“I have rope.”
“Try it, Red, and I will send you into next yilsemma, I’ll kick so hard.”
“Tsk tsk.” The Light acolyte grinned as Kjaelle paced back and forth behind Katta, who leaned against a box and looked as sour and dark as a black lemon. “Such violence! If you don’t want rope, I can make a repeat performance of the stink smell.”
“NO!” the mini-Joyful yelled in unison. Fyrij, who rode on Kjaelle’s shoulder like a captain guiding a ship through a storm, voiced his complaint the loudest before ruffling his feathers in revulsion. Vantra slapped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing because she, too, did not want to reprise his numerous performances. Yut-ta glanced at the beings clustered around the fire, his brows knit.
“Stink smell?”
Well, she supposed there was no quicker way to clear the fire and also confine Kjaelle to a wagon far from the foul air—and, conveniently, far from Yeralis’s guards. She thought she heard the Light-blessed cursing, and felt sorry for them as she vacated to her nighttime accommodation; unexpected Red stench, especially when one had not smelled for the last twenty-something thousand years, was debilitating.
Kenosera and Yut-ta fled with her. The nomad laughed while plugging his nose, and Yut-ta stuck his palms over his nostrils, his eyes watering.
“That is the worst smell I’ve ever seen—smelled.” The hooskine gacked and Vantra wondered what she could do to improve the air. As a ghost, she did not need scented things, so did not have handy candles or perfume around.
“This is mild, compared to some of the times he’s used it,” Kenosera told him as he hopped up the wagon’s stairs.
“Mild?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“It’s a powerful spell, to make ghosts sense it,” Vantra said as she motioned for him to proceed her.
“I suppose,” he muttered before sticking his vest against his beak and taking a shallow breath. “This won’t linger in clothes, will it?”
“It hasn’t so far,” she said as she checked to see if anyone else came their way—nope—and closed the door, which mitigated some of the unpleasantness.
The nomad slid down on the right-hand bench, chuckling. “I thought Kjaelle would run to this wagon, as it’s the furthest from Red.”
“She’s been spending more time with Katta and Verryn in Verryn’s wagon.” She checked that the windows remained firmly shut before clicking the box on the wall next to the door that activated the cool spell. While temperatures did not affect ghosts as much, the heat and humidity played terribly with essences, and she did not feel like melting during her stink recovery. “And I’m betting Katta has better spells to ward off Red’s trickery. I don’t expect Laken, either. He’s joined the Light-blessed on patrols rather than rest. I think he spent so many centuries lying around, now that he can move, that’s all he wants to do.”
“I can’t blame him for that,” Yut-ta muttered, joining the nomad. “I’m annoyed with resting, and it’s only been a few days for me. Spending years and years in the Fields?” He shuddered.
Vantra had asked Laken if he wished to take a break, but he shook his head and told her he wanted to stay busy. She had fallen into a glum mood because one only stayed busy when they did not wish to think about their current predicaments. Her Chosen, because he lost a part of his essence he needed to complete the Recollection, had a lot to worry on, and it was her mistakes that prompted it.
Falling to despondency and wishing Fyrij was there to cuddle, she glanced out the window before settling down across from the two.
The shimmer of Light under the first drops of the nightly rain reminded her Red shielded the caravan from Yeralis’s guards and the Finders—and whatever might come out of the forest. She scanned the dark trees, but no movement of vines, branches, or animal caught her notice.
“How many Redemptions have you completed?” Yut-ta asked. She did not sense anything but curiosity, though the words depressed her.
“This is my first.” His surprise made her wish she could sigh. “It hasn’t gone how I envisioned it.”
“Lokjac’s of the opinion no Redemption proceeds according to Finder plans,” Yut-ta said, ruffling his wings before leaning back. “Though I think you’ve had a bit more trouble than most.”
“My ex-mentor didn’t want me to Redeem Laken,” she admitted. “And he’s sent Finder Knights after us to force me to relinquish the link with him and send him back to the Elden Fields.”
“That’s strange.”
She shrugged. She should have realized the threat he posed to her and her Chosen, but she could not change the past, as much as she wished it.
“The Nevemere would call him beyemei, a foot stinger,” Kenosera said. “Even with a careful step, a small foot stinger can unexpectedly strike. Most times, the sting swells from the hit and the one struck sits for a few days to heal. But sometimes they inject their venom, and it’s deadly if not cared for quickly. His is a deadly venom.”
