I pushed us further into the crags, into unstable terrain—the strategic component.

  I split myself in two—yes you read that right—using half my biomass to create an extra not-me. I did it in haste after rounding a corner, I hid my deception well as the chase continued with a knife now poised at my opponents back.

  -Thimblerigger

  ###

  Seven Years Ago *Even more slightly before the last chapter that was seven years ago

  “I want to go home!” the girl cried.

  The cabin was small and drafty, the room crowded and hot, and Noel would not stop crying. All while they were meant to be hiding.

  Kael sat on top of the mothbally couch, keeping watch through a smoke-yellowed window for Agassa to return. “Can someone calm her down?” The concept of found family had yet to be explained to him. Or even traditional family, given that they were all half-siblings.

  Joshua looked blankly at his brother. Prior to leaving home, Kael had never met Noel. Kael’s younger sister Almae, almost a complete stranger to not just Noel but Avonly as well, was more grumpy than blank. She sat in the corner, having pilfered the couch cushions to muffle her ears.

  Avonly placed Noel in her lap and rocked. While this seemed useful, it was possible that if Noel stopped crying, Avonly would start. There’d been a lot of wet noses and sniffling right on the edge of a break down from everyone so far, but it had only been Avonly and Noel who had outright bawled.

  Never at the same time though.

  Joshua had read the word for that once, he was pretty sure it was called decorum.

  “We’re supposed to be quiet, you know that right?” Kael asked Joshua, as if Avonly and Noel were his doing.

  Joshua had been fully prepared to run away from home with Kael and Almae, it was Avonly who had invited herself and then dragged Noel to boot.

  Would Joshua have missed them? Yes. Would he have brought them along himself if he thought this was safer than staying at home? Yes. But I don’t know. I don’t know if this is safer. If the old lady told us to not make a peep, then something dangerous is coming. And in a complete reversal of his older self, Joshua didn’t do anything if he wasn’t sure.

  One caused the other really. Not taking action had been the wrong answer so many times that Joshua would have a mental break down at age fourteen and throw caution to the wind entirely.

  Kael harrumphed, questioning whether Joshua could remember the question; he could not.

  “I asked if you knew we were supposed to be quiet. At some point, someone is going to hear us.”

  Almae asked, “Hear us in a cabin, in the middle of the woods?”

  They were a good ten miles into the woods, near some small port city or another. Agassa had told them she was finding them a ride. Another ride as it were, they were already in the back of a boxcar for two days before getting here.

  “Well if we’re at risk of getting caught one way or the other, I’m finding Agassa.” Kael slid down from his perch and bounced off the hard skeleton of the couch.

  That was so cool, Joshua thought. How is he so cool.

  “She said to stay—” Avonly murmured.

  “I know!” Kael spat back. “She also said she’d be back by now. And if someone dangerous does hear us screaming our guts out in here,” he eyed Avonly accusatorily, “then they’ll have to get through me first.” Little Kael flared his power, sending a shower of orange sparks through the air. The rules had become less strict when leaving home, Agassa had even told Kael specifically that he may have to use his powers.

  Almae was just as competent, but Joshua and Agassa had correctly come to the conclusion that she wasn’t capable of constraint. If Avonly was the most frazzled of the five children then Almae was the angriest one. (To complete the list: Noel youngest, Joshua saddest, Kael most driven.) This is all to say, Almae and Avonly were forbidden from using their powers for very different reasons.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Noel would have been added to that prohibition if she had developed any yet.

  And she will. I’ll be the only one without powers like I deserve.

  The door slammed shut, as Kael stalked off into the woods. This neither increased nor decreased Noel’s sobbing.

  “Don’t. Stop. Come back,” Almae said monotone.

  “I’ll get him,” Joshua said, shooting her a dirty look. He needed to keep them safe and that definitely included not letting his brother wander the woods. And if the danger was real and he died out there? At least his brothers and sisters would have their warning. Just have to scream loudly as the blood is coming out of me.

  The hoarfrost had set in and the woods were chilly. As far as Taerose winters went, the southern coast might as well be Etruian. He was hot if anything. Not only had Joshua grown up in the capital city far into the mountains, but he only got to bring what he could carry, so he was wearing three layers of clothes below his coat.

