Chương 6: Fortune

—Edico Sullsburg— Edico found Sara's limp body lying beside a silvermoon bloom, suffering from severe mana deprivation. Her body was motionless, but sweat poured off her skin like morning dew. In her hand: a jar containing one of the silvermoon blooms.

"Sara!" he said, shaking her.

"What the hell were you doing?" He pulled out a mana recovery tonic and poured it into her lips.

"Why did you…" He stared at the ring on her ring finger. He slid it off her limp hand and stared at the bottom of it. There, right underneath the stone, was a six-layer spatial array. He hadn't seen it before, but his mind suddenly triggered a vivid memory. You can't just give out a teleportation array to anyone who asks for it! Edico snapped. Do you know how many criminals would fight to have this? Criminals? Sara laughed.

She was older, harder, stronger, wearing a bushy kora wolf cloak over her shoulders as she drew the array. Do you know how much mana this thing takes to activate? If someone has the resources to use this array, they have the resources to buy a spatial ring. She gave him a sarcastic look. Edico. I hear how stupid it is to have free magical education three times a day. I don't need to hear it from you. Now sit down. We'll need another fifty of these blink points before we reach the bramble.

Edico returned to the present and saw the same woman from his memories. She was at least ten years younger, but it was the same woman. He stared at her in bewilderment, unsure what to do.

"I'm not sure why you need this, but…" Edico lifted the jar she made, ensured it was sealed, and then opened her spatial ring, braving what was on the other side as he slid the jar into it.

"Gods," he thought when he pulled out a large piece of parchment and an inkwell.

"It's true." Edico put everything back and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms. Then he stared at the silvermoon bloom to his left, still glowing, erect in the moonlight.

"She did come through." He carefully snipped the plant, put it into a more elaborate container that the kingdom's top arraymaster, Quelhim Torine, had provided, and stored it in his spatial ring. Once he finished, he sat beside Sara, staring up into the thick forest canopies, as if he wanted his eyes to climb the branches to reach the moon.

"What the hell am I doing?" he wondered aloud. Edico Sullsburg had sworn his allegiance to King Trinov Escar, but after only one memory, he felt his connection to the man waver. No, it didn't waver. The memory he just had shook it so violently it threatened to collapse his relationship with the king. 2 —Sara Reece— Sara woke in a panic. She looked around and found herself wrapped in a sleeping bag near the fire. She tried to get up, but her entire body felt like it was ripping at the seams.

"Don't move," Edico said, whittling a statue from a chunk of wood.

"That acceleration spell ripped your muscles to shreds." Sara could tell by his tone that he remembered something. She tried to lift her arm to check her ring.

"Looking for this?" he asked, lifting the ring from a knob on the log he was sitting on.

"Don't worry. It's safe."

"Great. So… is this an interrogation? Or is this punishment?"

"Not healing you completely? Both." He stopped whittling and placed the figure he was carving onto the rock beside her. It was an image of her in her kora wolf coat. The flames danced over the stern face he had carved into the wood.

"How long have I been out?" Sara asked.

"It takes you at least three days to carve something like that."

"So you know how long it takes me to carve things." He leaned his forearms against his knees.

"What are you? A reincarnation? Someone from the future?"

"Someone from the past," Sara emphasized.

"Everything that's happened's happened. In fact, I'm not even from the past. This is its own world. I couldn't change it if I tried." Edico ran his tongue across his teeth in confusion.

"So… you're not here to… save us from Agronus?"

"Hell no. I killed Agronus. That's how I ended up here." She scoffed.

"Mana blasted out of his body and triggered some time reversal spell. That's what happened."

"It's strange you're confessing all of this."

"You were my friend once. Now, it's just pouring out." She turned and stared into the fire.

"Here, while we're at it, let's get one thing straight: Agronus isn't the problem here. I can kill him if I reobtain my power. The real problem is Jason. Just like you remembered shit from your past life, so has he. And the last thing that prick needs is a second chance." Edico laughed, eyes drifting.

"Son of a bitch. So that's why I got a bad feeling about him."

"Yeah, he's a fucking tyrant. And if he regains his power with his current maturity, this world's fucked." She took a deep breath and exhaled, collapsing onto her back.

