Chương 58: Chapter 51 — The Boys Walk to Thornwall

⟨ [NOTIFICATION] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── XP: 4, 850 / 10, 000 Grace hugged each of the boys one by one, hard enough to leave a mark, the morning air still cool and smelling of dew on cut grass and the faint woodsmoke drifting up from the kitchen chimney behind her.

"Be good," she said, to Thomas first, gripping his shoulders and looking at him the way she'd looked at him across the kitchen table for the better part of two days, as though checking he was still solid.

"Eat properly. Let your brother fuss over you, he's earned it."

"Yes, Mum." She moved to Will next, held him a beat longer than she had the others, and said nothing at all, which from Grace was its own kind of statement. Will hugged her back without his usual reserve, his face pressed briefly into her shoulder the way it hadn't been since he was much younger.

"And you," she said to Fenwick last, smoothing down the front of his cloak in a gesture that was half affection and half a mother unable to stop herself fixing something. Her hands lingered on the fabric, picking at a loose thread near the collar that had probably been there for months and that she'd only just noticed.

"Write to me. Properly this time. Don't let three years pass again."

"I won't." She looked at Max, and something in her face softened in a way it hadn't all week.

"Take care of my boys."

"Yes," said Max. They started down the lane, gravel crunching under their feet as they headed to the stable. The morning birds started up their racket in the hedgerow. Fenwick looked back once. He wasn't sure how long it would be before he saw the place again, and what he saw was Edie standing near the young guinea pig from the fire, the two of them a little apart from Grace, their paws linked loosely together in a way that looked entirely unconscious and entirely deliberate at the same time.

He didn't say anything about it. But he was just a bit frustrated that he didn't notice it sooner. This was prime material for embarrassing teasing that he was going to miss out on. Two chickens waited in the yard, saddled and patient, the farm's two best for distance work — sturdy, broad-backed birds bred more for endurance than speed, with a calm temperament that came from years of children climbing all over them. Fenwick mounted one. Will took the other.

Thomas, after one look at the distance ahead and an honest assessment of his own legs, climbed into the harness on Max's shoulder without much protest. A week wandering the cave system with only wine for sustenance had melted a lot of the reserves from his body. He was still young and healthy, but the last few days had weakened him enough that a multi-day walk was beyond even Thomas's stubbornness.

"This is humiliating," said Thomas, settling in.

"You're being carried around like a sack of grain," said Will.

"At least my chicken doesn't have an opinion about it."

"Chickens are faster than people think," said Fenwick.

"They are not." They were slightly, and by midmorning, Will had proven it by pulling well ahead on a straight stretch of road, laughing, with Thomas shouting half-hearted insults from Max's shoulder about unfair advantages and unsporting behavior. Fenwick let his own chicken find its own pace.

He watched his brothers be brothers for the first time in longer than he wanted to think about — Will needling, Thomas needling back weaker than usual but with the same old rhythm, the two of them slipping into something that looked almost normal. Max watched all of it with his usual patient attention, occasionally glancing up at Thomas riding his shoulder as if recalibrating to the new weight.

By the time they camped that evening, the brothers had raced three more times, Thomas had lost all three from the harness handicap, and the mood around the fire was lighter than it had any right to be, given the week behind them. Grace had packed a sack of food before they left, refusing to let any of them leave her kitchen without it.

They went through it now in the firelight — jars of preserves, a loaf gone slightly stale but still good toasted on a stick over the flames, dried apple rings that Thomas ate four of before anyone could stop him, and a jar of the same cabbage soup base she'd been feeding him yesterday, thickened down so it would travel.

"She put in two eggs," said Will, lifting them carefully out of a nest of straw at the bottom of the sack.

"Just two. Wrapped separately from everything else."

"For Max," said Fenwick, understanding immediately. Will handed them over without comment, and Max accepted them quietly, knowing that a mom like Grace had understood much more about his nature than she let on. He gave them to Fenwick, who began cracking them carefully into the small travel pan he always carried. The smell of the eggs cooking drifted up into the cold evening air, simple and warm, and Thomas watched with open curiosity.

"Does he eat actual food too, or just the jerky and whatever he—" Thomas stopped himself, glancing at Fenwick.

"Both," said Fenwick.

"Mother remembered. She always remembers things like that."

"She does," said Will, quietly, around a mouthful of toasted bread. The fire crackled and settled, throwing warm light up against the gathering dark, and for a while, nobody said anything; the four of them ate together in silence that came after a long day. Will was quiet for a while after supper, looking at Sindy's display.

"Max," he said eventually.

"Have you figured out how to make the sword burn on purpose yet?"

"What?" said Fenwick. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Will looked up, surprised at the reaction.

"The fire thing. With the sword. I thought—" He stopped, looking between the three of them.