She could not argue with that. “If you want to discuss Redemptions, you should speak to Lorgan. He’s completed over a thousand of them.”
Yut-ta’s eyes bulged, incredulous. “A thousand?” he squeaked.
“He’s prolific.”
The hooskine cocked his head, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Do you find him . . . intimidating?”
Surprised, she tried to form a coherent response as Kenosera laughed. “He’s intimidating if you think about the ease with which he conducts and imparts his scholarship,” the nomad said. “His knowledge is great. But there are things about the desert that he finds fascinating because he didn’t know about them before me and my mates mentioned them. Sit with him. Speak with him. I don’t think you’ll find him unapproachable after you do.”
Yut-ta squinted at Kenosera. “This entire mini-Joyful is intimidating,” he grumbled.
“You think Vantra’s intimidating?”
“What? No! I mean, not that she . . . I know you’re a mini-Joyful,” Yut-ta said, holding up his hands as if to ward off a snappy reply, “but you aren’t a ghost thousands of years old.” He dropped his appendages, and sadness crossed his face. “Mera and Tally said you’re just a few years younger than me. I’m sorry, you reached the Evenacht so young.”
She shrugged, though she disliked the reminder. “I travel with them, but I don’t feel much like a mini-Joyful.”
“But you are.” Kenosera folded his fingers across his stomach and smiled warmly. “I suspected this when we sailed to Selaserat, and speaking with the Light-blessed, they confirmed that Katta and Qira are picky about their choices of intimate companions. They don’t just travel with anyone. That they accompany you says more than you think it does. That they allowed me and my mates to accompany you is extraordinary.” He paused, then laughed. “Qira and Dough are what we nomads would call nemid-vo, or same skin. They are of one mind, and get along because they are so similar.”
Yut-ta clacked his beak. “We Clavanox would say kilete de rih. It means ‘fly in unison’, like hooskine who flap their wings in time with one another as they dance mid-air.”
“I don’t think there’s an equivalent phrase in Keeling,” Vantra said. “There’s an expression about drinking from the same glass, but it’s not the same.” Mental warmth spread through her, that they spoke of such things with her. She learned something culturally significant about the Evenacht without reading it in a book!
“That pack is glowing.”
She blinked at Yut-ta, confused, then frowned at her backpack, which slumped against the cabinets beneath the bed. A warm yellow escaped the confines of the Sun shard’s pocket. She crawled to it and opened the flap; the glare blinded her. If it wished her attention, why not sing, as it had before?
She withdrew it and sat back, a trickle of reservation skimming her essence. “Do you think it’s warning us the Finders have gotten past Red’s shields?”
“Is there another ankis?” Kenosera asked. “Or maybe a vine creature, like you fought at the farm?”
Bursts of fear squirreled up Vantra’s essence as she looked out the window to the river, searching for monsters, and froze. No. Not an ankis or a vine creature.
Blazing glyphs appeared on the black background of tree trucks, hovering mid-air, as fiery as any Sun spell despite the rain. She had no idea what they meant; the Evenacht had glyphs, runes, and alphabets from faelareign and umbrareign spanning back generations. Learning the Reckoning did not prepare her to recognize any other script.
“Vantra?” Kenosera sounded concerned, but not afraid.
“Look!” She jabbed at the window.
He frowned and rose, setting his hand on the back of the bench and bending over to peer out the glass. “Look at what?”
“You don’t see them? The glyphs in the air?”
Yut-ta surged up and crowded in with them. “I don’t see them either. Where are they?”
“On fire in front of the trees,” she whispered, fear that she was going crazy clashing with the larger terror. How could they miss a flaming symbol taller than she was? Another glyph appeared mid-air, as if being drawn by someone in real-time. “I need some paper. I can write them down.”
Kenosera grabbed her notebook and graphite from the pile of study materials sitting in an overhead bin, and she handed the shard to Yut-ta to accept them. The hooskine gasped and gaped before rushing out the door. With a squeak, Vantra followed, Kenosera on her heels.
The glyphs faded. No time! She flipped to a clean page in the center and copied what she saw.
“I see them!” Yut-ta said. “Glyphs on fire, but I didn’t see them until I touched the shard. Kenosera, take it.”
The conversation paused. “No, I don’t see them,” the nomad said, concerned and disappointed.