  The cabin was a fly in a spiders web, centralized in sparsely walked trails that went every which direction. It wasn’t like Agassa had gone out of her way to give them directions either since, and this was a point he would stress to Kael a thousand times over once he found him: They shouldn’t be out here.

  Still, a few things could be deduced: 1) Agassa needed a boat 2) The water was south 3) You could use trees to tell cardinal directions.

  Joshua scratched his chin before the nearest tree, imitating the famous Detective Fiolé Vitchpe detective he liked. A forest ranger or even cave dwelling hermit would have been better to imitate, but Joshua had never seen a movie about those types of folks and was pretty sure they didn’t make such films. Another single fingered scratch. There on the right side was blue tunica sheathing the tree. It seemed to Joshua that that was what he was looking for since it grew all over the world, but he didn’t outright understand the science. It seeped a tiny bit of tree-blood, pure sap, from its host tree, and, in return, the webbing prevented most animals from getting through the soft bark on non-ferrous trees.

  He really didn’t want to go the wrong way, but his worry for Kael was outweighing that right now, so he let the tunica lead the way, hoping it grew on the south side—one in four chance and all that.

  Joshua hopped over a trail crisscrossing away from him, then a small creek with icy crystals forming on the banks. The woods were calm, sometimes lush where the evergreens sprouted. But ghostly. Like a cemetery for nature.

  He would have called for his brother, but Agassa had been crystal that making noise was dangerous.

  He kept his jog, twitching at every little creek of the branches, and then outright jumping out of his layers at a burst of loud cracks. The staccato screams that lasted only seconds after freaked him right out. Joshua plunged ahead at full speed, praying that whatever was happening, Kael wasn’t in the thick of it. Even if Kael could take care of himself, the thought of his brother having to kill, maim, or otherwise disembowel someone was almost as horrific as him dying.

  Joshua skidded around an overgrown varix bush at full speed and nearly tripped into a crystalized orange dagger that hovered between his eyes.

  “Oh little one,” Agassa’s voice nearly broke saying those words. She lowered her hand and with it, the a shiv of crystalized sap fell to the ground and melted into the forest floor.

  Behind her, fallen in the decaying leaves in a rough semicircle were dark shapes. Agassa waved a hand in the air to distract, but Joshua understood the situation already, too late for distractions. Bodies covered the forest floor. He could count three at a glance but there were probably more—just based on all the blood spewed over the grubby ground plants, strikingly painting the bark of trees. Agassa waved her hand again, and the forest righted itself; the blood melted away. Even the bodies seemed to shrink, though how, Joshua didn’t know.

  Agassa took a knee and met Joshua’s eye. He remained as equally still as the bodies, no words, not even a breath. Agassa’s thumb pressed between Joshua’s eyes and he cringed, not looking even as he realized she was massaging from the bridge of his nose up to his forehead. Agassa spoke, “I will say the same thing I told you the first time. Talk to me when you are ready to talk. If death is easier the second time, that’s okay. This was no one you know, no one we need to weep for. Guilt and shame are important emotions, but only when we do something wrong. That leaves only acceptance for what is.”

  Joshua shivered. It was easier seeing dead bodies the second time, she was right about that, but her words struck to his core. She was right about everything, everything he had hoped he was wrong about. He should feel guilt, and he should feel shame about the first time he saw this.

  Especially her body.

  “Let’s get’s back and fetch the others.” Agassa took sharp breath and patted him on the back. “Your brother is coming this way isn’t he? Who else would I be feeling? That’s fine. You can take my hand and keep your eyes closed.”

  Joshua took her wrinkly, warm hand but the warning had been too late. He had already opened an eye and looked. Less gory, less blood, less traumatic than the conjurings in his brain. But with a calmer second to look, he thought he spied guns sprawled amongst the detritus and foliage.

  Agassa yanked him along, clearly eager to cut off Kael before he saw his first dead body too. Joshua would be thankful for that, but for now, he was entirely preoccupied with the weapons. Of course, they couldn’t just leave home. Of course his sisters were in more danger now.

  He was to blame.

  “Kael!” Agassa hollered, words bouncing off trees like pinballs. “Turn your butt around. We have a boat to catch and a roundabout hike to get there.”

  Everything is my fault.