When I'd managed to catch my breath, and get a bit of moisture into my scalded throat, I felt a very different heat rise up in me.

Anger.

Olliard had helped his apprentice up. She stood on shaky legs, her face still drained of color, her eyes red from crying.

I stepped forward, pushed the doctor aside, and grabbed the girl by the collar of her shift. My lips peeled back from my teeth in a snarl.

"What were you thinking?" I snapped. "You should know better than to wander off after voices in the dark, idiot girl!"

She gaped at me, shocked at my anger and the nightmare she'd just experienced. She was covered in scratches and clinging leaves, the hem of her dress muddy. The wraiths had drained some vitality from her — the clear blue of her eyes had faded into something closer to gray, and her cheeks and eyes looked more sunken than they had even hours ago when we'd made camp. A single streak of white touched her blond hair.

The spirits had tormented her before I'd arrived. I had only seen one piece of the nightmare she had experienced. Had I been even a few minutes later, I suspected I'd be staring at an old, withered face aged far past its time.

"Fool," I called her. "Next time, I'll leave you to them."

"Leave her be!" Olliard stepped forward, his kindly face hardened into a mask of anger. "Hasn't she suffered enough?"

I turned my glare on him. When he saw my eyes, he flinched.

"Those were wraiths," I told them both. "They can rip your life right out of you, but they'll usually drive you mad first. That's just one of a legion of dangers in a wilderness like this."

I looked at Lisette again. "Do not leave the light of a campfire out here. Ever."

"Your eyes are glowing." Lisette's voice had a dreamy quality. I could see a shimmer of gold in the blue of her own eyes as they reflected mine.

I let her go. Olliard caught her as she stumbled back and glared up at me.

"Wraiths?" He asked. "Ghosts, you mean."

"Elves." I scanned the forest. With my aura still faintly burning, I could see through the darkness. I saw no sign of any threat, but knew it lay out there.

"Dead elves, you mean?" Olliard asked. "Their shades?"

I shook my head. "Elves are immortal. They don't die, not like we do. Their spirits are made of sterner stuff. Those you saw were Seydii from the Golden Country. They lost their bodies when Seydis burned, but they'll linger like that."

"They're still burning," Lisette muttered, still looking dazed and half aware of her surroundings.

I didn't disagree. I thought of the one I'd cut. I hadn't wanted to add to its pain, but it had left me no choice. Even still…

Damn them. I knew I couldn't reason with madness, but it still galled.

"Why did you leave camp?" I demanded, turning my frustration where it could find purchase.

Lisette blinked, frowning. She seemed to be slowly pulling herself out of the shock. "I thought I was dreaming. I didn't even realize when I'd left camp, then the mist came and…"

She shivered. "I couldn't find my way back. They showed me things."

"They blame us for the war." I watched the woods. "For the destruction of their realm."

"Us?" Olliard asked, furrowing his bushy brows.

"Humans," I said.

The doctor's frown deepened.

"Be grateful those were just spirits," I said darkly, turning my back on them. "I wouldn't have been able to banish them so easily otherwise. Let's get back to camp."

I'd taken five steps before Olliard called out. "Wait!"

I stopped.

"Who are you?" The doctor asked me.

"He's a knight of the old orders," Lisette said, her voice full of quiet awe. "I thought they'd all died during the Fall. Or gone mad."

I started walking again. "They did. And I am no knight."

We set out early, none of us well rested. As before, Olliard sat on the bench and drove, while Lisette and I remained in the cart's bed. For many hours, none of us spoke to one another.

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I felt content with that. I knew they must have questions, could practically feel their dour curiosity. I just didn't know what I would tell them, if anything.

Those wraiths had been following me. They weren't the only dark things that did. I thought of the whispering shades who'd taunted me after I'd escaped the river, and Nath. Plenty of more common ghosts haunted my steps.

But those shapes of silver fire were deadly. Just one more reason to recover quickly, and part ways with this little company. I shifted in the cart, and bit down a growl of pain as my new burns let out cries of protest along with my other half-healed injuries.

"You should let me see to those burns," Lisette said. She'd been watching me.

"I heal quick." I folded my arms, ignoring the discomfort. "There's no need."

"I have a healing Art," the girl insisted. "It will at lease ease your pain. You saved my life. Let me—"

"You saved mine already," I interrupted her. "No need to keep unbalancing the score."

"Stop being impossible," Lisette snapped, some of the thorns she'd lost in the previous night's horror reappearing. "There is no reason to sit there and grimace through it."

I caught Olliard's glance as he turned back, one of his gray eyebrows lifted. He shrugged, then tutted to his chimera. A moment later, the cart stopped. I sighed.

I let Lisette tend to my injuries. She checked the stitch work she'd already done, then began to run her fingers along the burns on my arms and neck. A subtle warmth passed from her touch into my skin, and I knew she wove something less tangible than gut string into me — aura.

She work her power into my flesh like she would ordinary stitches. Half an hour later, much of the pain had faded.

