Chương 13: Chapter 10 - Burn Brighter 1/2

As the sun set and the shadows stretched long across the hills, Karina followed Alyssia through a winding path between the evergreen trees. While before they had been on the edge of the two biomes, now the deciduous trees were all gone, and there were few that stood more than thirty feet tall. Volrick moved ahead of them through the trees, appeared on a ridge, then lingered there until they'd passed below him. Sometimes Karina could follow his progress by the crunch of his footsteps.

Other times she looked back and found him much closer than she'd expected. At first, Alyssia stopped whenever he fell behind. They would wait between the trees while she watched the hillside, and Karina would try to work out which sounds were worth listening to. Wind moved through the needles. Something small disturbed the grass further down the slope. Her own breathing and heartbeat became the only sound. Then Volrick would reappear, Alyssia would question him, he'd give a curt answer, and they would keep walking.

After a while, she stopped asking. Later, she stopped stopping, only glancing back to check that he was coming. By then, it had started to feel more like a hike than anything else. The openings between trees and grass patches narrowed as they climbed. Roots ran through the sand beneath them, some stable and others giving way as soon as Karina trusted them. After the second slip, she started putting her feet where Alyssia put hers. The light faded from the gaps between the trees.

The last orange strip along the western hills disappeared, and moonlight caught the exposed roots while leaving the spaces between them dark. Sand got into both of Karina's shoes after one haphazard step. Alyssia had insisted that everyone wait for her to shake it out before they continued. The entire time, Karina kept looking up at the sky, where a million stars looked down on them, stretched across the sky in arms of light. During her midnight walk, she'd known that it wasn't her sky.

Now, far from the Cathedral's light, she could see how crowded it was. She couldn't remember a single constellation from home, but she was certain there hadn't been this many stars. She'd come from a world so bright it hid the stars. She could remember that much. For a moment, she tried to force a recall of that light. She knew there had been streets, and windows. She'd been somewhere before where she could have looked up and seen a familiar sky. Knowing it was true didn't tell her where it had been.

"Roots," Alyssia said as Karina's foot approached one.

"Thanks," she said, stepping over it.

"You should keep your eyes on the ground," Alyssia said.

"We don't need to go much further, but we should…" She trailed off as Karina's gaze returned to the sky. Volrick, higher on the hill and silhouetted against some of those same stars, slowed.

"Thinking of home?" Alyssia asked. Karina nodded.

"I know," she said.

"I can't imagine sleeping under an unfamiliar sky." She allowed her pack to fall lower on her shoulder as she spoke and matched Karina's gaze at the stars.

"I've only ever known the one."

"I don't know what the other one was," Karina said, "but I know it was different."

"Other heroes have said it's bright." Karina nodded.

"You know, I like that. It's nice to live in a world with a bright sky. Means there's always a little light around." Alyssia turned her attention back to Volrick and corrected her bag on her shoulder.

"We should keep moving," Karina said. Alyssia nodded and motioned for Volrick to move on. Further up the hill, the roots had been scoured bare on one side, with drifts of needles caught against the other. Alyssia dropped back to Karina when they reached the top of a hill, waving for Volrick to come over before speaking to Karina.

"You okay?" Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Fine. Still fine," she said. The repeated 'are you okay?' had been a constant refrain on the walk. Karina would say she was, and then Alyssia's gaze would linger on the charred skin that was only now receding below her glasses.

"Good. Good," she said before turning to Volrick.

"Anywhere to make camp lower on the hill?"

"About fifty feet down the other side there's some small trees and a boulder for cover," he said.

"Plus, if those demons were following the path, we put some distance down now."

"Yeah," Alyssia said as she looked down the hill, staring past anything Volrick could have been mentioning and into the void beyond it.

"But why would they be following the path?"

"Wouldn't they know we were there?" Karina asked.

"Seems like the best place to look for people?" Alyssia turned back, the moonlight shining through her bangs and onto her pale face.

"The church patrols the paths," she said.

"Demons usually steer clear."

"Yeah, two Volatu near blessed ground doesn't track," Volrick said, "but it is what it is."

"Path isn't even safe," Alyssia pointed out.

"We shouldn't risk going to Whiteshackle."

"If the paths aren't safe, should we risk trying to follow them back to the protected lands?" Karina asked. Alyssia opened her mouth to speak, but then didn't say anything, instead looking back down the hill.

"I don't know," Volrick cut in.

