The road south was the first proper road I had ever walked. It was just a human road, wide enough for two carts abreast. I had only ever walked warpaths already trampled underneath my horde. Mile markers stood at intervals. I could read the numbers and the language well enough -that I had already confirmed in Hamel. Some things hadn’t changed, which was odd. They should have.
The forest thinned behind us within the first two hours and in its place came open land and rolling hills of green that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a sight I found myself staring out at, more than once. Even the air tasted different, and not in a bad way.
In the Demon Realm, the horizon had always been something you fought toward -toward a line of fire or perhaps a distant fortress to be conquered. It was odd to travel at all with no such thoughts in mind. Farmland appeared as the morning wore on. That was odd too, to see it all not already set ablaze.
The Inker walked at the front of our column and his soldiers formed a loose arrangement around us. There were four men between us and the Inker at all times.
The thin satchel hung from my shoulder, the egg nestled inside against spare clothes. I could feel its warmth through the cloth. It had been faintly pulsing for a while now. The rhythm had changed over the morning -it was slower now. It matched my heartbeat, or perhaps mine had begun to match it instead.
When the road grew rough with loose stone at one point, I shifted the satchel to my other shoulder. When the wind picked up, I turned so that my body shielded the bag. I did all of this without thinking, only realizing what I had done after the fact. When I noticed, I glared at the satchel. The egg never did answer for its transgressions. Against my skin, beneath the dress, Sara’s clay bead rested on its cord. I had not touched it since the road began. I could feel it there with every step.
We stopped at midday beside a stream that cut through the base of a low hill.
The soldiers filled their waterskins. The Inker sat on a flat stone and produced dried meat from his pack. I sat slightly apart from them with Ash, the satchel in my lap. I opened it to check on the egg -to inspect it for damage. That was the reason. Each time, there was no damage. The shell was warm to the touch, warmer than it had been that morning. The gold caught the midday light and held it. The black drank it in.
That was when the Inker looked at my arms. The act of reaching into the satchel had made my sleeve ride up just enough. His chewing stopped. The dried meat hung from his fingers, forgotten. He rose and crossed the distance between us in four strides. “Show me your marks. Lys…was it?” There was no sneer. The man looked genuinely bewildered. His eyes moved over the black Line on my right forearm, tracing its path from toward my now exposed elbow. He leaned close, squinting, and I could see the slight tremor in his hands.
I reluctantly pulled both sleeves up. His breath left him in a thin wheeze, even as his eyes bulged. He did not touch me. He would not have lived long enough to regret it if he had.
“Ash, that was your name,” he said, turning towards her. Ash hesitated for only a moment, before she extended her arms. The Inker examined hers with the same intensity. She only had the one Line, but it didn't seem to matter. The Inker's lips parted and slowly closed. His brows drew together. “Lines,” he finally said. “Both of you already have Lines….” He breathed out the words.
It seemed the man had a penchant for stating the obvious. Small men always did. “Yes,” I said. “Is this remarkable to you?”
The Inker’s jaw clenched. “I have students who trained for one full year before their Spark became a Line. A year of practice, Essence, instruction and access to the finest resonance chambers in Koralis.” He straightened, brushing dirt from his robes. “You have had seven days.”
He looked between us, and his bewilderment was genuine. “The mana it would take to advance a Spark this quickly is already absurd,” he said, half to himself. “But you have Sovereigns…Sovereign marks take at least three times the power of any other order to advance even a single stage. The amount you would need to have pushed through in seven days is…” His whisper trailed off and he shook his head. “It shouldn’t be possible with mana alone, not in seven days, not even for a prodigy. It does not matter how you do it, it simply isn’t possible. Then…there is the insight. Where would you two have found that….?”
He stared at my arms as if they had personally offended him. “Do you have Essence?” he asked sharply.
I held his gaze. “I do not know what that is.”
The Inker blinked. Whatever answer he had expected, that wasn’t it. “An Essence Core. Do you have one? Either of you? Have you been trained? Where?”
I glanced at Ash. She shook her head, just slightly. The term meant nothing to her either. Essence…he had mentioned that once before, at the Inking. And now this Essence Core. I did not have the faintest idea what either term meant, but they certainly seemed important.
“We do not know what that is,” I said again. I did not enjoy repeating myself, but the man’s face was doing something I had never tired of. The slow unravelling of certainty.
The Inker went quiet. “Allow me….” He raised a hand towards my side. I stared at his hand. Another place, I would have refused. I extended my arm towards him. He took it.
