Old Calendar, Year 189.

  In the ruins of Dewbloom Village, inside a temporary Drak Empire field tent, Enid slowly opened her eyes.

  The first thing she saw was Antonio dozing in a chair beside her.

  She tried to sit up, but the strain from burning through so much nature magic had left her drained. The twisted curse flared in the hollow where her mana should have been, and a sharp wave of pain forced a rough breath out of her as she slumped back onto the stretcher.

  The sound jolted Antonio awake.

  The moment he saw Enid conscious, pale and grimacing, he bolted out of the tent and started shouting for a medic.

  He returned quickly, dragging in a military doctor and two priests.

  Antonio grabbed Enid’s hand, tears spilling down his cheeks as he blurted, “Enid, thank the gods, you’re awake. Don’t worry, I brought the doctor.”

  The doctor asked if she felt anything wrong.

  Enid said her chest felt tight and her head hurt, but aside from that, she was fine.

  After checking her again for injuries, the doctor said it was likely the aftereffects of being unconscious for too long and running on an empty stomach. He could not find any serious wounds.

  The priests added that, aside from her being severely depleted of mana, they sensed nothing else, no curse, no lingering corruption. As far as they could tell, she was out of danger.

  Enid asked how long she had been out.

  “Three days,” the doctor said.

  “Three days,” Enid murmured, “shorter than I expected.”

  Then the doctor asked another question, whether she had encountered anyone like a mage before she brought the injured Antonio to them.

  Enid was about to admit she was the nature mage who wiped out the demons, but she caught sight of Antonio behind the doctor, no longer crying, blinking hard at her like his life depended on it.

  Don’t say it.

  So Enid went along.

  She said the fighting was already over when she arrived, and she had not seen any mage.

  She even played ignorant and asked if a mage might have driven off the demons who attacked the village.

  The doctor said he could not be sure, but the bodies in the ruins told a story.

  Some had been cleanly cut apart like a blade had gone through them. Some were burned down to ash. Some were blackened and shattered as if lightning had struck them. Others were torn up so badly it was hard to tell what had killed them.

  What they could say was this, the demons had clearly been hit by one powerful mage, or several, because the damage was too varied and too extreme.

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  More importantly, the report identified the attackers as a raiding unit from a strong demon tribe. Every single one of them had been killed, and the weapon dropped by the demon leader had been recovered.

  That was where the doctor stopped.

  He and the two priests left the tent.

  Enid turned to Antonio.

  Once he was sure they were alone, Antonio lowered his voice.

  “The Drak Empire is recruiting mages from everywhere to fight the northern demons. If they find out you’re a powerful nature mage, they won’t let us walk away.”

  Then he told her what had happened while she was unconscious.

  A border patrol from the Drak Empire had reached Dewbloom Village, but they arrived too late.

  Only a handful of villagers escaped. Nearly ninety percent were dead.

  Antonio had accepted free treatment from priests of the Church of Light.

  They could not figure out why Enid had collapsed. They only noted that her mana reserves were abnormally low, lower than an ordinary person’s, and nothing else.

  They found no sign of the “twisted curse” Enid had warned Antonio about.

  During those three days, Antonio and the few survivors focused on the dead.

  There were too many remains. To keep other demons from being drawn in, and to prevent disease, the soldiers decided to burn everything.

  After the cleanup, the patrol took over what was left of Dewbloom Village.

  They built a rough defensive outpost on the spot and renamed the place Cinderkeep.

  Enid asked Antonio what he wanted to do next.

  Antonio said he wanted to travel the borderlands, learn magic from her along the way, and use his knowledge of herbs to help anyone who needed it.

  Enid agreed.

  Dewbloom Village was gone, and the innocent dead had already become dust on the wind. She did not want to stay in a place soaked in grief.

  During those three days of unconsciousness, Enid had dreamed of the past.

  She saw the short-lived folk she had slaughtered, and the shadow-things that haunted the edges of her memory.

  She heard the resentment of innocent spirits, and the shadows laughing at her.

  Then she saw the villagers of Dewbloom pointing at her, accusing her. They blamed her inaction for the destruction and the tragedy.

  In the dream, Enid stood there for a long time.

  She did not run. She did not fight back.

  She let the darkness of guilt and condemnation swallow her whole.

  Even after she woke, she could still hear them, the screams, the curses, the way they called her name like it was a crime.

  Having a memory that sharp really was not a gift.

  More than anything, Enid did not want a tragedy like that to happen again.

  So she chose to travel with Antonio, to help and warn the short-lived folk who might be next, to keep another Dewbloom from appearing in front of her eyes.

  The villagers had once given her food, shelter, small kindnesses, and memories she could not erase.

  Now she could never repay them.

  So she would repay those “debts” to all the others like them.

  That afternoon, Enid and Antonio said goodbye to the military doctor.

  At first the doctor argued it was still dangerous outside. Staying at Cinderkeep and doing support work was far safer than wandering the border.

  Antonio insisted they were elves from the southeastern forests of the Drak Empire, and they needed to return to check on their kin and warn them.

  In the end, the doctor relented.

  Before they left, he had one of his men bring them enough rations for a week, a few valuables from Antonio’s belongings, and Drak Empire coin recovered from the bodies and collapsed ruins.

  He apologized for arriving too late, offered his condolences to the dead, and let them go.

  That was how Enid and Antonio’s border journey began.

  Dewbloom Village sat at the far northeast edge of the Drak Empire.

  Antonio decided they would follow the border southwest, staying close to the fallen lands.

  Their first stop was a small border village only two days away, Windherd Village.

  It had been founded by Sagraf deserters and escaped serfs who fled there to get away from the war.

  The village was known for its high-quality lamb and its strong draft horses.

  Antonio planned to buy a horse and a four-wheeled cart, so hauling supplies and moving camp would be much easier.

  They set out quickly.

  They traveled from sunrise to sunset, then made a fire and rested.

  At night, Antonio practiced what Enid taught him, learning how to shape nature magic with steady hands instead of panic.

  Thanks to Enid’s bond with the natural world and her sharp sense for elemental flow, they avoided demons and wild beasts along the way.

  Two days later, they finally arrived at Windherd Village.