Ilya raised a finger to stop me and walked off to the middle of the clearing. She took out a thin, long rod from her back pocket and stuck it in the grass. She called it a beacon and activated it. After that, she jumped up and flew into the sky to keep watch over the area.

  I tried to convince her to go after Baz, but Ilya did not want to listen to me anymore. In her mind, I hadn’t explained anything about the ambush, then gone off all alone, gotten myself abducted, and then gotten seriously hurt fighting the damned.

  Trying to tell her that it was all part of my plan seemed wrong just then. So, I sat there waiting for others to come to provide me medical attention. That left me all alone with my thoughts, and my mind drifted back to the fight with Baz.

  My fight with him hadn’t gone according to plan. I had wanted to grapple with him and perhaps sneak in a blow or two in the waters. But Baz had kept his distance and struck at me with his limbs or ranged attacks. I couldn’t afford that to happen again. In fact, now that the adrenaline had settled, I was glad that Ilya had appeared when she did, because I did not know if I could have come out of that fight alive. Maybe I was underestimating the damned’s abilities because of my former strength.

  The first one to appear in the clearing was, of course, Grek and his punishers. He took one look at me holding my wounds and rushed to me with a healing potion, then ordered his people to police the area. I drank the potion. It closed some of my wounds but not all of them.

  Then Inquisitor Asaki arrived with his warrior priests. They began to cleanse the area with incense sticks, bells, and chimes. I don’t know what they did, but their concentrated frowns told me that they were busy doing something hard.

  Finally, the soldiers arrived with a case full of neutral mana crystals and mana-enriched jerky. My stomach growled at the sight of them, and drool escaped my mouth.

  Ilya dropped down from the sky and handed me a mana crystal. She ordered, “Eat one of these every five minutes. Then take a healing potion and chew on some jerky.”

  I looked at Ilya and sighed. “Ilya, I am sorry. I should have tried to explain.”

  Ilya’s jaw tightened. She gave me a death stare. After a long moment, she nodded wordlessly and turned to Grek.

  “Make sure he follows my instructions, punisher.” And she flew off once again.

  Grek looked at me and wiped invisible sweat off his brow. “Your highness, your sister is really scary when she is angry.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Please eat,” Grek pleaded.

  I did as I was tasked. The healing potions, although they were red, didn’t taste sweet. They were spicy and salty with a cherry-like tartness. I did not like them. But the crystals—they were surprisingly refreshing. As soon as they touched my tongue, they turned into a thick liquid that flowed into me and went down my mana-parched body.

  One by one, my wounds began to close and scab over. After an hour, even those fell off, and I was handed a new tunic and pants to get out of my torn and blood-soiled ones. Grek guided me to a corner and used a water artifact to wash myself. Under the pressure of the water from the artifact, I cleaned myself and got into a fresh set of grey tunic and black pants.

  Finally, Ilya appeared once again and ordered, “Now, tell us what happened.”

  I did. Twice.

  Grek added his commentary where I missed details. Ilya paced up and down listening to me. When I finished, Ilya let out an explosive breath and looked at Grek and Inquisitor Asaki. They returned her frown.

  “Blight and curses! This is the Ilyan rebellion all over again,” Ilya exploded.

  Inquisitor Asaki shook his head. “Your grace, this is worse. If Senator Streton is to be believed, then the senate is in league with dark powers.”

  “Where is this senator?” Ilya asked Grek.

  Grek gave Ilya an uncomfortable look. “Your grace, we can’t trace him. All our artifacts are in the fortress, and you know that it is under siege…”

  I shot up to my feet. “What do you mean siege?”

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  “Sit… back… down,” Ilya pointed at me.

  “No,” I responded in a challenging tone.

  Grek jumped in quickly. “Your highness, the fortress was attacked by a beast wave. We believe that our enemies attacked it the same time they attacked us.”

  “Saha?” I asked.

  Grek waved me down. “Calm down, your highness. No one is hurt. General Lloyd and his troops are culling the beasts. And his grace, Sage Truechild, has erected a dome of protection over the complex. We theorize that this attack was to distract the general and keep him from assisting us.”

  “Now will you sit down?” Ilya pressed.

  I shook my head. “We need to get to the control crystal as fast as we can.”

  Ilya rolled her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, brother, we have just been attacked. You were abducted and injured. We’ve got two grievously wounded soldiers, and our punishers need time for their artifacts to regenerate their charge.”

  “Ilya, if we don’t, then we will give the damned the ability to turn themselves into more like that one.” I pointed at the dead carcass of the matriarch.

  “So, that is what a mature damned looks like?” Inquisitor Asaki muttered under his breath.

