50

  Grag’s POV

  Mist lay low over the river, thin and gray, not thick enough to hide anything but enough to make the world feel unfinished. The sun had not yet cleared the treeline. Light touched the tops of the eastern branches and left the bank in long, cool shadow.

  Grag walked at the front of the small line, two empty buckets hooked in one hand. Six skeletons followed in even spacing, their steps perfectly measured, spears angled down but ready. They did not speak. They did not need to. Their presence made the walk routine rather than vulnerable.

  Kiiri rested across Grag’s left shoulder.

  The spider’s legs were folded tight against his neck and collarbone, her weight light but noticeable. When she shifted, her chitin made a faint dry rasp against his leather.

  There was always a pull.

  A steady, insistent tug from somewhere just behind his sternum. Not pain. Not exactly hunger. A pressure that wanted to move.

  He resisted it without thinking. The pull eased. Kiiri went still again.

  Behind him, Pasxi walked with her own bucket, Winter padding silent at her heel. The fox’s white fur caught the gray light, its breath faint in the cold air.

  “You think Master will keep it near?” Pasxi asked.

  She did not look at him when she said it. Her eyes stayed on the path, watching roots and slick patches in the dirt.

  Grag grunted softly. “Keep what.”

  “The child.”

  He glanced at her belly, not long. It did not show yet. There was nothing to see.

  “He keeps what is useful,” Grag shifted the buckets. “If it has a strong tether, it will be trained.”

  “And if it does not?”

  “Then it will work.”

  Pasxi was quiet for several steps. Winter’s ears flicked toward the skeletons and back again.

  “Do strong tethers run in blood?” she asked.

  Grag frowned faintly.

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “The Master did say we could tell by the parents. He may have meant that.”

  She nodded once. “If it has magic. If it is strong. Maybe we are rewarded.”

  Grag did not answer that immediately.

  Reward was not coin or praise. Reward was position. Responsibility. Survival.

  He shifted the buckets to his other hand and reached up with his free one, letting his fingers brush lightly along Kiiri’s back.

  The spider stirred. The tug sharpened. He resisted. The pressure dulled again, like a tide pulling back from rock.

  Kiiri settled, legs curling closer to his neck. Lazy. Almost annoyed.

  “She sleeps too much,” Pasxi observed quietly, glancing up at the spider.

  “She takes,” Grag said. “Then she rests.”

  Winter walked with easy, measured steps. The fox did not pull the same way Kiiri did. Or if she did, Pasxi did not show it.

  Grag let his resistance ease a fraction.

  Just to see.

  The tug deepened. Not violent. Just more present.

  Kiiri’s front legs flexed. Her body lifted slightly from his shoulder, as if scenting something in the air. One of her eyes caught the rising light and reflected it faintly.

  Grag felt the strain in his chest increase. He tightened down again. The pull lessened. Kiiri lowered herself, still. He considered that.

  When he had told Master the spider’s name, there had been no reaction. No correction. No approval. Master had simply nodded once and moved on to something else.

  Names did not matter.

  Function mattered.

  If Kiiri functioned, her name was irrelevant.

  They reached the riverbank.

  The water moved steady and brown, swollen from late-season rain upstream. Grag stepped into the shallows without hesitation. Cold soaked through his boots.

  He filled the first bucket, then the second.

  Behind him, Pasxi did the same. Winter stood on the bank, watching the current without blinking, bright eyes reflecting the gray light too clearly.

  “Do you think Master knows already?” Pasxi asked.

  “Knows what.”

  “That the child will come.”

  Grag lifted the buckets and stepped back onto the mud.

  “He knows you are with child, I told him a few weeks ago,” he said.

  Pasxi absorbed that. She did not look afraid. She did not look comforted either.

  They turned back toward the village. Kiiri shifted again. The tug returned.

  This time, without fully deciding to, Grag allowed it to continue for one breath longer than before.