I felt the pulse of mana inside me. No…no this was something different. Heavier? “You really don’t have an Essence Core….” His mouth opened and slowly closed as he let my arm go. He stood there for a long moment, his eyes moving between us.
“What is Essence?” Ash asked before I could.
The Inker composed himself. Whatever had cracked in his composure was smoothed over now, though not well. “That is a matter for the Academy,” he said. “You will learn when we arrive.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Ash pressed.
“It is the answer you will receive on this road.” He turned and walked back to his stone. The dried meat had fallen in the dirt. He did not pick it up. Ash looked at me. I looked at her. There was a power beyond mana, then. One that the Inker guarded with the same jealousy that priests always guarded their rites. I filed the word away. Essence and Essence Core. How interesting.
The part of me that burned for all magical knowledge lit up. I would get the answer out of this man during this trip, whether he wished to give it to me or not. The Inker did not approach us again for some time. He still came back within the hour. I had known he would.
We were walking again by then, the hills rolling past us in that unbroken green. A breeze had picked up from the west, carrying the scent of earth and something faintly sweet that I could not identify.
The Inker fell into step beside me, which meant two of his soldiers had to adjust their positions. One of them looked deeply displeased about it. The Inker was not looking at my marks this time. He was looking at the satchel. “I noticed something in your pack,” he said. His tone was different from the earlier conversation. It was almost conversational. “A Beast Egg, if I am not mistaken. The coloring is unusual. A brilliant gold with strange black veining. I know of no catalogued species that produces an egg of that description.”
I did not stiffen. That was beneath me. “Perhaps your catalogue is incomplete.”
He ignored this. “Many people do keep beast companions, they are bonded creatures, tied to a wielder’s mark. They are rather rare -a sign of affinity between bearer and beast. One would not find such a thing anywhere near Hamel.” He glanced at me sideways. “How did you come by it?”
I considered the merits of lying. “I killed a beast and then I found this.”
The Inker waited for more. I offered nothing, and so he pressed. “What kind of beast?”
I gave him the barest description. “A beast that attacked the village. I slew it. The villagers did mention that to you, did they not? This is its…child.”
It did not seem like he fully believed me. Nonetheless, he said nothing further. The Inker looked at the satchel differently after that. I saw his hand twitch at his side, a barely suppressed urge to examine the egg more closely. He mastered it, and that was good, for he might have lost the hand.
Over the next hour, I asked many questions, and none of them had been answered. The Inker deflected each one. None of the soldiers so much as bothered to even acknowledge I had asked them anything at all. For an escort, they were a rather surly bunch.
Ash was more patient in her approach when she finally made it. She fell into step near the Inker as the afternoon wore on. The road had widened further. I could see wheel tracks crossing in both directions, and twice we passed other travellers moving north. They gave us a wide berth.
“This…Academy, you called it,” Ash began. “What happens there, exactly? I am afraid we know little of this consecration you have recruited us to.”
The Inker clasped his hands behind his back. This was one of the rare questions he actually answered. “Your marks will be cultivated and your potential will be nurtured. Your talents will eventually be directed toward the good of all, in service to the Archon and the Covenant. Well, I say all of these things but it is you who will do all of them. All we will do is provide an environment suitable for the task.”
The man said this like it explained everything. It explained nothing, and left me with more questions than when he had started speaking. “What is this Covenant?” She asked.
“All those that follow the wisdom of the Divine.” The man said.
“Who…is this Divine?”
“God," the man said.
I stared at him. God? Now that was a lofty title. I had certainly never heard of a God by that name before, and I knew all of them, as they well knew me. Besides, all Gods were Gods of something. None of them would be arrogant enough to take the entire role. I would have asked, if I’d thought I’d get any answers.
“You mentioned that our marks would be…cultivated. Cultivated how?” Ash asked.
“Through established methods, honed over centuries of practice.”
“And what would they be directed toward, specifically?”
“The betterment of the realm.”
“That’s not an answer.” Ash pressed.
“As I have said before, it is the answer I will give you on this road.” The Inker’s stride did not change. “The methods are sacred. They are discussed within Academy grounds, under the guidance of those authorized to teach them.”
There was real conviction in his voice. The fool truly did believe what he said. I had known priests who felt this way about their rites. I had killed most of them. Many demons had had this conviction when they spoke of me, and them I had never learned what to do with. Orzathiel had been one. Had been the loudest of them all.
Ash tried once more. She rephrased her questions and at times asked different ones. The man gave her nothing more. I was now left with more questions than when we’d began. Eventually, Ash stepped to my side after having given up.
