Firnix woke up refreshed. Through the window, moonlight reflected off the river, and the carpets of Glimmermoss spread around the village offered additional lighting in the darkness with their soft blue luminescence. His sleep schedule had taken a punch to the gut, but that was the least of his concerns.

  Everyone in this village will die two days from now.

  Firnix hadn’t imagined he’d be wrapped up in something so morbid when he came to the island. Having an Umbra was like being a prisoner; these villagers were like death row inmates with a shared execution date. Except none of them deserved it.

  On a fundamental level, he opposed everything about Umbras. Using supernatural power to gain control over others was exactly what he strove to eliminate from the world.

  And yet… despite caring about it enough to make it a Soulcaster’s Will, he knew the truth about himself. He was too afraid to do anything about it.

  If drakes were to ravage this village in a little over a day’s time, then the best option was to leave. What could someone like him even do?

  I’m pathetic, he thought. Though Gan had advised exactly that; he’d said to run while they still could.

  He turned in bed, restless. A single Glimmermoss lantern hung from the ceiling, providing a faint illumination that didn’t quite reach the corners of the room. In its light, he saw the unmoving lump over the bed beside his own. Syra was still sleeping.

  He twisted around, gazing out the window. An icy chill passed through him when he saw two guards standing in way of the house, exactly as they had when he’d first seen them before sleeping. He could barely make them out in the dim illumination from the Glimmermoss, but the shine of their polished metal armor was unmistakable.

  Why would anyone on this island need guards? Everyone had to follow the law thanks to their Umbras. Maybe they were just statues. They stood still enough for him to find that more likely. But they still gave him a bad feeling.

  Something nagged at the back of his mind and he turned back to look at Syra’s bed again. Something was off.

  The tell-tale movement of breathing was completely absent.

  Fearing the worst, he jumped out of bed and flung aside her bedsheet.

  He stared blankly at the uncovered pile of straw for a minute before understanding.

  She’d snuck out.

  Syra’s words to Gan: I’ll fix this problem! For you, and your family, and everyone else in the village.

  She might’ve been crazy enough to actually try. Even though she still believed in Umbras, even though she looked up to Elkah, she must’ve gone to the Reeve.

  But those two guards were still there. She was putting herself in danger. And from the little time he’d spent with her, he guessed she hadn’t formed a plan for how to get through it.

  If someone enamored with the idea of Umbras can risk it all for this village, then how can I not?

  The drakes wouldn’t come until the dawn after the next. There was still time to do something, to help. Only he and Syra could do anything, and he was worried she alone wouldn’t be enough. I have to find her and do what I can to help.

  That it might help get a drake for him to cross the island with was a bonus. And he did still want to pay the kind innkeeper back somehow.

  First, he meditated for a few minutes. Although Firnix had to forgo much of his daily schedule on this island, he wanted to keep at least some practices from his life as a Warden intact.

  That done, he nervously peered through the window at the Reeve’s house to confirm its location in his mind; it would be his destination.

  I’m going to regret this, he thought, sneaking out the room after leaving his weighty knapsack behind. Stealth would be paramount. His only experience with stealth was sneaking around the library past curfew as a kid, hiding behind bookshelves and under desks. This couldn’t be much different, right?

  He tip-toed down the creaky stairs, wincing with each step.

  The large room at the entrance of the inn was unlit; the Glimmermoss lanterns were now covered. Firnix shuffled along the walls in the darkness to find the door. The utter darkness uncomfortably reminded him of the underground cave of roots, so he was glad to finally find the door handle and slide it open, letting in the outdoor lights of the moon, stars, and Glimmermoss.

  The river murmured and the crickets chirped, but he didn’t hear the sound of leaves crunching beneath feet, nor the hum of conversation. He had to be careful not to get caught by anyone; he didn’t know the full extent of Umbra laws he should’ve been bound to, so he may be breaking one just by being out at this time.

  Creeping along the dirt roads, he made his way to the river. The Reeve’s house was on the other side.