  The pull intensified. He felt something inside him move—mana leaving his core in a steady trickle rather than a resisted draw.

  Kiiri lifted higher. Her legs extended. For a moment, she felt… awake. Not agitated. Not hungry.

  Aware.

  Grag cut the flow off sharply. The strain snapped back into stillness. Kiiri folded down again as if nothing had happened.

  Grag walked on.

  Behind him, the skeletons kept perfect formation. Ahead, the palisade of Gravewell rose dark against the growing light.

  They had nearly reached the outer fields when someone came up the path from the opposite direction, boots scraping loose gravel.

  Rokk.

  He walked alone, shoulders hunched, jaw tight. The raccoon rode slung across his back like an ill-fitting cloak, claws hooked into his vest. Its ringed tail dragged low and twitched irritably with each step.

  Rokk saw Grag and slowed, then stopped outright.

  “You feel it too?” he demanded without greeting.

  Grag adjusted the weight of the buckets. “Feel what.”

  “This stupid thing.” Rokk reached back and grabbed the raccoon by the scruff, lifting it slightly. The animal let out a low chuff but did not struggle. “It eats. All the time. I wake up empty.”

  The raccoon’s black eyes blinked slowly. Its whiskers twitched.

  “It takes,” Grag said. “They all take.”

  Rokk snorted. “Not like this. I used to cast before. You saw. I could shape it. Now?” He snapped his fingers irritably. “Nothing. I try to hold the rune and it slips. I have nothing left to push with.”

  Important.

  Grag watched him carefully.

  “You resist,” Grag said.

  “I do,” Rokk snapped. “And it just pulls harder. So I stop resisting and it takes more. Then I have nothing. What is the point of that?”

  He dropped the raccoon back against his shoulders. That was when Grag saw it. Not flame. Not spark.

  A faint thread of gray lifted from the raccoon’s fur along its spine. Thin as breath on cold air. It curled upward and vanished.

  Smoke. But not smoke from burning. More like heat escaping something contained. Grag narrowed his eyes.

  Rokk kept talking.

  “It just sits there. Stares at me. Like it knows I am tired. I try to cast and it pulls again.” He scowled. “Stupid thing.”

  The raccoon’s eyes gleamed faintly in the early light. Grag looked for the smoke again. There.

  Subtle. Intermittent. Rokk did not notice.

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  “Maybe you give too much,” Pasxi said evenly.

  “I do not give,” Rokk shot back. “It takes.”

  He adjusted his belt and spat into the dirt. “If this is what Master wanted, he can have it back.”

  Grag did not answer that.

  Rokk glared once more at the raccoon, then at Grag, as if daring him to contradict something. When no one did, he shoved past them and continued toward the river.

  The raccoon’s tail flicked once. Another faint curl of vapor trailed behind it. Grag watched until Rokk rounded the bend.

  Pasxi was quiet. Then she looked down at Winter. The fox stood perfectly still. Too still.

  Her ears were forward, not toward the path, but toward Grag. Her eyes reflected the growing light in a way that felt sharper than before—like there was depth behind them, something layered under the surface.

  Not animal. Not entirely. Winter did not blink.

  Grag felt something tighten under his ribs. He looked at Kiiri.

  The spider lay across his shoulder, legs tucked, body still. Dull green. Ordinary.

  Sleepy. He felt the familiar tug again. Steady. Insistent. He hesitated.

  Then, without looking at Pasxi, he let the resistance ease just slightly.

  The pull deepened.

  Kiiri’s legs flexed against his collarbone.

  Behind them, the skeletons waited in their perfect, silent spacing.

  The mist was thinning. Grag did not look back down the path where Rokk had gone.

  By midmorning the mist had burned away.

  The training yard inside the palisade was already warm. Sunlight struck the packed dirt at an angle, throwing sharp shadows from the stakes where loose pages had been pinned. Runes scratched into the ground from earlier sessions were half-smudged by boots.

