I watch as Olly goes stock still in the middle of a sentence and feel a dose of panic.

  “You a’right there?” The shorter, axe-toting one asks, reaching out for Olly’s shoulder — his right shoulder. I step forward quickly, raising one arm swathed in my layered cloak.

  “Hey, please don’t touch him.” I say firmly, trying to make my voice a bit more gruff, more commanding. The man halts his arm and looks beyond Olly to me.

  “Didn’ mean nothin’ by it. He okay? I know ‘e mentioned an injury — this related?” Both guards make an overt display of looking me over, something I really wanted to avoid.

  “No, nothing related to that. Not directly, anyways.” I put a hand on Olly’s left shoulder from behind, trying to keep my very identifiable scales and claws behind him. “It’s the aftermath of the fight — compound essence poisoning. Leaves him a bit unwell. I didn’t realize he was this bad off.” I quickly hunt for what, I feel, is a reasonable excuse. “I heard the discussion, though, we’ll set up camp. You’ll help us if something goes awry, yeah?”

  The blue-skinned individual — a merkyn, I think — rolls their oversized, damp, eyes, and steps back from the center of the gate, leaving just the axe-bearer. He appears to be torn, I think. But I don’t see any reason to try to push. They’re just doing their jobs, so I won’t give them any hassle. “I’ll make sure ‘ta let the morning guard know to let you in as soon as they can after the watch changes, ya?”

  “I’d appreciate that.” I say curtly, keeping my head low and shaded as I grab a handful of Olly’s cloak and shirt and lead him backwards and away into the darker area at the base of the wall. It looks like we’re not the first to camp outside. The ground is hard packed, there’s logs that have been pulled over for seating, and an existing firepit, even if not an impressive one.

  I lead Olly to a sitting position and dote on him for a few moments, pulling his hood down and looking at his eyes. Distant, glazed over and inundated with purple essence. A very different expression from the time he lost control. He looks…determined, I think. “You just…relax. I’ll take care of the camp.”

  I pull the backpack off of him, and he gives it up without resisting. Moving slowly, but cooperatively. Moving fully by muscle memory, I imagine. “It’s kinda like he’s asleep.” I hear a small voice from within my hood, whispering into my ear. Since we’re within earshot of the gate, I just nod my assent to Lilly. She seems to understand the nonverbal response and continues, “I’ve heard of people sleep-walking in stories. Going through the motions, even able to respond to people they know, but having no memory of anything that happened while they were asleep. Maybe it’s something like that?”

  I shrug, shaking my head subtly. There’s some wood stacked near the pit, maybe provided by the city to accommodate the people they leave out in the cold… A part of me feels quite bitter about being left out like this. Intellectually, I understand they almost certainly have their own good reasons. Emotionally, I feel quite a bit differently about it all. Leaving people out in the cold in a region known for monsters — necessitating the need for walls and active and trained guards — is irresponsible. Who cares what time someone shows up? Different people will be coming from different locations at different distances with different speeds of travel.

  Ridiculous.

  I could go over and be more forceful. Olly is a bit meek when it comes to this stuff. He too easily just nods along with whatever is asked of him. Maybe I should work with him on that…

  Releasing a sigh to calm myself, I finish stacking the wood and quickly breathe a gout of flame onto the stack to bring it to light. As I start setting up the tents, I hear the cool-toned voice of the merkyn make an impressed sounding “Huh.” Annoyed, I twist my neck and make a point of glaring at them. They seem to get the message and mind their business.

  As I watch the fire building, I take a few deep breaths. The muscles in my wings hurt from being so tightly pulled in against my back for this length of time, and the fact that there’s no end in sight is leaving me feeling grumpier, even atop everything else.

  "*Why do I need to hide myself? It’s stupid. All because some mortals can’t control themselves? Ma’ and Pa’ travelled for decades and only had a few instances of anything going bad…"

  “Psst. Ayre. You’re melting me in here.” Lilly gently pulls on a tiny handful of my hair to get my attention and I realize that I’d been getting worked up — something made worse by being fully contained in a cloak. I turn to Olly. “Maybe you and I can talk, just make it look like you’re talking to him? “ I make an effort to look like I’m talking at him in particular while addressing Lilly in shushed tones.

