Chương 29

Failure is not the end. With the violet muskgrass harvested, there was nothing potent remaining in the cavern or pool. In fact, once it had been packed away, they had almost no light to see by at all. Harker feigned blindness, fumbling forward until Adhira took him by the elbow and led them out. They made it out of the den without incident. The forest they entered into was far louder than before, filled with birdsong, buzzing insects, and the scurry of small game amid the branches.

"At least we know there aren't any more Aberrants to deal with out here." Adhira looked back up the incline and grimaced.

"Looks like scavengers got to our meat." Harker shrugged.

"It wasn't good anyway. Too many impurities."

"What? That's ridiculous." With a few pumps of her legs, the girl was atop the ridge, dropping her axe onto the meatiest part of the serpent's corpse. It sliced right through, and Harker winced. A gaseous belch escaped the organs she'd severed.

"See there." Harker pointed at the cross section of snake, where the meat was riddled with deep, blackened veining.

"Look close enough and you'll see salt crystals forming too."

"Black tides," Adhira muttered, kicking the corpse aside. It jumped about a foot before landing with a jiggling thud.

"What a waste. Guess we'll just have to burn it." They did just that, the noble producing a small box. It opened at the top and flared with Water for a brief second before a bright flame hovered above its top corner. Adhira gestured and the flame leapt from the box and onto the corpse, where it caught immediately within the blackened veins.

"What sort of firestarter is that?" he asked.

"Just a normal one." She flipped it closed and stowed it in her belt.

"Shall we move on?" Harker wanted to ask more questions but Adhira was already striding into the forest. He gave one final glance to the serpent corpse—now merrily burning—and followed after. That's not a normal one at all. It was superficially similar, but the flame and its movements were something altogether different.

"Yep, she's rich alright." Harker cut his eyes across the trail to where Stillwater stepped atop a mossy log. He said nothing—Adhira was too close to risk talking to his invisible companion—and the Gilken rubbed his little claws together greedily.

"Heirloom artifacts and a second-grade firestarter. What else do you think she has in that pack of hers?" He bared his teeth.

"Think we should find out?" Harker scowled.

"What? It could be a threat to your life! I'd only be doin' my due diligence!" Still not answering, Harker sped up, drawing closer to Adhira's back and leaving the Eidhrin to hustle behind.

"You're so boring!" The trio found the road again in short order, and soon they were trudging uphill once more. Mid-morning turned to afternoon, the sun strengthening all the while above the budding trees. Leaves hadn't appeared yet, and while they were on the way, they did nothing to stop the heat from beating down on the path. The rise of hills and the forest itself kept the cool breeze from touching them, and soon Harker was sweating heavily under his cloak.

He threw it back, tucking it behind his pack to free up his arms and the knives strapped across his waist. The new dagger was there too, set among the others. It was a pretty thing, made of some sort of blue metal with a crossguard made of a brassy material. The grip was wrapped in blue wire and the pommel was an open ring of that same brass-like metal. It had a good edge, and the blade itself was a touch flexible. Harker wasn't sure if that was good or not, but another weapon was always useful.

Thankfully, there was no cause to use it. No further Aberrants darkened their path, though they interrupted their fair share of beasts. Child-sized hares, foxes, even some elk legged through the forest nearby, their enormous gait unbothered by the small humans. Strangely, Adhira seemed fascinated by everything.

"Are all the beasts so large?" she asked as a pair of elk twice the size of a racing hound bounded across a rocky cliff and disappeared.

"Their antlers could hold a full grown man!"

"Or skewer a whole hunting party." She blinked.

"Has that happened?"

"Plenty of times. You don't mess with the elk, not during calving season." He paused.

"Which is now, by the by."

"I may have grown up in civilization, but I know that much."

"Hmm." Adhira sniffed.

"I've just never seen a Great Beast, is all."

"The elk? Those aren't Great Beasts. You'd have to travel far from here to find one of those."

"Truly?" Adhira seemed genuinely crestfallen.

"Still, remarkable nonetheless." Remarkable? Harker stared after the elk, trying to see them through her eyes. All he saw were territorial, defecating behemoths that could feed a whole village for a season. He shrugged.

"Tch. The storm did a number here." Harker saw what she meant the moment he returned to the path. Hundreds of trees were laid out across the mountain, some snapped in explosive splinters while most were uprooted entirely. They snarled the path ahead, laying atop one another in an unstable pile.

"Do we go around, or over—" Harker's words were cut through by Adhira's axe. She chopped it into the first trunk before them, sinking the double blade almost halfway through the ancient hardwood.

"We go through." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Three more chops and she severed the tree into two uneven parts. The bottom, including the vast majority of trunk and the heavy root system, immediately sprang upward the moment it was severed. The weight of dirt and root sent it careening back upright and out of their way. The other half, which was mostly Winter dead branches, Adhira siezed with both hands.

With a sharp grunt, she heaved them from the trail. The heavy trunk and branches crashed to the side, rolling a bit away before coming to rest against the trunks of its brethren. Adhira advanced, axe lifting again as she approached the next trunk. Harker held out a hand.

"Are you clearing the trail for everyone else?" Adhira stopped, brow furrowed.

"Of course. No one maintains this area, so I might as well." Without another word, she kept going, steadily gaining distance from Harker with every brutal chop.

"How noble of her," Stillwater sneered.

"Helping people? I doubt it. Sounds like an excuse for training." Harker agreed, but wasn't about to admit that. He looked at the Gilken.