  Seris stood near the wall, back straight, hands clasped behind him. Venni lingered a few paces off, holding a slate and charcoal, watching rather than instructing. Six skeletons were spaced evenly along the perimeter, unmoving, hollow eye sockets fixed forward.

  The goblins gathered loosely in front of Seris.

  “Again,” Seris said.

  They repeated the rune shape in the dirt. Crooked lines. Uneven curves.

  “Not like that,” Seris corrected. “You are drawing it as a picture. It is not a picture. It is structure.”

  Blank stares. Nods.

  “Feel the internal alignment,” he continued. “You must hold the shape in your core before you move mana through it.”

  A few goblins tried. One sparked briefly at the fingertips before the glow collapsed. Another hissed and shook his hand as if stung.

  Frustration thickened the air. Grag watched all of it, but only distantly. Kiiri rested against his shoulder, quiet and patient.

  The tug was constant. He resisted automatically through the first repetitions. The pull dulled. He traced the rune in the dirt with one clawed finger. Seris corrected someone else sharply.

  Grag eased his resistance. Just a fraction. The tug deepened.

  Mana slid outward in a thin, controlled stream rather than a resisted drain. Kiiri’s front legs unfolded. She shifted her weight, pressing more firmly into his shoulder.

  Her abdomen lifted slightly. Grag felt the strain increase under his ribs. Not painful. Just pressure. He allowed it for three breaths. Then five.

  He tightened again. The pull lessened but did not vanish entirely. Seris snapped at a fire-tethered goblin whose spark had fizzled into smoke.

  “You cannot force it,” Seris said. “You must shape first, then commit.”

  Grag barely heard him. He loosened his hold again. A little more. Kiiri moved. Not dramatically. Not lunging or expanding. Just… adjusting.

  Her legs repositioned with greater precision. One eye caught the sunlight and flashed faintly red before dimming again. Grag felt the mana leaving him more clearly now. It did not feel like loss. It felt like exertion. His chest tightened. Then steadied.

  The strain did not leave him weaker afterward. It left something firmer in its place, as if the act of resisting and releasing had hardened the space inside his core.

  He drew the rune again, distracted. A small flare sparked at his fingertip—cleaner than usual. He did not look at it. He was watching Kiiri. He let the flow continue longer this time.

  Kiiri lifted her body higher from his shoulder, legs spreading slightly for balance. The faint green of her chitin seemed darker where the light struck it. He cut the flow again.

  The strain snapped back into stillness. His breathing had deepened without him noticing. He did not feel drained. He felt… adjusted.

  Like a muscle used and then set back into place. Seris was speaking again.

  “Repetition,” the human insisted. “Structure before force. You must discipline the movement.”

  Grag flexed his fingers. The tug returned, steady and waiting. He interpreted the sensation simply. I am getting used to it.

  Across the yard, Winter lay near Pasxi’s feet, eyes half-lidded but watching everything. The fox did not move when Pasxi shaped her rune, but the air around her seemed tighter somehow contained.

  Grag did not think about that. He allowed another thin stream of mana to slip from his core.

  Kiiri’s legs twitched. Her body angled slightly toward the center of the yard, as if listening. The skeletons did not react.

  The lesson continued. Nothing dramatic happened. No flare of uncontrolled magic. No shout.

  Just incremental change. Grag felt the strain rise again. Then settle into something steadier than before.

  The lesson broke without ceremony.

  Seris dismissed them with a clipped nod. Venni began gathering the pinned pages from the palisade. The skeletons did not move until Seris stepped away; then they shifted formation smoothly, maintaining their quiet perimeter.

  Goblins dispersed in loose clusters, muttering about failed sparks and aching heads.

  Grag remained where he stood a moment longer.

  Kiiri rested against his shoulder, legs tucked again, but not as tightly as before. The tug was still there. Not stronger. Just… more defined.

  He let it sit.

  “Grag!”

  The voice came from his right.

