A few hours later, Alex thought he would have to do the unthinkable and agree with Daven. He looked down at what Diana had placed on his hand.

  “Your great idea was… silver coins?” he asked, failing to hide his disappointment. He was expecting some kind of great weapon of arcane ingenuity. An ace up their sleeves. Not money.

  She rolled her eyes, still huffing from running to catch up with them by the western gate. After waiting for half an hour longer than promised, Alex had just decided to leave when he saw her coming down the street.

  “They’re not just coins.”

  She took one of the silver marks from his open hand with two fingers and flipped it over. On the side with the six stars that represented the six republics of the League, Diana had cut into the coin and drawn dozens of tiny runes clustered together in three concentric circles. With her finger still touching the coin, she sent some kind of energy pulse through the silver, causing the runes to glow in a weak blue light.

  “Isn’t it a crime to clip coins like this?” He dragged his eyes away from the light to look at her.

  She smiled. “Only if you’re caught.”

  The coins were warm against his skin, unlike the usual coldness of metal. He flipped the other two marks in his hand to see they all had the same runic engravings. “So, what? Are they all connected to each other in some way?”

  “No.” She tilted her head. “But that’s not a bad idea. They’re all individually connected to this anchor.”

  Reaching into her pocket, she showed him a silver halo. If it could be called that. The coin had been completely defaced with dozens of tiny runic clusters in both its sides. And while the silver marks could probably still be used if whoever they gave the coins to didn’t look too closely, not even a blind man would take this halo.

  “It serves as the anchor for all three of them,” she explained. “Basically, when I push some power into the anchor, it will send a signal to the receivers, which will use the power of the signal to send something back. The concept is very similar to the Siren I told you about before, but it helps that the aspect of similarity is so strong here. They're all coins, all silver, all have the concept of value embedded into them, and the anchor, which has a more important role than the receivers, has the higher value. It attunes them in many different planes.”

  Alex nodded along. “So even if we can’t capture one of the Kruwal…” he trailed off.

  “That’s right,” she said. “If you just slip one of these on one of them, a pocket or a piece of armor, we’ll be able to tell roughly where they are.”

  His mind immediately went to mini maps and red dots showing enemies. “How exactly does it show where they are?” he asked.

  “You ever played hot and cold growing up?” she asked, and he surprised himself by nodding. Temperature was a pretty universal concept, he supposed. “It works the same. The anchor will heat up and vibrate the closer it gets to a receiver. Keep in mind it’ll only start working once you’re close enough that the signal can reach it.”

  “Not to be a drag but won’t they interfere with each other?” Alex held up the three coins like poker chips. “What if the coins are in two different directions?”

  Diana gave him a slightly blood-shot look. She did look a bit disheveled, her hair coming out of her braid in red spikes. “I did it in a few hours so it’s not perfect,” she defended herself. “But I can just remove the coins we’re not going to need using the anchor. Once it’s narrowed down to a single coin, it should be fine.”

  He shrugged. If it gave them a better chance to find out where the Kruwal’s camp was, then it was worth it. Besides, she was right. She’d done this within a few hours of having the idea. It was impressive. What could she do with the proper time and resources?

  “All things aside, this is awesome,” he told her. “You could probably make good money selling similar things.”

  A gleam appeared in her blue eyes. “I know. I think that, if I get good enough, I can make an anchor like this that signals all silver coins close to it, not only the ones that I’ve scrawled runes into.” She had an almost crazed smile on her face.

  “You’re thinking of being a thief, not a mage, then.” Alex nodded to himself. “Everyone should have their dreams.”

  The quip broke her out of her daydream and she snorted. Before she could say anything else, Daven came up behind him and put an arm on his shoulder. He shot his sister a weird look.

  “Is this crazy lady bothering you, Alex?” he asked, looking down his nose at her. “We’re late already, let’s just go.” Diana showed him the finger. Daven smiled, reached out for her hand, closed it into a fist, and bumped it with his. “See you later, magic-head. Don’t hide shit under my bed this time.”

  “We’re in the same room, idiot. It’d stink up the whole thing.” She shook her head, exasperated. “And you were the one who did it to my bed once. Now go already, bye.”

  Giving her a parting nod, Alex went back to the waiting caravan as Daven cackled beside him. He took one of the coins and gave them to the archer. “Here, Diana made this to help us track the Kruwal. If you have the chance, put it in the pocket or inside the armor of any of them we don’t capture or kill.”

  “Got it.”

  Alex stopped him. “And remember your part,” he said. “We’re counting on you.”

