adding, "Guess you pack a punch underneath that accent."
Aloth sighed again, deeply, and Edér's grin widened. But maybe Aloth wasn't as low-hanging of fruit as Edér thought, because he seemed to realize that Edér was just needling him and stared pointedly down at his work instead of responding.
The repair wasn't going as well as Aloth wanted, however, because it wasn't long before he scowled down at it. "This is going to require a professional touch," he said with a huff of frustration, poking at the drawn-up crease that now marred the leather. "Corrosion doesn't make for an easy fix."
"Least it wasn't worse," Edér said. "Could have been your skin."
Aloth grimaced.
As Edér spoke, he saw something in the shadows behind Aloth, a darker patch against the deep blue of night with a tiny flash of green attached. Before he could so much as tense up, he realized what the green was. He smiled to himself, because Aloth was busy glaring down at his armor, and pitched his voice a little louder. "So, Aloth," he said. "What d'you think of Kit?"
Aloth lifted his head with a frown in place. "Kit? I-- she's--" He took a breath and gamely tried to answer in the most diplomatic way possible. "I'm very grateful to her for defending me and agreeing to travel with me."
"Really?" Edér asked. "'Cos it doesn't seem like you care for ciphers much."
"I never said that," Aloth said, a little flustered. "They aren't common in Aedyr, that's all."
Edér pretended to consider this. "Me, I think she's kinda pretty," he said and swallowed back a laugh at the look on Aloth's face.
"I-- okay?" Aloth said. "I fail to see why we're having this conversation."
"You don't think she's pretty?" Edér asked innocently.
"I never said that!" Aloth said, more than a little flustered. "I haven't given it any thought. We just met!"
Edér grinned, and a voice behind Aloth said, "So? Which is it?"
Aloth nearly jumped out of his skin, and the needle in his hands went flying. Kit emerged from the darkness behind him with a smile nearly as wide as Edér's, and she met his eyes and bit her lip, looking away before the smile could grow into something uncontrollable. Aloth scrambled to retrieve the needle, shooting a glare over his shoulder at Kit.
But as he straightened, she folded her arms and stood over him, an eyebrow raised expectantly. "Well? Am I pretty or not?"
Aloth looked like cornered prey. His mouth worked soundlessly, the dull blush spread from his ears to his face, and Kit couldn't master herself any longer. Her eyes found Edér's again, and they both dissolved into laughter.
"Don't answer that," Kit managed to get out, in between giggling.
Edér hadn't even known that she could laugh. It was a good sight, and maybe that was why Aloth's flustered annoyance faded away. He still looked more than a little embarrassed, however, shoving the armor aside now that a proper repair was off the table and gathering up his materials to stuff them back into his pack. "Thought th' lad's 'eart was gonnae jackrabbit right out 'is chest," he muttered.
Both Edér and Kit's chuckling tapered off. "What was that?" Kit asked.
"Nothing!" Aloth said, artificially bright. "Please, continue having a laugh at my expense."
"Aw, Aloth," Edér said. The elf was a strange one, to be sure, about as strange as Kit. But maybe Edér was strange too. Took a special kind of fool to stay so long in Gilded Vale, anyway, and then leave by way of a woman who chatted with corpses. "We wouldn't be teasing you if we didn't like you." Aloth seemed very slightly mollified by that, until Edér added, "And you just make it so easy," and Aloth went right back to scowling.
The expression melted away when Kit patted his shoulder as she passed him. She shrugged off her pack and took a seat diagonal from them both, in front of the torch that was now burning low, encircling them in a gold-orange glow and warding off the blue night. The torch's flickering light couldn't quite mask the soft green glow of the pendant hanging from Kit's neck, and she looked a little more bright-eyed than before.
"What'd you go off to do?" Edér asked.