  Foord nearly collided with him, skidding to a stop in the dirt. The child was small even for a goblin, all sharp elbows and too-large hands. His eyes were bright, almost fevered with energy.

  “You saw?” Foord asked breathlessly. “I held it longer this time. It almost lifted. I felt it in my chest, like wind in a hollow—”

  He gestured wildly with both hands, nearly clipping Kiiri. Grag stepped back half a pace without thinking.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Foord beamed, chest swelling. Krelgr’s apprentice. Air-tethered. Quick with shaping, even if he lacked control.

  Grag had chosen him for that reason. Potential was useful. Energy could be directed.

  “You will work with Krelgr this afternoon,” Grag said. “Listen when he speaks.”

  “I will,” Foord nodded rapidly. “He said I might help carve the channel lines for the bellows if I can hold the flow steady. I can. I think I can.”

  His excitement spilled forward in uneven bursts. Grag barely heard him. Kiiri shifted slightly against his shoulder. The tug pressed faintly against his core again. Foord was still speaking.

  “I will not waste it,” the boy insisted. “You chose me. I will not waste it.”

  Grag looked down at him finally. The child’s eyes were too eager. Too open.

  “Do not disappoint,” Grag said.

  Flat. Automatic. Foord’s grin widened as if he had been praised.

  “I will not,” he repeated.

  He darted off toward the inner yard, nearly tripping over a smudged rune as he went. Grag watched him for a breath.

  Potential. Eagerness. All of it fragile. Kiiri’s front legs flexed.

  Grag reached up and brushed one finger lightly along her back. He allowed the smallest trickle of mana to slip through. The tug eased in response.

  He felt the strain rise and settle again. Foord’s voice echoed faintly from across the yard as he began chattering at Krelgr.

  Grag did not follow. He was thinking about how Kiiri had lifted earlier.

  The next morning came clear and sharp, the air colder before the sun rose high enough to warm the yard. Grag had not spoken of what he was doing, and no one had asked. Over the course of the afternoon and into the night, he had continued the experiment in small, deliberate measures—loosening his resistance for a few breaths at a time, then tightening again, measuring the strain, measuring the recovery. It had become less impulse and more test.

  Master had not forbidden feeding them.

  He had said to resist.

  There was a difference.

  Grag had turned that difference over in his mind more than once while the others slept. If resistance strengthened them, then controlled release might reveal the limit. That was not disobedience. That was understanding the boundary.

  Kiiri had not slept.

  He noticed it as soon as he shifted on his pallet and she adjusted in response, legs already braced, body alert. In the dim pre-dawn light her chitin did not look the same shade of green as before. Faint red flecks had surfaced along her abdomen and near the joints of her legs, subtle but unmistakable, like embers pressed beneath a thin layer of shell.

  When he sat up, she moved with him immediately. Not lazily. Not after a pause.

  Faster.

  Her legs repositioned with clean, precise clicks against his shoulder as he stood. She angled her body toward the doorway before he did, as if she had already registered the shift in light outside.

  He felt the tug the moment he focused on her.

  It was stronger now—not in force, but in clarity. The pull was defined, like a rope drawn taut rather than a drifting current. When he loosened his hold slightly, mana moved in a steadier stream than before, flowing out of his core without the uneven stutter he had felt the first day.

  Kiiri responded at once.

  Her body lifted, legs extending with sharp coordination. The faint red flecks along her shell seemed to glow for a breath in the low light, then dim again as he tightened down. The strain pressed against his chest, and he felt the familiar tightness there—but beneath it, something else.

  Firmness.

  The space inside his core felt denser after each controlled release, not hollowed out. The strain would rise, then settle, leaving him steadier than before.

  That unsettled him more than the red flecks.

  He had expected weakness if he gave too much. Instead, he felt compressed and reinforced, like a muscle worked to the edge and then set.

  Kiiri did not curl back into sleep when he cut the flow.

  She remained upright.

  Watching.