  Shouldering his bow, Daven gave him a wink and headed off ahead. Alex shook his head. He’d just have to trust the archer to do his part.

  The last coin he gave to Valerian, telling him the same thing. Diana had done her part and now it was up to them. They left the town through the western gate without much fanfare. It was better for morale that anyone watching thought their group was just a merchant and her guards making a break for it. The townspeople might freak out if they knew three of the five chasers around were leaving the town, even if only temporarily.

  Outside, a gap in the long trench around the walls had been left to allow for passage in and out of town. Not twenty yards away from where they drove through, the Reaper directed some of the townsfolk in the process of carving out a second line of trenches, and by the looks of it, using the dirt from both diggings to set up a tall earthwork rampart behind the first ditch.

  Some of the men stopped what they were doing to watch them pass. The Reaper turned too and locked eyes with him. After a moment, the man gave him a simple nod before swiftly turning away. They both had work to do.

  xxx

  Their pace was faster than he expected. Alex walked beside the lead wagon, eyes peeled on the forest that boxed them on both sides of the wide west road. The sun had not come out today, hiding behind a veil of clouds covering the entire sky. The air was chilly, though the guard uniform with the padded wool jacket and their brisk clip kept him plenty warm.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The merchant caravan was three large, covered wagons locked together front to back being pulled by a team of four horses. It reminded him of a wooden toy snake he had as a kid, with blocky parts connected by a string to form the long body of the snake.

  It had been five wagons, originally, with six horses instead of four. But today they needed more speed than space.

  “I’m surprised you decided to come,” Alex told the woman driving the caravan. He’d been fine with the silence so far, but maybe he’d been hanging around Daven for too long and he’d caught a serious case of prattling. “We could’ve found someone else to drive the wagons.”

  Or maybe he wanted to take his mind away from the slight tremble of his hand whenever something skittered in the forest. He couldn’t tell if he was excited or nervous. Both.

  “Oh,” Celia said. Lounging comfortably on the cushioned and covered driver’s seat, she showed no signs of nerves despite their mission. “We have barely even spoken and you’re tired of me already?” She gave him a mock pout.

  He didn’t fall for it. “I thought you wanted to stay behind the town’s wall,” he said. “Sailing against the wind and all that.”

  “Remember that, do you?” She chuckled. “I partly didn’t want to go because I always thought Varis could be a pompous shit. Didn’t deserve to die, mind you, if that’s what happened. But no, my dear chaser, the main reason I didn’t go was because he didn’t have a plan. Just bumbling out like all the other couriers and merchants who tried. Now, at least, we have a plan,” she said, “and I have some of my guards and three brave chasers protecting me. I’m the safest woman this side of the Rumble Mountains.”

  Alex shook his head. He doubted that was true. They were heading straight into the belly of the red beast, as it were. Admittedly, their formation did have her at its center, as himself and Valerian flanked the lead wagon on both sides alongside four of her guards. Another four Holdenfor guardsmen sat in the back of the last wagon, ready to spring out.

  Celia had left the last two of her guards back in Holdenfor with her merchandise. Mostly the rest of the linen that hadn’t sold in town and the woodwork carvings she’d already bought here that were supposed to be highly sought after throughout the League of Free Republics.

  None of the guards, Celia’s or Holdenfor’s, were chasers, but they were the most veteran fighters available and could fight well together. An unpowered human by himself might not be able to stand against a Kruwal, but together they needed only to hold out and support the chasers during the ambush.

  And spying the scabbard laying next to the marchant, Alex thought she might be able to do more than support them.

  Curious, he nodded toward the sword. “By the looks of it, you can take care of yourself some.”

  “Some,” she said, and her smile was decidedly coy. “I’m best at it at sea with a ship swaying beneath me, but I can make do.”

  He should’ve figured she was some kind of sailor. “Why did you leave the sea for this?” He motioned to the road ahead.

  “Oh, I’ve never left the sea,” said Celia. She gazed away then, her momentary silence punctuated by the thud of the horses’ hooves on the road. “My heart’s still there somewhere,” she continued, “floating away with the tides. Whenever I catch a sniff of it it makes my blood quicken. By the grace of the First, I will die upon a ship. They’ll throw me overboard and my corpse will smile as I sink to the depths.”

  He didn’t have an answer to that. “I’ve never been to the ocean,” Alex admitted instead. Not in this world or the other. “Never seen it, even.”

  Celia broke into chuckles. “Neither have I, dear. I’m talking about the Inland Sea, of course, not the ocean.” And she sniffed at the last word.