"Let's make camp for the night in the spot. I'll make a quicker barrier. Might be a little cold, but it'll ward off demons."

"Cold's fine. We have a fire mage," Volrick said before leading the way down. They were surrounded by hills here, all covered in dark bands of trees and wide mounds of grass between the open stretches of grass. There wasn't a light to be seen. No matter how much shelter they had, a fire was going to stand out. But that was what the barrier was for, wasn't it? Just when Karina was about to follow Volrick down, Alyssia put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"You're okay. Right?" Alyssia's eyes went to the edge of the burns beneath her glasses again.

"Yeah," Karina said.

"I'm fine. It just looks weird, I know." Alyssia's hand stayed on her shoulder. Below them, Volrick's footsteps faded into the trees.

"Sorry I wasn't closer," Alyssia said.

"In the fight?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. I—It was just one Volatu. I should have been there beside you but—I haven't fought in a while and…" She closed her eyes and took a deep but quick breath.

"I'll do better. Sorry for the trouble, Hero. You shouldn't have had to handle the other alone."

"You were fighting yours."

"For too long."

"I wouldn't know. I was a little busy." That almost got a smile. Alyssia's hand slipped from Karina's shoulder as she sighed and looked out over the horizon, across the dark waves of trees they still needed to cross.

"You'd just learned to use your fire," she said.

"I knew that."

"Good thing we went to the training grounds."

"I shouldn't have left you."

"You didn't leave." Karina glanced down the hill. Volrick was somewhere hidden in the trees, but she could still hear his footsteps when he stepped over the occasional root.

"I—""You were both there." Alyssia looked like she wanted to argue, and frankly, if she had, Karina would have lost. She didn't know what else there was to offer as reassurance. She didn't even know what a well-executed fight looked like. But it certainly didn't involve her being under a demon.

"We won," Karina said.

"And hey, maybe they sent me out with someone who was rusty and a criminal because they wanted me to fail."

"What?!"

"They sent me away from the barrier and…" Karina said.

"Never mind. Dumb joke." It hadn't entirely been a joke. But Alyssia had fought beside her, and she looked shaken enough without being asked to answer for Dashun.

"Oh."

"The rusty part was a joke too."

"I said I was rusty," she said.

"Then that part was your fault." Karina nodded down the hill in a silent 'Shall we?'

"Okay," Alyssia said as she reached up and dusted off Karina's shoulder.

"I'll get to work on the barrier. You get a fire started." Karina looked down at her hands, at the long cracks across her knuckles. She'd barely gotten the upper half of her face free of the Kindled Form effect. If that showed how much mana she'd recovered, she might not even have enough to light the campfire. How would she handle another fight without her fire? The Church hadn't even seen fit to give her a weapon before sending her out into the wilds.

"Ready?" Alyssia asked. Karina nodded and followed her down. Volrick was waiting beside the boulder. He watched Alyssia pass to begin setting up the barrier, then looked back up the slope to Karina.

"What do we do if there's another one?" Karina asked.

"Another demon?"

"Before my mana comes back." Volrick studied her for a moment, scanning for a patch of uncharrged skin that wasn't there.

"How much you got?"

"Almost nothing. I think."

"You think?"

"I've been doing this for a day."

"Fair." He glanced towards Alyssia, who had lowered her pack beside the rock.

"Tell her."

"She's already worried."

"She's deciding where we sleep. She needs to know." Karina looked down at her hands again. She'd spent the walk insisting she was fine. Apparently there were different kinds of fine, and she'd been answering the wrong question.

"And if something comes before we're ready?" she asked.

"Keep something between you and it. A tree. That rock. Ideally, one of us."

"I'm supposed to hide?"

"If you've got something better to do, do that." She didn't. That was what bothered her. Volrick nudged a fallen branch with his boot, rolling it out of the narrow space beside the boulder.

"Just leave yourself somewhere to go. Don't wedge yourself into a corner because it feels safer. Places to run. Always have places to run." Karina nodded.

"Hey, Alyssia. Fire Hero can't light the fire yet." The priestess looked up.

"Mana," Karina offered.

"Then we'll wait." Karina lowered herself beside the boulder, leaving the gap clear, and then placed her bag in front of her, between herself and the fire instead of behind. Somewhere to run. Always somewhere to run. Once she was settled, Karina snapped her fingers. No fire answered the call, but for a moment, it felt like something was pulling on the space just behind her eyes. At least she knew what being out of mana felt like. Now she needed time to get her fire back, and camp was the safest way to buy it.