Chapter 12: The Road to Vasili

  Rory had traded the silver clasp from her cloak to a stablehand for the use of a small cart, and directions to the Vasili Domain that amounted to "follow the trade road until you see the big house." The cart came without a driver. Rory held the reins herself.

  "Ivan."

  "Yeah?"

  "You haven't asked me anything."

  "About what?"

  "About any of this… you agreed to come with me. You don't know where we're going, or who Vladimir Vasili is, or what the Royal succession is…"

  She was right. He hadn't. "I was getting to it," Ivan said. "Just... organizing my thoughts."

  Rory's mouth twitched but she didn't call him out on his bullshit.

  "Okay. So… where are we, exactly? And I don't mean 'on a road.' I mean… the country."

  "...This is Obafemi," Rory said. "One of the four great territories. The city behind us is Kol, the capital of the Obafemi Kingdom and the location of the succession."

  "And what about the other three?"

  "I only know their names," Rory said. "Obafemi which is where we are. The Matilda Empire. The City-states of Medicea…" She paused. "And Muse."

  "The Royal succession," he said. "That's to fill the empty throne?"

  "Yes. Each territory sends their Pendragons out searching for royal blood. The succession is a trial to see who is worthy to rule."

  Rory was quiet for a moment. "...I don't know the full process," she said. "I know there are trials. I know the Pendragons play a major role and that each candidate must have one."

  "What about the Pendragons?" Ivan asked. "Arthur called himself one. You said you needed the stone to become one. I've got this—" He held up his right hand, and the Fly Catcher drifted closer. "—pen thing that apparently makes me one. But I don't actually know what that means."

  Rory pulled the reins gently to guide the horse to the side of the road. The cart tilted, and Ivan's plank-bench situation became briefly life-threatening before the wheels found level ground again.

  "A Pendragon is a wielder of a Pen, they are... old. A Pendragon can extract spiritual characteristics from beasts and inscribe them onto themselves or others."

  Extract and inscribe. Ivan had seen those words on his status screen… the golden text the Fly Catcher had written in the air. He'd interacted with Record, and the pen had gone wild, scrawling information faster than he could read. But Inscribe… he hadn't touched that one. And Reaper he'd avoided on instinct, because anything called "Reaper" in a game was either a death mechanic or a trap.

  "So the pen is the weapon," Ivan said, working through it. "And the spiritual characteristics are... what, abilities? Power-ups? You kill a beast and take its stats?"

  Rory scrunched her eyebrows when he’d said the word "stats," but she continued.

  "Spiritual characteristics are the nature of a creature… its fire, its speed, its strength, its connection to the elements. A spirit beast is different from a common animal because it carries these characteristics. When a Pendragon extracts a characteristic, they draw it out of the beast and bind it to ink. The ink is then used to inscribe the characteristic onto the Pendragon's soul… or onto someone else's."

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  "And what about the ink," Ivan said. "Where does it come from?"

  "From the beast itself. When a Pendragon extracts a spiritual characteristic, the extraction produces ink… but only if the Pendragon has the skill and the knowledge to refine it. Raw extraction without refinement destroys the characteristic entirely." Rory paused. "At least, that is what I was told. I have never seen it done."

  "I've got the pen," Ivan said. "I've got the ability to extract and inscribe… and I don't have a damn clue what I'm doing."

  "That's a lot of problems and zero solutions."

  "There may be one solution," Rory said.

  "Hit me."

  "Count Vasili. Arthur said he is a Pendragon of extraordinary power. He oversees the candidates arriving in Kol… he has the authority, the knowledge, and the resources. If anyone could teach you how to be a Pendragon it would be him."

  A Pendragon who was already involved in the succession, already positioned as a gatekeeper for candidates. If Vasili was willing to help… and that was a colossal "if," because powerful people in fantasy worlds didn't hand out training for free. Ivan might actually have a path forward.

  "And if he's not willing to help?"