  The dancing shadows cast by the blue glows of Glimmermoss had him on edge; every few seconds, he mistook one of them for an approaching villager.

  He soon found himself at the edge of the river. Frothy water splashed over rocks, wetting his sandals. He took a step back, surveying where he could cross it from. The riverbed was probably a few feet too deep to wade through.

  A wooden bridge squatted a short distance to the right, so he approached it cautiously. He trundled over its moistened planks, aware most of the village had an open line of sight to him. He stole a glance at the Reeve’s house to calculate his next course of action. It sat on a branch several dozen feet above-ground, like a few of the other buildings in the village.

  He made out the figure of one guard in front of it.

  Not two.

  He froze. Where’d the other one go? Bathroom break? Smoke break? Meditation break?

  Or the guard was approaching him.

  He hurried across the rest of the length of the bridge and found a narrow alleyway. Some vines draped over the two boxy buildings on either side helped conceal him as he contemplated using Soulcasting yet again.

  He’d resolved only to use it when it was the last resort to save his life. But this wasn’t like that. This was different from when he and Syra had been underground, fighting for their lives against the Root Horror. That time there’d been no choice. Now, he’d willfully put himself in danger, and he could try running back to his room in the inn. He didn’t need to use Soulcasting.

  But it had a chance of saving the village’s lives if he used it to find and steer clear of the guard.

  He ground his teeth, frustrated. And cast ardor to his eyes.

  This wasn’t the right thing to do. Neither was inaction. So he picked what he’d despise himself less for.

  The dimly lit forest village erupted into a landscape of endless rivers. Ethereal water flowed all around Firnix, through vines, moss, ferns, grass, and the greatwood trees all around. The forest blazed bright as a wildfire to Firnix’s Ardor Eye and he crumpled to the ground in shock at the overstimulation. The Form winked out as he lost his concentration.

  He convulsed on the ground for several long minutes, breathing shakily, his heart hammering. He felt like he’d been thrown to the sun and burned to a husk in body, mind, and soul.

  His body was unharmed, however, and once he regained control of his thoughts, he breathed in and out slowly to calm himself.

  Could he not use the Ardor Eye in the forest at all? Were there too many life forms for that? All he wanted was to find the guards’ souls to know where to avoid them. Without that knowledge, they could catch him by surprise, and who knew what they’d do to him then.

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  He didn’t want to give up, though, especially after having worked up the courage to justify using Soulcasting to himself again. Would trying to learn another Form be useful? He almost began to consider trying if he could make himself invisible.

  No, that was foolish. To his knowledge, learning new Forms was a rare event for Soulcasters. Besides, it would be better to work with what he already had. His Ardor Eye couldn’t be as rigid as he was thinking.

  Is there some parameter I can adjust?

  An idea came to mind.

  He visualized his ardor, letting it fill his attention, envelop his perception. He imagined controlling just a small stream of it to enter his eyes. It was much harder to do. If casting a large amount of ardor to his eyes was like filling a bathtub with a hose without overflowing, casting a small, controlled amount of ardor was like doing the same but for a teacup.

  Everytime he tried, too much ardor came swimming out toward his eyes, so he would release his grip on it then try again. It took a few tries, but eventually, he was able to grasp his ardor finely enough to cast just a small trickle to his eyes. He took a deep breath as he opened his eyes to see the result.

  It worked. The ardor of the mosses and vines and other plants around him were dim to his sight, halfway between ethereal water and ethereal water vapor. The burgeoning rivers of ardor coursing through the immense greatwood trees still shone in his mind, but not too bright that he couldn’t look at it without discomfort.

  Firnix turned his perception toward the house of the Reeve. One guard stood outside its door, atop the branch the house was perched on. It looked like a speck in his vision, like the glint of a coin at the bottom of a well; in this current version of the Ardor Eye, his detection was subdued.

