The pair pressed on through the marshes in uneasy quiet after their last conversation, Raelynn’s words ringing through Casek’s mind. The thought of all the good he could do had, of course, come to mind before, but he’d not stopped to consider things from Raelynn’s perspective.

  This fight, as far as he could remember at least, was new to him. He’d only been fighting for days. True enough, it had been difficult and awful in equal measure, but Raelynn had been fighting it all her life. Her mother and father had been fighting it before her, and her grandparents before them.

  How many people had she lost? How many of her friends and family, her ancestors even, were out there somewhere, encased in crystal and suffering?

  He couldn’t imagine how it must feel for her—him even existing. How many people had she and her people given up for dead and grieved for, who could now be saved by his hand? Casek stood behind his actions, still firmly believed that he had done the right thing, if not the most pragmatic. But he had to acknowledge that Raelynn had every right to be angry at him—furious even—for jeopardising the amount of good he could do. The lives that could now be saved.

  Least of all, of course, the comrades she had most recently lost. The whirlwind of emotions and states of mind she must have gone through at a remarkable speed must have been difficult to cope with. Losing her companions one after the other, grieving and mourning as she fought to get home alone. Realising she had failed. Only for the impossible to happen right before her eyes, and hope to arrive where there had been none for so long.

  Truthfully, Casek didn’t know how much of a difference he could actually make. He was one man, and not an especially strong one at that. But he could make a difference. And, as much as he stood by his choices, he understood that on some level, they had been selfish. That he’d been putting his beliefs and wants ahead of the lives of real people that could still be saved.

  It’s not your responsibility to save the world, Casek. That’s too much weight for any shoulders to bear, no matter how strong. You deserve to make your own choices about what you do with your life without having to consider the bloody planet first.

  When you have power like I do, Tauph, only a weak man would take advantage of the benefits whilst attempting to shirk the responsibilities. It’s not especially fair, but there it is. I have a duty to help as much as I can. Why do I deserve a second chance more than anyone else still imprisoned?

  He could feel Tauph’s disgruntlement, and a strange sort of smile played at Casek’s lips. It was odd, as a grown man, to have someone so unabashedly put his wellbeing ahead of everyone else’s. He couldn’t remember what it was like to have an older brother, but he imagined it was similar.

  Still, as they crested a hill taking them out of the marshlands that overlooked a mercifully dry, grassy plain, Casek grimaced as the first genuine test of his commitment to that responsibility appeared on the horizon.

  Across a vast chalk plain smothered in a patchwork quilt of vibrant wildflower meadow, the town they were aiming for loomed dark in the distance. From here it was an indistinct blend of stone and dark wood tones, and on its other side, the sparkling blue ocean vanished over the horizon.

  Casek let out a deep breath, chewing at his lip even as the sight of the sea eased the fluttering in his stomach. It was larger than he expected—a sprawling mass of building that could hide almost anything within its depths. Not far to the east lay a second cluster of buildings, and this he recognised from the storage houses he could see on its outskirts as a mine. On the west, stood a dilapidated mill, its sails long since deteriorated and cast to the wind, leaving what was left of its spindly wooden arms crooked and visibly rotting away.

  “Makavi,” Raelynn announced, eyes fixated on the town’s centre. “The largest settlement we have record of in Pyria, including the capital. The last time I was here, it was crawling with Shades even outside of the walls, so stay sharp as we approach.”

  “What’s the plan?” He asked.

  “It’ll be hard to come up with anything concrete until we know what the Shadowspawn activity is like. We found there were three gates centrally, one to the west, and several on the mine’s side. We got into the city just fine, but it was a trap. Drau and Bel’gor surrounded us and cut off our escape routes. I lost Idris at the docks.”

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  Raelynn’s face was taut, and her arms shook with the tightness of her clenched fists as she spoke, reliving the memory of losing the last of her team. “The west gate is closest geographically, so I suppose we start there. There’s no real way to sneak in, but we’ll keep it fast and quiet. Hopefully, we won’t even need to tangle with Shadow creatures outside of Shades.”

  They set off towards Makavi, grim determination written across their faces. The knowledge that there would certainly be a fight ahead focused Casek’s mind. He used the time as effectively could, continuing to cycle slivers of his bound Drau’s power. It was nearly spent, and the persistent whirring in his mind was reaching a fever pitch, pain lancing through his head no matter how much resin he chewed or how used to the constant headaches he got.