  “Sorry about that. Just got…caught up on a line of thought. Gimme a moment and I’ll diffuse some essence. Probably going to need to be a bit less obvious than fire though…” I concentrate. “*Ignia is more than flames. Just because I use it for flames doesn’t mean it can’t be more. That’s why I’m always riding Lilly.*”

  As if reading my mind, Lilly whispers, “Fire essence.” into my ear, and it has a particular effect on me. I feel it like a challenge. Her voice sounds smug, predicting my internal struggles and needling me over them.

  I suck in air between my teeth, trying to concentrate essence into my lungs as I do. “*Heat. Passion. Strength.*” I slowly exhale, feeling Ignia passing my lips as I do. The first bits to leave are distinctly *fire*, so I snap my mouth shut and hold it in, trying to reshape the essence. Ma’s words come to mind. “*The Breath isn’t just flames. Its heat. It’s passion. It’s strength. We aren’t mighty because we can set fires. It’s more than that. Our gates allow us to simply form a connection more easily. What we do with that connection is what matters.”

  I exhale slowly again…to more ash and licking flames. Again, I close my mouth and make an almost feral growl that makes Lilly yelp.

  “*Heat. Passion. Strength. We are more than fire.*” I grit my teeth as I try to force the flames into a different shape again but, frustratingly, fail once more. Having had only a few times to practice with my Breath at all, I decide I’m wasting my time and instead choose to diffuse the excess rather than leaving Lilly uncomfortable any longer.

  It’s a long process for me, longer than it would be for one of the other mortal races due to having a constant source of Ignia within me. But after a few minutes, I’ve slowly bled out the excess essentia into the air, painting the area in a dull red light that will remain until the essence breaks down the rest of the way.

  Olly jumps to his feet with a start, eyes wide. The free Ignia in the air I released is quickly pulled to his left hand and compressed into a searing blue flame that tightens from an orb and down into a needle thin bolt. I look at him with eyes wide and see a distant look in his own, staring out into the woods with a determined look.

  I rise quickly, “Hey, Olly! Relax!” I know I’m being too loud, but I can’t help it. I get in front of him, putting my hands on either of his shoulders and shake him. After a few shakes, his eyes refocus and his more normal facial expression returns, and he focuses on me. “Breath Divine, Olly, you scared me. What was that?”

  He stares at me for a few moments, unseeing or uncomprehending. “E-ryss? Nyssa? No… Wait…” His face turns confused, and his voice comes out with an unfamiliar accent

  [Clarity of mind, my friend shall find, his fears confined and to the past consigned.]

  I hear Lilly’s voice, small and focused, whispering from my hood as tiny motes of gold migrate towards Olly’s chest. I watch as they suffuse into his skin and disappear. I watch and he flutters his eyes a few times, then looks me in the eyes — golden light settling behind them from Lilly’s spell.

  “Ayre?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Olly. Still Olly, right?” I ask, still deeply concerned.

  His shoulders finally slump, tension leaving them, and I feel the magic dissipating from his hand as it does. “That…wasn’t good.” He casts around looking for somewhere to sit and, realizing he was directly in front of a good spot, slumps down and looks beyond tired.

  “So, what was that, Olly? Who, or what, is Eryss? Nyssa?” Lilly hops out of my hood and flutters down to Olly’s lap. Thankfully, his back is to the guards so she’s out of sight. The guards who are currently openly staring at us. To try to diffuse some interest, I make a point of visibly shrugging and waving at them without revealing much of my hands. Mollified, they return to their conversation.

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  “I went through another memory, but it was more visceral than the others. Eryss, Nyssa, they were my— Valynn’s wife and daughter.” He pauses, considering, maybe sorting out where he and the memories begin and end like he’s mentioned before. “He fought the monster to protect them and unlike everyone else who I’ve seen in a memory he managed to actually hold his own. I think he might have won?” His face seems almost giddy — manic in a distinctly un-Olly-like way.

  “Someone defeated the monster? That’s splendid!” Lilly chimes in, “That means those things in your head can be defeated. If that’s the case, then surely someone has gotten away from one and lived to tell the tale. We just need to find someone who knows. Maybe we could ask around town? Maybe there’ll be a tavern with a bard we could ask…? If not, perhaps at least an inn with a knowledgeable innkeeper.”

  “Did they survive?” I’d been deciding whether I wanted to ask, but my curiosity gets the better of me.

  “No. He definitely gave his life to defeat the creature. I don’t really know what he did, though.” Olly shrugs casually. This memory in particular seems to have given him a bit of life, even if I see the extreme fatigue it caused him. “He was talking and thinking about essence differently than anything I’ve heard or read yet. He was clearly an Ignia user, but he referred to it as the “King’s Flame”, or “Her Flames”. Seemed to think of access to essence at all as being Gifts, as well.”

