“Aren’t we kind of in the middle of something?” Calisco said. “You think now is the best time to sit down ‘round a campfire and have marshmallows with a side of heart-to-hearts?”

  Det finished painting out his pit trap, then stood and stretched, rolling his shoulder. With one hand, he pointed to the distant ant-temple-thing, and the packs of ants patrolling around it. Somewhere around three-quarters of a mile distant, they weren’t far, but they also weren’t sneaking up on the party. Especially not with the grass being patchy and low. No close groups of bushes for an… ambush, either. “Sounds like it has to be now,” he finally said. “Sage and Eriba need some time to flex their magic muscles, and the rest of us shouldn’t go looking for trouble.

  “We can talk while I paint, and if you have any ideas on how to make this little slice of land safer for us, you can do the same thing.”

  Since Det was working on just that, and Eriba sat closer to the shimmering doorway out working on two broken ants in front of her, the rest of the group didn’t have anything they could object to.

  “Fine,” Tena finally said. “It’s a conversation we need to have at some point. Probably should’ve had it already. I’ll go grab those other ants—they aren’t far—for Eriba while we talk. Thanks for fixing my ankle, Weiss.” She said the last part as she pushed herself to her feet, the armored boot reforming around the limb. Still kneeling and staring at the ground in front of him, the healer didn’t respond.

  “I guess I’ll go first,” Det said, moving on to set up one more trap. That would cover the three main angles the ants would likely come at the group. After that, he could move on to something a bit more creative he’d come up with when he was working on the acid trap. “Though, it’s no big secret,” he continued. “My drive—my goal—is to leave Elestar. I have a wife and daughter on Earth, and I’m going get back to them. No matter what it takes.

  “Yes, that includes keeping you in here, Weiss, until you can fight with us. This dungeon thing—on our third day of classes—is too much of an advantage to pass up, if everything Beauty and Captain Simmons say is true.”

  “You were married?” Tena asked from where she hoisted up the remains of two of the ants Calisco had blasted. There wasn’t much left of them, but from how Eriba was tearing apart the ones she already had, pieces of ants were just as good as whole ants.

  “Going on seventeen years,” Det said. “Daughter was about to turn thirteen. Good kid, when she wasn’t being a brat.” Det’s brush paused mid-stroke as the image of Nat sticking her tongue out at him flashed behind his eyes. It was gone just as quick as it’d come, though, and his brush resumed working on the third trap.

  “I… hate to be the one to ask,” Tena said, looking at the others in the party like she was surprised they weren’t asking the question. “But, it’s been twenty years, Det. What makes you think they’re still waiting for you?”

  The question sent the same spike of pain through Det’s chest as it did every time he asked himself the same thing. Twenty years he’d been on Elestar. Twenty years he’d been trying to get back to Earth, and failing everything he attempted. In all that time, Nat would’ve grown up. Yumi would’ve moved on, hopefully. Part of Det longed for her to stay single and wait for him, but he also had to be realistic. She was a wonderful woman who deserved to not be alone for the rest of her life.

  She had absolutely loved him, and probably always would—if she didn’t hate him for vanishing—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find somebody else. As much as it hurt, it would be better for that to happen than for her to close herself off. Imagining her sitting alone in a room and crying about losing Det for twenty years was… painful.

  But, there was one chance—one hope—that could mean none of that was true.

  “We don’t know time works the same way here,” Det said. “What’s twenty years here could be twenty seconds there. This might all be a dream, and when it’s all over, I’ll wake up in my bed beside my wife. I’ll be annoyed at the five-a.m. alarm and have to go to work, but then I’ll realize she’s there. That my daughter is two rooms over, sleeping peacefully with one of her legs sprawled off the bed, and a puddle of drool like a small lake beside her.

  “And I’ll be happy again.”

  The final statement came out barely above a whisper, the statement and sentiment not somewhere Det had planned to go with the discussion.

