The room itself wasn’t much, but it was miles better than the communal bunks of Madla or the spartan waysides on the road in. As rough as it was, it came with meals and that was the best deal Erich was going to get for five bits a night.

  He pulled the blanket back, checking for bed bugs or any other sort of vermin. As excited as Erich was to finally have a proper bed, he’d also experienced some less than ideal living situations during his travels and time with the army. Six hours of relative comfort wasn’t worth spending the next three days itching and covered with rashes.

  With nothing visible to the naked eye, Erich sat down on the side of the bed to begin taking off his boots. Before he could get too far in the undressing process, Michelle darted past him, grabbing hold of the blanket in her jaws and yanking it off of the bed before dragging it into the corner.

  She turned in a tight circle, making a pile out of the blanke that she happily plopped on top of before looking up at Erich with a satisfied grin. He snorted, rolling his eyes as he shook his head and returned to undressing.

  “You’re just a little princess aren’t you?” Erich asked, tossing his boots into the corner of the room one by one. “The two of us have struggled through day after day of travel, sleeping on the ground in the rain and then the second you have access to a blanket you make yourself a little bed.”

  “Honestly?” He said with a laugh. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do with you. What’s the next step, are you going to have me cut up your meat before you eat it? Maybe give you little paw massages?”

  The otter sniffed at him, circling for a second atop the blanket as she looked for the most comfortable spot. Erich just shook his head. There was a second lighter blanket on the bed, and the inn was fairly warm from the large fire that the proprietors kept blazing in the hearth down below.

  With one final smile at his fuzzy traveling companion, Erich finished undressing himself and blew out the candle, sending the room into darkness. After the week of hard travel, sleep came swiftly.

  One second Erich was closing his eyes and the next he was standing in the midst of his image. Fire raged around him, frozen and lifeless. He looked back and forth. Lightning hung in the sky, suspended from the stars above as it linked the trees and the night above.

  Without needing to look, Erich knew that Burrwood lay behind him. If he were in the hillside vantage point that he usually viewed his image from, the distant lights of the city would’ve been visible, but here on the ground his home was squarely at his back.

  He took a deep breath, the smell of wood smoke and damp earth warring inside his sinuses.

  Erich paused, his brow furrowing. This was clearly a dream and he was in an imaginary space created by a combination of aether and his own will. Did he even have sinuses? Did he have a brow to furrow for that matter?

  Before he had a chance to fall too deeply into the philosophical implications of his dream, a cheerful trilling chirp drew his attention. A specter of Michelle, little more than a translucent but glittering outline, scampered past him, disappearing into the static flames of the burning forest.

  Erich shrugged and broke into a jog after her, his body tensing as he dove into the wall of fire.

  Nothing happened. There was the same smell of soil and smoke, but the temperature remained the same. Erich could even see the ghostly otter galloping through the wildfire, chasing after something he couldn’t see.

  He sped up, sprinting after Michelle only for her to increase her pace. Erich grunted. He could feel himself falling behind step by step. WIthout thinking, he reached for his mana trying to infuse his physique with power only for the energy to remain behind reach.

  Then, Michelle stopped.

  Erich quickly caught up to her. The otter was sitting proudly on her haunches, just on the other side of the fire. Standing in the trees ten or fifteen feet past her were the glowing outlines of Harold, Gwen, Timothy, and Kaden. Just past them, Sathis stood leaning against his tree, the age and injuries that Erich remembered him with long gone, replaced by a new youthful and vigorous body.

  Sathis smiled at him and Harold waved. Gwen said something, but Erich couldn’t hear a sound. Whatever she was saying, it seemed encouraging. She smiled as well.

  A sense of calmness washed over Erich. His companions seemed to be at peace. He had no idea if he was actually seeing their spirits or just fragments of his subconscious trying to comfort him. Either way, it was working. They seemed to be at peace.

  Michelle started running again. Erich lingered, unsure whether he should stay with the ghosts of his friends or to follow the scampering otter.

  Sathis took a step forward, making a shooing motion with one hand. Harlow nodded, waving goodbye.

  Erich waved back, his chest tightening slightly as he turned and jogged after Michelle. She darted in between trees, a glittering phantom lit only by the stars as he sped up to match her gait.

  The fire faded in the distance behind them as they ran, leaving Burrwood and his past as little more than a memory. They ran and ran. Erich lost track of how long and how far they went as the trees zipped by, blurs of brown and black.

  Lighting slashed down from the heavens, striking the forest some half mile in front of him. Fire blossomed from the trees, quickly growing into a very familiar conflagration. Michelle changed her course slightly, angling toward the inferno that was the very reflection of his image.