  Every step closer to the town they took through the rolling fields of poppy and cornflower cranked the tension up a notch. Beneath his boots he occasionally felt ridges beneath his feet, and every so often had to step around heavily rusted lumps of worked iron—both evidence of farmland long since overgrown.

  By the time the town walls were close enough to observe properly, Casek was grinding his teeth so much he thought he might wear them down to the gums. The walls were, of course, dilapidated and crumbling, with cracked and splintered timber framing weather-worn stonework.

  Half of the stones were missing or broken, moss covered and scattered around the floor surrounding the town’s border. They skirted westward around the three central gates, two of these destroyed entirely, toward the only partially standing west gate. The thick timber boards were worn and half-rotted, some having fallen away to the ground below.

  Glancing at each other, they nodded, and ducked into the town through a space in the shattered gate. Casek followed Raelynn a handful of steps behind as she darted from building corner to corner, moving with far more ease than he over the cobbled streets.

  Makavi had once been a beautiful and wealthy port town. Close to the walls were the remains of more basic wooden houses, charcoaled husks, all that had been left of them. But before long, they were replaced by larger houses, beautifully worked stone on their ground floor capped by the remains of top floors constructed from pine imported by boat.

  The timber was resin-treated pine and spruce, just as the Aodhan’s shack had been, and built to last far longer than most wooden structures. Even then, Casek was surprised by the quality of them. The bleached plaster facades that covered the stones on the ground floors, once painted an array of stunning colours to match the wildflowers surrounding the town, had crumbled and faded to dirty and dulled imitations of the colour they had once been.

  The timber, whilst worn and damaged by whatever battle had taken place here when the shadows had come, was still in remarkably good condition, considering how long they’d been standing.

  “Any sign of them yet?” Casek muttered as he pulled up next to Raelynn after hurrying through a back alley and paused at the corner of a building on the main street that led to the docks.

  Raelynn shook her head, a sheen of sweat coating her forehead, fine strands of black hair sticking to her head. “It’s bothering me we have seen none of them yet. Some shades at least should have been tempted into a fight by now.”

  Casek nodded and swallowed. Unbeknownst to Raelynn, he could feel Shades teeming all around them, so many they were barely indistinguishable from each other. Every so often, he caught a hint of other things. Stronger things.

  Yet the streets were bare, and the buildings deserted. Despite what he could sense, there was nothing at all here.

  “Well, remember how I told you I can sense them?” he asked, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, searching for any sign of movement.

  Raelynn stopped dead and jerked her head towards him, eyes narrowed. “I hadn’t remembered that, no. We were just about to fight, as I recall.”

  “Yeah. The thing is, I can feel them. Now. The place should be teeming with shades. Drau, too, unless I’m misreading what I can feel.”

  “And yet they’re not here.”

  Casek shook his head, and Raelynn frowned. “Lets just keep our wits about us then. We’re close to where I left Idris.”

  Raelynn led him on, past a large stone building on their right. The shattered glass remains that still partially filled the window caught his eye for their bright colours, and the hints of iconography. The tower on one half of the structure reached higher than any other building in the town.

  Tauph was silent, and Casek knew the swirling abyss of profound loss in his head that was not his own well enough to not disturb his companion’s peace.

  Finally, they rushed down a wide, curved set of stairs and underneath a crumbling stone arch, and arrived at the docks. They had emerged onto a broad plaza, large tiles of granite lining the floor. Ahead of them, the ocean spread out in infinite splendour, its surface serene and glittering, but for the broken and rotted wooden poles protruding from its surface in rows, the only remains of the piers where trading ships once moored.

  Raelynn saw none of it. Her eyes were fixated solely on a space in the centre of the plaza they were standing in, unblinking and wide with horror. Her mouth hung open, and hands opened and closed around imaginary blade hilts.

  “Raelynn?”

  “He’s not there.” The words came out in a harsh, horrified whisper.

  “What?”

  “Idris. This was where he was trapped in the stasis crystal. I saw it happen. He’s gone.” She turned to him, desperation raising her voice by an octave. “How can he be gone?”