For a moment, it seemed like Kit wouldn't answer. She opened her mouth to respond, and Edér was sure that it would be evasive, but Kit hesitated. Her hands rose, reaching behind her neck and unclasping the chain that held the pendant. Twining her fingers in the chain, she lifted the pendant up and let it dangle in front of her. The adra was lined with a copper apparatus and shaped like a wheel -- the Wheel, maybe. The glow was faint but steady and much more apparent in the dark than in the day.
"This," Kit said, "is something I made to help me focus my powers. My mentor, that's what she called it -- focus. It's just our range. The area and degree of power we can work within."
She tossed the pendant to Aloth, who caught it and examined it cautiously. "Your mentor was a cipher?" he asked, turning the little wheel over in his hands like it was made of glass.
Kit nodded, something unhappy in the lines of her face, and she said nothing further about that. She continued on as if the question hadn't been asked. "Ciphers work with housed souls," Kit said. "Though I'd call it... anchored essence. A concentrated field of energy, anchored to the physical world. It's a little different from how wizards do it. You work with unanchored essence from the ether, correct?"
Aloth nodded, and this time, the tilt of his brow seemed more interested than wary. "We typically call it ambient essence."
"And it comes from a spiritual plane," Kit said. She spoke in a practiced manner, rote and remembered, but hesitant, like an acolyte repeating a rite... or an expert trying to break down something complex for the sake of the masses. "A cipher's domain is the physical plane, where the mind and the soul meet in the body. That means the physical energy of souls. And if I pull from the field of my soul, my range is limited. But if I pull from other housed sources, like another soul, my range grows. It's... like a medium. The greater the medium, the greater the action it can perpetuate."
Edér had never heard of the notion of fields in the sense of souls and essence, but Aloth kept nodding along as Kit spoke, and Edér would take their word for it.
"The pendant is like a reserve," Kit said. "It's concentrated essence that I've anchored to the adra, housed there instead of in a body, and it creates a strong enough field that my focus is expanded. It saves a lot of time. Otherwise, I have to widen my range by draining essence from other sources, and in a fight, that's my enemies." Her eyes shifted between Edér and Aloth, as if waiting for them to take issue with that. They didn't. "But living adra is a natural source of essence, and the pendant," Aloth's fingers ghosted over the apparatus in response, "helps me to pull it up and out. It helps me to detect essence that would otherwise be outside of my range, too."
Aloth tossed the pendant to Edér, and Edér held it carefully. It was warm in his hands, comfortably so, and it prickled infinitesimally, a quiver that ran up his fingers and arms, and then down and down and down his spine, leaving him feeling as heavy as stone. He wondered if that was how Kit felt when wearing it, or if its otherworldly nature was just too much for someone like him. "So you were stocking up?"
Kit nodded again. "It's been a while. That fight used up most of what I had left."
Edér tossed the pendant back to Kit as Aloth's frown returned. "Working with adra in such a manner is hardly a common skill," Aloth said, giving Kit a curious glance. It might have been wary, or it might have been a trick of the flickering light. "And using it to augment your abilities... that's quite the achievement."
Kit smiled wryly, hollowly. "It's learned." She draped the necklace back in place and redid the clasp. She slid the pendant under her tunic this time, then glanced up at the glittering night sky above them, at Beläfa about a quarter of the way to its zenith. The moon was bright tonight, bright enough that they'd be left with some sight even when the torch died down completely. "Why don't you guys sleep?" Kit suggested. "I'll take watch. I'm not tired."
Edér fixed her with a dubious look.
Kit stared right back at him and smiled tightly. It was more like the dragon smile than one of her nicer ones. "I'll take watch," she said again, traces of iron in her voice.
Aloth was ignoring them and already unfurling his bedroll, content to let them duke it out, and Edér got the sense that Kit would stare him down for the rest of the night if she had to. He conceded with a small sigh, reaching blindly for his pack and the bedroll he'd set out next to it. "Sure," he said. "Wake me when Beläfa's cresting, alright?"