  “Lots of cultures have different views on magic, but I can’t say I’ve hear-”

  “He was a follower of the Demon King?!” Lilly flutters up to eye level with clear *anger* on her face. “Were they around here? How long ago was it?” With each question, she floats closer to Olly’s face while pointing at him. The dust coming off of her wings has even shifted more towards red. I’ve never seen her get this mad this fast before, so I’m about as stunned as Olly seems to be.

  “Uh, I don’t know, Lilly. He never mentioned anything by name, and it looked like any area with a green forest I could imagine. Who is the Demon King?” Olly leans back, away from the incensed princess.

  “Do you mean the one from that series of schlocky adventure novels you gave me when I was a whelp?” I ask — it’s the only place I’ve ever heard the name referenced. “Lilly, please calm down. We really don’t want to draw attention.”

  She flutters lower, landing back on Olly’s knee and beginning to pace along his leg. “Those are based on true stories, Ayre.” She says flatly. “Everything my father has written has been.” She sits in place abruptly, crossing her legs. “The Demon King was only *the* largest villain in the history of the world. She was narrowly defeated by the Champion and their allies in the last age.” She looks at me incredulously, “It’s probably the most important story in the whole world.”

  “That…sounds kinda unbelievable.” I say it without really thinking. Still feeling some of the Ignia in the back of my mind. “I guess I’m not the best educated on things beyond my home, but I still feel like it’s the sort of thing that would have been mentioned in my books somewhere other than an adventure novel.” I make a dismissive gesture and look back at Olly, who appears to be starting to doze while just sitting on the log.

  I see Lilly stare up at me for a few moments out of the corner of my eye before turning to Olly and asking with a sharp tone. “Olly, you’ve seen proof of it, even. Those are terms and names that have been around forever. Why else would that guy in your memory be using them?”

  Olly rolls his neck with heavily lidded eyes, “I guess so, but couldn’t that mean a lot of things? What I saw, Varann laid his life down to protect his wife, daughter, and a town that turned him away for being what he was. I can’t really say anything bad about him or his motives with what little context I have being what it is.” He shrugs, looking uncertain. “I need to lie down, though. I feel like someone has been beating my head in with a club.” He stands, inadvertently knocking Lilly off his knee when he does. From where I’m sitting, it’s clearly an accident, but Lilly won’t see it that way right now. “You mind if I sleep first, Ayre? I don’t feel great.”

  “Go for it, Olly. I’ll wake you if something changes.” Lilly is floating between us, looking between the two of us expectantly.

  “You guys really are just going to brush this off?”

  I answer as Olly lowers himself into the tent carefully, “I’m not brushing it off, Lil. I just…don’t see how it’s relevant to what’s going on right now, so I’m not sure what else to say about it.” I explain tiredly.

  Lilly just frowns at me for a moment before turning away and flitting to the ground near Olly’s tent. She says a quick incantation, tracing a circle in the air with a small hop. Her little tin manifests with a soft clang onto the ground. The lid lifts off, and she climbs inside without another word, leaving the lid just ajar enough to presumably allow air in and out.

  I watch the whole display with a frown of my own, but I decide to leave well enough alone for now. Instead, I toss another piece of wood into the fire and settle in to keep watch. I have no intention of letting my guard down just because we’re near a city. Plenty of monsters I’ve read about are bold enough to attack towns and cities — why else would they need walls and guards?

  A couple hours pass into the late night as Serelune passes into sight in the sky. The Wandering Moon has always been my favorite of the pair. She moves erratically across the sky, her speed seeming to change even as I watch, even if only fractionally. But along with her passage comes a very interesting lightshow playing across the world. She sends down light in unpredictable patterns, like spreading ink blots of coppery-gold scattered randomly across the terrain like flickering, dancing, candlelight.

  As I stare, I remember when I first learned about the moons, Serelune and Lunastra, from Lilly. We were both maybe ten years old when she told me about them. The Wanderer, and the Watcher, respectively. Serelune is believed to be the main source of Perditio essence, while Lunastra is the source of Ordo in the world.

  Serelune is often also associated with changing of luck, hopeful dreams, and motion. For that, she is often called the traveler’s companion. When she hangs in the sky and is full, Lilly says that the Fae believe that it strongly implies great change is coming, since with her erratic travel patterns, she very seldom is actually truly full.