"You seem sweaty."

"And you stink," Stillwater fired back.

"Gilken aren't made for all this walking. Why don't you find an Aberrant to kill so I can take a rest?" Harker smiled sweetly at the creature.

"That coralsnout and its ophidian entourage were likely the strongest in the area. We won't see much until we get onto the mountain proper."

"Ugh!" Stillwater mopped his wide forehead with an embroidered kerchief.

"You humans are barbaric. Walking for travel? Bah!" Harker shot a look toward Adhira. She was too busy chopping to notice much else.

"Tell me then, Stillwater. How do whisperfolk travel?"

"Across the dreams of the unfaithful."

"Do I look like a child?"

"You are a child, human." Harker wrinkled his nose.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Believe what you will."

"It's impossible." Stillwater fixed him with a gimlet eye.

"Before you met me you'd never left home. What do you know of what's possible?"

"I—" Stillwater couldn't lie—it would harm his Stature. Yet Harker couldn't see how he was twisting the truth. He filed the detail away in his head regardless.

"You're a strange little man."

"You're one to talk." Stillwater snapped his claws.

"Speaking of which, your little problem hasn't been a problem recently, has it?" Harker grunted. It hadn't passed his notice, but he'd hoped the Eidhrin was too distracted.

"No."

"Hmm." He ignored Stillwater's searching eyes and focused on the distant figure of his traveling companion. Adhira lifted and dropped her axe in measured beats, each chop accompanied by the thick tok of steel on heartwood. It was almost soothing. Since he'd used his Talent in Creston, Harker had noticed a certain lack of ache in his reservoir. That feeling had only been accentuated when he'd learned to pulse his Talent.

Since then, despite the Bestige trying to force feed him the Sea by the wave, his reservoir had not been full once. It was clear to him that using his Water, unrefined or not, kept his reflux from overcoming his body. With his improved Stature, he felt almost normal again. If I could stop the wearing out of my tributary all my problems would be solved. He couldn't, of course. Not yet. His mind went to the reagents in his pack.

The muskgrass would help him with his tributaries and the Ghostflower Root would help him with his Current… he just had to figure out how to begin. He looked at Adhira again. If I could peer into her tributaries, I could get an idea of where to start. To manage that, and to keep the Sea from overwhelming him with reflux, he needed to practice.

"Sovereign Sight." With Stillwater grumbling something behind him and Adhira ahead, Harker walked. The Talent spread out to his usual three foot radius and he held it there, focusing entirely on putting one foot in front of the other. Once the disorientation faded the effort wasn't very taxing at all so long as he kept his awareness fixed on the ground immediately before himself. Other detailed vyed for his attention but he armored his mind against their intrusion. It worked. Until it didn't.

All too soon, sensory information flooded through his roughshod mental fortifications. The crunch of stone beneath his heel, the trickle of meltwater in the soil, even the taste of the worm just beneath. The cold breeze touching every branch and new budding leaf, everything except him. Harker stopped. Focused. This is just like my old Delve Talent. It's just… bigger. Hone it. Piece by piece, he pushed the sensations away. The breeze faded. The worm wriggled away.

Until there was only the crunch-slide of his boot striking the earth, and his legs flexing and relaxing. He managed to hold that for all of three minutes before it spun away from him. Breathing hard and muscles quivering as if he'd just run several miles, Harker stared at the ground in consternation. I can do better than this. I can feel it.

"Sovereign Sight." This time his Water arced out past three feet. It spread to four… and nearly fell over. The world upended on him, spinning in wild gyrations that he couldn't match. Sensation warped his awareness until the forest was a cavalcade of howling winds and crashing rockslides. His knee hit something and he ground his hands into loose stones, clutching tight at the tilted earth. It faded with time, but so long as he held the Talent it never faded.

When he released it, it took a solid minute to reassert the world around him. Unless I'm pulsing my Talent, three feet is my limit. Failure was a bitter flavor, but it was one he'd come to recognize, even appreciate. His greatest achievements had always been on the back of many failures. If I can pulse, then I'm not limited in how I release my Talent. Harker squatted down, picking up one of the stones on the path.

It was bulbous and uneven, but he hefted it, trying to fix the weight and the grainy dust that coated it in his mind. He set it in front of him, just a few inches from his foot. I focused my reflux so that it only poured from my face and neck. Instead of releasing in a circle… could I manage a straight line?

"Sovereign Sight," he whispered. The Water rushed from him, flowing out of his left palm with a twinge of pain. Before it started to arc and spread, however, Harker clamped down. That strange inner muscle flexed, tightening throughout his body in spastic contractions too wild to be precise. It failed, and the Water sprayed outward in a useless stream. He cut it off. Again. Sovereign Sight rolled through Harker five more times, each one aborted only inches from his palm. Each one a failure. I know this can work.

Delve could do this before it was changed. Harker bared his teeth at the rock in front of him. Remember the feel of it! He flexed his hand, extending a single finger as he once had. The tendons ached and the muscles in the flesh pad of his palm was sore, but his hand was steady.

"Sovereign Sight." Water sluiced down his arm, gushing from his palm once more. It spread like the head of an arrow, jolting along his extended finger like downward path before— It splashed against the rock. Suddenly, Harker could feel it. He tasted the dirt, each granule like a dusty nectar on his tongue, while the heft and smoothness danced across his skin in equal measure. There was nothing else. It faded in an instant, but Harker grinned. It had worked. Now do it again. Faster.