The first thing Illnyea did when she awoke was to carefully extract herself from Holly’s grip. The girl was like an octopus, but with slow, careful effort, Illnyea freed herself. Holly kept sleeping with a small frown as she now laid against the tree.

  Illnyea’s body was sore from the uncomfortable position she had fallen asleep in when Holly had cuddled into her, but, eh, what was a little soreness when the rest of her body hurt so much more.

  Illnyea peeked around the edge of the leaf they slept behind before leaving its flimsy protection when she didn’t spot anything dangerous.

  First thing on Illnyea’s agenda: find a tall tree.

  Illnyea had to settle for one that looked tall only twenty feet away from where Holly was resting because it was a little hard to tell with the fog and she felt nervous about exploring any further than that.

  Second thing: determine if said tree would hold her weight.

  This step was a little more difficult because with just squinting, Illnyea couldn’t tell. The trunk seemed to be thick enough but she’d never encountered this type of tree before.

  The only way to truly know was to just go for it.

  Third step: climb.

  Illnyea slowly scaled the tree and didn’t trust a branch without giving it thorough testing. If she fell and broke a leg due to recklessness, Illnyea might as well give up right then and there because she’d be useless. Also, moving quickly made her head pound and make it even harder to focus, so Illnyea tamped down the urge to get this done as soon as possible.

  Impatience was Illnyea’s enemy, and she already had enough of those skulking about.

  The fog grew thinner the higher Illnyea climbed, but she didn’t focus on anything except putting one hand above another and making sure her foothold was stable. Nothing else mattered than getting up safely because she did not want to spend another day wandering around aimlessly.

  When Illnyea finally breached the top of the tree and sunlight gently caressed her face, she started to cry from sheer joy. You never knew how much you missed the sun until it was gone and Illnyea would never take it for granted again.

  She closed her eyes and just relished in the warmth, turning her head slowly so every inch could revel in the feeling.

  But the warmth was abruptly stolen from her.

  Illnyea opened her eyes with a frown and saw that a cloud had cruelly drifted to block the sun.

  (and that’s the world’s way of telling you to get a move on, Sulaiman would have chastised.)

  That was the moment her body decided it was done feeling bliss now that she was cut off from sunlight – her head started to pound again, her shield arm throbbed painfully to remind Illnyea of its continued existence, and her stomach growled like a lion that knew it wasn’t going to get fed.

  Illnyea sighed heavily.

  Back to reality.

  While the fog clung to the landscape and made it difficult to see the ground, it couldn’t hide the large, leafless, crooked tree that rose above the canopy like a spindly finger reaching to steal the sun from the sky.

  If that wasn’t the lightning tree, then Illnyea didn’t know what would be.

  The tree was to the southwest of where they were currently at based on the sun’s positioning and as Illnyea squinted, she thought she saw a series of faint trails of smoke curling above the fog even further to the south.

  That must be where The Starving One’s encampment was.

  Her plan was to convince Holly to wait by the lightning tree while Illnyea did some reconnaissance on the camp to see if she could spot any weaknesses. When night fell, depending on what Illnyea learned, she would launch her attack and hopefully catch them off guard. She’d kill the lady before she dashed back out into the night.

  It was a good, solid plan in Illnyea’s opinion, one that Sulaiman would have approved of.

  Maybe.

  Honestly, it was the best Illnyea could come up with and he’d have to be happy she even had that much of a plan instead of running in blindly.

  Her magic reserves hadn’t fully recovered yet, not when she had been over exhausting them for several days straight now and she didn’t have a sword anymore, but that was a problem Illnyea would deal with when it arose. The core of the plan was still good. She just had to use as little magic as possible today and it could even be great.

  After a slow, careful climb, Illnyea was back on the swampy ground and once again cut off from the sun, enveloped by the gray haze.

  But as Illnyea instinctively looked towards the leaf where she had left Holly, Illnyea froze.

  The strangest creature Illnyea had ever seen was waddling side to side, right smack between Illnyea and the leaf. It was roughly the length of a cat but half as tall, and its body was covered in a layer of short, dark purple fuzz. The creature had what looked like the wide, flat bill of a duck with dark, beady eyes that was trained down as it nosed at the ground, two pairs of webbed feet with tiny, bright purple claws on the end, and a long, flat tail that would look more at home on a beaver.

  Illnyea swallowed nervously.

  It seemed like it could be easy to defeat, but she didn’t know what this creature was. Based on the coloring she’d guess that it was poisonous and based on the fact that everything else has tried to kill Illnyea at least once, Illnyea would guess it was dangerous too.

  There was no use taking risks.

  Edging very carefully towards Holly, Illnyea tried not to draw the creature’s attention as she tried to give it a wide berth.

  And, of course, immediately failed spectacularly when the ground was softer than Illnyea thought it was and she tripped, landing painfully on her shield arm and making her head pound.