Kit did not, in fact, wake him at all, and it was a bleary morning typical of the region that greeted Edér. The gray above was lit with a rainy sheen that hurt his eyes, and he blinked rapidly, frowning up at the sky. Edér was by nature an early riser, and yet when he sat up and blinked at his surroundings next, Aloth was already awake and Kit looked like she hadn't slept at all.
Edér wanted to argue about it with her, he really did, but Aloth was getting a cold breakfast together, and Kit was aggressively twisting a pestle into mortar, looking none too happy. It was clear that the graying sky was the object of her ire, from the way she glowered up at it, but Edér considered his options and found it best not to poke the dragon. Instead, he set to helping Aloth and said only, "Thanks for waking me," as he passed Kit.
She grunted in answer, squinting as she had after the ambush. She tipped her waterskin into the mortar, stirred some more, then tipped the contents of the mortar into a small bottle that was almost empty of pale liquid. It filled nearly to the brim, and she tossed a swig back, then set to cleaning the pestle and mortar and tucking it all away in pack and belt pouches both, as Edér watched out of the corner of his eye.
"Feeling alright?" Edér asked.
"I will be in a bit," Kit said, giving the now-corked bottle a little shake before stuffing it into a pouch. Her voice was thick like there was something in her throat, and her eyes flicked up to Edér. "Slept well?"
He ignored that, and breakfast was eaten quickly. All three of them were keeping an eye on the sky, but as they set out south again, the tableau above grew clearer and bluer and more welcoming, puffy white clouds moving in to replace the gray-white void of before. The trees thinned out too, though it would be a while yet before true seaside took over. They were still five or six hours out from Anslög's Compass, Edér estimated.
Kit, they learned, had a morning routine after nights spent on the road, and under her direction, Edér and Aloth found themselves keeping an eye out for anything usable along the sides of the road, to replace what had been used up the day before and then some. Kit wasn't as familiar with the flora of the Dyrwood, so Edér contributed his knowledge where hers fell short, and soon enough their supply of food was supplemented with wild fruits and mushrooms, while Kit's supply of herbs had gained some extra padding.
Kit grew brighter as time passed and the sky cleared, though there were circles under her eyes suggesting that it hadn't been the first sleepless night as of late. Edér found himself wondering if her reaction to the use of her powers was more than just a simple rebound. He kept an eye on her as they walked, and on Aloth, who was also increasingly relaxed. Kit had asked him about his spellwork, and it turned out that she was good at questions that kept the other person going, because they'd been chatting about it for most of the morning. Edér was content to listen and to keep an eye on the surrounding wilderness while he did, cipher senses or not.
When they stopped at a copse of birch trees so that Kit could cut some more bark for the torch, Edér and Aloth fanned out to look for anything to gather. There wasn't much in the way of useful growths here, however, so Edér soon found himself meandering back towards Kit. He shrugged his pack off and leaned against the tree nearest to her, hands in his pockets, watching as she sawed carefully at a thin strip of bark with a teardrop-shaped, jagged-edged utility knife.
"Hey, Kit," Edér said presently, "me 'n Aloth have a bet."
Nearby, Aloth lifted his head from his examination of some snowberries. "We do?" he asked, with less defensive alarm and more mild bemusement than Edér might have expected. He was catching on. Aloth held up the snowberries, and Edér shook his head, so Aloth tossed them aside.
"Yeah, about where you're from," Edér said to Kit. "My pands are on the Deadfire."
Kit paused in her sawing and adopted a very mysterious smile. She glanced over her shoulder at Aloth, expectant.
Drifting closer, Aloth contemplated it, tapping a finger against his jaw. "Betting money isn't much of a wager if we're keeping group funds," he pointed out.
"True," Edér acknowledged. "Loser has to carry more than their fair share of our stuff." He would no doubt end up saddled with most of the heavier loads anyway, being of broader composition than either of his companions, but it was the thought that counted.
