“So, what’s wrong with you?” Tenebres asked Caden while they walked. It had taken a little doing, but he had managed to distract Allana, getting her caught up bickering with Olivia and Aton, then slipped to the back of the little group of travelers, where Caden had walked, silent and alone, all morning.

  The celestial looked up, surprised, as if he hadn’t even noticed Tenebres approaching. Considering Caden’s awareness, that spoke volumes about just how distracted he was by whatever was going on in his head.

  “What?” the blue-haired boy asked, clearly trying to jump lines of thought.

  “Ever since the fight, you haven’t been… you. I know I haven’t known you for long, but even I can see that sullen brooding doesn’t suit you much.” The caster mustered up a teasing little smile. “Leave it to Oli, she’s a lot better at it.”

  The joke didn’t even get a smile out of the celestial, whose eyes drifted back to the ground. Olivia had mentioned it was bad, and Allana added that Caden hadn’t even taken up a chance to flirt with her, but Tenebres was still surprised by just how dour the young adventurer was. “C’mon, Caden,” Tenebres asked again, “tell me what’s going on. We’re worried about you.”

  It took a few more minutes of walking in silence before he finally spoke up. “When I fought Hellesa down there, when I used all of my Soul Surges like that, it was…” Caden made a frustrated noise. “I can’t even describe it! It was exhilarating! For just a few minutes, it was like I was a whole different person. And now… all of that power, it’s just…”

  “Gone,” Tenebres said, nodding in understanding. “Only it's not. You know it's right there, just begging to be used. That you could feel like that again, if you were only willing to pay the cost.”

  Caden looked up, surprise obvious on his face. “I… Yeah, yeah that’s it, exactly!”

  Tenebres nodded, and he felt the now-familiar pang in his chest. The gift of the void, the open maw over his heart, hungry to be used. “I told you how I got out of that compound the first time, right?”

  “Yeah, you got your gift of the void, and it kicked in, and gave you the chance to flee.”

  Tenebres shook his head. “Not flee–leave. There was no one left to stop me.”

  Caden narrowed his eyes, a shadow of his usual curiosity shining in his eyes.

  “My Void Invocation, it's a little like your Soul Surge, I think. I can pay multiple attributes into it to strengthen the fiend I call up. That first night, in a panic, I used that ability without knowing what I was doing. I sacrificed all of my physical attributes to invoke a major fiend, a slaughter demon, something capable of killing the entire cult, including a few Initiate battle-gifted.

  “Since then… it’s always right there, begging to be used. Almost every problem I face, every difficult fight I end up in, my gift is there, hungry for violence, ready to call up something like the slaughter demon. So trust me, I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Only yours doesn’t kill you if you try to do it again,” Caden pointed out.

  “No. It just kills everyone else.”

  Caden blinked in surprise.

  Tenebres sighed a little. His instincts were to keep avoiding, keep hiding, keep lying. But he couldn’t do that anymore. In Caden, for the first time, he had seen the reflection of a power not so different from his own, and despite the shame his cursed gift inspired in him, he knew that this was his chance. He needed to be open now, if he was ever going to.

  “There’s a reason I stick with the imps and my other minor fiends. Anything bigger than that I can’t control, not yet. Hellesa went after me down there so I couldn’t throw anything like that strong at her, but I wouldn’t have anyways. The slaughter demon might’ve killed Hellesa, but it would’ve gone for the rest of you too, and I couldn’t have stopped it.”

  Caden swallowed, and his expression of resolute self-recrimination finally slipped. “Okay… I’m willing to admit you might know how I feel.”

  Tenebres huffed a laugh. “Glad you think so.”

  “So how do you do it?” Caden asked. “Ever since I felt that power, it’s been all I can think about. All I want. Without it, everything just feels… dull.”

  Tenebres shrugged. “That’s a little harder. My gift was forced on me. So for me, it’s just a matter of repressing this thing I never wanted in the first place. But you accepted yours, right?”

  Caden nodded. “I guess. I didn’t fully know what it was going to do, but Storyteller offered to give it to me, and I agreed.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  Tenebres smirked a little. “Why did you accept it? Did you want the kind of power you used down there? Is that all you wanted?”

  Caden shook his head immediately, an embarrassed little smile dancing across her mouth. “No. No I… actually, it was because it was a mystery. A gift that I’d never be able to fully figure out. A gift I could spend a lifetime mastering.” The celestial’s brow drew together slowly. “I guess I kind of forgot about that.”