  “So,” he said, coughing to bring his voice back up to normal. “I need to get stronger. No matter how much work it takes. No matter how long it takes. I’ll find a way home. Either through my own magic, some item the Mistguard has, or maybe even through all this.” He pointed at the ant-temple. “Might be the Wordless have a way home for me.”

  “I think you’re being too optimistic,” Tena said. “We have no reason to think time works differently here. You should…”

  “No,” Det interrupted. “And, no offense, when it comes to this, I don’t care what your opinion is, or what you think I should do. None of you. None of the Mistguard. When it comes to this, I don’t care what anybody—other than me—believes.”

  “That’s not reasonable,” Tena started, a bit more heat in her voice as she tossed the ant-bits in her hands beside Eriba.

  “And that’s how drives work,” Sage said in a calm voice. While he still had most of his focus on the ant pacing back and forth in front of him, he was also clearly listening to the conversation. “For the rest of the world, they may seem like the most unreasonable thing you’ve ever heard. To the ReSouled with the goal, though? They can be everything. They are the light in the darkness. The answer to every question posed.

  “Like emotion, in a lot of ways, there is no rhyme, reason, or logic to them. They’re called a drive for a reason. And, as we all discuss them, we should remember we can’t change them. Don’t try to fight them or tell each other they don’t make sense. It won’t matter.

  “Det is getting home,” Sage said. “Or he’ll die trying. For Zedic, it was to find a family or die trying. Luckily for him, he found his place to belong instead of the alternative.”

  “I…” Tena started, but trailed off when both Det and Sage stopped what they were doing to look up at her. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go next, since you’re all looking at me already. My drive is to make everyone know my name. I’m going to be so famous, every pillar will know who I am. They’ll talk about me around the dinner table, and little ReSouled will want to grow up and be like me.

  “Like Shardheart.”

  Tena held her arms out to her sides as she spoke, as if putting herself—and her glimmering crystal armor—on display.

  “You want to be a movie star?” Calisco asked.

  “Who am I to say no if some director—or whatever they’re called here—sees my potential?” Tena said. “I would be the best leading lady.”

  “Why?” Eriba asked quietly, though she didn’t look up from where she peeled ant-carapace off the body like she was skinning the thing.

  “Why would I be the best leading lady?” Tena asked back.

  “Why do you want to be famous?” Eriba said, shoulders slumping a little at the attention.

  Tena didn’t answer immediately, but her arms lowered to her sides, and her fists clenched. “Because being a nobody is the worst,” she hissed out. “You’re walked over. Abused. Less than nothing.

  “Disposable.” The word was practically spit out to the ground and stomped on by a crystal boot by the way it left Tena’s mouth.

  “That’s not me,” Tena said, the ‘this time’ she didn’t say louder than if she’d spoken it.

  “That’s why you were so determined in that first duel against me,” Det said, his third trap finished while Tena spoke. “It was supposed to be the start of your legend.”

  “Exactly!” Tena said. “And you stole that from me…!” The shout cut off as abruptly as it started, each of the party looking around quickly to see if it would attract the ants. When it was clear they didn’t care about the ReSouled argument for the moment, everybody looked back to Tena, who had the common decency to look embarrassed at her outburst.

  “I’m sorry,” the Bulwark said. “I shouldn’t have snapped like that, and… I know it’s not your fault. You couldn’t fight. The deck was stacked against you. Still… it was supposed to be my moment. And I lost that.”

  “You’ll have other moments,” Sage said.

  “Damn right I will,” Tena said. “That one isn’t going to define me. So, whoever gets in the arena with me next time better be ready for a world of hurt.”

  “Looking forward to seeing it,” Det said. “As long as it’s not aimed at me.”

  “Then don’t be the one dueling me.”

  “He won’t be,” Calisco said. “Or, you won’t be the next person he duels. He’s already got a date.”

  “You do?” Tena said. “A duel lined up, I mean?”

