Frozen at the sound of Soren’s voice, Rylan failed to react in time as the young Thistlethorn scion dramatically tore what looked like a white, knitted scarf off his own head, revealing a thick glowband with a generous piece of glowmetal beneath, and took two swift steps to get in Rylan’s now well-lit face.

  Gritting his teeth, Rylan straightened his spine and looked his former friend in the eyes. “Let me pass, Soren. There’s no stopping me this time.”

  “Think about what you’re doing here, Ryles,” Soren said, shadows playing over his face in the shifting reddish-purple glow coming from his forehead. “I know my family isn’t perfect, but they took you in, didn’t they? They clothed and—”

  “—and I’ll pay my debt,” Rylan cut in. “In money, exactly how your family indicated they want me to repay them. But I’m not staying here for another fogging decade!”

  Rylan took a diagonal step forward, but Soren stepped with him, staying so eerily in sync that he had to wonder if the boy was using his Skill.

  “Look, I guess Zahra overheard my grandmother mention she wants a decade,” Soren said holding a hand up to Rylan’s chest as he pleaded. “But that doesn’t mean it’ll be a decade; if you turn back now and come with me, I can help you negotiate!”

  Rylan snorted.

  “I’m serious!” Soren said. “Your actions thus far are excusable. Frankly, the cooler was not a fitting place for someone of your station. You can leverage that to gain more freedom in your Contract, but you first need to show my family some goodwill! Trust is a two-way street.”

  “You know, that’s the truest thing you’ve said all day,” Rylan replied coldly. “You’re so right... trust is a two-way street.”

  “Ryles...”

  Rylan leaned forward, getting in Soren’s face. “Tell me, when was I last shown an inch of trust by your family? And where was that two-way street when I trusted you?!”

  Soren fell silent. A flicker of light from the right reminded Rylan that there were more people out there looking for him, and that he couldn’t waste time.

  So he put a hand on the hilt of his dagger. “Please move. I’m not going to ask again.”

  Soren’s eyes flicked down, then back up, and hardened. However, he didn’t reach for his rapier, instead spreading his arms wide. “I’m sorry, Ryles, but you’ll thank me for this some—”

  Soren was cut off by Rylan’s fist hitting his chin. Or trying to hit it, anyway. A thin, shimmering barrier glowed up white as his hand made contact—Soren’s Mana Shell—which softened the impact to a shove. The young Thistlethorn still stumbled back a step, blinking at Rylan in surprise, but probably only because of the fog lightening him.

  “Seriously?” Soren complained, like he wasn’t about to rat Rylan out again.

  That was all the young nobleman managed to bring out before Rylan stepped in, grabbed him by the upper arm, and used his hip as a lever to fling Soren back towards the heavy grate.

  The fog made lifting him up easy, and the look on Soren’s face as he went flying was incredibly satisfying. The flash of white that erupted when his back hit the metal bars told Rylan his former friend would be fine, so he wasted no time in turning around and running off into the mist.

  “He-he’s over here!” Soren finally cried out behind him. “He’s making for the cloudsea; stop him!”

  Rylan gritted his teeth, but managed to suppress the urge to turn around and keep punching Soren until his Mana Shell gave out and he could actually hit the clodmonger. Instead, he kept running, in so far as he was able to. He’d never actually run through the fog before—let alone while carrying a heavy backpack—and it was proving more difficult than he’d expected. He found himself stumbling and nearly faceplanting several times, before he got into a rhythm of long strides.

  It didn’t help that the faint light of the moons filtering through from above was barely enough to get a rough feeling for the shape of the sandy cloudbed below him. Ironically, the only thing that made running somewhat doable was the abundance of artificial light sources running around in the mist.

  One such source suddenly veered towards him, rushing in from the side. “I see him!” the unidentifiable female guard shouted, raising her oil lantern high as she ran to intercept him.

  Its warm orange glow perfectly outlined the bamboo fence around the mushroom patch Rylan had been about to run into.

  Swearing internally, he jumped, managing to get one foot on the fence and push off even further. The guard looked up in stunned surprise as Rylan took a flying leap that carried him entirely over her head and deeper into the field of mushrooms.

