My eyes darted desperately through the chaos of hunters spilling out of the forest, searching for Janus and his brothers. Even after I stumbled down the hill, heart pounding, I still saw no sign of them. The noise pressed in, but I forced myself to breathe, closing my eyes for a moment. The world behind my eyelids was awash in green, my mana sense overwhelmed by the living forest. I reached out, letting thin, trembling threads of mana slip from my hand and stretch into the woods, hoping for a whisper of their presence. Nothing. The strings faded into the wildness, too short, too weak, even after weeks of practice. My mind spun, trying my hardest to filter out all the signals belonging to plants and animals so I could make sense of it all. But still there was nothing.
I needed to get closer, needed to go in, even though the thought made my stomach twist. There was no way I could run and keep my focus on the mana strings at the same time. I glanced around, searching for anything that might help, but most of the horses were wild-eyed and trembling, refusing to be touched. Their fear was so thick I could almost taste it, and for a moment, I nearly gave up hope. Then I spotted her—a pale shape tied to a post, calmly nibbling at a pile of barley another horse had abandoned in its panic. She didn’t even try to escape, just stood there, content and oblivious to the chaos. Janus had said she was the calmest horse he could find for me, and now I believed him. While the rest fought their reins and dragged their owners through the mud, she simply munched, as if nothing in the world could trouble her.
If Janus hadn’t told me she was calm, I might have thought she was just a little slow.
I pushed the thought away and hurried to her, clinging to the hope she offered. She paused mid-chew, lifted her head to watch me approach, and then—almost thoughtfully—worked the knot loose herself. As if that wasn’t strange enough, she knelt down, inviting me to climb on. For a heartbeat, I wondered if I was dreaming.
…
I didn’t know how or why she seemed to understand me, but I wasn’t about to question a small miracle. I scrambled onto her back, awkward in my skirt, forced to ride sidesaddle for the first time in my life. Balance was a distant memory, so I anchored myself with a few shaky mana constructs and urged her forward. She stood, took one last, greedy mouthful of barley, and then set off at a steady, unhurried trot into the treeline.
I kept a nervous eye on every low branch, half-expecting to be swept off at any moment, but she wove through the trees as if she’d done it a thousand times. I wanted to marvel at her, to let myself be distracted, but there was no time. I forced my attention back to the mana strings, letting them guide me deeper into the green gloom.
It felt like forever before I finally stumbled across the first traces of people—and the Dust Devil, still raging in the distance, though it had shrunk to about half its former size. The world felt quieter, but the treetops still quacked with leftover fear.
Blood streaked the ground where the dust devil had torn through, painting a trail of violence I couldn’t ignore. I found a man crumpled in the bushes, his head at a wrong angle, legs gone. The sight nearly made me turn away, but a stubborn flicker of life clung to him. I sent a pulse of vitality his way, enough to knit his neck and close the wounds where his legs had been. Then we moved on. I would take time to care for him later once the danger had passed, as right now I needed as much mana as possible.
The forest was broken, trees splintered and earth torn, but the destruction carved a path for us. We galloped through the wreckage, wind stinging my face. I passed a dozen bodies, some barely clinging to life. I gave each a thread of vitality, just enough to keep them from slipping away. Most hovered at the edge of death, and too many had already crossed over. The weight of it pressed on me, heavy and cold, until a voice cut through the lashing winds.
“Help!”
The voice startled me, especially since I couldn’t sense any human vitality where it came from. I reached out with my threads and found only a faint, flickering spark, barely holding on. I sent it a little vitality, the same as before, not daring to stop and waste time to get a closer look. The voice wasn’t Janus or any of his brothers, so I pressed on, heart tight with worry.
“Thank you.”
The voice came again, softer this time, but I couldn’t spare a moment to wonder who it belonged to. We had arrived.