  Far ahead, miles away, another bolt of lighting forked downward, starting a second fire. Instinctively, Erich knew that it was also an exact duplicate of his image.

  The two of them didn’t stop. They couldn’t. All Erich knew was the feeling of the wet soil under his feet as he chased after Michelle, dashing through the forest fire in pursuit of another.

  More lighting flashed overhead, starting a third fire in the far distance. It was little more than a prick of light, a flickering candle flame on the horizon, but it was also his image.

  He ran faster. One by one, Erich could feel the fires of his image snuffing out behind him. Urgency filled him as the distant flames beckoned him onward, Michelle darting through the forest with almost supernatural agility as she led the way.

  Directions and time lost all meaning. His memories bleached and grew thin. He still remembered names and places he’d been, but everything before the fateful journey into the land in between seemed pointless. Like there was no need to focus on it.

  All that was the chase. Sprinting through the darkness after the distant light of his image, forever calling him to run faster and further than he ever thought possible.

  Then he awoke, his body drenched in sweat. Sun poured in through the window, painting everything in the tiny bedroom gold. With a groan, Erich rolled out of the bed and stood up. His arms and legs were stiff, as if he really had been running through the night, but at the same time he felt reinvigorated.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He jumped up and down twice, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Energy rushed through his body, and even his mana seemed to flow more smoothly. Eric walked over to the corner of the room where Michelle was sleeping. He extended his right foot, poking the otter with his toe.

  She squeaked quietly, rolling over slightly and covering her eyes with a paw. Erich shook his head and toed her a second time. Finally, Michelle woke up glaring blearily up at him from her bed.

  “Rise and shine,” he said brightly. “Let’s grab breakfast and go for a walk. We have a city to explore and things to do. Andre said that it would take him about two days to gather the materials and finish off the boots, so we might as well get out and about for a bit. The Sun’s shining for the first time in a week and I’m eager to get outside and practice.”

  Michelle trilled unhappily, clearly unconvinced.

  “We’ll have breakfast first,” Erich said dryly. “Hopefully that will improve your mood enough that we can explore outside the walls without you spending the entire day sulking.”

  The otter sniffed, but she stood up, clearly enticed despite her reluctance by the prospect of food.

  Erich chuckled and dressed himself swiftly. Breakfast itself wasn’t anything special. He paid an extra two bits to make sure that Michelle would have enough meat, but beyond that it wasn’t much more than vegetable and rice soup. Still, after eating nothing more than jerky and plain rice in his stay on Tempest, Erich had almost been willing to revert to the poisonous cuisine of hell itself.

  Michelle on the other hand attacked her sausages with gusto. She didn’t seem to forgive him for waking her up ‘early,’ but at least she was enjoying the food a lot more than the unseasoned garr she’d had to settle for on their trek out to Kratter.

  Once Erich was full, he exited the inn leaving all of his pack other than his bits in the bedroom. A five minute walk brought him to the town square where the market was already fully in the swing of it. Morning in Kratter’s marketplace was about the same as his previous experience with the city, the only exception being that there were fresh fish for sale.

  After pushing his way through the crowd of people, Erich found his target, a series of hitching posts where carts and wagons were gathering. He approached, taking in the cinderborn and humans loading crates and sacks up onto the various vehicles. People chattered and wood creaked under the growing weight as he walked up to a tall female cinderborn that seemed to be directing the entire operation.

  “Hello,” he called out walking up to her from behind. She didn’t respond, her nose in a clipboard as she barked out instructions to the rest of the workers. After a couple seconds with no reaction, Erich coughed loudly.

  That made her glance up. Her eyes dimmed in the cinderborn equivalent of a squint as she looked him up and down without any recognition.

  “Do I know you?” She asked. “If not, I’m in the middle of doing final checks on my caravan and I’d like to get back to that.”

  “My name’s Erich,” he said helpfully. “Erich Saphir. I’m a third tier swordsman and so long as your caravan is heading west, I was wondering if you were looking for any extra guards.”

  “Third tier,” she mumbled, eyeing him up and down before clicking her tongue. “Where specifically are you heading? Pretty much the entirety of Tempest is west of here, it comes with being on the edge of the world and all. It’s best that we settle things now. I don’t want you to demand that we deviate or reroute after finding out that we aren’t going to Soppomill or something.”

  “I’m going west generally,” Erich replied with a shrug. “I’m in the midst of the rite of Mathliss and I need to go to Cinder. All roads west are basically the same to me, at least for the next couple of months. I suspect I’ll have to care more once I start to reach the far end of Tempest, but for now I just need to move.”

