Tyrus lay on his back against the wagon, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed.

The wheels rumbled in a steady rhythm beneath him, each bump and rattle crawling up his spine. Outside, hooves clopped; the horses pulling them were big, leather-brown brutes with thick necks and muscles that flexed under their hides whenever Sir Wayne gave the reins a light snap. They were headed back toward Valis, taking a route that would eventually lead them past the edges of Wildwood.

They'd left Cliffview behind only a short while ago, not before making sure there weren't any more beasts lurking nearby, of course.

When Tyrus, Igneal, and Fiona had reached the eastern fields after the chapel incident, the fighting had already ended. What remained was a battlefield gone quiet. The grass was trampled and torn, splashed with drying blood. Human bodies were scattered among the beasts, some with faces turned toward the sky, eyes open and glassy. Others were already being covered with sheets by surviving guards, who wore those same haunted stares.

The carcasses of the hounds lay twisted in death. Limbs at odd angles, mouths stuck open in final snarls.

Tyrus remembered stopping beside the greater hound's corpse. Its head had been severed from its body, and the skull helmet fused to its own head was shattered into fragments scattered all around. What remained of the beast's muzzle looked like it had been caved in by repeated blunt strikes. Its face was barely recognizable as something that had once breathed, snarled, and hunted.

He'd shivered then, imagining it facing Reo's speed, Grant's shield swings, and then Sir Wayne on top of that. He almost pitied it for a moment... well almost. It had come for human meat, and its pack had taken lives.

He could vividly imagine the last minutes of the fight, clear as if he'd stood there watching. Reo darting between its legs, Grant hammering away with his shield, and Sir Wayne stepping in at the precise moment to deliver the killing blow. Tyrus almost regretted running off. He wouldn't have minded trying his hand against a greater hound beside them.

But there had been a man and a child, and other families who would've died if he hadn't gone. He couldn't regret that.

He'd ripped a few fangs from beast skulls as they searched, then used mana sense to scan every corpse. The lesser and standard hounds had no mana cores, which didn't surprise the group. Low ranked beasts rarely did, and hounds were among the least likely.

Even the greater hound's body was empty when he probed it. Tyrus had hoped, just for a second, that they might get lucky. Two greater-rank cores in a single week would've been incredible, even split five ways. Fiona had been the most disappointed, scowling at the air like it owed her money.

After that, they'd helped with the cleanup. The beasts were piled into a great mound and set alight. Fire roared high, black smoke clawing into the sky. The stonemasons that had been circling overhead like patient vultures gradually drifted away, maybe losing interest, maybe wary of approaching the smoke and blaze.

With the immediate threat gone, Cliffview finally had a sliver of space to breathe, though it didn't last long.

The town had fewer guards now, and the mines were gone. Without the mines, most people had nowhere to work. No sil to earn meant no food on the table. Tyrus had heard snatches of conversation as people huddled in knots around the chapel and guild, wondering whether to stay or leave.

He didn't know how towns were supposed to handle disasters like that. His understanding was simple: a place had someone in charge, and that person made decisions to keep things running. How they did that, he did not know.

Tyrus hoped Darros and the old lady would figure something out. If they didn't, the town would starve or fracture, and the people he just helped save would be scattered across Dharmere looking for new work, if the bandits and beasts didn't kill them first.

The wagon jolted over a rut. Tyrus grunted and shifted his shoulders, trying to ease the ache.

He was exhausted. His muscles felt like they'd been beaten with hammers and left to dry. His thoughts were heavy, like someone had settled a boulder on top of his skull and dared him to think around it. He'd tried meditating earlier to pull ambient mana into his body and feed it into his mana heart, but concentrating was a nightmare.

Every time he pictured mana streaming inward, he saw something else instead.

A figure at the end of the chapel. Its head was crowned and veiled by a curtain of living vines, delicate stems and tiny leaves cascading down. There was no face to be examined, no eyes to meet his gaze. Yet, he could feel a hidden pair burning into him, piercing his skin, boring right through him.

That weight. That pressure... like he was a lone rodent being stared down by a stonemason.

His pathways had burned under that gaze. For a few seconds, he'd been absolutely certain his ribs would crack inward, and he'd splatter across the chapel floor until Eaubrus tore himself out of Tyrus's shadow.

The pain had died down almost immediately after. Tyrus's jaw tightened at the memory.

He'd gone over it again and again. The late warning in his mind, and the way the agony had slammed into him the moment he crossed the threshold. And the fact that, after he could finally breathe again, no one besides him had seen the vine-veiled figure.

Igneal had only seen him collapse and struggle, and Eaubrus had insisted there'd been no one there. That left a problem, and a big one at that.

The hound had apologized once Tyrus could hear again. Eaubrus had insisted he did not know something like that would happen. Something within his soul had recoiled when they got near the chapel, but he hadn't understood why. He'd tried to warn Tyrus, but it was too late.