"You didn't know about that?" It only happened once with the bunny hill giant. Sindy's screen lit, angled toward Fenwick, the text uncharacteristically uncertain. If it's part of the system, I don't have access to it yet.

"Interesting," said Will.

"Are you a sentient program?" I am. My name is Sindy.

"Nice to meet you, Sindy," said Will. Fenwick, remembering the battle and how the fire sword had changed the tide of the battle, quickly said.

"Show me," Will got up and crossed to where Max sat, peering at the air just above his shoulder with the same easy focus he'd shown at breakfast three mornings ago.

"There's a list. Combat Arts, HEMA, and then three things marked hidden underneath." He squinted slightly.

"The first one looks locked. But I don't think it should be."

"Don't think what should be," said Fenwick.

"Locked," said Will, like it was obvious. He reached out and tapped the air twice, quick, the gesture of someone closing out a notification on a device that existed only for him. Max made a small sound.

"What's wrong with him?" said Thomas, looking between Max's face and the empty air everyone else seemed to be staring at. Sindy's screen flickered, then steadied, and the text on it changed — Fenwick saw it shift from the familiar??? to something new. ⟨ [SYSTEM LOG] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── Fire Weapon: HIDDEN"There," said Will, satisfied, sitting back down as he'd just untangled a knot in a fishing line.

"That should do it. Try it now." Max looked at the sword across his back, then at his own hand, then at Will. He drew the blade. For a moment, nothing happened, and Fenwick had time to wonder whether Will's certainty had outpaced his actual understanding of what he was doing. Then the edge of the blade caught — not the orange flicker of a torch but something cleaner, a thin blue-white line running the length of the steel, controlled and contained in a way fire had no business being. Max stared at it.

"Max did that," he said. Not a question. Wonder, in the flattest possible delivery, which was somehow more convincing than if he'd shouted it.

"You did that," Fenwick agreed, his own voice not entirely steady. Max turned the blade slowly, watching the fire move with it, controlled, responsive, going out the instant he willed it to and returning the instant after. He tried it twice more, each time with careful concentration. He moved into several guard positions, testing the sword's balance for any changes.

"How did you do that?" said Fenwick, looking at Will.

"I don't know," said Will, honestly.

"It just looked wrong. Like someone had locked a door that was supposed to be open." He shrugged, the same small shrug Thomas used, an old family gesture neither of them had probably noticed they shared.

"There's still a second thing under it. That one's still locked. I didn't touch that one."

"Should you?"

"I don't know," said Will again.

"Felt different. Like it wasn't ready." Nobody pushed him on it. Fenwick wrote it down anyway — the screen, the tap, the rename, the second hidden layer still sealed beneath the first — because whatever this was, it was the kind of thing Nibbles would need to know about, and possibly the kind of thing nobody in the Order had ever encountered before. Max sheathed the sword, fire winking out along the blade as it slid home.

"Thank you," he said to Will. Will looked faintly embarrassed by the directness of it.

"Sure." They reached Thornwall on the evening of the third day, Fenwick purposely not pushing Max or Thomas like he had before, keeping the hunger bar steady and his brother's health growing. The second night, Sindy and Will had talked for a while, and she had displayed one of her stories. Metaphysic: Ascension of a Broken System by Alice_Rae. The story of a kid who got a VR headset and adventured in a magical kingdom. Will had a lot of questions about VR and such, but Sindy took the time to answer them all.

When they arrived that evening, the city gates lit against the coming dark, lanterns swaying on their posts and throwing long yellow light across the road. The familiar noise of the city rose around them as they came through the eastern gate — cart wheels on cobblestone, someone's shop shutter being pulled closed for the night, the distant sound of the evening bell from the Guild tower.

The air smelled of woodsmoke and the river and the particular mix of a thousand different cooking fires that meant home if you'd lived here long enough. Fenwick had not expected to feel relief at the sight of his own posting, but there it was, solid and unglamorous and exactly where he'd left it. The three days had been something else, too, underneath the mission and the wound and the weight of everything.

The brothers had bickered and laughed and talked over each other and gone quiet at the same moments without planning to, and Max had watched it all. Fenwick had caught him smiling once, just briefly, at something Thomas said that wasn't even that funny. Something he didn't have a word for yet, but recognized as good. ⟨ [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ⟩ ──────────────────────────── [Sindy — Private Log — Day 82] Will unlocked something on the trip. He didn't know how he was doing it. Fire Weapon: HIDDEN.

There's a second layer under it. Still locked. Will said it felt like it wasn't ready. Max can light his own sword on fire now on purpose. He looked at it like he'd been handed something he didn't know he was missing. ▌ Becca, if you're reading this: ▌ Max smiled at something Thomas said on the road today. ▌ It wasn't even that funny. ▌ He's been around people before. But I don't think he's been around family.