  "Then we will find another way…"

  The farmland started about an hour past the capital gates. They were wide, flat fields of gold that Ivan didn't recognize. Farmers worked the land, bent low with hand tools.

  "What's with the posts?" Ivan asked.

  "Wards, they keep lesser spirits from feeding on the crops. Without them, a field can be stripped bare overnight."

  The farms thinned after the second hour or so. And then the forest crept in gradually. One moment the hills were bare rock and dry grass, and the next the road cut between two thick walls of blue trees.

  "Rory."

  "Mm?"

  "Why are all the trees blue?"

  "We are entering the Cerulean Grove… the soil here has high spirit density, which is where their color comes from."

  Spirit density in the soil. So the ground itself was magical, and the trees were just... soaking it up. A sound cut through the rattle of the carriage wheels. High-pitched, chittering, coming from the ridge.

  Ivan's hand went to the side rail. His body locked up. But it wasn't an attack.

  On the ridge, not too far from the road, a cluster of animals sat in a loose semicircle on the rocks. They looked like rabbits… roughly the right size and shape, with long ears and compact bodies covered in tawny fur. But each one had a single horn growing from the center of its forehead, short and curved.

  "What the hell are those?"

  "Horned Hares," Rory said. She didn't slow the carriage. "They're harmless, they use the horns for digging… they burrow into the reinforced soil to feed on spiritually rich roots."

  They watched the carriage pass with an unblinking, communal attention that was deeply unsettling for animals that were supposedly harmless. One of them stood on its hind legs and made that chittering sound again.

  "You said harmless."

  "They are."

  "They don't look harmless…"

  The hares jumped from the ridge and vanished into the bush as the carriage rounded a bend. Ivan watched the spot where they'd been for a long time after they were gone.

  They were deep into the thick Cerulean Gove, the trees spiraling branches knitting together overhead until the road became a tunnel of blue. Then Rory pulled the reins, and the mare stopped.

  "Look up," Rory said.

  Ivan looked up.

  He could see it through a gap in the branches where a tree had fallen. Whatever it was, it moved with the lazy, deliberate pace of a blimp, crossing the gap in the canopy. Its underside was dark… a deep charcoal gray covered in what looked like overlapping plates of stone or shell, each one the size of a house. The thing was so far up that Ivan couldn't make out its full shape, only the underside and the trailing edge of its tail.

  It made no sound. Nothing that big should have been silent, but the sky was quiet. The only noise was the mare's breathing and the creak of the carriage frame.

  Ivan's mouth was dry. His hands were gripping the side rail hard enough that the wood bit into his palms.

  "What… is that."

  "A sky-turtle, they migrate through the upper atmosphere during the warmer months. They feed on airborne spirituality… They never come down to land."

  "That thing is the size of a god damn football field."

  "I don't know what that is. But yes. They are quite large."

  The trailing edge of the turtle cleared the gap in the canopy, and the pale gray clouds returned. Ivan stared at the empty sky for another thirty seconds before his hands unclenched from the rail. His palms were red and dented with wood grain.

  This world had things in it that could blot out the sky. And he was riding through it on a plank of wood pulled by a horse that looked like it was one hill away from cardiac arrest.

  "The domain borders the wilds… deep forests with high spirituality, and home to beasts that are... considerably more dangerous than Horned Hares."

  "Arthur mentioned that Count Vasili chose the location deliberately. But even the Pendragon knights of the Royal Guard avoid the wilds when they can."

  Ivan looked at the forest pressing in on both sides of the road. The blue canopy. The ward markers spaced along the dirt, small and carved and suddenly looking very, very fragile.

  "So we're heading to the estate of a crazy count who lives on the border of a forest that scares the shit out of Pendragon knights."

  "Yes."

  "And this is the safe option."

  Rory was quiet for a moment. The carriage rattled on.

  "It is the only option,"

  The road bent ahead, curving deeper into the Cerulean Grove, and the ward markers along the edge grew farther apart.

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