What was going on? How could she and Yut-ta see them, but Kenosera could not?
“Good thing you’re writing them down,” Yut-ta said. “I can’t see them without the shard’s help.”
“They’re lining up down the treeline,” she said. “I need to follow them.”
She sketched what she saw, messier than she wished, but she wanted to get them down before they completely faded. Kenosera pressed near, holding a sleek rainguard canopy over her head. Smiling a quick thanks, she left the confines of Red’s shield and made her way down the treeline, scribbling what she saw. The talk of others around her dimmed as she concentrated on depicting the symbols correctly. She had to draw several two or three times because she messed them up, and hoped her scribbles resembled the runes with enough accuracy that someone familiar with them would recognize them.
The glyphs to her left flickered and dissolved. Oh no! Wincing at her sloppiness, she raced to jot them all down before they vanished. The last one fizzled and she looked at her shoddy lines. She doubted even her re-drawn images made some of them recognizable.
Seeing white blots in her perception, she turned to Kenosera, annoyed. Before muttering a word, she realized she did not recognize the nearest wagons; the vehicles, which were painted a bright, searing pink-orange, belonged to a rufang group who huddled under the roofs’ eaves, eyeing her and the nomad with distrust. How far had she shuffled across the field, to write them all down?
“So you saw them, Yut-ta?”
When had the mini-Joyful joined them?
The hooskine nodded at Katta’s question while Red stared at the forest, rubbing at his chin in thought. Jare, Mera and Tally guarded the two ancient ghosts, their weapons drawn and their attention on the curious crowd forming behind them, while a dripping Joila took the notebook from her, shielded it, and flipped through the pages using a spell. Lorgan studied the still, silent trees, and by his annoyance, she guessed he had not witnessed the glyphs.
“I’m not certain what to make of it,” Katta admitted, smoothing his hair back to keep his damp bangs from his eyes. “Qira saw them without the shard, Mera and Tally while holding it. The Light-blessed sensed them, but only Joila and Jare saw them with the aid of the shard. I wish the glyphs had lasted longer, so everyone with us could hold the shard. Knowing who the flames appear for is important.”
Where was the shard? Vantra hunted for it; Yut-ta held it, his gaze flicking up and down the treeline. If more runes flamed into existence, he would notice. “Did you see them, Katta?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I sensed the magic but didn’t see the fiery symbols. The same with Verryn. This was definitely a Sun-specific spell that Sun and Light acolytes could view, but no one else. Vesh and Lorgan said they sensed nothing.”
Not good.
“I didn’t see them until I held the shard, but they didn’t disappear after I gave it to Yut-ta,” she told him. Every bit of information should help them understand what they just experienced. “He said he couldn’t see them without holding it.”
“So Qira’s the only one who saw them without the shard, and you’re the only one who continued to see them after contact. Interesting. Those of us who lean darker had difficulty or didn’t notice the magic. Kenosera’s Darkness-blessed, and he saw nothing, while Sun-touched Yut-ta did. Same with Mera, Tally and Vesh.” Katta regarded the notebook, then the woman studying it. “Do you recognize anything, Joila?”
“Only one of the symbols,” she said, lowering the pages. “It’s the old Kanderite glyph for danger. It’s on the signs posted at the entrances to non-official pathways leading into the Labyrinth that tell hikers they need Strans’ Blessing to walk them.”
“If this is a warning, whoever placed it did a lousy job. Where’s Kjaelle?” Red glanced around, then stared at the wagons as if he could see through the wood. “If their origin is Kanderite, she’ll know what they say.”
“Dedari, Lesanova and Tagra asked her to escort them to the outhouses and Resa went to hold her back from spying on the Finders,” Katta murmured.
“And you didn’t go?” Red asked, amused, hooking his sodden hair behind his ears.
“No.” The firmness in his quiet tone cautioned his friend about continuing the teasing.
“Alright, alright. Let’s get to the fires, wring out, and go through the pages.” Red motioned towards the river and their shielded camp. “We need to know what a handful of us are being warned about.”
The suggestion was not an idle thought; cloaked Finders in the crowd stared at them, each with a smarmy smile. Good thing Red had the wagons protected, and Vantra hoped Kjaelle, Resa and the nomads returned without incident. Painful experience proved that her ex-colleagues did not care who they harmed as they pursued their nefarious goals.