"That's acceptable," Aloth said, far too easily. He probably assumed that he was going to win. Fancy learned types were all the same. Aloth absently rubbed his hands together, brushing off dirt, and spent several moments in deep thought. "I'd say Eir Glanfath," he said finally, "but you mentioned being attacked at one of the ruins, so I doubt it."
Kit had returned to her sawing, and she cut and pulled the strip of bark away from the tree, tossing it into the pile at her feet. "It's a good guess," she said, circling the tree a few steps to a fresh patch of bark not marred by cuts and critically eyeing the fare there. "My mentor was Glanfathan."
"Hey," Edér protested. "He gets a hint? That ain't fair."
Kit lifted her chin and regarded them both appraisingly. "He's better-looking than you."
Edér chuckled, and Aloth cracked a grin that made him look younger. Edér hadn't known that he could smile, either. Then Aloth grew contemplative again, and he looked Kit up and down. "I'm going to say the Ixamitl Plains."
Kit nodded slowly, thoughtfully. She made a few experimental cuts on the bark, testing it and taking her time as she did so in order to keep them waiting. "Wrong and wrong," she said at last, and Edér let loose an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. "I'm from the Living Lands."
"Ah," said Aloth, looking a little dashed. "That makes sense. I know the people of Ixamitl are largely nomadic, and that was my line of reasoning."
"Fair enough," Kit said. Apparently satisfied with the patch of bark under her hands, she made a horizontal cut of deliberate size, then started slowly sawing downwards. She threw a glance in Edér's direction as she did.
He shrugged. "Figured you for an edge of the world gal."
"Right idea," Kit said, "wrong edge." The knife hit a snag, and she focused her attention on her work, frowning in concentration as she pushed past the snag. Her movements, and her habits out here on the road, were practiced, steady, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Edér had been right, that she came from somewhere harsher and wilder than sleepy, unhappy townships and the forests they cowered in.
"What's it like up there, anyway?" he asked. "Heard some crazy stories."
Kit paused in her sawing, a faraway look in her eyes. "They're probably not far off the mark," she said, and she seemed to find something funny in that. She dragged the knife down again, shaking her head. "It's a horrible place to live," she continued, but there was mostly fond remembrance in her voice. "Most of the inland colonies don't last, and you can't take ten steps without contracting a disease or getting mauled by something."
Aloth absently dug at some stray dirt under his nails, but his attention was on Kit. "It sounds like you miss it."
"Sometimes," Kit said. One side of the strip was done, a half-open wound in the tree, and she turned her attention to the other side. It cut much more smoothly, and Kit slowed her sawing by a degree, so as not to lose control over the cutting. "Never a dull moment there."
The bark at Edér's back was starting to press uncomfortably into his spine, even through his armor, and he rolled his shoulders. "Why'd you leave?"
Kit didn't stop sawing, but something shifted in her face. "I wanted new things," she said, staring the strip of bark down like it was prey and she was a hunter. "I've been most everywhere since then."
"The Dyrwood's probably a let down, after that," Edér said lightly.
The strip of bark peeled away from the trunk, and Kit made short work of freeing it. She tucked her knife back into its sheath on her belt, then bent down to scoop up the other strips, a few in each hand. "It's not all bad," she said, and she smiled at Edér and Aloth in a way that felt as warm as sunlight. She held out a few strips to both of them and winked. "Carry these, will you?"
Edér released another exaggerated sigh and accepted his defeat, and Aloth gingerly wrapped his fingers around his half.
Kit jerked her head in the direction of the road. "I think that's it here," she said and set a brisk pace towards the road without another word.
After a moment, Aloth silently held out his fistful of strips, a question in the movement.
Edér took the bark with yet another sigh and saw the glint of amusement in Aloth's eyes before he set out after Kit. Shaking his head, Edér grabbed his pack and stuffed the strips into it, then shouldered it again and followed.