  He realized with a flush of embarrassment that his Ardor Eye could look even into the buildings; walls were as invisible to air, as dead wood held no ardor. He tentatively looked into the house, finding the hint of one living being — gold-tinted streams flowing within the rough form of a sitting human. That must be the Reeve.

  Then, to find the other guard. He cast his perception to the ground level, trying not to look into the houses in the interest of their privacy, but it was harder than he thought. The outdoors was almost indistinguishable from the indoors to his Ardor Eye. He wondered if anyone back in Fraela had an ability like this, and shuddered.

  There. One figure stood, perhaps fifty feet away. He took special notice of this soul since it was moving slowly; every other soul remained inert.

  His normal eyes were also sending images to his brain, like real light overlaid onto his Ardor Eye — almost as if he had two sets of eyes, each projecting different images to his brain, which managed to process both at once. But it was difficult to see with those eyes, even with all of the Glimmermoss everywhere.

  He skirted around the position of the guard, the moving soul. The ladder leading straight up to the Reeve’s house was potentially within the guard’s line-of-sight, so Firnix looked for a different way to get up.

  A slatted suspension bridge hung from the branch he needed to get to, extending to another one at similar height. A ladder leading to that branch was a short distance from the moving guard — and likely, out of their line-of-sight. He made his way to it, keeping his perception peeled for any other other moving souls.

  There were none. The village was asleep. But he had roused the guards; he was under no delusion that the guard had simply decided to stretch his legs in the middle of the night. They had seen him. And they thought he was worth intercepting.

  He reached the base of the ladder hanging over a tree trunk and began climbing. Patches of Glimmermoss blanketing the surface of the bark illuminated him well enough that he’d be spotted if the guards looked his way. Sweat clammied his hands.

  “Hold it!” A woman’s voice rang out from below him as he was mid-climb.

  His limbs almost locked up, but a spike of adrenaline kept him going. He kept his head pointing up, grasping one rung and then the next. He could see her approach the base of the ladder with the Ardor Eye. And, even without his Form, he knew the other guard was making his way across the bridge overhead, having been alerted.

  Firnix would be surrounded. He was climbing the ladder quickly, however, and he’d likely reach the top of the ladder before the guard on the bridge. There was a small house atop the ladder, although it was more like a ramshackle shed, considering its size and condition. By the looks of it, there was only one room in the house. He cast his perception to it. A few souls were still as ice inside. Sleeping on their beds, most likely. Two next to each other, and one… below? His perception was hazy, since his concentration was fraying, blurring his Form’s perception the same way tears blurred eyes.

  He crested the ladder in time to see the shadow of the guard on the bridge fast approaching. At the same time, the ladder swayed as the guard below heaved her weight onto it and began climbing.

  “There’s nowhere left to run,” the guard on the bridge grunted.

  He didn’t pause to respond. There was one place left to run. He took a few steps toward the door of the small house nearby, slid it open, and closed the door behind. As he’d guessed, it was unlocked; Elkah’s room hadn’t had a lock, and neither had his room in the inn.

  His movements were rough, so the door smacked the wall as it slid shut, but the sleeping family in the house didn’t stir. He could confirm that only with his Ardor Eye, as no light from the sky penetrated the residence, and no unveiled Glimmermoss lanterns hung inside.

  His hands trembled as he backed away from the door. There was nowhere left to run anymore. He thought about fighting the guards — his strength was empowered by ardor, after all — but the guards had spears, and were no doubt well-trained. The only physical conditioning Firnix had ever done was during cleaning duty at Fraela.

  He froze in indecision. His back was pressed against one of the walls of the house — or a large piece of furniture, he couldn’t tell — when the door slid open, spilling pale light across the opening to the room. Two shadows fell over it. Both guards stood at the doorway.

  One took a step in.

  There was nowhere left to run. No excuse he could make, either; no one with a working Umbra could’ve trespassed on someone else’s property like Firnix had just done.

  Silently, the guard who walked in stepped around the room, spear held in his hands. He could see this with his Ardor Eye. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck with each step the guard took.