  The creature stiffened, spinning around to stare at Illnyea, who was sprawled ungracefully across the ground.

  For a long moment, they just stared at each other – girl and creature’s eyes both wide with fear as silence hung in the air, each waiting for the other to make a move.

  Illnyea wasn’t in the mood to learn what dastardly things this creature could do, wasn’t in the mood to fight when she had to conserve energy for later.

  Her head hurt so much and she was still so tired.

  “Please just go away,” Illnyea whispered, feeling pathetic that she was begging a monster for mercy.

  The creature cocked its head, as if it actually understood her, but surely that was just Illnyea’s brain seeing what she wanted to see.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Illnyea whispered, slowly pushing herself into a sitting position when she wasn’t immediately attacked by a spray of poison. “Please. Please leave us alone, we don’t even want to be out of here, we’ll leave you alone.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The creature tracked her every move, eyes glittering with more intelligence than she originally thought it held. It didn’t make any move to attack her, nor did it seem like it was about to run away.

  Something in Illnyea cracked, stress fractures in her mind becoming too great in her delirious state while she was in the oddest situation she had ever experienced.

  “I’m so tired of being in pain,” Illnyea confessed, the words tumbling out of her without her meaning to, “I’m so tired of being constantly afraid, so tired of the monsters who won’t leave me alone, so tired of being tired.”

  Tears started to pool in her eyes but she didn’t blink, didn’t break eye contact with this peculiar creature. Illnyea couldn’t burden Holly with such negativity, but Illnyea couldn’t keep it inside anymore even if the only thing to hear her was a monster.

  At least the monster wouldn’t lose faith in her for being weak.

  “I’m so tired of killing,” Illnyea whispered as tears ran down her cheeks, “but I know I have to because it’s me or them and I–I have to keep my vows.”

  (It’s a promise, Priscilla had whispered, wrapping her pinky around Illnyea’s with a shy smile)

  (If you must, Sulaiman had said like he didn’t believe Illnyea when she said she’d make him see that there could be more to the world than hatred)

  “I have to get back to them,” Illnyea sniffled, “so, please, can we just not fight? You go your way and we go ours and everyone’s happy.”

  The words hung in the air.

  Abruptly, the creature stiffened before it clacked her beak twice at her.

  It then turned on its tail, waddling very quickly from sight as it slipped into a pond.

  Illnyea took a moment to process that.

  That sure looked like the creature was running from something and Illnyea suddenly realized she should probably be running too.

  She sprinted to where Holly, legs pumping as she panted. Illnyea couldn’t afford to trip again, and sent small pulses of magic into the earth to make sure she made it in time.

  “Holly, time to wake up, dear,” Illnyea yelled as slid to her knees, pinning Holly between her and the tree with her shield arm. The girl startled, clutching at Illnyea but surprisingly stayed quiet.

  It didn’t take long for the flock of the murder birds to come flying out of the fog, creating an awful ruckus. Illnyea summoned a half-dome of dirt as she ducked down, using the back half of the tree as cover.

  There was a thud as something hit her shield.

  Illnyea’s stomach growled, low and dark, at the thought that maybe the bird might have died and wondered if it tasted anything like duck.

  Without even commanding it, her magic flexed.

  Though she couldn’t see it, Illnyea could feel the magic form sudden sharp spikes from the shield just before the birds redirected, skewering them. It was more magic than she meant to use, and she felt it drain out of her like squeezing out paint from a stubborn tube that had little left.

  For a moment, Illnyea contemplated passing out from her sudden lightheadedness, but Holly whimpered. That was enough to give Illnyea the strength to stay upright, panting as she tried to scale back to putting in only enough magic to maintain the shield.

  It took maybe a minute, maybe a minute and a half, before Illnyea was reasonably sure that the murder birds were gone.

  Holly had Illnyea’s arm in a death grip with her eyes squeezed shut and she mumbled over and over in a nearly inaudible voice, “May the Shade Father carry me gently to rest.”

  It was a prayer people said before they thought that had to go meet the god of death and Illnyea’s heart broke. It had to be quite the scare to be woken up so abruptly and be under attack.

  A thought danced seductively across Illnyea’s mind even though she knew it was just asking for trouble.

  But Illnyea’scourse of action was decided for her when her stomach growled. The sound startled Holly out of her praying.

  “I, uh, what do you think about roast bird?” Illnyea asked.

  Holly blinked owlishly.

  “I think I killed a couple,” Illnyea admitted, “and if you don’t mind helping me defeather them, I think I can roast them with a bit of fire magic. We’d have to eat quickly but it’d be better than nothing.”

  The girl considered the offer, before saying, “I think I can do that.”

  “Great,” Illnyea said, letting just enough of the barrier fall so she could wiggle out. She motioned for Holly to stay behind, just in case.