  I snorted. “No, that is a damned matriarch. An adolescent one.”

  The inquisitor looked at me and asked, “How can you tell, your highness?”

  “Matriarchs have one horn. That’s how you know whether they are male or female. The fact she didn’t have scales or a tail tells you that she was young,” I explained.

  “And this one tossed you around like a child,” Ilya stated.

  “I was shackled,” I protested.

  “Voss, I have seen this before. Let me guess—you were powerful in the dark waters, right?” Ilya asked.

  I nodded.

  “You are not that man, brother. You are basically a toddler trying to fight giants. I have lost brothers and sisters to mistakes like that. I am not going to lose you too.”

  “Ilya, you don’t understand. If I don’t kill them and take their essence, I will never be as powerful as I was before. I won’t be able to protect anyone if I don’t hunt.”

  “You don’t need to protect anyone right now. I will do that,” Ilya shouted.

  “They are hunting you for your mana core already,” I gritted my teeth and fired back.

  We both glared at each other.

  Inquisitor Asaki cleared his throat. “Your grace, his highness is right.”

  “What?” Ilya glared at the old man.

  The inquisitor stood his ground. “We need to stop this evil and purge it before it gets out of hand. The best way to do that is through the control crystal. You can protect him while he does that.”

  Ilya waved at me. “He can’t even take his full form right now.”

  “I don’t need that. All I need is a sword.”

  Ilya turned away and muttered, “Stupid. Stupid.” She turned back to me and shouted, “Stupid!”

  Wind rushed out of her, ruffling my hair, my clothes, and the dead leaves on the ground.

  I took in a breath and tried to calm my sister. “Ilya. Sister. I have done this before. Trust me.”

  Grek stepped in. “Could this essence help her grace become more powerful, your highness?”

  Ilya blinked and looked at me steadily. She looked curious.

  “Hmm…” I stopped and thought about it.

  That was a very interesting question. And the answer to that question was complicated. She didn’t have a reaper’s soul. But souls did get stronger with essence. Father had so much essence that he could affect the dark waters.

  I finally answered, “Not directly. It can make your soul more powerful and help you negate the influences of damned and demons. But I don’t know if it can strengthen your mana.”

  Ilya leaned closer to me. “Demons. This essence… can make me resistant to demonic influences?”

  “It’s not that simple. My soul sucks in essence. Yours cannot do that. You will need to be near me,” I explained.

  Ilya gave me a confused look and looked at Grek.

  Grek smiled. “Your grace, think of essence like blood. When his highness kills one of these damned, he sucks in their blood. You will need to be around him to get splattered by the rest.”

  “But this essence can help me fight demons?” Ilya pressed.

  I nodded. “After your soul has digested it. You will get stronger.”

  Ilya leaned back on her heels. “I see.” She looked at me. “Did you fight demons in your previous life?”

  I grimaced. “The dark waters are not life. They are death.”

  “Whatever they are,” Ilya almost shouted. “Did you fight demons there?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Blight and curses,” Ilya cursed. “And you want this essence to get stronger?”

  “That, and taking their essence is the easiest way to kill them.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so?”

  I blinked. “You never asked.”

  “It was a rhetorical question, Voss,” Ilya shouted. I opened my mouth to ask what that meant, and she stopped me with, “Just shut up.”

  I gave Grek a confused look. The punisher gave me a knowing smile. That confused me further.

  Ilya looked away with distant eyes and turned back to us. “Alright. Alright. You want to fight the damned. And after this attack, so do we. So, here is what we are going to do. We will leave our horses and the carriages with our soldiers. They can return them to the fortress. We will take the punishers and go to Voss Keep on foot.”

  “Your grace, I will be coming too,” Inquisitor Asaki announced and added, “It is my job to exorcise spirits from his majesty’s domain. And I need to keep an eye on your brother.”

  I frowned at the old man. “I can protect myself.”

  Before the old man could respond, Ilya turned to look at him and said, “Inquisitor, with all due respect, we will be traveling fast, on foot. Will you be able to keep up?”

  Inquisitor Asaki gave Ilya a chiding look. “Girl, I can get you there in an hour. Can you do better?”

  Ilya took a step back and raised her hands. She laughed. “Calm down, old man. I needed to ask.”

  The inquisitor huffed and walked away while muttering, “Bloody young ones. The emperor gives them mana and they lose all respect for their elders.”

  I looked after the old man and whispered, “I think you hurt his pride.”

  “Really, brother? You are going to say that after you pulled that stunt?”

  I frowned. “I said sorry.”

  “Tell that to Saha when I tell her what you did.”

  “Uh… Ilya. Please don’t.”