  Det forced himself not to sigh as he got to work on his next painting. This one was going to be a bit different, and took a kernel of his power just to have a chance to work. If it did function like it was supposed to, though, it would be great.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Calisco wants me to fight somebody who’s trying to bully me,” Det explained.

  “Kick his ass,” Tena said without hesitation.

  “You too?” Det said, though he and Sage had agreed it really was the best course of action. “Not what we’re going to talk about right now. Calisco, why don’t you go next? Your drive… not anything related to dueling.”

  “I know that!” Calisco said and crossed her arms to glare at Det. Not that he was paying attention, with his head pointed back at the ground to paint. “My drive is simple…”

  “Like you,” Det said before he could stop his mouth.

  “What was that?!” Calisco snapped.

  “Nothing, please continue.”

  “As I was saying,” Calisco ground out between her teeth. “My goal is to be the best. The number-one ReSouled. S-Rank. Better than S-Rank, if there is something. Z-Rank. That’s going to be me. Gen-gen and the headmaster? They’re going to be looking up at me, cause I’m going to be that strong.”

  “Same drive as Tena’s?” Eriba said quietly.

  “Nah,” Calisco said. “I don’t care if anybody knows I’m number one, as long as I do. But, I’m going to be so strong, I’m never going to be second place. Or second choice. That’ll be me at the top of every list. The front of every line. Somebody needs a ReSouled to do something? I’m going to be the one they come to.”

  “People need to know about you to want you…” Tena pointed out, and Calisco’s eyes widened like she’d never realized that.

  Then she shrugged.

  “Meh,” Calisco said. “Everybody can know your name, as long as it comes after mine.”

  “Oh, is that how it is?” Tena said, taking a step toward Calisco.

  “Yeah, that’s how it is,” Calisco said, also stepping in until the two of them were only a step apart. “Got a problem with it?”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then I’d say we’ve got ourselves a good, ol’ fashioned rivalry. Put ‘er there, sister,” Calisco said, and held out her hand, like she was going to arm-wrestle.

  “Rival, you mean,” Tena said, her own hand coming up to clench with Calisco’s. “We should start by…”

  “I have a question,” Sage interrupted, though he looked at Det, before asking Calisco. “Your drive… is it connected to your lack of a filter on what you say?”

  The directness of the question made everybody stop what they were doing and look at Sage. Then at Calisco. More than Det couldn’t hold in the chuckle, with even Tena glancing her new rival with a twinkle in her eye.

  “My filter?” Calisco said.

  “Your lack of one,” Sage clarified.

  “Why would I filter myself?”

  “Common human decency?” Det offered.

  Instead of giving him the finger—as usual—Calisco crossed her arms while she actually considered the question.

  “Before we came here—when we were on Earth—I had to filter, as you said, everything,” Calisco said, none of her usual attitude present in the tone of her voice. Instead, her voice had a new edge of propriety to it. Educated and clinical. “Everything I did, everywhere I went, everybody I met. I had to be the perfect little princess at all times. I didn’t have a choice of what I could say, who I could be friends with, what I could study at school, or even where I would go. It was all decided for me.

  “My entire life, down to each minute of every day, had an expectation I had to meet. I had literally been a disappointment from the moment I was born, simply because I was missing certain equipment between my legs. From that moment on, my life was spent trying to make up for that mistake of my birth.

  “I didn’t even get to decide who to marry. It was arranged for me, by somebody who knew better.” The way the last two words came out of her mouth, she clearly didn’t believe that to be true. “And, somehow, I even thought it was the right choice, because it would mean they wouldn’t be disappointed in me.”

  Calisco’s words came out with zero emotion, which somehow made them harder to hear. Even Det stopped what he was doing to give her his full attention.

  “When I woke up on Elestar,” Calisco continued. “Or, more accurately, when I remember who I was in my new-baby-self, my first thought was of how I must’ve upset them again. Do you know what my second thought was?”

  “Fuck them,” Tena said. “Whoever they were.”