  “I think that’s your answer, then,” Tenebres said. “Stop focusing on the power, and just focus on what it let you do. Like saving the rest of us when we needed it.”

  Caden snorted. “I think you’re confusing me with Adeline. I didn’t make it very far, even with all that power.”

  “And yet, if you hadn’t done it, Adeline never would’ve gotten there in time. Hellesa would have killed Oli, and probably Allana, and maybe you and me before Adeline showed up to stop her.” Caden’s face slowly became thoughtful at that, so Tenebres kept going. “I haven’t told you guys, but I summoned the slaughter demon one other time, too. Back in Emeston, Allana and I were fighting this crimelord, Telik. He was Adept level, and he had these incredibly powerful abilities. My slaughter demon was my ace in the hole–and it still failed. Telik killed it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. I didn’t even think it was possible. I finally gave into the gift of the void, did what it wanted, and it still wasn’t enough.”

  “How’d you survive, then?”

  “Allana, of course,” Tenebres told him with a snort. “While I was busy marveling at my most powerful fiend getting trashed, she was moving, poisoning Telik. My power, by itself, wasn’t enough–but it did what it needed to, what only it could’ve done, giving Allana the chance to hurt Telik and giving her poison the time to do its job.”

  “Sounds a little familiar,” Caden observed dryly.

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  “Doesn’t it just?” Tenebres shook his head, smiling. “Look, the point is, you and me, we can do incredible things. Our gifts are weird, and special, and maybe even unique, and they give us a big advantage, a powerful tool. But that’s all. Your gift doesn’t define you any more than mine does. It’s just a means to an end, a tool.”

  Teebres was pleased to see a little smile flit across Caden’s face. “I feel like that shouldn’t make me feel any better.”

  “And yet?”

  “It did. Thanks, Tennie.”

  “...I’m not sure how I feel about that one.”

  “Yeah, well, I think Allana would beat me up if I started calling you Seo, so you’re going to have to deal with it.”

  #

  That night found the group settled in two different camps. The wardens, along with Aton, who spent the majority of his time in Rose’s general vicinity, had their own fire, but Adeline asked Tenebres and Cadence to set up a second campfire, where she could talk to the four young adventurers without the wardens listening in.

  “Why the need for privacy?” Olivia asked, once the five were all sitting together, sharing bowls of simple stew.

  Adeline put her bowl aside without even taking a taste. The knight’s face was like something out of a portrait, gentle and beautiful and solemn. “Because, while the wardens might be our allies, they’re not quite like the rest of us.”

  “They’re not adventurers, you mean?” Caden guessed, still blowing on his own bowl of stew.

  Adeline nodded, a little relief apparent on her face. “Correct. It’s good to hear you all had that particular talk already.”

  Allana snorted. “And adventurers have to make their plans in secret without their friends overhearing becaaaauuse…?”

  “Because they have their own things they’ll be doing in the next few days, once we get to Jellis. We need to decide what exactly to do with the rest of you.”

  “You said Jellis got attacked, didn’t you?” Olivia asked, frowning intensely.

  “I did,” Adeline confirmed. “We believe a legion hag is in the area–one more member of a coven you’ve all already encountered.”

  “There’s a third in Emeston, too,” Tenebres volunteered. “A binding hag.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Adeline acknowledged, “and a fourth north of Correntry, a rage hag. And likely at least three more, based on what we know of covens.”

  “So which are we going to go after then?” Caden asked.

  “None of them,” Adeline said simply.

  “What?”

  “Excuse me!?”

  “Why not?”

  The beautiful knight frowned, but didn’t otherwise respond to the outbursts from the group–or at least, from everyone except Tenebres, who was giving the rest of the circle an incredulous look.

  “Why would she want us going after the hags?” he asked the rest of them. “We tried that–we went after Hellesa, and we almost got ourselves killed for it!”

  Allana and Caden both subsided a little at the words, pain crossing their features, but Olivia stayed on her feet. “You can’t be serious!” she insisted. “We’ve fought, we’ve paid our dues! We deserve to keep going in this fight!”

  Adeline gave Olivia a mild, reproachful look that nonetheless made the squire stagger as if she’d been slapped. “Have you hit Apprentice yet, Oli? With even a single gift?”

  The eclipsed squire frowned, and finally sat back down, not bothering to answer.

