Celeste

  By the time the camp settled again, the worst of it had already passed.

  The Brotherhood folded back into itself the way it always did. Voices returned. Laughter followed, soft and careful at first, then easier as the tension bled away. Someone built a fire. Someone else cooked. Steam rose from battered pots, carrying the smell of food through the trees, and with it came the quiet, ordinary rhythm of people who had survived something together and chosen not to dwell on it.

  I let myself be pulled into that normalcy.

  The anger I’d carried after the fight loosened its grip as the day wore on. We talked about roads and weather, about nothing that mattered, simply enjoying each other’s company.

  At some point, Lioren sat beside me near the fire, the worst of his injuries already cleaned and bound. When the camp grew quiet enough, I reached for him without comment and finished what I’d started in the clearing. I closed the deeper bruising along his ribs, knit torn muscle, and eased the ache left behind in his shoulder and legs.

  I didn’t push. My core protested enough to remind me where the line was. When I was done, the damage was reduced to soreness and fatigue rather than open wounds.

  Lioren exhaled slowly when I pulled back. “Oh, that’s nice,” he murmured.

  “Don’t get used to it,” I said, though there was no edge to it.

  He smiled before leaning against a log.

  Darius was nearby. Our eyes didn’t meet. No words passed between us, and none were needed.

  By the time the sun reached its peak, Lioren and I were packed and ready to get back on the road.

  One by one, the Brotherhood drifted over, some with claps to Lioren’s shoulder, others with quiet words meant only for him. Small acknowledgements of people who knew how to let go without ceremony.

  Lioren stayed at my side through it all, answering each of them in turn. I watched him take it in, the pull of every farewell.

  Elena was the first to come to me.

  She didn’t say much, just squeezed my hands, her eyes searching like they always were. Then she pulled me in a firm embrace.

  “Walk well,” she said. “Both of you.”

  I nodded, throat tight. “We will.”

  Iven lingered longer than the others. He gave Lioren a crooked grin, said something I didn’t catch that made Lioren huff a short laugh, then turned to me and offered an awkward hug that carried more sincerity than he probably intended.

  “Don’t let him get you killed,” he muttered.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  Fira hovered nearby, watching as each Brother bid me farewell in turn.

  Darius approached last.

  He stopped in front of Lioren, his voice too low for me to catch everything he said, just fragments. When he finished, he rested a hand briefly against Lioren’s arm.

  “I wish you well,” Darius said.

  Lioren inclined his head. “Same.”

  Darius’s gaze shifted to me then. He gave me a single nod.

  “May your path be a good one.”

  I met his eyes and returned the gesture. “Thank you.”

  He stepped back without another word.

  Fira was the last.

  She crossed the space between us and wrapped her arms around me, warm and familiar, holding on just a breath longer than the others had. When she pulled back, her smile was soft.

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  “Take care of each other,” she said.

  “We will,” I promised.

  Lioren adjusted his pack, and I settled mine more securely on my shoulders. Side by side, we turned away from the camp and made our way to our horses.

  The forest thinned as we put distance between ourselves and the camp, the sound of the Brotherhood fading until there was nothing left but hoofbeats and wind through the branches.

  For awhile, neither of us spoke.

  Then Lioren started humming.

  It was low at first, some wandering tune without words.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Whatever that is.”

  He glanced at me, lips twitching. “You don’t like music?”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “That’s a shame. It’s a good tune.”

  “It’s not,” I replied. “And if you hum again, I’m leaving you on the road.”

  He laughed. “After all the trouble you went through?”

  “Don’t test me.”

  His laughter faded as the sound of stone striking stone carried faintly ahead of us.

  The road bent around a low rise, and the forest gave way to a patch of open ground where stone lay stacked in uneven piles beside the path.

  Lioren slowed his horse.

  I followed his gaze.

  A half-built wall rose along the road’s edge, waist-high and stretching toward a squat structure that looked like it would one day be a wayhouse or a store shed. The stones weren’t mortared yet, just stacked, each one carefully fitted against the next.