  Calisco smiled at the other woman. “Exactly,” Calisco said. “That’s when I realized I must have died—or something—back on Earth. If anything, that would’ve been a relief to them. They were free of me, and more importantly, I was free of them.

  “Suddenly, I had a second chance, without the shackles they’d weighed me down with. I could be myself. Whoever I wanted to be. When I found out what it meant to be ReSouled, that became even easier. I can say what I want. Be who I want. Eventually, after we finish this damn academy, go wherever I want.

  “So, you know what?” Calisco looked at Sage. “It’s too bad if people don’t like what I say, or who I am. I’m me. The person I was meant to be from the very beginning. I’m never going to change myself for anybody else ever again. No filter. No compromise.”

  With the declaration, Calisco uncrossed her arms and held them out to her sides in a ‘come at me, bro’ type pose. Like she was daring any of them to try to change her mind.

  None of them did. Not even Det. His life back on Earth had been a dream, really, while Calisco’s had been a nightmare. A prison. It didn’t mean he really liked her anymore than he had before, but at least he understood a bit better where she was coming from.

  “You could,” Sage started, though the smile on his face suggested whatever was coming wasn’t entirely serious. “Be a little easier on Det.”

  “Why?” Calisco said. “He knows exactly where we stand. No complicated politics, second guessing, or backstabbing. If I’m going to come at him, it’s going to be straight on, and he’s tough enough to take it. In places like this—in dungeons—he knows I’ve got his back, and I know he’s got mine.”

  “How can you be sure he’s got your back?” Tena said, unable to hide the look of disbelief on her face.

  “Because I know Det,” Calisco said. “Even if he was a bit of a loner back on Radiant, and we aren’t friends, at least we’re honest with each other.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Det said. “If we lost her, we’d be short a member of our group, and I’d stop having access to dungeons. Putting up with her is a small price to pay.”

  “See?” Calisco said, not even insulted by his reasoning. “Does that answer your question, Sage?”

  “Answered it and more,” Sage said.

  “Good,” Calisco said. “We should get back to the important stuff. Since Tena think’s she’s up to being my rival…”

  “Hey, you said you’re my rival…” Tena interrupted.

  “I want to know why,” Eriba said, her quiet voice somehow still cutting through the nonsense of Tena and Calisco. “And how. Why and how about everything. Why do Wordless work? How do they work? Where do they come from? Why are the attacking Elestar or coming from the pillars? Where does the mist come from? How did we get to Elestar?

  “I want to know it all.”

  “That’s your drive?” Det said, his painting done, and the first bottle of ink emptied. Even Tena and Calisco had miraculously shut up to listen to Eriba.

  While she ducked at the attention and got ready to continue, Det moved on to the next painting he had in mind. Physical defenses for the camp were all well and good, but they would at most slow the ants down. He needed something to rip them apart. More wolves? Or… no. The problem he ran into before was wolves’ durability. Maybe something a bit tougher was more in order. And, with all this space, he could try a few different ideas.

  “And my hobby,” Eriba said happily while disembowelling another Wordless ant.

  “Do you ever think you’ll get to the end of that?” Sage asked.

  “I hope not,” Eriba said. “It wouldn’t be fun if I did. I want to know everything, but if I succeed, that means there will be no more to learn. That sounds like a boring world to me.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Sage said. “And, easy to understand. Which means I’m up, I guess?”

  At Sage’s statement, Det paused in his work and looked around at the other man. He’d been wondering about his new friend’s drive for a few days now. None of the others had really been a surprise, given what little he knew about them, but Sage was harder to read.

  “I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see my drive to its end, but I’ll sure try,” Sage said. “I want to… fix the world. Too much is wrong with it. Worse than back on Earth in some ways. Too many problems.

  “I’m going to be the solution.”

  “That’s kind of a big goal,” Det said, sitting back on his heels. “What are you trying to fix?”

  Sage let out his good-natured laugh. “If I tried to list it all out now, we’d never leave this dungeon. Let’s save that conversation for another day. We still have one more person to tell us about their drive, after all.

