Casek watched the panic swell within Raelynn, her shoulders heaving as her breathing grew more and more erratic. She darted her head around the square, searching desperately, vainly, for any sign of the man they’d come to rescue. It hadn’t occurred to Casek until now, but it was a strange thing that in the entire part of the town they’d walked through to get here, they’d seen no sign of any stasis crystals.

  Of course, not all the town would have been imprisoned. Some would have escaped, and some would have been killed in the fighting. But for there to have been none? It was more than a little odd—it was downright impossible.

  He peered around the plaza, searching for some sign of what could have happened.

  “No,” Raelynn said, her repeated muttering of the word cutting across the gentle lapping of the ocean like a knife. “No. No, no, no—It can’t—he can’t be—”

  “Raelynn.”

  She jerked her head towards him, face twisted in confused grief, the pain of hope being mercilessly stripped away, writing its way down her face in tears. “He’s gone,” she repeated.

  “But not for good,” Casek said. “We know they won’t kill if they can help it. He’s alive. We just need to work out where. Look.”

  Casek gestured toward the ground, close to where Raelynn was standing. Faint scrape marks streaked their way across it, broad gouges that led into the eastern part of the city. Had these been leading directly from the pier, Casek might have assumed they were from folk dragging cargo, but they had caught his eye precisely because they didn’t. They began right here, directly in the centre of the plaza.

  Raelynn frowned, her eyes following his pointing. She crouched and ran her hand across the drag marks. “The wind and rain have not smoothed these at all. They’re fresh.”

  “They lead eastward, toward the mine,” Casek said.

  “The mine?” Raelynn said, standing and wiping the tear tracks from her sleeve and glancing toward the street that led to the eastern gate. A moment passed, and then her eyes widened in realisation. “When I was first here with Idris, they ambushed us from the underground—Drau attacked from the cellar of a house we were searching for supplies in.” She grimaced. “The Drau possessed… arachnid bodies.”

  “Spiders?”

  Raelynn nodded, and Casek swallowed thickly. Deer and wolves were one thing. Horrifying in their own right, twisted abominations that were uncomfortable even to look at, but spiders had been that even before the Shadow had existed.

  “How big?” He asked, wrapping his coat around himself a little tighter, as though it could shield against the chill, creeping dread growing inside him.

  Raelynn blinked before a small smirk tugged at her lips. “The Drau were about the size of a large dog. The Bel’gor that followed us into the plaza, on the other hand…”

  She laughed as an audible groan escaped Casek’s mouth.

  “Come,” she said, smile lingering even as she turned eastward. “Let’s follow these marks to the mine and get Idris out of there.”

  Casek’s stomach twisted at the thought of going underground, knowing what kind of enemy awaited them, but he nodded regardless and set off alongside her.

  “And Casek?” Raelynn said, looking up at him from the corner of her eyes as they walked. “Thank you. I shouldn’t have fallen apart like that. I’ve lost people before—I should be able to—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, waving away her thanks. “You thought you’d lost your friend for good after thinking you’d be able to save him. I get it. You don’t need to apologise for normal human emotions.”

  “I should have kept my head far better than I did. If we’d have been in a fight—”

  “But we weren’t. Besides, it’s been a wild couple of days for both of us. It would be weird if emotions weren’t fraught. Cut yourself some slack, Raelynn—if only because holding on to that kind of thinking will get in the way when the fighting starts.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Raelynn looked at him shrewdly. “Those sound like words borne of experience.”

  “I honestly couldn’t say,” he said, shrugging. “I think so, though. I remember the lesson learned, just not how I learned it. Same with my own name, or even swordplay. The knowledge and experience is in me, but it’s like the learning itself has been plucked right out.”

  Above them, the skies were darkening, and the buildings flanking them were casting ever larger shadows. Still, Casek could feel the shades swarming around them. Still, he saw no sign at all of them. The prospect of delving underground was causing an ever larger lump to form at the back of Casek’s throat, especially as his mind connected the dots and drew the conclusion that the Shadowspawn he had been sensing were all, in fact, beneath them.

