"It's hard being the only person in this little group whose eyes don't glow in the dark," Harlan said flatly as he dropped a pile of firewood and glanced over at Eldric’s ember-like gaze.

  "Must be hard to be old as dirt too…" Nia responded immediately and ducked her head a bit to dodge the swipe from Harlan. She continued to deftly peel the potato she had pulled from the bag of rations the group had brought with them.

  "Good point, Harlan…" Vestara said as she walked out of the woods. She had been setting up a camp perimeter, summoning winged demons the size of Eldric’s hand, their bodies taken almost entirely by a single, oversized eye. She approached Eldric then. "Want to explain why your creepy human eyes glow like firelight?"

  Eldric frowned as his gaze flicked among the three others. He hadn't spoken much beyond answering a few of their questions on the journey thus far.

  "I…" His eyes lowered to the ground as he wrestled for a reason his eyes might have changed. Wren had told him his eyes were amber. He figured if they ‘glowed like firelight’, it would have come up before now and he would have noticed it in his reflection.

  "How would he know that, Ves?" Nia spoke up for him, her tail swishing lazily as she dropped the potato in an iron pot and grabbed another from the bag. "Why are your eyes red pits of anger, or Har’s green pools of depression?"

  "I wonder…" Harlan said as he walked out beyond the edge of the camp to gather more firewood.

  Nia rolled her eyes at the insinuation from Harlan, her thin fingers handling the knife with unnatural skill as she peeled.

  "Let me ask the questions, Nia," Vestara said flatly. "We don't need your input every time someone says something." Nia sighed but said nothing further. Vestara crouched in front of Eldric.

  "All I know," Eldric began, shifting against the tree—the bark uncomfortable against his burns, to say the least—"is that they were not like this before I woke up today."

  "Well, it's not the Sorrowcurse," Harlan said, dropping some smaller limbs. He lingered close enough to listen as he gathered wood. "So that's the worst-case scenario out of the way."

  "There are things out there that could still hurt you beyond the curse, Harlan," Vestara replied, her gaze not leaving Eldric. "And whatever is making you heal so quickly—or making your eyes glow…" Her voice lowered to a whisper meant only for him. "It isn't a mystery. It's a threat."

  Eldric wanted to retort that he didn't ask for this. He would rather have been lying in his bed in Cinderholt, talking quietly with Elder Tolsten about the nuances held within the pages of the Ashen Testament. Instead…

  His eyes flashed, like the spark of a stoked fire.

  "What do you want me to say?" His rasping voice edged closer to a growl.

  Nia's nonchalance vanished in an instant as her hands stopped peeling. Harlan stopped mid-step, hand nearing the pommel of his sword. Vestara's gaze turned icy.

  "That you aren't some Ashen Cult lunatic waiting for us to fall asleep so you can sacrifice us to your damned god," Vestara spat, her mask of haughty indifference falling away as she openly glared at Eldric. "I know enough about your little cult to know you're just as dangerous as the Scribe, in your own way."

  “Ves-” Harlan warned and took a step forward, but his words died in his mouth as Vestara cut him off.

  "Quiet, Harlan. You need to ask yourself if the Sorrowscribe was involved or if Cinderholt is gone because the Order of Ashes sacrificed the whole damn town in a ritual."

  "Are you kidding me?" Nia jumped up from her spot, her tail frantically slashing behind her as her ears sat against her head. "You're going to blame E for Cinderholt?!" Nia stalked over toward them. "This is why I always jump in, Vestara. You always take it too far!"

  "Silence, fox! You don't know a damn thing about the Order of Ashes.” Vestara's whole body was tense now; her eyes kept flicking between Nia and Eldric as she spoke. Her tone lowered. "Please, Nia, for once just…" She trailed off, her eyes closing a moment as she seemingly tried to get a grip on herself.

  "I won't let you hurt him just because you have a past, Ves," Nia said, her response a tense whisper as she stood inches from the much taller dark elf. "That's not how we do this."

  "Everyone will calm down. Now." Harlan finally said, his voice an octave lower than Eldric had previously heard it.

  The two women took a step back.

  Eldric noted that it wasn't out of fear; in fact, he had a feeling that either woman could defeat the aging adventurer.

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  "Fine…" Nia said somberly, her tense body relaxing just a bit.

  "Then…" Vestara turned to the man. "How are you going to deal with him, Harlan?"

  "Like a reasonable being should," Harlan responded carefully as he approached Vestara slowly and finally put a hand on her thin shoulder. "We will talk to him. If he's a danger, I know you'll keep us safe, Ves—you always have."

  The warlock frowned a bit and lowered her head, turning her gaze away from the others. “I don’t do this for free…” she whispered at last but seemed to stand down as well.

  Harlan chuckled and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze before it was his turn to approach Eldric.

  He didn't crouch down in front of Eldric like Vestara had; instead, Harlan sat down and relaxed against the tree to Eldric's right. The man's graying black hair fell over the front of his worn half-plate armor.

  "How old are you, Eldric?" he said after a string of grunts and small shifts as he tried to get comfortable.

  "Twenty," Eldric responded immediately. "I think. I was an orphan, so the monastery guessed my age." His words were slow and low; talking fast or loudly was hell on his ragged throat.

