I closed my eye, tucking my chin on the stranger’s shoulder and allowed myself to think. It was an awkward, bouncy ride, but the muscles in my legs spasmed from relief. Cato knew where we were going, somehow, though the man had refused to tell me where beyond “New Sins.” Either way, my immediate awareness of my surroundings wasn’t required.

  I was being lied to.

  My gut had twisted violently the moment that Cato had admitted to not knowing why the System had it out for us. He’d lied to me, and I felt absolutely certain of that fact. Why was I so certain?

  It was, I think, how he’d said it. He’d gone from extremely verbose to very clipped, short sentences. This could be explained by the meltdown…but no, dude was extra verbose in the verbal tantrums I’d seen so far, and he’d had a few of those already.

  Nah. I was being lied to. The question was, how much, and to what extent?

  That half-joke about killing me…was that a joke? He disliked me, sure, but I couldn’t see why he’d want me dead. Leave me behind, abandon me to get eaten, yeah, but kill me himself? That seemed ridiculous. He barely knew me. I’d never tried to hurt him. Hell, I’d saved him from the pinewood wolves earlier. That had to be worth something, even if I irritated the shit out of him.

  Unease skittered up my spine, like ants marching in a file.

  For now, he helped me. For God’s sake, he was carting my fat ass through the snow. He’d educated me when I knew nothing. Though, to be fair, if he was really that stuck with me, which I reckoned was honest enough, then it was to his benefit that I knew more than jack shit. Furthermore, he’d been pretty verbose in his explanations, so those were probably truthful.

  So, where was the lie?

  I rolled my cheek to the side, staring out at the endless white expanse. Cato’s hair slapped at the top of my head and down my back, whipping wildly in the wind. I could see little dots of green, far in the distance. I flicked my eye forward. More distant green, though this collection of trees seemed to be getting closer.

  Or maybe I was hallucinating.

  I pulled my HUD up. The exhaustion stacks remained at 23. My health was stuck at 16. It hadn’t moved back up. I squinted at my skills, which now hovered at the center bottom middle of my HUD. They’d moved there after I’d pulled up my stat page for the first time. It was the ten empty boxes, three of which were filled in. One was my passive, STAND YOUR GROUND. It was greyed out, probably had something to do with the fact I could only use it once a Wing. Then, I had the skill called FAITHFUL FLAMES. It wasn’t super explicit. It said “Only your conviction can bless your chosen weapon.” My guess is that skill was what imbued my shovel earlier. Finally I had my heal--called CAUTERIZE.

  CAUTERIZE - Heal a party member for a small amount. Amount dependent on Conviction. Generates 1 stack of Minor Fever.

  See, that seemed fine. Except for the fucking name. And icon. Both of which related to fire. And the stack of minor fever.

  I didn’t know how I could be a Healer and hurt people at the same time, and making my heal fire-based seemed like a sick joke. I didn’t feel shitty enough that I wanted to try it out.

  My debuffs remained the same, but I blessedly hadn’t acquired any freezing stacks. My new Quest flashed at me. SPARE YOUR STALKER. It offered no further information, even when I clicked on it. Cato hadn’t explained, and I hadn’t interrogated him. It wasn’t that Herald, his reaction told me that much. Maybe it was related to whoever had tried to break into our room that one night?

  Why would they want that, though? Was it related to Cato’s lie? Was it related to this whole “Limiter” thing that I didn’t totally understand? Did it really fuckin’ matter, because my problem list of shit to solve was becoming overwhelming? I needed to begin prioritizing on what was going to kill me quickest. Pretty sure Cato’s dishonesty was at the bottom of that list.

  The skin where my infection lived throbbed, and I grimaced, closing my eye. Maybe a nap would count as rest for those Exhaustion stacks and I’d lose a few.

  If either creature that was chasing us caught up, I wanted to be able to move and fight.

  –—-

  “You should consider yourself lucky in the extreme that this zone is designated as ‘barren,’ which means there are almost no mobile objects that patrol through this area.” Cato’s sharp, accented speech woke me, and I opened my one eye, squinting blearily. The whole world around me was lit in an orange-purple glow of the setting sun, dark blue chasing the dying daylight. The forest was very close now, and I could see individual trees.

  “Hblegh?” was my very intelligent response.

  “That,” Cato said, “Was not perceptible Solaran. However, it is far preferable to your accursed snoring. If I had--” He hesitated for a moment. “…It would not surprise me to learn that you cease breathing on multiple occasions through your sleep cycle.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I lifted up my ruined cheek, which had been nestled into Cato’s boney shoulder, and pulled back. He was still carrying me, gloved hands holding my upper thighs, my hands loosely holding onto his chest.

  I blinked at him. He had turned his head, making eye contact. Then, without a single word of warning, his grip on my legs released, and I dropped.

  I slammed into the wet snow with a plop. I snapped up, sputtering, and saw that Cato was walking away. I scrambled to my feet, my feet sinking with a loud crunch. “Hey, snowshoes-”

  He didn’t bother to look behind him, and instead made that gesture I’d seen earlier, his index and middle finger extended towards me, and he snapped them down. A flash of that pink light, flecked with other colors, and then, snowshoes. I struggled to put them on speedily, as Cato clearly wasn’t slowing down. I hopped forward as I got one on and tried to tie on the other.