  The extra weight from his backpack caused him to lose his footing upon landing, but he managed to quickly scramble back upright and kept running, taking extra care to keep his feet in between the rows and rows of mushrooms.

  More orange lights and shouting started to converge on his position, but they were mostly behind and to the side of him now, and their glow just served to light his way. Soon enough, the fence on the other side of the farm showed up, and Rylan hopped over it.

  Soon, the last obstacle between him and true freedom showed up in front of him.

  The marina was naturally not truly open to the cloudsea; no one would agree to tend to the mushrooms if a hungry cloudshark could just swim in and take a bite of them. Instead, the gap between the ends of the wall on either side was filled with a large steel net, that could be raised and lowered to let ships pass through.

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  The thick steel cables of the net glinted in the orange glow of a dozen approaching lanterns, and as Rylan drew near, he quickly tried to orient himself.

  Come on come on, where is the... oh!

  Recognising a large, particularly shaped boulder on the cloudbed, he veered off to the right.

  He was now running practically parallel to the net, which meant the guards who’d been approaching from his right were coming frighteningly close, but he just kept his gaze on the stone foundation that anchored the net from beneath.

  Suddenly, however, a figure appeared from the swirling mist in front of him.

  Rylan skidded to slow down as the approaching lights revealed the impassive face of the dark-haired bodyguard he’d met earlier that day.

  Tammi raised a brow upon seeing him, slowing her run to more of a stroll. “Guess you’re not as dumb as you look.”

  “Oh yeah?” Rylan replied, breathing slightly faster from exertion as he kept slowly moving forward as well, fighting to keep his eyes off the net, lest he give away his intentions. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re not forcing me to hurt you.” She glanced at the guards that were now closing in and slowing down as well as they formed a half-circle at about twenty feet from Rylan, and relaxed her pose, seeming satisfied to let them handle it.

  Rylan came to a complete stop and flicked his gaze over the encirclement, right as Soren pushed his way through to the front.

  “All right, that’s close enough,” the young Thistlethorn barked. “Thanks for the assistance, Thar Tammi, but—”

  “It’s Tamina,” the dark-haired girl shot back curtly.

  Soren took a deep breath. “My apologies, Thar Tamina. My gratitude for your assistance, but this is an internal matter, and we’ll take it from here.” He turned to Rylan and reached out a hand. “Come on, Ryles... It’s over. Please don’t make this any harder on yourself.”

  Rylan glanced at the outstretched hand, then slowly shook his head. “Actually, it’s not over. Not quite.”

  As he said that, his hand once more slowly reached down towards the dagger on his waist.

  Soren blanched, and the guards around him bristled and started reaching for their maces and swords.

  Tamina narrowed her eyes, and equally slowly started raising her metal-clad left arm, all the while sinking into a ready stance.

  Then, in a single, smooth motion, Rylan spun around, lifted the heavy steel net, and ducked underneath with his bulky backpack.

  Rylan had found this spot—the one spot where the bottom of the net had come loose and was no longer properly bolted down—when he’d been working out a way to escape the first time around. While he’d told Zahra about it, he’d never quite gotten around to sharing that particular detail of his escape plan with Soren, as he barely saw the older boy even then.

  The first time around, he’d been caught before he’d even gotten to use it, but not this time. This time, he got to enjoy the shocked gasps as the heavy net dropped back down behind him with a deep clang while he started running again with a big grin on his face.

  He knew it wouldn’t hold them up too long, but he also knew that wouldn’t matter. The area they’d have to comb to find him was about to expand massively, and he had no intention of making it easy either.

  A sudden, sharp turn to the left was followed by a milder curve to the right, his steps as long as he could make them, just to make it harder to follow his tracks. The cloudbed was growing darker as he ran from the lanterns, but it was mostly sand on a gentle downward slope, so he felt quite safe running down. Even if he did fall, the fog would probably turn it into a mostly harmless tumble.

  As he ran, Rylan felt the urge to laugh bubble up inside him.

  While he’d been outside of the compound plenty, he'd never actually been off the island before. After having been confined for so long, running down into the unknown was exhilarating.