Naturally, Tyrus demanded answers. Why did walking into a small chapel feel like being stabbed in the heart with a spear of fire? What exactly reacted to him inside that place? Eaubrus hadn't been able to answer any of that. Or claimed he couldn't.

The hound had only said, If you saw a figure, I did not. I sensed only danger. When I withdrew, the pain lessened. But I saw no one.

Igneal, blunt as always, declared Tyrus was hallucinating. Fiona hadn't been there to see what happened. The priests and townsfolk had only seen him collapse. No one had seen the vine-veiled head or felt the fury but him.

That alone would've been bad enough. The fact that the pain eased when Eaubrus left his side made it worse. Now he lay there in the wagon, sore and drained and full of questions that kept knocking against the inside of his head.

Whoever that was… were they angry at me, or at something behind me? I was at the front, but…

He'd been facing the statue when it happened. Behind him had been Igneal and his own shadow, stretching long along the floor, with Eaubrus nestled inside.

Eaubrus's warning. The instant, instinctive refusal to step inside. The pain vanishing when he separated...

That anger wasn't directed at me, Tyrus thought. It was for Eaubrus.

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Tyrus rubbed his forehead, wincing. His thoughts were going in circles, and every lap only made his head throb more. He was receiving more questions than answers, with no one to ask.

The plans he'd made earlier to visit the Valis sewers and speak with Arach about Subterraneans, then go to the Wasteful Wetlands sanctuary to consult the Elder Treant for Eaubrus's sake, suddenly felt less straightforward.

If Eaubrus is hiding something, I'll just walk right along, won't I? Smile and nod and help him recover memories that might ruin me later.

So far, everything Eaubrus had told him was simple: he wanted his memories back. He wanted to understand what he was and why he had been bound the way he was. He'd listened when Sir Geroth had warned him to be careful. Tyrus had always, in the back of his mind, kept the thought that Eaubrus might be more dangerous than he seemed.

But… nothing looked suspicious. The hound rarely left his shadow without permission. He guarded Tyrus, warned him of threats, and helped in battles. He didn't sneak around killing people in their sleep.

Most days, Tyrus thought of Eaubrus as… well, not exactly a pet. That was disrespectful, and didn't really fit. Something closer to a friend, or a partner. Somewhere along those lines. And that made the idea of Eaubrus lying to him feel worse.

Was that what was happening? Or was Tyrus overcomplicating things over a coincidence?

Sir Geroth told me to be wary of a magical beast's intentions, he thought. I haven't forgotten. It's just… what's the right choice here? I won't get the answer lying here on the floor of a wagon.

Tyrus cracked open one eye, then the other, and tilted his head a little to look around.

Fiona sat cross-legged near the center bench, her back to one side of the wagon. Her face had lost a bit of its usual color, and she was taking slow, measured breaths. She'd closed her eyes, her hands resting lightly on her knees, posture relaxed.

Grant mimicked her a few feet away, but in a different posture. Back straight, shoulders easy but aligned, palms resting upward. His eyebrows knitted now and then, like he was counting breaths.

Reo was in the worst shape. He lay on his back, one arm covering his eyes, his chest barely rising and falling in shallow breaths. He looked paler than Fiona, and sweat beaded on his forehead. His daggers were sheathed, resting near his fingertips, as though he wanted them within immediate reach the moment he woke.

Grant had told Tyrus the whole story while they'd been waiting for the wagon to be prepared.

Reo had spent minutes taunting the greater hound, using augmentation nonstop, ducking and weaving around claws that could shear through iron, fangs that could crush bone in a heartbeat. One wrong move and he'd be dead. The fact that he was still breathing at all meant they'd been extremely lucky.

At the final moment, when the beast had nearly cornered him, Sir Wayne had stepped in and turned the tide with a single clean strike. Without the knight, Reo would've become another corpse on the field. Even Tyrus had to grudgingly admit Sir Wayne was good for something other than standing around and being condescending.

Tyrus groaned at complimenting the knight and let his eyes close. He exhaled, let his awareness drift inward, and slid into the Sorcerer Plane.

Darkness greeted him, but not of an empty kind. In front of him rose the Karti Tree, enormous as ever, its trunk vanishing upward into the void. Branches splayed out across the black like a hand of reaching limbs.

Some branches glowed like stars. Others were dull, supporting the luminous ones like bones beneath the skin.

The four closest branches, easy enough to reach with a leap and a touch, thrummed with a steady light. They were brighter now, more vibrant. Above them, the fifth branch had shone. A faint shimmer, like a candle that had just been lit in a windy room.

Tyrus blinked, then slowly smiled.

Aha! I did it! I finally reached the fifth branch!

Tyrus felt like he'd been perched on the fourth branch for ages. Nearly a year of careful training, cautious usage, and limited battles. Seeing that fifth branch light up felt like finally standing on the next floor after being trapped on the same one, pacing back and forth with no exit to be seen.

However, after giving it some more thought, his smile faded after a heartbeat.

A year for a single branch. Once upon a time, he'd dreamed of sprinting up the Karti Tree, unlocking power as fast as his body would allow. One day, waking up and realizing he was one of the strongest sorcerers in Dharmere, leaving everyone else in his dust.