“Knowledge is always conveniently both sacred and hoarded at the same time,” I said quietly. “Why does everything Holy always look the same?”
Ash glanced at me. She did not answer, though I thought I saw the edges of her lip twitch.
It was late afternoon when one of the soldiers spoke to me. They had all been remarkably quiet thus far, even amongst themselves. If I had not occasionally caught whispered conversation, I would have thought them some manner of golem, rather than men. I was adjusting the satchel against my shoulder, one hand resting on the egg through the cloth. One of the soldiers muttered as he passed my side.
“Filthy Half-demon.” The sneer was audible even in a whisper.
I stopped walking. The column continued for two steps before anyone noticed. Three more before the soldiers realized I was no longer moving. I found the one who had spoken. He was a young man, armored in the same silver as the rest. He met my gaze for precisely one second before his eyes found the ground.
“Repeat yourself.” He did not. “I said, repeat yourself.” My voice was quiet. That had always worked better than shouting. The Inker had stopped at the front of the column. He turned to watch.
The soldier, to his credit or his idiocy, straightened his back. “Half-demon,” he said. “It’s what you are, isn’t it? I just said it.” He glanced at the men beside him, perhaps looking for support. “A damned mixed blood, not even a Demonblood, but a damned half-demon. Part demon and part human, it looks like. Wouldn’t be surprised if your kind was mixed in with something worse.”
I had heard the word before. That fool adventurer Marsh had said it, back on the cart, a lifetime ago. Others had too, in Hamel. I had not believed it then. I had dismissed it as the ignorance of a diminished age -but I had also not asked. A Queen did not ask for definitions of words she should have already known, and so the question had sat inside me for days because asking it meant confronting something I did not wish to. Mixed blood. I knew now what it meant, though a part of me had suspected for some time now.
There were no such things as half-demons. Not in my time. The barriers between all races had been absolute. In my long rule, across every corner of every land my horde had conquered, I had never once encountered such a thing, nor heard tell of one. I had assumed the limit was natural.
What if it hadn’t been? If the System had prevented interbreeding, then its diminishing hadn’t merely removed Classes. And my body -this body that was not quite mine was….
The anger found me. Only some of it was aimed at the soldier himself. He was beneath my notice and always would be. It was largely aimed at the possibility that I was exactly what he said.
My mana stirred. It was not the most sizable amount. What little I had drawn in together since we’d started walking. Enough to use the Requiem or the Cradle for a handful of times, with this thin mana. The threat had few fangs beneath it. Still, the soldier’s face lost its color. Ash stood beside me. I saw her reaching at her side.
“The blood in my veins,” I said, and my voice was very low, “has accomplished more than every generation of your line combined. The full scope of your error would break what little mind you possess, and I am not feeling charitable enough to explain it.”
Other soldiers had moved their hands toward their blades. The tension held for two breaths. The Inker’s voice cut through it. “Sergeant Halm.” The Inker had not moved from his position at the front of the column. His voice carried the weight of rank, and both of his marks were glowing. “These two are Consecrated. They are my most esteemed guests. They are the Archon’s most esteemed guests, and allies of the Academy. You will address them with the respect that their station demands, or I will find a soldier who can.”
The soldier -Halm- went rigid. “Sir! Yes, sir.” He looked at me again, muttered the quietest ‘sorry’ anyone might have ever given, and then he kept walking.
I stood in the road. The Requiem settled and the march resumed. Nobody spoke for a long time. Nobody save for Ash. “I’m impressed you showed restraint.” She whispered next to me.
My right eye twitched. I stepped to the side, enough to bump her shoulder with mine. “What do you take me for?”
“I take you for you.”
That made me laugh. It was just a single breath that escaped through my nose. “Fair enough, Ash” We kept walking. Only a few steps later did I realize I’d said her name with more weight than I usually used.
I noticed the Inker was walking closer to us than before. His gaze lingered on me with an expression I finally recognized. It was not just fear now, but curiosity. I held the satchel tighter and did not look back.
The soldiers set a perimeter at dusk. We had stopped in a clearing where the road widened near a group of strangely pointed trees.
Their bark was pale, almost white. The Inker retreated to a small tent his men erected for him. He glanced in my direction. “Tomorrow, we will stop at an Inn. There, you will have rooms. Proper rooms. For tonight….” He looked around, looked back at his tent, then looked at us. He shook his head, and stepped into his tent.
The soldiers took shifts as they set up something resembling a camp. Ash and I were given bedrolls but no tent. There was only one of them. Whatever greed compelled the Inker, it seemed it did not extend to him sleeping outside of a tent. I did not complain, though I certainly wished to.