Relief washed over me when I saw all five brothers still standing. The twins flanked Avarell, each wielding a long hunting spear; all three weapons shimmered with a faint blue light. Joel stood apart, loosing mana-charged arrows at their enemy—each arrow struck true, but the creature simply healed, again and again. Janus was at his side, sword blazing blue as he parried invisible blows. Somehow, he always seemed to know where the next attack would come, as if he could read the wind itself.
When we were close—maybe a hundred meters away—my horse stopped dead, refusing to take another step. I didn’t blame her; it was a miracle she even carried me this far. I slid off and continued on foot, legs shaky but determined.
Janus caught sight of me running toward them, and the careful focus on his face broke, replaced by shock and fear. The greenish boy they fought turned too, his gaze locking onto mine. Janus moved instantly, putting himself between us, and in that heartbeat, the boy lunged for Joel. Joel barely dodged behind the twins, just in time—if he hadn’t, his head might have ended up like the shattered trees behind him, split clean through.
“What are you doing, you dolt!?”
“I couldn’t let it go to Ruby?”
I watched the brothers bite back their protests, as if it was obvious I was just a burden here. The thought stung, and I clenched my teeth. I hadn’t come all this way just to be brushed aside.
Ignoring Janus’s warnings, I edged closer, stopping only when I was ten meters away. My heart hammered, but I had no desire to stay on the sidelines.
“Ruby, what are you doing here?! Go back, you will get… what the hell?”
The wind died, leaving a sudden hush as the boy slammed into the bluish box I’d conjured around him. He struck at it again and again, desperate to break free, but he couldn’t even make a dent. The fight with the brothers had drained him too much to touch my shield, not when I poured everything I had into it.
“You were saying?”
Janus dropped his sword, cheeks burning, unable to meet my eyes. His brothers tried to stifle their laughter, and for a moment, I almost wanted to laugh with them. But the memory of the bodies I’d passed on the way here pressed in, and the laughter faded before it could even begin.
I looked back at the green boy who was still trying to break free and asked,
“What is he?”
“Thats a mid-level Wind spirit.”
“But what is it doing so far away from the flower field?”
“No idea.”
That’s when Averell perked up and said,
“Maybe it was because of those other two that passed us.”
“What other two?”
“Two small hooded figures passed us earlier when we were running away from the wind spirit. Looking back, it feels like they used us to get away from it.”
A suspicion crept in. I sent my strings out again, and sure enough, I found two vitality signatures—too large to be animals—huddled together about fifty meters away. I wondered if they were watching us, hidden in the trees.
While the brothers watched the wind spirit thrash, I covered my mouth, pretending to think, and quietly shared what I’d found with the others. No need to let anyone read my lips.
“Don’t turn around, but I think the two small figures are watching us right now. They are about fifty meters east of here behind a big fir tree.”
Their moods changed in a heartbeat. No one doubted me—they just moved. Weapons were sheathed; Joel let his bow fall as if we were leaving, then Janus suddenly spun around and headed straight for the fir tree, with Joel raising his bow to cover him. The twins left Avarell with me to sprint after Janus, but Janus was already far ahead. I stayed behind, as I couldn’t take my eyes off the spirits.
By the time the others caught up, Janus had already grabbed the two—one young, one old—and knocked them both out before they could run. He held them in one hand, a small metal box in the other. Blood trickled from where he’d struck them. He must have been too angry to hold back, not like him at all. As we gathered near the wind spirit, its gaze fixed on the box, it went still.
“I think the Spirit wants whatever is in the box.”
Joel took the box from Janus, broke the lock with a touch of mana, and a tiny green light darted out—another wind spirit, just as I’d suspected. From what Janus told me, I already guessed as much, but seeing the destruction it caused and the lives it took for a barely sentient speck of wind mana was disheartening.
The little spirit circled the box, frustrated, battering it over and over like a trapped fly against glass.
“I think we should leave. I don’t want to be around once I dispel the mana shield.”
All three brothers looked at me in shock, then exclaimed together.
“YOU WANT TO FREE IT?”