But that wasn't how it had gone.

His stupid restricted mana heart had put a hard limit on how reckless he could be. Pushing his body to the edge was no longer an option every other day. Training too intensely meant lasting damage. Using too much mana too often meant stabbing pain and the risk of ruining himself long before he had the chance to become anything.

Turns out, training meant slowly stoking a fire instead of dumping more wood on it every time he trained.

He was still advancing. The Karti Tree proved that. But the pace was a snail's pace compared to what he'd wanted. Tyrus had no one to blame but himself. He knew that. It didn't make him any less annoyed.

Tyrus tore his attention from the branches and looked down, toward the base of the Karti Tree. His elements floated there, four little worlds orbiting their own space.

Lightning—his first and strongest affinity—hovered as a compact sphere of crackling light. Tiny arcs lashed outward like angry whips, then withdrew back into the core, never fully settling.

Next to it, the dark element loomed like a coiled cloud. Black smoke curled in on itself, tendrils wriggling across its surface as if looking for freedom. The longer he stared at it head-on, the colder his phantom body felt, as if the temperature in the Sorcerer Plane actually dipped.

Tyrus looked away and set his sights on the next element.

Fire was a comforting ember by comparison, flickering quietly. A small flame, but with no dramatic flares. It hadn't grown much at all this past year.

The fiery element almost never got used. Against most beasts, lightning simply had more power and purpose. When lightning could pierce and immobilize, why bother with a weaker burn?

Choosing between lightning and fire felt like choosing between boots or bare feet across a bed of jagged stones. Anyone with sense knew which option they'd prefer.

Then there was light. His gaze snagged on it, and his brows drew together.

The light element glowed like a street lamp left alone on a quiet road, bright enough to see by, but not impressive compared to lightning. This was the element he used with lightning most often, mostly because of Healing Touch and Light Bolt.

He'd tried pushing past them, but every attempt to stretch light into something greater felt like hitting an invisible wall. The sphere's surface stayed about the same size. The glow never gained the thickness he'd come to recognize as a sign of improvement.

Dark, an element he unlocked after light, had already grown enough to rival lightning's presence… and in some ways came close in power. It was still new compared to the others, but it shouldn't have overtaken light so fast if it were progressing normally.

Tyrus crossed his arms, lips pressing into a thin line.

Maybe I'm just hitting a wall… or maybe this is my ceiling for light.

Tyrus didn't want to say it out loud, even in his own head, but the thought was there. He wanted stronger healing spells. He wanted to patch people up like Fiona could, to stand over his fallen allies and drag them back from near death.

Right now, he could seal cuts and ease bruises. Anything worse required luck, time, or someone else. Perhaps he'd been spoiled by how quickly lightning had grown.

No, don't start panicking now. Hopefully, in a year I'll look back and realize it was growing the whole time and I was too impatient to notice.

He finally forced himself to look at the space beside the light sphere. A faint outline was there, as if something wanted to bloom into existence.

If Tyrus remembered correctly, water was the next element most sorcerers unlocked. Once his Karti Tree reached a certain point, he was expected to bring it forth. He could do so right now if he just reached inward and tugged.

I could summon it now and be done with it, he thought. Get a head start, not wait until the academy forces it in class.

But the moment his hand drifted to his chest and clutched, he stopped.

What if unlocking an additional element on top of my condition makes things worse? What if it knocks something out of balance? Or… or it makes my mana heart burst! I can't let that happen!

The last thought wasn't entirely rational, but the fear behind it was. His body had its limits. Pushing beyond it without Vaerlyn's approval was… stupid.

He let his hand fall away and released the half-formed pull. He wouldn't summon a new element, not until Head Healer Vaerlyn cleared him.

Speaking of healers, he was late for his check-in with Cecilia. She would already be tapping her foot in some hallway, tome in hand, waiting to drag him in for tests. Sir Geroth would add another lecture to his growing collection about "responsibility" and whatnot.

Tyrus sighed, pulling his gaze from the scene before him. Away from the branches, away from everything the Karti Tree symbolized for his future.

He stared into the void behind him for a few seconds, then turned around fully.

"…Eaubrus," he called out, his voice echoing strangely in the Sorcerer Plane. "Come out. I want to talk."

A faint stirring brushed his senses. At his feet, shadows seeped up from the plane's darkness, coiling into a tight, swirling mass. The cloud of shadow rose and compressed, lines sharpening, until the familiar shape of a wolf took form.

Eaubrus shuddered, as though shaking off water. His fur appeared to merge with the darkness, marked by streaks of white mirroring the light above. He lowered his head, the white symbol now fixed on Tyrus.

"You called for me, bearer?" he said, voice resonating directly in Tyrus's mind, with an echo that seemed to vibrate in the very bark of the Karti Tree.

Tyrus stared at him in silence for a heartbeat.

"Yeah, I have a few questions, and I need honest answers from you."

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