  “Mathliss,” the woman responded, shaking her head slightly. “I’d like to take you, but our caravan is mounted. If you’re walking on foot, it would slow the rest of the carriages down. Having another duelist on hand would be nice, but we already have two and one of them is fourth tier so I don’t think that I can justify slowing everyone’s pace to accommodate you.”

  She eyed him cagily, a smile creeping onto her face.

  “I don’t suppose you’d mind staying in town for another week?” The cinderborn asked. “If so, I have a colleague, a human named Harris, who will be running another caravan out of Kratter in about six days. He only has one duelist with him and she’s only second tier. Despite sharing a sponsor with my caravan, his isn’t quite as wealthy as mine so they mostly use carts and travel on foot. He’ll owe me a favor if I send him your way, and I’m sure he’ll pay you a decent rate as well as food and board.”

  Erich pondered his situation for a second. The woman was right. Michelle was still far too small to ride, and even if a person on foot could easily outpace a wagon at a sprint, there was no doubt that the wagons would make better time over a long distance.

  He was honorbound to move on foot, and that made Erich a liability. Plus, he needed to wait a couple of days for Andre to finish off the new pair of boots he’d commissioned. Technically, Erich could just leave in a hurry, but that didn’t strike him as proper. He’d paid for the boots and he was going to need them. It was only logical that he stick around long enough to actually pick them up from Andre.

  “Waiting for Harris sounds good to me,” Erich replied. “How should I go about meeting up with him?”

  The cinderborn put two fingers into her mouth and let out a sharp whistle. For a second the hubbub around the caravan stopped, and then a boy, barely a teen if that, ran up to her.

  “What is it Miss Stasser?” He asked, casting a curious glance in Erich’s direction.

  “Go and pull Harris away from whatever it is he’s elbow deep in right now,” she replied, nodding vaguely in the direction of downtown Kratter. “Tell him that I may have found him a second duelist.”

  The boy perked up, shooting Erich an excited smile before sprinting off, weaving through the crowd of shoppers with the grace and speed of a startled housecat.

  “So Erich,” she continued, tucking her clipboard into one armpit as she extended a hand to him. “My name is Hallae Stasser and I’m a caravan chief working for the Golden Bit trading group. I don’t think I’ve properly introduced myself to you yet.”

  “Erich Saphir,” he responded, accepting her hand. “Third tier swordsman, specializing in fire and a couple other elements.”

  “A couple,” she said dryly, eyes glowing brighter as she raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you humans understand how lucky you are with your multiple affinities. I don’t suppose you have an image that can handle all of them?”

  “I have my own image,” Erich replied, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

  Part of him wanted to gush about his image. About Sathis and his dream. About his journey through hell as he fought back against, imps, demons and the environment itself. He wanted to regale her with the story of his struggle against the adult garr.

  But a smarter part of Erich stilled his tongue. He didn’t know much about being a swordsman, but he did know that the emphasis was on his sword, rather than on his charisma or the tales of well paid bards. It just didn’t feel right to brag. It also didn’t feel right to disclose all of his strengths and weaknesses to someone that might as well be a complete stranger.

  Hallae let out a slow whistle, her eyes brightening as she responded.

  “And so young. Impressive Erich. I truly wish that we could accommodate you in our caravan. All of the greatest heroes started out with their own images. I won’t ask what level your affinities are, but it sends a shiver down my spine to think of it. Don’t die. I’d like to tell my children that I had a conversation with you in your youth and have it mean something.”

  “Thanks?” Erich replied, uncertainly. “I’m pretty sure that’s a compliment of some sort, but I’m honestly not exactly sure how to take it.”

  “One piece of advice,” Halle responded, glancing over his shoulder at where the boy she’d called earlier was jogging over with a heavyset human in his forties. “Get yourself a dueling blade. Something balanced like your ordinary sword but dull. With your talent, you’re going to find yourself challenged to duels at every turn. I bet you’ll win more than you lose, but almost everyone manages to lose a fight here or there. If you’re using dull blades, that means a concussion or a broken arm rather than a death or a missing limb.”

  “That’s-” Erich began before cutting himself off. “Thank you. That’s actually fairly good advice. I haven’t spent much time in fights that could be settled short of death. If I’m going to fight other swordsmen, a nonlethal option seems like a much better choice. After all, I’m not so aether starved that I’d kill another warrior just to take theirs.”

  “Good,” Hallae said, nodding at the approaching human. “It’s not my part to critique the swordsman class as a whole, but a lot of your colleagues are quite blood thirsty. They keep it amongst their own ranks so it doesn’t often spill over to the rest of us, but it’s nice to see someone with a more even-handed approach to things. Now, let me introduce you to Harris. Unless I miss my guess, the man’s even more excited to meet you than I thought.”