  “It’s odd, though,” Raelynn continued, oblivious to Casek’s growing discomfort. “I have no such memory loss. Admittedly, I was imprisoned for far less time than you, but I remember every single excruciating second of it.”

  “Well,” Casek said, grimacing as he decided it was time to be a little more open with the woman. “I don’t actually know if I was within a stasis crystal.”

  Raelynn stopped short, turning to him with knitted eyebrows. “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “My first memory is being awake in that Gods-forsaken building. If I was trapped in one of those things, there was no sign of it when I came to, and I have no memory of being trapped in one until I tried to escape.”

  “How can that be possible if not for a stasis crystal?”

  Casek shrugged. “I’ll let you know if I ever find out.”

  “If you ever get your memories back, it’ll probably be one of the last things I ask about.”

  “Oh?” Casek said, quirking an eyebrow as the pair set off again towards the eastern gate.

  “My grandfather collected books,” she said, eyes locked on the ground. “He had a thing for preserving what little knowledge we’d been able to keep hold of after the war, and eventually became the Head Archivist of Oreia. The house was full of them. The historical ones are what really caught my attention. Stories of the world before the Shadow.”

  “Hopefully a vision for the future, as well as the past,” he said.

  “It was more the gaping holes that drew me in. The mystery of it. Thousands of years of human writing, reduced to a haphazard collection of books and scrolls—full of gaps and inconsistencies. Puzzles for me to solve, answers for me to unravel.”

  “Is that what the book is for?” Casek asked, nodding towards the leather-bound tome she wore at her waist before returning to scanning the rapidly swelling shadows.

  “Yes, and no. Keeping a good record of now is just as important as finding those of the past,” she smiled softly, patting the book gently. “Besides, keeping records for future generations reminds me that, no matter how bad things get, I still hold hope there will be future generations. Hope that things will have gotten better enough that they can afford to spend their time reading books, rather than learning the sword.”

  “That is a goal I can get behind.”

  “Goal? It’s a pipe dream, really. Our people are on their last legs, Casek. We rely on the amnesty of our enemies to even have a chance at survival. Even with you being able to do what you can do—things are too far gone. All we can do now is delay the inevitable for as long as possible. There is no peaceful tomorrow. Not really.”

  Casek had no response to that. He didn’t believe it, but this had only been his fight for as long as he’d been awake. He had no right to argue, and there was nothing he could say that would comfort the deep despair the laced Raelynn’s words.

  Instead, they walked together in silence through the deathly silent town, waiting, muscles taut with fear, for any sign of the enemy.

  Nothing came. They reached the entrance to the mine. It was a crumbling, pale stone building with an arched entry instead of a door. Inside, Casek could see a path lined with heavily rusted cart tracks that led gently down a slope into the pitch black depths within.

  Casek swallowed thickly, and Raelynn moved to march into the darkness. Before he could stop himself, he reached out and caught her by the shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

  “In the dark with no preparation? Are we sure that’s the best plan?”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “You have an alternative?”

  “Waiting for daylight, for one,” he scoffed. “We make camp and get a proper night’s sleep, and crucially prep some torches, so we aren’t fumbling around in the dark. We won’t be able to rescue anyone if we step out over a pit and fall to our deaths.”

  Raelynn sighed, but acquiesced to Casek’s suggestion. They made camp a short distance from the entrance, opting not to make a fire to avoid any unwanted attention. Casek took first watch, allowing Raelynn to get some much-needed rest ahead of tomorrow’s task.

  He spent it gazing into the pitch black surrounding them, straining his eyes to distinguish potential threats moving in the dark, from the shifting of his eyes playing tricks on him. As he waited, he cycled the last of the Drau’s power, stealing away the last scraps of strength from the well in his mind. It faded, leaving behind only Tauph’s deathly still pool.

  There was a whimper in his head, and suddenly the howling of the Drau was gone, leaving his ears ringing, but blessedly free of noise. Casek glanced at his wrist. Upon the foci, six gleaming jewels shone back at him in the darkness, with a seventh faintly shimmering beside them.

  Strength he’d never felt before filled him as his increased magical reserves reinforced his body. He had done all he could with the time he had.

  Casek just hoped it would be enough.