  Krelgr’s work space was already alive with noise by the time the sun cleared the palisade. The old goblin stood over a half-shaped length of wood, carving channel lines for a bellows assembly, his movements steady and economical. Foord hovered too close at his elbow, chattering as he tried to follow the pattern with a smaller knife.

  “I can hold it steadier today,” Foord was saying. “I almost kept it from slipping. I think if I push harder—”

  Krelgr swatted him lightly across the back of the head without looking up. “You push when you are told to push.”

  Foord blinked, then noticed Grag standing at the entrance. His face lit immediately.

  “Grag—”

  “Give us a moment,” Krelgr said flatly.

  The boy hesitated, then scurried toward the far end of the shed, though his ears remained angled toward them.

  Krelgr wiped his blade on a strip of cloth and finally looked at Grag fully. His gaze flicked once to Kiiri, then back to Grag’s face.

  “What is it.”

  Grag did not answer immediately. He stepped closer so that Foord would not overhear, though the skeleton stationed outside would hear everything regardless.

  “I have been feeding her,” Grag said.

  Krelgr’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Feeding.”

  “Mana,” Grag clarified. “Not by accident. I stopped resisting.”

  The old goblin held his gaze without blinking.

  “I was not supposed to,” Grag continued. “Master said resist. I wanted to know what would happen if I did not. Just a little at first.”

  Krelgr said nothing.

  “She is stronger,” Grag went on. “Faster. She does not sleep. And when she takes from me now, I do not feel weaker. I feel…” He searched for the right word. “Compressed. Firm.”

  Krelgr’s jaw tightened.

  “And you think that is good.”

  “I think it is something,” Grag said.

  Silence stretched between them. The scrape of Foord’s knife against wood filled the gap for a moment.

  Krelgr finally spoke, voice lower.

  “Master told you to resist.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you chose not to.”

  “I chose to test the edge of it.”

  Krelgr’s expression did not soften. “It will not be good.”

  The words were not dramatic. They were simply stated.

  Grag absorbed them.

  He had expected anger, perhaps. Or sharper rebuke. Instead he found uncertainty, which unsettled him more.

  “I do not know what to do,” Krelgr admitted after a moment. “If this is growth, then it is useful. If it is corruption, then it is dangerous. Master will not approve of disobedience.”

  Grag considered that carefully.

  “I could say nothing,” he said. “If it settles. If it becomes normal.”

  Krelgr’s gaze sharpened.

  “He will know.”

  “Not immediately.”

  “Not immediately,” Krelgr agreed. “But he always notices patterns. If one familiar shifts and the rest do not, he will ask why. If more begin to change, he will see it faster than we will.”

  Grag felt the truth of that settle into place.

  Master did not search for singular events. He watched for trends.

  Kiiri shifted on his shoulder.

  The red flecks along her shell caught the light filtering through the doorway and glinted faintly before dimming again.

  Krelgr followed the motion with his eyes.

  “That is not how she looked yesterday,” he said quietly.

  “No.”

  “And the fox?”

  Grag hesitated. “Winter feels… different.”

  “And Rokk?”

  “His raccoon smokes.”

  That earned a sharper look.

  “Smokes.”

  “Not burning. Just heat escaping.”

  Krelgr exhaled slowly through his nose.

  “That is not nothing,” he said.

  No, it was not.

  Grag felt the tug again, stronger than before, more defined. He did not release it this time. He held it firm, testing the strain against the shape of his core.

  Something was happening.

  Not only to Kiiri.

  Not only to him.

  If he spoke now, he would confess disobedience without understanding the result. If he waited, he might see the pattern clearly enough to explain it.

  Krelgr wiped his hands again and met his eyes.

  “Think,” the old goblin said. “But do not wait too long.”

  Grag nodded once.

  Kiiri adjusted her stance, legs spreading slightly for balance. The red flecks along her chitin shimmered for a breath, then settled. Her eyes were open.

  Not curious.

  Not affectionate.

  Watching.