I kept stoic throughout, but…

She had a talent. I'd rarely met any adept who could weave a healing Art more potent than the aureflame.

"I don't understand," Lisette said after she'd finished. "I can tell your magic is healing you, but last night it burned you."

I adjusted my shirt as I answered. "Depends on how hard I use it. Anything dramatic, and…" I waved at the burns.

"Has it always been like that?" Lisette asked, seeming disturbed at the thought.

I shook my head. "Not always, no."

"A flame that can heal as well as harm," Olliard pondered as he checked Brume's tack. "What a strange thing."

"Lots of strange magics in the world," I said dismissively.

Neither of them had a riposte for that, and soon enough we were moving again.

We cleared the irkwood not long after, and passed into the domain known as Caelfall.

My first impression of the country wasn't a kind one. Brooding gray clouds obscured the sky, casting a dull pallor over an already dour looking land. Small lakes and marshland dotted dreary fields. Dead trees burst from murky, shallow water in many places, sometimes scattered and sometimes rising dense to form small, sunken woods, their bare limbs stretching toward the sky like the grasping fingers of the dead.

Hungry growth threatened to choke the narrow road, causing our journey to slow. Morning mist coiled sullenly beyond the path, shrouding the terrain in a jealous haze. It grew denser further out, where the terrain seemed lower and more water-logged.

Lisette watched the mist veiled country with quiet concern, and Olliard kept his calm gaze fixed firmly forward, his eyes unreadable behind the almost opaque lenses of his spectacles.

We came within sight of our destination in the late afternoon. I saw the bell tower first, rising like a mast over one of the very few tall hills in that sunken land, and soon recognized the structure as a church.

Olliard let out a breath of relief. "There it is. Somewhere beyond that rise is the Cael Village, the largest settlement in this country. You can see Castle Cael out on the lake when the weather is clear. That's where the baron lives.

"The baron?" I asked. "He's the lord of all this?" My eyes roamed the sickly landscape.

Olliard nodded. "Orson Falconer. Don't let the dire scenery fool you, Alken. House Falconer is an old line, prestigious and well respected by the folk in this country"

I hadn't heard of the family. Though, there were hundreds of noble clans scattered across the subcontinent, and I hardly knew all of them. I guessed it to be a Low House, isolated to this little dominion.

Brume climbed the winding path up the steep hill with dogged eagerness, perhaps sensing an end to the long journey. I half expected the brutish animal to try going into the marshlands and playing in the mud, but she kept her big snout forward and her legs moving along the road. Soon enough we pulled through the posts that marked the entrance to hallowed ground.

I recalled the words of a mighty a lord from many years prior. You are declared anathema to all divisions of the Church, whose servants will not grant you aid or succor—

I had done far worse than intrude on holy ground. I said nothing as we crossed over.

Churches have many varied designs in my homeland. This one was old, with a circular central structure winged by two separate buildings. The holy auremark, the same symbol Lisette wore around her neck, had been engraved both into the front door of the chapel and into the bell above it.

A man in the pale brown robes of a preoster, a preacher of the Church, waited for us on the steps. He was young, round in body and face, with dark hair grown in unkempt rings around his head. Hard to tell from a distance, but he didn't look pleased.

As Olliard navigated the cart into the field before the chapel, the priest descended the steps to approach us. He had a haunted look about him, with an almost sickly pale face and bruised eyelids.

"Is that little Edgar?" Olliard smiled at the man, who I placed in his mid twenties. "My, you've grown!"

Edgar tilted his head, studying our small company for a moment that lasted uncomfortably long. Lisette and I had climbed out of the cart as well.

"Doctor Olliard," the priest finally replied to the physiker. I got the sense he hadn't recognized the older man at first. "It's been a very long time."

"Thirteen years, I think." Olliard hid his own unease behind a grandfatherly smile. "Is Micah in? It's been a long journey, and I would like to settle in. I got his letter!"

Edgar only stared, as though nonplussed.

The doctor frowned, scratching at his pockmarked cheek. "Dear me. Is he in one of the villages? My timing has always been terrible."

My own unease, growing steadily ever since we'd crossed the border into this country, spiked at the dead expression on the young priest's face. He wasn't wearing the plain robes of a monk or a junior member of the clergy, but of a senior preoster, the head of a chapel. His amber robes, though faded and well worn, had golden thread in them, and gold also was the auremark dangling from his neck.

I already knew what the young man would say before he said it. Even still, I watched the hammer strike Olliard hard.

"Preoster Micah is dead," Edgar told us. "I am the caretaker of this shrine, now."

"Dead?" Olliard asked, blinking. "How?"

"Illness." Edgar spoke with no particular emotion. "It happened three weeks ago. He passed in his sleep."

Preoster Edgar turned then, ushering us toward the chapel door. "He told me you were expected, doctor. I will prepare rooms for you and your companions, and meals. Come."

I traded a glance with Lisette, seeing my uncertainty mirrored in her eyes. I suspected she felt the same as me.

This sanctuary did not feel safe.

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