  A light sparked from elsewhere in the room, next to the bed with the sleeping family. It winked out as fast as it came, so he couldn’t be sure what it was.

  But he had a good guess.

  The guards froze, and he could see their bodies turning to face where that spark had come from.

  It came again, and this time, he was prepared for it. It was lightning.

  The guards didn’t hesitate a second time. They both crept toward where the blue streaks had been.

  As the saying went, don’t inspect a free horse’s teeth. He sidled along the wall to get out of the room through the open door.

  He made it easily. But as he passed through the doorway, belatedly, he recognized he needed to draw the guards’ attention back to him so they wouldn’t close in on who most certainly was Syra lying underneath the bed of the family of the house. Inexplicably.

  He’d thought she’d be too simple-minded for something like this, something like hatching a complicated plan. He’d seen many impulsive Soulcasters who took to their challenges like a charging bull, and Syra had seemed rather like that. But he wasn’t sure why she was hiding from the guards underneath a bed in a nearby house. Maybe she wasn’t suited for something like this after all.

  He had to help. He racked his brain for something to do to distract the guards from her, and he went with his very first thought.

  “Hooray, freedom!” he blurted.

  In the dim lights of the night, none would see the blush of red on his face.

  He ran along the bridge, fast as his Soulcasting-empowered legs could take him, feeling the forest air whistle past him.

  “Hey!”

  Relief, like a cold wash on a summer day, enveloped him as he heard the thunking footfalls of the guards’ heavy boots against the wide greatwood trunks.

  Then the sound cut off, and he chanced a glance backwards, worried they were going back for Syra.

  Both of them were frantically climbing down the ladder. He could make out the red-and-black burn of their Umbras on both of their foreheads, glowing hot to both of his visions.

  He didn’t have the energy to scrutinize what that meant. All this danger and fright felt alien. His typical day had been reading in a library, admiring a garden, and doing menial chores for the Wardens. He felt distinctly uncomfortable, and not just because his life was on the line every minute since he’d set off for this island — although that definitely contributed.

  The end of the bridge spat him out onto the branch that held the weight of the Reeve’s house. In the nighttime lights, it looked like a foreboding, haunted manor.

  I shouldn’t have come here.

  At least he wouldn’t be breaking into it alone. Syra jogged up beside him, a wide grin on her face.

  “Strike me shocked, I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

  Firnix struggled to find the words. “Pardon, but I think it’s more surprising that you were hiding in that house.”

  She shrugged. “I was trying to get to the Reeve’s house, wait for those guards to take a break. They never did. Not at the same time. You came for the same reason?”

  “To help the village by requesting correction from the Reeve?” he asked.

  “More like forcing correction.”

  He gave her a look. How reckless could she be? She’d woken up and decided to go fix the village’s problems. All by herself, and right away, in the middle of the night. It wasn’t just reckless, though. It was noble, in an odd sort of way, and entirely opposite of what he’d expected of her. It made him uncomfortable.

  “It’s good that you didn’t get hurt by the guards,” he said. “What about your lightning?”

  “It was only a few sparks. Just a tingle.”

  From the way her arms hung almost limp at her sides, he doubted those words, but let it drop. He was more concerned about why she’d do all this. “I didn’t think you would want to go against Elkah’s Umbras.”

  “What this Reeve is doing is against the spirit of Umbras,” she said. “Besides, if the drakes eat everyone here, we won’t have anyone left to teach us how to ride one. And I’m not interested in walking all the way across the island to wherever Mistbound Lake is. Anyway, I thought you wouldn’t be interested in anything dangerous like this.” She smiled. “I’m glad you are. The straw in my bed was so you wouldn’t worry, but I guess next time, I’ll just wake you up!”

  With how hard his heart pounded, he’d consider it fortunate to even live long enough for there to be a next time.

  “Ah. I see.” Firnix looked up at the Reeve’s manor and took a deep, unsteady breath. “Let’s greet the Reeve. Together, then.”