  Two men knelt near the base of the wall, palms pressed flat to the dirt. Their shoulders trembled faintly with the effort, sweat darkening their collars despite the mild air. At their touch, the ground responded. Short mounds of packed earth rose beneath a block, no higher than a man’s chest or wider than his shoulders.

  Each movement took a breath or two.

  Gravel shivered as the weight redistributed, the stone settling into places by small increments. When one of the Casters faltered, the earth stilled immediately. He pulled his hands back, flexing his fingers as if they ached.

  The second Caster shifted closer, pressing his palm down, adding his strength to the lift. Together, they coaxed the mound higher for a final moment before letting it sink back, leaving the stone seated where it belonged.

  Both of them sagged back on their heels when it was done.

  Around them, half a dozen others worked without Casting at all.

  One man levered a block into position with a pry bar. Another checked alignment with a taut string stretched between wooden stakes. A woman chipped at an edge with a hammer, knocking off slivers until the stone would sit flush.

  I watched as the Earth Casters wipe their hands on their trousers, exchanging a few words before kneeling again to repeat the process.

  “That’s it?” I asked, more to myself than to anyone.

  Lioren glanced at me.

  I gestured toward the wall. “I mean… that’s a lot of work for barely any movement.”

  He didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on the worksite as we rode by, tracking the Casters as they wiped their hands and knelt again.

  “They’ve likely been at it since morning,” he said at last. “Stone work eats at you slow. Earth especially.”

  I watched one of the men brace his hands against his thighs before lowering them back to the dirt.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “That makes sense.”

  We rode on a few more paces. The sound of stone and tools fading behind us.

  Lioren hummed thoughtfully, not a tune this time, just a sound. “How many Casters did you grow up around?”

  The question caught me off guard. “What?”

  “In your village,” he clarified. “How many?”

  I thought back, the answer coming easy. “Three.”

  “Three,” he repeated. “What kinds?”

  “Two Water Casters,” I said. “And a Wind.”

  “No Earth?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Ever seen one before?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I killed him.”

  Lioren barked out a short laugh. “Of course you did.”

  I shot him a look. “It wasn’t as harmless as you make it sound”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” he said, lifting the reins to get into a more comfortable position. “How’d it go, then?”

  I frowned, thinking back. “He was a pain in the ass.”

  Lioren smiled faintly. “That bad?”

  “He kept throwing rocks at me,” I said. “Not pebbles. Fist-sized chunks. Over and over. Every time I tried to hit him with Ardor, he’d throw a wall up in front of himself.”

  “Really? A whole wall?”

  “Solid. Thick enough that I couldn’t punch through it.”

  “And he held it?”

  “He didn’t just hold it,” I continued. “He kept dropping them and putting them back up. Around himself and around others with him.” I glanced sideways at Lioren. “Five of them, all at once. He’d tear them down and raise more just as fast.”

  Lioren slowed his horse slightly.

  “I know he was strong,” I admitted. “The men fighting alongside him weren’t weak either.”

  Lioren huffed a breath. “That’s puttin’ it gently.”

  I looked at him. “Is it?”

  “Aye,” he said flatly. “If that’s the Earth Caster you’re usin’ as a baseline, then you’ve had a poor samplin’. Most Earth Casters can manage one good lift like that before they start feelin’ it tug at their core. Maybe two if they’re stubborn. Five walls, raised and dropped and thick enough to stand against your blast?” He shook his head.

  I didn’t answer right away.

  The image that rose wasn’t the wall I’d described, it was Ice – his Ice.

  Art standing in front of me as the attack came in. Water pulled from the air at his command, shaped and locked solid an instant later, and a wall of Ice that stood between us and the oncoming attack.

  I’d known, even then, how incredible it was.

  It hadn’t frightened me. It hadn’t even surprised me for long.

  Because that was Art.

  And because, somewhere along the road, that had started to feel like a reasonable measure.

  But I’d been comparing them against him.

  Against someone who bent the world into his own like it had always belonged there, and against power so far outside the curve that everything else blurred by comparison.

  I glanced back down the road toward where the masons worked, slow lifts and careful pauses so no one burned themselves hollow.

  Lioren was right.

  If Art was my benchmark, then most of the world would always come up short.

  Which would you most like to explore in this world?