Anslög's Compass was bright and beautiful in the light of noon, and they'd hardly taken ten steps onto the white sands before the screeching sounds of a fight reached their ears. A folk man and a dwarf woman were beset by xaurips, and with the intervention of the newly arrived travelers, it was more like a rout than a battle. The two kith thanked them and hurried off at once, and they didn't see anyone else until they reached the tip of the peninsula jutting out into the sparkling blue water.
Edér could tell that Kit was chafing at Ranga's request to get rid of the nearby xaurips, but she agreed and spared a smile for the little xaurip who hovered near Ranga's legs and led them to the northeast, where they made similarly short work of the xaurip camp there. Kit neutralized the xaurip priest and turned him on his fellows until his fellows were dead, and Edér tried to figure out how he felt about that, as he finished the priest off.
He liked Kit, and he could see her good heart underneath her preoccupation with her troubles, but something about that kind of mind control -- and the ease with which Kit used it -- was just unsettling.
When they returned to the camp on the peninsula, Ranga asked them to fetch some spores for the mixture, and Kit visibly held her tongue.
"Careful with those sporelings," Ranga said. "They have a way with the mind."
"Yeah, well," Kit said with that dragon smile of hers, "so do I."
In the cave, the sporelings were as easily dealt with as the xaurips, and Edér prodded one of the creatures with his foot as Kit and Aloth extracted the spores that Ranga needed, plus a few extra. "Anyone else feel like we've been having a real easy time of it?" Edér asked. It wasn't like he didn't appreciate it, but the ambush from yesterday had put him on edge. It wasn't the worst fight he'd ever been in, but now he was expecting things to go a little sideways, just on principle.
He turned his attention to the withered remains of a makeshift camp and a few bodies, and a chill shot down his spine.
The cave curved and ran a little further in, and its furthest recesses were wreathed in shadow that light from the cave's opening couldn't quite pierce. Edér's head whipped in that direction, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword. Something moved, a rippling of shadows, and as it lurched forward, Edér caught a glimpse of the same dank coloring of the sporelings.
Only this thing wasn't small.
In a blinding instant, his head ached something fierce. The ache passed as quickly as it had come, but what replaced it was a fog, a glassy numbness that left him feeling small and far away from everything around him, left him floundering in a sinking cold that pulled at his awareness like the earth itself was swallowing him. He tried to move, to stumble back, only to find that he couldn't. At least, not in the way he intended.
Edér watched himself rotate, watched his arm lift with sword in hand, as if his awareness stood at one end of a dark tunnel and his body stood at the other. Aloth was close in his sights, Kit a little past him, and a dim panic rushed through Edér. But it was as if he was sinking further into himself with every second, the tunnel growing longer and longer, and though he pulled with all of his might, trying to stay his sword hand and wrest himself back, control slipped through his fingers like sand.
Aloth was turning, his mouth moving, and only half of the words were audible to Edér's fuzzy mind. Some tiny corner of Edér's thoughts, a sliver not overloaded with panic or numbness, was dedicated to wondering if he'd inhaled a little too much spore, because he could have sworn that Aloth's spell chanting was preceded by some of the most crude swearing that Edér had ever heard.
Kit was nowhere to be seen beyond Aloth, and before Edér could process that, a wave of something hit him. It flooded through the tunnel, bright and warm, and it yanked him back, lifting him above the yawning, devouring earth. His awareness and his body circled each other, nearly touching now, and he was conscious of the cave again, of the massive creature swaying in the shadows nearby, like he was seeing it all through a haze instead of a tunnel.
The warm thing burned brighter than the sun at its zenith, and distantly, Edér felt its heat brush against his thoughts, swirling with sensations and impressions not his own. It held back, however, and all he caught were misty glimpses of things his eyes had never seen -- here a wisp of kith-shaped purple, there a towering stretch of alien mountain peaks. Only one thing burned clear, words that took precedent over it all: stay still.