  However, the pursuit wasn’t over yet, so he kept his joy bottled up, lest he gave away his position.

  Behind him, Soren was shouting things. Part of it was orders, part of it was directed at him. “Rylan, stop! You’re going to break your neck!”

  Naturally, Rylan ignored him and kept running, keeping a good pace and making sure to change directions every so often.

  After a while, however, the terrain started to level out and became rockier. He took a tumble over some kind of shell and scraped his elbow. As he got up, he found that the shouting behind him had grown dull and distant, and was starting to become drowned out by the ambient sounds of the cloudsea.

  Not that there were a lot of those. There was a kind of soft susurration from the flowing fog, some chittering from what were likely crabs moving across rocks, and some distant, keening calls that indicated the presence of a pod of fogwhales—nothing alarming.

  For a moment, Rylan wondered if he should keep running at all, or if it was safe to slow down. But then he picked up another sound.

  Rapidly approaching, running footsteps.

  Glancing back, he spotted the telltale purplish-red light from Soren’s glowband, heading straight for him. With an internal curse, Rylan set off again, rushing forward blindly.

  Fog, how am I going to shake him?

  Perhaps he could try jumping from rock to rock to avoid leaving tracks for a while, then find a place to hide, and see if Soren passed him by?

  On the other hand, stopping seemed risky. What if Soren was chasing him by hearing? Rylan’s footfalls seemed pretty quiet, but he was breathing rather hard.

  Before he could make a decision, an unexpected patch of darkness in the fog in front of him triggered a kind of primal fear that made him skid to a stop.

  His heart skipped a beat as, all of a sudden, he found himself right at the edge of a drop that went straight down.

  The bottom was impossible to see through the swirling mist. But then, he could by now barely see twenty feet in front of him. It could be just a little hop down. Or an epic fall straight to two broken legs and a shattered skull.

  The fog made falling things accelerate down slower, but if you fell for long enough, you would still reach an impressive speed.

  As Rylan languished in indecision for a brief moment, however, the footsteps rapidly came closer.

  “Got you!” he suddenly heard Soren shout, before the footsteps accelerated.

  In a flash, an image presented itself to Rylan. Him, jumping aside at the last second, followed by Soren going flying off the cliff and falling... who knew how far down.

  His stomach plummeted, and before he could even think about it, he found himself turning around and opening his mouth. “Soren, stop!”

  Soren’s face appeared out of the mist with a relieved expression. However, that quickly changed to alarm as Rylan raised his arms in front of him and braced himself.

  White light flared beneath Soren’s feet, then, and somehow, impossibly, his pace decreased from a full sprint to a sedate jog in the course of two steps. In fact, his Mana Shell hardly even flashed as he smacked into Rylan, but due to the floaty fog, Rylan was still forced back by the impact.

  His first step back caught solid ground. The second... only beneath his toes.

  Thankfully, he didn’t need a third. Teetering on the very edge of the cliff, they came to a halt.

  “Sweet Zenith,” Soren breathed out. “I told you to be careful!”

  “You’re the one that almost ran us off the—” Rylan paused, as he heard another set of footsteps rapidly approaching. “Cliff!” he quickly shouted. “There’s a cliff!”

  He got the words out only just in time, as Tamina came leaping over a rock, and had to seriously dig her heels in the sand to avoid crashing into Soren’s back.

  “Fog!” she cursed, coming to a stop with one hand on Soren’s shoulder, her bright-green eyes widening at the dark behind them. “That was far too close!”

  Her exclamation was followed by the most awful sound Rylan had heard in his entire life. The horrible groan of rock giving in.

  One moment Rylan was standing, the next he was falling, as the edge of the cliff crumbled away beneath his feet.

  The world tilted, and then, for the first time ever, Rylan got to experience true weightlessness, as the three of them tumbled down into the fog.

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  Want even more of my writing? I've published a completed six-book LitRPG series!

  The Whispering Crystals is available on KU, Audible, and in print:

  : Unnatural Laws

  : Unusual Enemies

  : Unimagined Adventures

  : Unchained Potential

  : Untamed Spirit

  : Undivided Worlds

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