I lay on my back. The satchel was open beside me and I had taken the egg out. It rested on my chest, rising and falling with my breathing. Against my collarbone, the clay bead pressed gently with each breath, and for a while the two of them were the only warmth I had.
Above me, the stars had come out. I had seen them before. That first night in the forest, when I had been too confused to really look. Then again in Hamel, but I had never simply looked up at the sky for the sake of looking. Now there was nothing between me and them.
A thousand points of light arranged above me, as if by some master painter. They hung there, shining and sparkling. One could not see the stars in my realm, even at night. The crimson sky would never allow it. They were largely white and silver. A few of them glared red. A few of them shone blue. They felt so indescribably vast, and for a moment, even I felt small. Perhaps they would even make the Gods feel the same.
I said nothing. Ash lay a few paces to my right. After a time, I held the egg above me and raised it toward the sky with both hands. The gold of the shell caught the starlight and held it. The black veins stared back at me. The egg pulsed twice. Something stirred inside it -something that was deciding, perhaps, what it wished to be. I brought it back to my chest and held it there.
“What do you think it will be?” Ash’s voice came from the dark beside me. She was close. Very close. I had not said anything when she’d set her bedroll right next to mine.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Something with wings, perhaps,” I added, because this silence felt like it wanted filling. “Given its parentage it will be a rather mighty steed, I should think.”
There was a pause as Ash did not say anything immediately. I caught her staring up at the stars too. “There was a place by the river Thales,” Ash said slowly. “Orvyn described it to me once. She said there were willows there -that's a type of tree. She said that they touched the water, and in the spring, the light came through them…through their leaves, I mean. She said it made them sparkle.”
I said nothing. There was nothing to say that would not have been clumsy. “I used to think I’d go there,” Ash continued. “Afterwards, when it was all over.” She paused. “No, that’s a lie. I’d just hoped I might be able to, someday.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s a thousand years gone.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I think I’d still like to find a river with willows…just to see if the light can do something like that.”
I had never once thought of what I might do if my spell succeeded. It had not crossed my mind, and now, here I was. I still did not know. But perhaps there was merit to seeing this sparkling willow, just for the sake of it. It was not a bad thought. The silence returned. Above us, the stars did not move. There was an odd chirping from somewhere far away -an insect of some kind.
“Lys.” Ash’s voice was different now. “Do you think Hamel will be alright? I mean, without us there?”
“The village stood for decades before we arrived,” I said.
“That’s not what I mean.” She paused. “There were those wolves. There was the Elk in the forest. Then that…last thing.” We had agreed not to name the last creature. “That village just has a tiny wall and two guards. I…I’ve tried not to think about it, but I can’t help but worry. Don’t tell me I’m the only one.” She said it with certainty, as if she knew she wasn’t.
I was quiet for a long time. I had been thinking about this. I had been thinking about this since the phoenix, and perhaps even before that. “You’re worried about the wrong thing,” I said finally.
I felt Ash turn toward me in the dark. “What do you mean?”
“The village will be safer without us. Much safer, I suspect.”
“What does that mean?” Ash pressed in a low whisper.
I chose my words. This was not the kind of thing one could say carelessly...and I did not wish for my words to harm her without intending to. “Do you remember what I told you about the Classes?”
“How could I forget?” Ash said dryly. “Yes.”
I ignored her tone. I would allow her to use it, seldomly. “The Class didn’t only pull the bearer -it pulled everything around them, if it was the right Class. The world itself bent to accommodate certain Classes. The pattern of the world twisted itself. You must have noticed it on your journey yourself. Friends who arrived at the right moment or enemies that appeared in the right place. Idyllic places that were idyllic no longer once a Hero arrived.” I stared up at the stars.
The silence was different now. It was one of the rare uncomfortable ones between us. “You are saying,” Ash began, slowly, “that the thing that attacked the village-”
“Might have been drawn there, by us.” I turned the egg in my hands. “I had thought that perhaps, without the System…that tugging at the world around us would be gone. That we would be free of it, but the beasts we saw…the ones nobody in the village had ever heard of, let alone seen.” I shook my head. “Perhaps we still have some remnant of that pull. Or perhaps we are simply the two unluckiest women in the world.”
I heard Ash’s breathing change. I did not believe that last part, and did not know why I had said it at all. Ash was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was heavy. “So wherever we go-”
“It is just a possibility, but yes.” I said. “Though, the pull was not a constant thing, even back then. Nothing might happen for some time. That village at least….”
Ash nodded, “Will be safer without u-”
The sound of the horn split the night in two.