  “How about it, Weiss?” Sage said. “We’ve shared our motivation. Let’s hear yours.”

  “Back on Earth, I killed a man,” Weiss said, voice back under control. “And I got away with it.”

  “That isn’t what I expected you to say,” Sage admitted, and he wasn’t the only one thinking it.

  “I shouldn’t have gotten away with it,” Weiss continued. “I should have been found guilty, not innocent.”

  “Wait,” Det said. “You went to trial? And they found you innocent?”

  “They found me not guilty, technically,” Weiss said. “But I was. Guilty, that is. I was just to proud and afraid to admit that. I didn’t want to go to prison. But I should have. I should be in there rotting.”

  “Why don’t you tell us a bit more about what happened?” Det suggested. “Help us understand, and explain how this relates to your drive.”

  “My drive is to make up for the wrong I committed,” Weiss said. “On Earth, I was a doctor. My job was to save lives.”

  “Something happened to a patient?” Tena prompted.

  “Nothing so simple,” Weiss continued. “In my spare time, I was also a kick boxer. Bare fisted. I didn’t compete, per se, but I trained since I was a toddler. I was easily the best non-professional at my gym, and better than some of the pros.”

  “So…” Calisco said. “You beat somebody to death with your bare hands in a fight? Badass.”

  “Calisco…” Sage said.

  “It wasn’t a fight,” Weiss said. “It was an execution. There was another man at my gym, where my girlfriend and I trained. I had been busy with work, overtime and such, and she had found comfort with him. Looking back, I don’t know if they were ever romantically involved, or if she just needed a friend. At the time, it didn’t matter which, I wasn’t listening.

  “I was jealous and angry. One day, in sparring, we were paired up. He didn’t know I knew. Or, what I believed I knew. I planned to put him in his place, and I did. My knowledge as a doctor gave me some unique insights on where to hit people to hurt them. More than just what my coach had trained me to look for.

  “I used that advantage, and accidently struck a little low. The side of his throat. It cut off the flow of blood to his brain, and dropped him to the ground like a sack of rocks. Exactly as I knew it would. What I didn’t know, however, was an underlying brain condition he had. The combination of events, possibly even how he fell, caused an aneurism in his brain.

  “He died before the ambulance even arrived.”

  “It wasn’t your fault…” Sage said.

  “Yes, it was,” Weiss said, finally looking up from where he’d stared at the ground the whole time. “I hit him where I intended to. My goal was to hurt him, no matter what I was telling myself at the time.”

  “But, you didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “Didn’t I? Even now, I can’t say for sure if I know what I wanted to happen when I threw that punch. When I saw the brief shock in his eyes, I felt vindicated. When I saw the life leave those eyes within the next few minutes, the only thing I felt was… fear.

  “Not sorrow over what I’d done, but fear at what would happen to me because he had gone and died. Would I be arrested? Sent to prison? All because he got closer to my girlfriend? It was his fault. Or so I thought for a long time.

  “In my cowardice, I did everything I could to escape the guilty verdict. Played on my role as a doctor, my place in the community, the donations I made on an annual basis. It was all enough to free me. Except, it wasn’t until the adrenaline of it all wore off, after the months of court dates and lawyer fees, that I accepted what I’d done.

  “That I realized how wrong it was.”

  “Why didn’t you turn yourself in?” Calisco said. “Take all this to the police?”

  “Because I woke up in Elestar instead of my own bed,” Weiss said. “On Earth, I never had the chance to make up for what I did. So, I have to do it here. Like Sage, there is a good chance I’ll never be able to balance the scales, and I’ll die trying.

  “Doing more harm, instead of healing, would only tip those scales in the wrong direction. When I came in here and saw the fight, suddenly I was back in the ring in my gym. A choice before me. Violence, or something else?

  “The last time I chose violence, I ended one life, and ruined another. I can’t do that again.”