He obeyed. Kit was in his sights again, standing in front of him wreathed in purple light and half-obscuring the giant spore. It loomed over her, but she swept an arm up, and her fingers slid over each other in a snap. The spore burst into flames, and Edér was aware, from a well of knowledge that was not his own, that its very soul was alight and feeding the fire. Then sizzling balls of energy struck it in quick succession, launched somewhere from Edér's right, the same hue as the lance that had hit Aloth yesterday.
Under the onslaught and consumed with its own burning soul, the spore withered spectacularly fast, and as it did, the flames choked out and Edér's head cleared fully.
Unfortunately, his senses were unceremoniously slammed back into his body, and he had to swallow hard at the stench of burnt spore. He took a second to make sure that his balance was not going to spontaneously collapse beneath him, and in that second, Kit spun around, her eyes wide. She was no longer drenched in the purple light of a few moments ago, and the glow of her pendant, starkly visible in the gloom of the cave, was fading.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That's the fastest way to break through domination. I would never--"
"Effigy's eyes, Watcher," Edér said breathlessly, and Kit fell silent. "Don't apologize for that."
Kit stared at him, and then her face broke into a shaky, relieved smiled, as Aloth stepped into Edér's peripheral vision. Edér turned, ready to apologize himself, because his sword had been about an arm's breadth from running Aloth through, but Aloth shook his head before Edér could get a word in.
"Happens to the best of us," Aloth said. "But it's amusing that you think you could have landed it."
Edér stuck the tip of his sword into the ground instead, leaning some of his weight into it. His stomach was still turning uncomfortably, though maybe that was more of a side effect of the mind control than the reeking spore corpse. Even the memory of his hands moving under something else's direction left him wanting to shudder. He guessed there were some things that Kit's senses couldn't pick up on. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Hmm," Aloth said, an impressive amount of airs and graces contained within a single noncommittal syllable.
He turned to Kit and started fussing over her, because she was looking woozy again, and Edér took a few seconds to breathe, flexing his fingers and stretching his legs as he did. When it all responded like it should, he nodded to himself, then joined forces with Aloth. Together they bullied Kit into taking a breather while they finished up in the cave, and when they emerged into sunlight again, Edér was almost surprised to find that the sun had barely budged in its path across the sky.
"Listen," he said, as they made their way back to Ranga's camp, "don't worry about... whatever you did, seriously." On Kit's other side, Aloth pretended that he wasn't listening intently. "Like Aloth said... good to know that sort of thing's in my corner."
Kit was inscrutable, holding herself carefully for reasons that seemed as much from physical discomfort as anything. She looked ahead at the long stretch of white sand broken by sloping rock, where their footsteps from the walk to the cave had not yet faded away. As they traced the path back, Kit seemed to be considering her words carefully.
"I grew up around people who were... self-serving and callous with their abilities," she said at last, her jaw tightening. "And I did things I regret. But I don't want to be like that. Cross me and mine, and I won't hold back, but beyond that..." She struggled to find the words and finally just sighed. "I guess I do worry about it."
"That's very admirable," Aloth said quietly. "All too often people choose to be irresponsible with the power they hold."
Something dark resided in Kit's expression. "And now I have... an entirely new dimension to it with this Watcher shit," she said, and she glanced between Edér and Aloth with a hesitancy that didn't suit her. "I have to figure that out. But while we're traveling together, I wouldn't mind a reminder if I cross any lines."
Edér let out a slow breath. "Alright," he said. It was quite a thing to ask of someone else, and not what he would have expected from her two days in. Kit was full of surprises, it seemed, and something in him itched to live up to it, even if it felt a bit beyond his ken. Maybe that something was just deep in the hole where his god or his brother should be, but he'd be damned if he didn't take the request to heart. "I can try."
Aloth was looking at Kit oddly, and when she glanced at him, his eyes flicked away at once. But he nodded his assent.
After that, Kit picked up the pace and hurried them back to Ranga's camp. She was dead set on getting the medicine for Aufra, an errand that had already delayed them by two days, and all things considered, Edér figured that Kit probably didn't have as much to worry about as she believed she did.