  "An orphan…" Harlan repeated, nodding slowly. "Do you remember a time before your life with the Order of Ashes?"

  "No…" he replied, trailing off, curious as to where Harlan was going with his questions.

  But one followed with another, and many more after that.

  Each question was as mundane as the last. This lasted a whole thirty minutes while the two women flitted about the camp, preparing one thing or another.

  Eldric found at some point that the tension in his shoulders relaxed a bit as Harlan's questions were intermixed with stories about his own life and the nearly three decades as an adventurer.

  "—And then we fell down into the very trench we had set up to catch the damned thing!" Harlan groaned as he finished his unlucky story from his past. "To say the least, it wasn't what you would call the shining moment of my career."

  Eldric had been watching him through the whole tale, unable to hide the small smile that naturally came to his face as Harlan regaled him with the story. By the end, he managed a slight shaking of his chest, knowing that if he allowed himself to laugh, it would hurt.

  Nia came over at that moment, her stark white hair and tail shimmering like moonlight from the campfire's glow.

  "Stew's ready, E, Old Man Har…" she said, noticing Eldric’s eyes fixed on her tail. She smiled a bit and brought the long fluffy tail around to her front, brushing it against his leg as she handed him a bowl of stew.

  Eldric's leg jerked at the sudden tickling sensation, causing Nia's grin to widen even more as she passed Harlan a bowl of his own.

  "Thank you, Little Fox," Harlan said quietly as he brought the bowl to his mouth and blew over the warm liquid.

  Her smile softened as she rose back up and looked between them, then back over to where Vestara sat.

  "Thank you, Har… I was worried there for a second. I know she's…" Nia trailed off, her nose scrunching a bit as she seemingly tried to find the right words.

  "It's okay now, Nia," Harlan said finally and then took a drink of his stew.

  Nia brushed her fingers through her tail, and her shoulders drooped a bit as tension she had been hiding before somehow left her.

  "I'll take first watch tonight if that's okay?" Nia asked, her voice louder than before, drawing Vestara's attention this time.

  "I'll take last," Vestara called back.

  "I doubt I'll be able to sleep," Eldric said quietly. "Would it be okay if I took watch after Nia?" He looked over at Harlan.

  "Who would be watching you?" Vestara said back, her carmine red eyes staring over the campfire at him.

  Things quieted after that as everyone ate in relative silence.

  Harlan—after finishing his stew—helped Eldric to his feet and moved him closer to the campfire. Nia had laid out a bed for him, but he had a feeling that lying down would cause the burns to hurt worse.

  Harlan and Vestara settled in to sleep, with Vestara pulling Nia aside to have a whispered conversation that seemed to be cordial enough.

  After that, Eldric and Nia sat by the fire in relative privacy.

  "How bad does it hurt?" Nia asked as she came to sit beside him. Not overly close, but he noticed it was well within range of that tail of hers.

  "The burns?" he asked back. She nodded.

  "Bad enough, not as much as those final moments… but bad." He stared into the fire, flashes of Cinderholt, captured by the inferno, surged through his mind. A shuddering breath fell out of him before he could contain it.

  "Final moments? What do you mean, E?" Nia asked. She leaned forward a bit, giving her a perspective to see his whole face from her spot next to him.

  "Cinderholt, Elder Tolsten…" He began, the memories hazy but visible in his mind. He brought a hand up to his face to wipe away tears that should have been there but weren't. He closed his eyes instead.

  She frowned a bit and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them.

  "Have you ever heard of the Winterbloom clan, Eldric?"

  He frowned, and she smiled sadly at his silent confusion.

  "It's okay if you haven't…" she said, her lavender eyes looking down for a moment before turning to the fire. "I was curious because you said the Sorrowscribe attacked Cinderholt."

  "I haven't, are they related to you?" he asked after a moment, and the foxkin’s silence told a story all its own.

  "The Sorrowscribe…" she began, "he used the blood of the Winterbloom clan to make the ink he uses for the Sorrowcurse."

  "That…" Eldric began and paused as a lump formed in his throat. Somehow, Nia's quiet reveal had dragged something deep within him into the light. He hummed deep in his throat. It was a short, abrupt sound, his eyes searching for something to look at that was not the fire. The fire was Cinderholt, the monastery, his soul.

  He met Nia's eyes; her gaze silently watched him as he relived the death of his old self in flashes of horror.

  "Ah…" he managed as something settled inside Eldric. He didn’t understand it himself; it lacked the wrath he had felt in the monastery, and the quiet acceptance he’d felt as he died with Cinderholt. His ember eyes seemed to breathe with internal light as another piece of his identity moved into place.

  Tears finally found his cheeks.

  "He said he would rewrite reality…" Eldric whispered, thinking back on the Sorrowscribe's words. His body tensed as he worked through emotions that came faster than he could process them. "I-I want to stop him… I am alive… I was reborn to stop him."

  "I'm glad I met you, Eldric Ashborn…" Nia said, giving a name to this new identity he was feeling. "My name is Nia Winterbloom, and I want to stop him too…"

  End Chapter 3

  Arc 0 Complete: Ink and Ashes