  It was a bloody mess, but it turned out Illnyea had killed one by breaking its neck, so that’s what she offered to Holly. Illnyea had never enjoyed butchering, but knew it was an important skill if she wanted to be an adventurer, so she learned it alongside Sulaiman. It wasn’t clean work, but it was easy and monotonous.

  As Illnyea picked off the final feather, something gold on her left hand caught her attention.

  She paused, placing the bird aside.

  It looked almost like a jagged lightning bolt had been carved in gold ink diagonally onto the back of Illnyea’s hand. It started below her pinky finger and curled just underneath her thumb.

  Okay, so Illnyea definitely had not woken up with that on her hand.

  But for the life of her, Illnyea had no idea how the scar had appeared. Her hand had been aching slightly since the murder birds attacked, but Illnyea hadn’t thought much of it because so much of her hurt that it barely registered. Maybe that little creature wasn’t as harmless as it had appeared when it clacked its beak at her.

  “Miss Illnyea, I’ve finished my bird.”

  Holly’s voice drew Illnyea out of her winding thoughts and she smiled.

  “I’ve finished mine too,” Illnyea said.

  She used a spike out of sight of Holly to get rid of the bird's guts and less tasty organs.

  While Illnyea’s magic was low, she couldn’t last on no food if she planned on succeeding in killing The Starving One. So she pinned the bodies on a spike and summoned a fire beneath it. Illnyea’s talent with fire magic wasn’t nearly as great as earth magic, but she had bullied Sulaiman into giving her a few tips and had been practicing before she left because it helped with managing her mana output.

  (such poor control, Sulaiman would have sighed when Illnyea accidentally burned one of the birds immediately.)

  Shut up, Illnyea thought, that one will just be mine.

  Sweat dripped on her brow as Illnyea concentrated, focusing on slowly bringing her magic back under control. She overcorrected and had to restart twice, but Illnyea soon had two perfect murder birds ready for consumption.

  (looks overcooked and inedible to me, Priscilla could have sniffed. but maybe not anymore, maybe it’d come out more like, if you think that’s perfect, let’s go to the doctor because something must be wrong with your vision.)

  That thought made a ghost of a smile pull at Illnyea’s lips as she handed Holly her share.

  It was bland, but at that moment, that freshly cooked meat was probably the closest Illnyea would get to the taste of ambrosia. Holly didn’t seem to hate her food, taking small, hesitant bites from the carcass, so this day was going great for Illnyea so far.

  As Illnyea placed the bones to the side, the lightning bolt on her hand caught her eye again and made her pause.

  Had it grown since she last saw it? It must have because Illnyea didn’t recall it having a branch that went down her wrist.

  That was concerning. The only thing Illnyea had done that could have changed it was…

  Illnyea swallowed hard.

  She had used magic to cook the birds. Illnyea wasn’t a scholar by any means, but she had enough common sense to think that a magical scar that grew when she used magic was a bad thing. But, just like all the other concerning things Illnyea knew of, there was nothing she could do about it because not using magic wasn’t really an option. Without magic, Illnyea was weak and weaponless.

  Illnyea stewed in her thoughts about this new problem until Holly was finished eating. Then, Illnyea decided to stop thinking about it because there were other things to worry about.

  “So I spotted the lightning tree,” Illnyea said, “climbed up a tree before the murder birds came at us and saw it was to the southwest of us.”

  Holly stiffened.

  Illnyea barrelled on. “I think we can get to it before nightfall – and if we do, you know the way back home, right?”

  Slowly, Holly nodded. “But, but my family–

  “Leave worrying about them to me, alright?” Illnyea said, projecting as much confidence she could muster. “You focus on watching my back today, and while you go home, I’ll deal with all the monsters in this swamp.”

  Even those that pretended to be human.

  “Does that sound like a deal?” Illnyea asked when Holly didn’t respond. “When I’m done here, I’ll catch up with you and kick the mayor’s butt.”

  The girl was staring at Illnyea, blue eyes unreadable. It was hard to tell what Holly was thinking, and Illnyea thought it’d be difficult even if her brain was working at full capacity. Holly just had one of those faces that lent itself easily to neutrality and Illnyea didn’t know the girl very well.

  “Okay,” Holly eventually said, looking down.

  “Great!” Illnyea said as she stood. She helped Holly to her feet and the girl dusted off her stained but still pretty dress.

  Illnyea was contemplating climbing a tree again to double check where they were going when Holly said, “Moss grows on the north side of trees.”

  The girl was pointing to a nearby patch of moss on said tree.

  Illnyea brightened, ruffling Holly’s hair. The girl seemed startled but didn’t seem to dislike it.

  And off they went, heading steadily closer to the lightning tree.

  (Illnyea missed how the scar on her hand momentarily pulsed with light.)