They didn't stay at Ranga's camp. They headed out as soon as they had the medicine, and Kit set a pace that was as hard as the lines of her face. If they kept it up, they'd be back in Gilded Value -- and then leaving Gilded Vale -- by tomorrow, and Edér didn't mind that.
But he had to admit, he worried about the cloud that had enveloped their de facto leader again. She seemed steadier on her feet after more of that concoction she kept at her side, but the circles under her eyes were more pronounced, and she walked like if she moved fast enough and deliberately enough, the thing making her scowl like so would not be able to catch up.
But Edér didn't bring it up until they stopped for a break a few hours out of Anslög's Compass. Late afternoon was cool today, holding on to more of winter's lingering chill, near enough to make him shiver as they took refuge in the shadow of large boulders that stood in a semicircle, a few heads taller than them. Orange light lazed in flaring patterns through the trees nearby, and somewhere close was the melodic trickling of a stream at which they'd refilled waterskins on the way here.
It was about time to do so again, and maybe take a dip and get the sand out of his hair while he was at it, but instead, Edér shrugged his pack off, folded his arms, and leaned back against one of the boulders, watching the Watcher.
Nearby, Aloth grimaced as he stretched out a leg and tried not to look obvious about it. "Perhaps we could slow down and enjoy the sights after this."
Kit was crouched and digging around in her pack. She didn't look up. "We've already seen them."
"Yes," Aloth said, "but a second look can't hurt."
Something imperceptible shifted in Kit's face, and all of a sudden, some of the steely unhappiness there was quelled. She paused in her rummaging and looked up at Aloth. "You're right," she said. "Best to keep an eye out, anyway."
Aloth nodded thankfully, and Edér didn't miss the way that Kit's eyes followed him even when he turned his attention away and set his pack down near Edér's, searching for his waterskin.
Kit looked troubled, and her eyes soon flicked over to Edér. He had to hand it to her: when she saw that he was watching her, she didn't flinch or look away. She stared back, silent challenge in the look, and Edér figured it wasn't a stare down that he was likely to win. So he asked the question that had been on his mind ever since Kit's face had fallen back on the peninsula: "Did you really think medicine was gonna prevent something like being Hollowborn?"
Because it was clear to him that Kit wasn't naive, that she had no rosy view of the world. If anyone was going to understand and fix the problem of the Hollowborn, it wouldn't be a village healer.
Kit's eyes flashed at the question, and Aloth stiffened. For a moment, Kit looked ready to snap in retaliation, and then all of it fled her in an instant. She drooped and sighed instead, looking away. "I don't know what I was thinking," she muttered.
Edér and Aloth shared a glance, and Aloth set his waterskin aside and hesitantly stepped forward. "It must have been an important favor," he ventured. His hands were clasped together, as if he wasn't quite sure what else to do with them.
Kit glared at the ground a moment longer, and then she pushed herself up from her crouch. Her hand fell to the quiver dangling from her belt, fingers absently counting the arrows there. "I wasn't the only survivor of the caravan," she said, and the same troubled look from before returned. "A guide and a merchant, they made it too. I made sure they made it. We got through the ruins, and then... whatever happened at that machine, it killed them." Her lips curled back, a facsimile of a smile, fierce and unhappy. "They died and I didn't because... they weren't Watchers? Because something was different about me?" She scoffed.
Edér had seen his fair share of the war-torn guilt that dogged soldiers. Had maybe felt it himself, more than he cared to admit. He listened with something hollow in his stomach, and Aloth's eyes were wide.
"Aufra's sister was working as a guide for the caravan," Kit said, swallowing. "She wanted to make sure Aufra was alright. So now that's my job, and I..." she drew her fingers up through the fletching of one of her arrows, then dropped her hand, "can't."