"Can you heal me now? I'm getting a drink even if it destroys my body." He uncorked a low-grade health elixir and fed it to her. Once it finished healing her, she laughed bitterly as she sat up with a groan. She was nowhere near healed.

"So, I'm what? A danger to myself?"

"You are a danger to yourself. I don't know who this was"—he lifted the carving and put it down—"but it's not you. Not anymore." She rolled her eyes.

"I'll heal you more if you tell me what that spell you used was. The divination spell."

"The world's greatest irony," she replied, and left it at that. She then pulled out the third bottle of brandy she stored to make it to Moraline.

"Why Moraline?"

"Seems you don't remember a lot. And I'd like to keep it that way."

"Why?""'Cause you sycounts are honorbound to your monarchs. And if I have anything to say about it, Trinov's gonna have a very, very long life." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"So you are trying to change the world?" Sara popped the cork on the bottle, paused, and considered her position.

"You know… The last time Jason was king, he chased me all the way to the Miralands. Full bounty. That's the type of person he is. You've seen it, right? His obsession with me?" He nodded.

"Yeah."

"Yeah. So, as long as he's in power, my life's pretty fucking forefit." She swigged from the bottle and shivered and exhaled.

"Or so I tell myself. In truth, I'm probably addicted to power just like the rest of 'em. Been talking about retiring so long I didn't know what I was actually gonna do when I plunged a sword into that demon's fuckin' heart. There's always an excuse to keep fighting. Always." Edico grabbed his figurine and replaced it with the ring.

"Get some rest. It's a long road to Moraline." Sara nodded.

"Don't need to tell me twice." She swigged the bottle twice, checked the ring for the moonbloom, and then settled back down, wondering how she was gonna interact with Edico from now on. Honor bound was honor bound. If Trinov demanded answers about her or Kyritus, he was honor bound to answer. That was what made Edico so damn trustworthy. It was also what made him so damn inconvenient. Thoughts carved out, Sara fell asleep. 3 Moraline wasn't Sara's true objective.

It was Helscope, whose location was the greatest fuckin' irony in existence. That's what Sara considered as she braved hellish winds over a rocky bluff. Helscope was a ten-day ride from Amia, the Escaran capital stronghold, but since it was a five-day ride to Moonlit Grove, it'd be a five-day trip back, a ten-day trip there, and a ten-day trip back. So, even if she were to have gone there directly, she wouldn't make it in time.

Since they were going to Moraline as a diversion, they had to take the long way, and the long way sucked. The two had to book it over the steepest, harshest, most geographically ruthless stretches of land and reach the Heline merchant road back through Moraline and Helscope. Sara dreaded it. One never developed calluses with healing magic, so she had to brave out the chafing on her lonesome, and regret not bringing healing elixirs of her own to stave off her leg's constant ache.

"So?" Edico asked as Moraline came into distance.

"We're here. What now?"

"I find a man who tells fortunes," Sara said enigmatically.

"They'll tell me something. That's all."

"That's all?"

"You can sit in if you want. We'll ask tomorrow."

"And tonight?"

"You watch my room. I won't leave it."

"So this is a diversion."

"Believe what you want." Edico had been torn over how to interact with Sara ever since he got a glimpse of her memories. He obviously wanted to be her confidant, but she was right: he was Trinov's sycount. So long as he was alive, Edico was honor-bound to follow his directives and answer his questions. 4 Moraline was something between a large town and a small city. It was just large enough to have four-story inns and living quarters for the working folk.

A magical array supplied fresh water through the city center, where women filled buckets for the night's wash and supper. Blacksmiths smashed steel on fortified anvils. Bakers hustled their wares. It was all so similar yet different from a world without magic. The fountain, for example, conjured water from thin air, but it wasn't free. The array was a ward, meaning that it was an array fueled by mana cores from beasts or mana crystals from the mines rather than people.

Both cores and crystals had a price; thus, free water had a cost. Plumbing was a weekly expense, along with heating and mana lamps. Once someone looked at Veridia from that perspective, they realized that it was a world where "reapers," the name for fantasy book adventurers, took on the role of coal miners: harvesting power from beasts to fuel magical technology like electricity. It was still a feudal society.

