Dugan dropped the body he was dragging and whipped his head around. His eyes met mine. For the first time, they were not calm. After a few tense moments, his shoulders sagged, and composure returned to his face. Thor waddled over to him. Dugan rested his hand on the animal’s forehead. When he released the boar, Thor trotted off to the opposite side of the camp, sniffing the air. Dugan walked behind him. Isla and I followed without a word.

  It wasn't long before we saw the bodies of beastkin littering the woods. They had tried to ambush Castille, and it ended poorly.

  Thor continued deeper into the woods. We walked faster, our hope and fear balanced on a knife's edge. From the looks of things, Castille had performed a fighting retreat, giving up ground to avoid being surrounded while punishing the beastkin that trailed after her. According to Gren, this tactic would not work against disciplined enemies. Luckily, beastkin were not disciplined.

  As I stepped over a severed arm, Thor grunted louder. A worn breastplate reflected moonlight in the distance. Castille’s body sat slumped against a tree, four beastkin at her feet. Dugan charged forward in a full sprint, followed by Isla and Thor.

  I hung back.

  Another dead friend.

  I’m I cursed?

  How many people would I lose?

  My slow walk to her body helped me see the truth: Castille had saved our lives. There were two groups of beastkin raiders. Without her drawing away this second group, we would have been attacked from behind while we fought in the woods.

  I counted them as I walked closer; anything to keep my mind off what was waiting for me ahead.

  Five.

  Eight.

  Twelve.

  Twelve beastkin, including the ones around her.

  Castille’s right eye was swollen shut. Her face and arms were covered in cuts and bruises. As I walked up beside Isla, my eyes were drawn to two things: the gushing spear wound below her breastplate and the sword clenched in her hand, even in death.

  Dugan was at her side, pressing his thick fingers against her neck to check for a pulse.

  He inhaled, turning toward us with wide, awe-struck eyes.

  She was alive!

  Isla threw down her staff, and she rushed to Castille's other side.

  "I’m not great at healing, but I can try. Dugan, together?"

  He nodded.

  They each put a hand on Castille's head, closing their eyes to concentrate. The minor cuts on Castille's arms closed, the swelling around her right eye reduced, but the spear wound below her gut was still bleeding. It wasn’t enough.

  I needed to do something, but what? I was as Sin made me, a weapon, not a healer. I twisted out my dagger, holding it in both hands.

  No.

  A weapon is just a tool, and a tool has utility.

  I raised the dagger in my left hand and unleashed my will.

  Please let this work.

  My hands burned. The smell of ash filled my nostrils. I was in Jacob’s bedroom again, taking my last shuddering breaths.

  No.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Those were not my memories. I’m in the woods right now. In front of someone I could still save.

  My dagger glowed a bright red, a beacon in the dark. I pressed the flat of the blade against Castille's spear wound, cauterizing it to stop the bleeding.

  Castille's eyes snapped open, and she screamed at the searing pain. I pulled my dagger back. Dugan and Isla stopped to look down at the wounded warrior.

  She looked around like a wild animal before settling her eyes on me, Isla, and Dugan. The tension left her shoulders, and she let her head fall back against the tree.

  "That's the last time I go for a walk."

  Isla wrapped her arms around Castille, crying into the crook of her neck as the older woman patted her back with a free hand. Castille's eyes shifted to me and the red-hot dagger in my hand.

  "Nice trick. Does that mean you won't burn down our next camp?"

  "If I figure out how to turn it off."

  She smirked and then coughed up blood.

  Dugan wiped the blood from her lips and rested his hand on the top of her head, continuing the healing. Their eyes met, and another silent conversation passed between them.

  I laughed to myself as I collapsed on the forest floor. Between last night, the ambush and my new trick, I’d used too much will. I didn’t mind. Castille was alive.

  I scratched Thor’s head as he waddled over to me.

  Raising my dagger high, I turned it over in my hand as it cooled.

  Maybe there was more to being a weapon.

  # # #

  We slept around Castille that night. Dugan burned through most of his will, getting her to a stable condition. The rest of us kept watch. In the morning, we limped back to camp. Isla and I cleared the campsite of the dead while Castille and Dugan rested. Isla was mostly OK, but her attempt at healing left her more tired than usual. I didn’t question how she used two different types of Landbound Magic, but our conversation about bowl sizes crossed my mind. If your bowl was big enough, could you gain more than one ability?

  The next day, we decided to stop healing Castille. We were vulnerable to ambushes in camp and on the road. Tiring out our mages with healing that could be done naturally only left us more exposed. So, while Castille healed, Dugan and Isla fortified the camp, and I patrolled.

  I was happy for the time alone. I needed time to think and train.

  “What is a weapon?”

  I wondered the question aloud as I weaved between the trees, moving through the underbrush without a sound as I hunted rabbits for our evening stew.

  “A master of utility, misdirection and ruthlessness,” I whispered, wiping my dagger on my fourth kill of the day.

  And that was the problem. I didn’t know if my definition of ruthlessness was correct. Sin wasn’t around to tell me. If I was ruthless, should I have let Castille die instead of saving her? No, she was useful… and saving her felt good.

  I frowned.

  Feeling good made me suspicious. It felt too much like being weak.

  I sighed.

  Sin… why did you leave?

  When I wasn’t stalking through the forest, I was practicing Landbound Magic. Isla shared the exercises from her early mage training. They taught focus, one of the three factors that affected will. Maintaining focus did not increase your will but allowed you to use it more efficiently. The exercises were eerily similar to the training Sin drilled into me.

  All this time, she had been training me in the fundamentals of magic, preparing me for some kind of initiation. Turning me into a weapon. For what purpose? For who? I had been so blinded by my own goals that I never thought to ask her.

  After a few days of Isla’s training, I figured out how to create fire, conjuring tongues of flame that hovered just above my hands. That didn’t stop the pain. Each time I drew on the spirits of the land, my hands burned with the phantom pain of Cythnia’s last memory. I would have to accept it for now. The only way to fix it was to fix my home, which wouldn’t happen until after we completed the quest.

  Would Rugar still be hunting me by then?

  The one part of my training that was harder to grasp was putting out fires. With a little effort, it was easy to extinguish the flames I created, but other fires were a challenge. It was a strange irony that I could fan the flames created by others but not snuff them out.

  After a week, Castille recovered enough to ride. We took it slow, keeping to the main Northwestern Road that would lead us into the Dellends. Despite our run-in with the beastkin raiders, morale was high. No. Our morale was high because of it. By working together, we survived an ambushing force that outnumbered us four to one with no casualties. Gren wouldn’t believe me if I told him the story.

  I flashed a pained smile from the back of Dugan’s horse. We were a proper pack now, hunters, not the hunted. Ahead of us, Castille and Isla rode side by side. The rift between them was mended; saving each other's lives tended to have that effect. The two made polite small talk, never digging too deep into each other's past.

  At least they made small talk. In front of me, Dugan was as silent as ever. You didn’t need to talk when a glance carried more weight than the average conversation. The only sound from our end was the occasional grunt from Thor, who trailed at our side. The pair was as much a mystery as the women riding in front. Their connection was magical. How else could he sense the boar's location and launch that reverse ambush in the woods? Not to mention Thor tracking Castille and their matching bark armour. It must have something to do with Dugan's Landbound Magic, the magic of farms, plants and livestock.

  After weeks of travel, we finally reached the border of the Dellends. There were no physical markers or signs for the area, only the curse's effects.

  It was worse than we expected.