Maybe only something divine could fix the problem of the Hollowborn. No one knew the cause, though the story that Edér heard most often pinned the blame on the Saint's War -- on the so-called and shining avatar of Eothas, or on the Godhammer that had blown him to bits. But maybe those who knew and touched the soul -- animancers, Watchers -- stood a chance at fixing it after all, unpopular opinion though it was around these parts.
Edér had only ever met one Watcher so far, but she definitely had a penchant for taking on other people's problems.
He didn't know where the thought had come from, why it had arrived so crisp and certain. Maybe he was just looking for something to fill in his hollowed-out faith. But he wasn't going to put that on Kit when she looked so down, and so all Edér said was, "That's not your job." She blinked at him, startled, and he kept going before she could speak. "It's nice that you want to protect Aufra and her kid, and keep Aloth here from getting jumped, and me from getting strung up, but it ain't on you. What, are you gonna save the sorry hide of every single person in the Dyrwood?"
Kit regarded him with something a little like wonder as he spoke, and then she looked him dead in the eye. "I might," she threatened, and Edér smiled. He was almost surprised at how effortlessly it came to his face. Almost.
"In that case," Aloth said, "I think both of us," he glanced at Edér, and Edér nodded, "are happy to provide backup."
Edér was getting the impression that Kit didn't know what to do with support. She nodded, but her eyes flicked elsewhere, and she took a step back, as if to physically distance herself from the offer. "Thanks," she said, after a moment of what looked like wrestling with herself. She pulled the hunting bow off of her back, scooped up her pack with her free hand, and crossed the distance between them to hand it to Edér. It was a pretty big gesture of trust -- she kept that thing close like it was her kid, which Edér supposed was normal for someone who spent more time on the road than not.
"We can stop here for the night," Kit said, as Edér turned and set her pack down between his and Aloth's. "It's late enough. Fresh start in the morning, Gilded Vale by evening. I'll get us something to eat." She tapped a finger against her bow, and Aloth brightened at the idea of hot food, as Kit added, "Think you can get a camp set up before I get back?"
"Sure we can," Edér said. "But I'm only pitching in if I get a real first watch this time."
Kit was already turning to go. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder, leveling a deadpan look at him. "Build the fire as close to the rocks as you can," she said. "That'll give it some cover."
Edér figured that it was as close to an agreement as he was going to get. Hopefully she'd get some sleep before she keeled over on them, at least. "Yes, ma'am," he said amiably, offering a little salute.
With a shake of her head, Kit headed into the trees, a shadow of padded armor and braided hair that disappeared into the dreamy haze of early evening fast approaching.
Aloth looked pensive. His fingers had unwound, and one of his hands was tugging at the crinkle in his armor that marked the repair job. "She's certainly interesting."
She wasn't the only one, Edér thought. Aloth was definitely not as forthcoming and mild as he presented himself to be, but Edér hadn't changed his mind -- if Kit, with all of her otherworldly senses, didn't find anything worth mentioning about it, then Edér would leave it be. "Good thing, too," he said. "Road might get humdrum, otherwise."
Aloth tossed him a sideways glance, and there was a smile in his voice, if not on his face. "Looking forward to encountering more giant spores?"
"Eh," Edér said, "I prefer getting waylaid, myself."
They split up to gather kindling, though they didn't stray too far from the rocks or each other, mindful of the countryside's inherent dangers. It didn't take long to pick through forest debris, and the sun had yet to touch the horizon by the time a low fire burned, tended to by Edér while Aloth restocked their water supply, while they waited for Kit to return with whatever game she managed to bag.
There was a familiarity of routine already sinking in and a strange sort of comfort in the motions, in the soft orange light moving slowly through the trees and across the grass, chased by shadow. In the easy silence, broken by wind stirring leaves, by Edér playfully lobbing jokes in Aloth's direction and Aloth deflecting them with increasing finesse.
It was something, Edér thought, that was all too easy to get used to, and that was just fine by him, because it would no doubt be one night on the road out of many.