  “All hags are at least moderate rank,” Adeline explained. “As you saw, not only are they skilled with their unique curses, they’re physically potent foes, too. I’ve told a couple of you that even I wouldn’t go up against a corpse hag alone, and that’s still true. They require multiple Adepts, with the right gifts, working together, to kill cleanly.

  “Even if we end up against some of the weaker hexes of hags, like this binding hag in Emeston, Novices and even Apprentices will be little more than distractions and casualties in any real fight.”

  “We did okay against Hellesa’s minions,” Olivia tried to insist. “Cadence and I fought a couple of her bandits, and we took down Xythen!”

  “We call the servants of hags ‘proxies,’” Adeline explained. “And you’re right that they’re generally lower leveled. Hags don’t want someone stronger than them hanging around to betray them. But down here, at least, there’s no shortage of hands to deal with the proxies, too. Farris already alerted the Correntry Warden's Office about the attack on Jellis, and there are two officer cadres on their way already to assist.”

  “So they’re staying?” Caden asked, casting a look at the glow of the wardens’ campfire, not too far away.

  “Yes. Farris, her cadets, and Aton are all staying in Jellis for a time to provide their information and experience to the wardens on the way. We, meanwhile, will be continuing on, back to Correntry.”

  Next to Tenebres, Allana nudged him, giving him a questioning look that Tenebres didn’t need words to understand. The girl didn’t like taking direction from anyone, even this experienced knight.

  Tenebres shook his head gently, trying to pressure her to stay quiet for now.

  In the meantime, Caden had picked up the role of trying to calm down Olivia’s wounded pride. “We did talk about going back to Correntry to rest and recover after all of this,” the celestial insisted.

  “Yeah, when I thought that Hellesa was the end of it, sure! But there’s a whole coven to deal with and you just want to go back to Correntry and relax!?”

  “More so than I want to get killed fighting another hag, yeah,” Caden replied.

  “I’m also on Team ‘Not Rushing to our Deaths,’” Tenebres agreed.

  “It won’t all be rest and relaxation, if that helps,” Adeline told her indignant squire.

  That raised several eyebrows around the little circle.

  Olivia spoke for the rest of them in asking, “What?”

  “Well, as you said, you’re too low level to help yet. We need to work on changing that. You’ve all gotten plenty of real-world experience now–far more than most Novices, to be honest–so now it's time to take everything you learned and start turning it into experience.”

  Caden nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I wouldn’t argue that. My old mentor excelled at a lot of things, but I never thought he was a particularly amazing trainer. He just sort of expected me to figure things out on my own.”

  “I could use the study time,” Tenebres agreed. “I haven’t gotten to sit down and just work on my equations in… well, in the entire time I’ve had my gifts, honestly.”

  “I think you’ll find Correntry’s libraries a fair sight better than Emeston’s in that regard,” Adeline told him. “The Order Arcanis isn’t as prestigious as some of the magical associations in the bastion cities, but as a lower leveled mage, you should find it more than sufficient.”

  “And for those of us who don’t want to spend weeks drilling or whatever?” Allana asked, as challenging as always. Tenebres rolled his eyes at her tone, but to Adeline’s credit, she seemed to take the girl’s swagger as a challenge.

  “How we’ll go about training depends on your gifts,” Adeline explained. “From what I know of your blessings, I don’t think training and practice duels are a productive use of your time, either. But I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  The blonde knight’s eyes drifted back to Oli, and her gaze was frank. “Several Argent knights are currently en route to Correntry–I expect they’ll be arriving in a couple months. By the time winter sinks its teeth in, I want to have all of you at Apprentice level and ready to move.”

  “Move where?” Olivia asked. Finally, her voice had settled down some, her words thoughtful, if still a little sullen.

  “I don’t know yet. But if I know anything about hags, then by the time winter brings its blizzards and frost monsters, they’ll be ready to make another move–so we have to be ready to counter them.”

  The four youths traded looks–Olivia’s resentment breaking as she considered the future; Caden’s excitement obvious and refreshing after days of dour introspection; Allana impatient but intrigued, hooked by the knight’s vague proposals. Tenebres wasn’t sure how his face looked, but he assumed it was optimistic.

  Months before, when he had drudged his way through each day in the same forsaken hole in the ground they had just left behind, Tenebres had dreamed of getting a gift from the Mage, of going to a city to study magic. It had taken longer than he had dreamed, but at the same time, it had come so much sooner than he had ever hoped.

  Maybe, for once, things could be good for a little while.