  “Have you seen the Stalker?” I asked, before finally managing to tie on the last snowshoe and stumble after the man.

  “The Stalker has not revealed themselves. The Herald is no doubt waking, and will reach us within the hour,” Cato said, speaking so he could be heard over the rising wind.

  “How far--”

  “We are an hour away from our destination,” he said. “You slept for nine hours.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, “You carried me for nine hours?”

  “If you attempt to thank me, I will deposit you in the nearest river and watch you panic until I deign to save you. Your Exhaustion stacks should either be null or one.”

  Well, he’d at least stopped threatening to kill me. So, progress? I jogged as best I could in my gear, catching up. I pulled open my HUD, and, sure as shit, I was down to a single stack of Exhaustion. Guess I’d just needed a ton of sleep.

  I was still hungry, but I wasn’t gonna starve to death for not having eaten in a few days, even though it was unpleasant. I grabbed some snow as we walked, shoving it into my dry mouth.

  “It’s one,” I said after clearing my throat and getting rid of the worst of the dryness.

  I’d managed to catch up with Cato, though he still hadn’t looked at me. His stride wasn’t quite a run, but it wasn’t a walk, either. “The last will not leave until you have sustenance, then, which means you will still aggregate stacks-- hopefully at a reduced rate.”

  “Do you want to try running the last hour?” I asked.

  “Could you keep up the last hour?” Cato said. “Do not bother answering, we both know the answer is that you would be unable. You would rapidly reacquire stacks, and that does not take into account our vastly different stride lengths.”

  I finally got a good look at him. He looked haggard. Dark circles were beginning to show up under his eyes, and he was paler than usual. It was like earlier…shit, today, I guess. Like this morning, when he looked exhausted and hungry and bitter, all at the same time.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

  “If I healed you, would it help?” I asked, abrupt.

  He finally bothered to look at me. A quick, gold flick in my direction. “…I would not decline the attempt.”

  I glanced at my HUD, hovering over the Icon for CAUTERIZE, the molten hot shovel. “So,” I said. “First, it’s called Cauterize. Secondly, it says it also gives you a stack of Minor Fever? That okay?”

  Cato quirked an eyebrow. “Minor Fever? That is decidedly unusual.”

  “I don’t know why my heal hands out a debuff. Seems counterintuitive to the whole healing thing.”

  He clicked his tongue. “On the contrary, it is both a buff and a debuff. Surely you are aware of what a Fever does to the human body?”

  My brow furrowed. “…It fights off infection.”

  “Correct. Minor Fever will dispel any Minor Infection stacks. The Decline, before you inquire, is categorized as a Legendary Infection. As for the nature of the Minor Fever debuff, it is not problematic until you amass enough stacks that it becomes the Fever debuff.” He paused. “The skill is called Cauterize?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed, then, a dark chuckle turned harsher by the wind. “The System has made its opinion clear, I see. A fire-themed Paladin that was slain by flames.”

  My gut twisted. “I mean, everything glowed earlier today with just light.”

  “That is the Paladin skill default appearance. With your first Conviction and first level, the theming of your skills has now been determined. This, like the class itself, is decided by your soulcode. In some respects, this is not a surprise. I have no doubt that your psyche has been quite literally seared in the wake of your demise.”

  “There’s nothing I can do to change it?” I asked. My gut was flipping, like it was a burger and my anxiety was the spatula. Why was there so much fucking fire in everything I had dealt with so far? Hadn’t I deserved a break? I hadn’t lost my shit yet, and I wanted to keep it that way, but every time I had to stare into a pyre, it got harder to bury.

  “There is not,” Cato said. “Look at the execution requirements, and attempt it. We shall see if it is worth anything.”

  The requirements? I hovered over the skill. Sure as shit, a few seconds later, the information box expanded.

  CAUTERIZE - Melee-Range, Touch Target. Heal a party member for a small amount. Amount dependent on Conviction. Generates 1 stack of Minor Fever. Heals a base of one HP.

  “I have to grab onto you,” I said.

  “Of course.” Cato’s mouth twisted into a faint grimace, the one he seemed to favor when he was particularly disgusted. He extended an arm, languid and elegant. “Hold on my wrist and select the skill.”

  I grabbed onto his wrist, loosely holding it in the grasp of my gauntlet. I clicked the skill.

  Five tongues of fire leapt from each finger, winding up Cato’s arm like a mayday pole. The bright flames danced in my vision, crackling and spitting like they were eating wood. My stomach dropped out from under me.

  Fuck, Teddy, hold it together. I’d been in a burning building earlier. I was fine. It was fine. Smoke drifted upwards from where I held him, and the flames wound their way up his neck and down his chest.

  My eye burned. I took a shaky breath. Then another, steadier. I was fine. I wasn’t burning. It was all a-okay here. My fear was silly, and I wasn’t going to let the System, as Cato called it, mess with me. I deliberately eased the tension in my shoulders, forcing my muscles to react. No way--

  Human has a very distinctive smell when it burns. First goes the hair, sulfuric and rancid, then goes the meat, like a fatty steak burning. Then went your organs, which had that iron, copper tang, and finally, an awful, horribly sweet stench. That last scent was when your spinal fluid began to cook. I don’t know how I knew that. I just did.

  That smell hit me all at once, worse than a sucker punch, worse than someone reaching in my guts and pulling them out in one big yank.

  I was burning Cato.