At least it was, until Sara's reign stabilized Jason's compulsory education scheme—adding practical magic to the regimen—and instilled patent laws to break through the guild system, whereby guilds kept all of their trade secrets to the chest. Once she instilled property laws for commoners, fifty years would bring about a renaissance period and the upturn of modern capitalism. Of course, she wouldn't see it happen from the top. She planned to "die" and then start a tavern with Kyritus.

At least, that was the plan before Kyritus was annihilated in a mad arraymaster's plan to reverse time. Now none of it would come to be. The bitterness was still fresh. It was evening, so they journeyed to an Inn, where Sara pounded four mugs of ale and bought four bottles of brandy, just in case. Then, true to her word, she returned to her room.

"We'll get our fortune at noon," Sara said.

"Try to get some sleep."

"Not around you," Edico said.

"Well, then feel free. I'm retiring to my room." Inside the room, Sara unrolled two huge pieces of parchment and array ink from her spatial ring and set to work creating a seven-layer teleportation array. Edico didn't once let out a divination pulse. She expected that; that's why she didn't leave. Once Sara finished the array, she sighed in relief. And that's that, Sara thought. Drop the circle in Break Alley, come back a hero, blackmail a few noble people, teleport back and give Tiber the goods. Got it.

Sara wasn't foolish enough to make contact with Kyritus when the whole kingdom was watching. Until Kyritus regained his memories—and his bloodline's magic—he was nothing but a weakness. Thankfully, she was wielding Telia Sayon's grand teleportation arrays that the Hero's Party obtained from Sayon's Labyrinth. Even if Edico knew she knew how to make spatial rings, no one would expect that she'd be able to teleport to Helscope under the kingdom's watchful eyes.

It'd be expensive, but that's how she would reconnect with Kyritus and administer Tiber's medication. Even if a young girl were magically cured of the world's most famous affliction, it wouldn't be tied to Sara. That's what she needed. God, I wish I could see him, Sara thought. She took a deep breath. Patience, she told herself. You'll see him soon enough. After rolling up the two scrolls—one for entrance and the other for exit—she fell asleep.

Edico was surprised that Sara mounted her monta the next morning and said, "Let's get going." The two stopped before a fortune teller as they rode out. The woman was a circus attraction, wearing a cloak and face paint on her cheekbones and eyes. Sara stopped her monta before the tent.

"I'll give you a swan if you give me a fortune." A swan was a platinum coin that was worth a hundred hawks—gold coins.

"Hah!" she said.

"A fortune for a fortune, how amazing. Come, sit."

"I just need the first card." She raised her eyebrows as Sara flicked the coin. It landed on the fortune teller's desk and bounced around, ringing before it stopped in front of the tarot cards. The fortune teller looked up and said, "I don't need to draw a card to tell your fortune."

"Then tell me."

"You're seeking something personal, yet you have something blocking your path." She flipped a card anyway.

"Something, or someone powerful."

"I'm not asking you to deduce something based upon my behavior. I want you to seek Emanasa and speak." The fortune teller said, "If you want that…" She glanced at the platinum coin and laughed.

"Actually..." She closed her eyes and activated spiritual magic Sara had never seen. The woman's eyes rolled to the back of her head. Sara was surprised. She just might get a true fortune. The woman's voice came out ethereal.

"I see death in your future. It's inescapable. Divined by fate. Do not shy away from battle. Otherwise, you will lose everything." Sara shivered and threw the woman another swan as she came to.

"I'm not sure what you just did, but I hate it. Good day." Sara started riding again. Edico rode beside her.

"How'd you interpret that?"

"My curse is irrelevant. I just needed it to complete 'the prophecy.'" Edico clopped beside her for a few minutes.

"Will you still kill the demon king?" Sara didn't answer. She just rode on. The less Edico knew, the less he could say if interrogated by his king. So, he kept silent as they rode on, en route to Helscope, where her once-fiancé—Kyritus Seneco—and his and Sara's sickly adoptive daughter, Tiber, awaited.