  Staring up at the sky, I hear muted metal shifting coming from down the road. Turning my head, I see a lone individual in strange, dark metal, plated armor moving nearly silently considering how heavily armored they are. They look tall, even accounting for some extra height from the armor — almost certainly taller than me.

  Their helm is horned with upward and forward sweeping black horns and doesn’t have any visible viewing slits, but instead just looks like a black mirror of obsidian glass. Across their body I see braces of throwing knives of similar metal to that of the armor, making them hard to pick out in the erratic light of Serelune. At their waist, however, sits two fighting knives of a style I’ve never heard of and certainly never seen — though I recognize that my exposure to such things is pretty limited.

  Their head shifts in their helm as I stare at them, taking in details as they move eerily quietly. I would have expected full plate to be louder, but their armor is either enchanted or designed in such a way to mask noise. It feels like we make eye contact, though I can’t say for certain with the helm being seemingly opaque, and after a few moments they seem to turn away from me, walking past me with a distinctly closed off posture and showing me an angle that reveals a long, thin, spaded tail.

  I wonder if the guards will turn them away as well? I settle in to listen to the conversation, but realize that between the fire and the distance I’m not likely to gain any particularly useful information, so I resolve to watch and see what happens instead.

  As they approach, they take off their helmet, revealing a shock of shoulder-length white hair and that the horns are not decorative adornments like I thought. From behind, though, I struggle to make out any other specific details other than them having pale paper-white skin.The Merkyn takes the lead again, and seemingly delivers the same message, but the knight doesn’t seem to take it well. Their posture grows a fair bit more aggressive and words are exchanged that leaves the merkyn hefting their staff and beginning to channel essence into it while the knight puts both hands on their knives.

  They hold for a moment before the axe-wielding guard interposes himself between the two of them and the merkyn steps away looking mad after a few sharper words I *do* manage to make out because of how loudly they’re spoken.

  “If you want to throw away your pay? Go for it.”

  They step away and stand at the opposite side of the gate from the knight and axe toting guard as they continue talking.

  The knight casts a look back at our little camp and I see that they have a fairly angular face and luminous golden eyes, but in the low light it’s hard to pick out more specific details. They look away just as quickly and make a few hand gestures. The gate guard shifts uncomfortably, but seems to give in, stepping to the gate and knocking a few times before the gate swings open.

  He shouts in our direction. “Ey, you lot can come on inside under this fine knight’s honor just as soon as you’re packed up and that fire’s out, yeah?” and then returns to talking to the knight after I wave an acknowledgement and go and nudge Olly awake.

  “We’re getting let in. Let’s go find a bed to fall into instead of here on the ground in the cold.” Olly mumbles a sleepy assent and starts to rouse himself. I debate internally how to handle Lilly, but the question answers itself when she pops out of the tin, and quickly dismisses it.

  “Olly, can I ride in your hood? It’s cold.” She asks him quietly, staying facing away from me in a pretty clear example of giving me the cold shoulder.

  “Yeah, that’s alright Lil, but if you’re cold Ayre would probably be the better choice. I’m not exactly “warm”, most of the time.” He offers as he breaks down the tent to wait for me to pack it up.

  “Nah that’s fine.” She responds simply and flutters over to land on his shoulder and steps into his hood. I don’t know if Lilly notices it, but from where I’m standing, I see a distinctly uncomfortable grimace cross Olly’s face. There’s nothing for it, though.

  In short order, we’re packed and I toss dirt onto the fire to smother it. As a group, we head towards the gate and when we get close, I hear the Merkyn scoff as the human man approaches us with a smile. “The Order knight saw to it to convince me that you definitely arrived with her and that she guaranteed you wouldn’t cause us any trouble. That about right?” He offers with a wink, and Olly responds warmly.

  “Yeah, we mostly just don’t want to be cold, we definitely won’t risk getting tossed out by lighting any fires or anything.” He gives the man a bold smile that is easily matched by his broad and warm features.

  “Sounds' good to me. I’m guessing you both are new here?” We both nod. “In that case, I would suggest the Gilded Fang. It’s a local tavern, inn, and eatery. Caters to freelancing types, has reasonable prices, and the old man is awake at all hours to let people in. If you follow the main street to the square, you’ll know which one it is on sight. Look for the…gilded fangs.”

  He allows us through the gates, and we make our way inside and down the quiet, lonely streets: our arrival announced only by the heavy thud and clang of the gates swinging closed again.