  “The inland sea?” His brows furrowed. “You mean a lake?”

  She gave him a sideways look, then cackled. “Don’t tell that to the next corsair you meet.”

  “You were a pirate? A pirate on a lake?” This time, he was the one to laugh.

  “Corsair,” she corrected. “And since I was a babe suckling at my mother’s teat. My father’s a corsair prince. Was a corsair prince,” she said, and she couldn’t quite hide the bitterness in her tone. “And you don't want to be the daughter of a prince when the others come to take his little kingdom. Powerful people love nothing more than to see one of their own fall.”

  Alex couldn’t disagree with that. He took a moment to really look at her then, trying to spot something that would tell the daughter of a prince apart from anyone else. Faded beauty worn by time and weather, calloused hands gripping the reins of the horses. Some grey showing around her temples and in the roots of her hair. She looked formidable, in truth, only not in any aristocratic way.

  “So you’re a noblewoman, then,” he finally said. “Should I be bowing and calling you your highness?

  She gave him a weird look, as if he should know better than that. As if it was common knowledge. “Not that kind of kingdom, chaser,” she said, smiling. “Everything a corsair has, she must take. Even our sea. Once a lake, as you said, now a sea by any account, transformed to fit a corsair’s purpose, and not even the most powerful mage in any of the kingdoms have managed to turn it back the way it was.”

  He felt his eyebrows climbing at her words. Transforming a lake into a sea. The story seemed to fill her with pride, but Alex couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Did they turn the water salty or something? By the mention of mages trying to stop it, whatever means they used to change a lake into sea would be the power-wrought kind.

  His mind swam at the possibilities, and their conversation soon petered out. He couldn’t focus on small talk when her words kept coming back to him.

  The power he wielded suddenly seemed paltry in comparison. How could fireballs compare to molding nature itself as you see fit. Reshaping geography on a continental scale. Even the water powers of the Matriarch he witnessed didn’t scratch the surface.

  Breathing deeply, Alex closed his eyes and tried to ignore all the noise around him. The creaking of the wagons’ wheels, the puffing of the horses, the two guards walking behind him. It all faded as he focused within, followed the pathways that wound around his body toward his chest, looked for that great pool of power that rested just beyond his reach.

  It was there as he remembered. Infinity contained within himself. Tantalizing. Wild and peaceful all at once, both the calm and the storm. He drew from it deeply, trying to drink it all in. Energy swept through his body, filling the pathways and his lifeblood did in his veins. As always, it felt like he could unleash a firestorm the likes of which the sun itself would envy.

  But as he concentrated on his connection with his power’s source, he balked at the truth of things. He was a parched man trying to drink all the world’s oceans whole. A trickle from the insurmountable pool of power flowed into him, enough to fill him to the brim, to suffuse every cell and particle in his body. Yet he couldn’t even make a dent in the whole. A speck of sand in the desert. Even as he tried to pull in more, he simply didn’t have the capacity for it.

  One question came to mind. How much power would I need to transform lakes into seas? And if people could perform such a feat, what else could they do out there beyond the forests around the Dunnser?

  He was level seven, according to the system, and his most powerful trace couldn’t even blow up a bridge support. How far did he have to go until he was strong enough to protect himself?

  His thoughts quickly threatened to spiral, so Alex was almost glad when the loud blast of a Kruwal horn pierced the air and pulled him from his thoughts.

  He opened his eyes to see exactly what he expected. From both sides of the road, tall forms rushed out from the treeline roaring and growling in their rough tongue, weapons waving in their hands. He counted fourteen, at a glance, though he couldn’t tell if there were more of them crawling around beyond sight, especially on the other side of the wagons where Valerian was stationed.

  Celia pulled hard on the reins. The four horses whinnied and rose on their hind legs, surprised and terrified. Wood clacked violently against wood as the wagons briefly collided with the one in front of them before skidding to a stop.

  Two of the Kruwals came straight at him as he was the frontmost guard, while the other four Kruwals that had burst out of the foliage from his side of the road moved toward the two guards, who even now took out the round shields they carried on their backs and closed ranks side by side. Despite their quick reaction, their eyes were wide with fear, the shields slightly trembling before them. It was the primal fear of men against beast turned to reality.

  But even as fire burst around his hands, ready to unleash the little that he could against the monsters, Alex heard the first part of their own trap in effect. A sharp whistle cut through the air. He caught the glint of arrows zipping from far behind them, and next thing he knew one of the Kruwal about to come upon the guards grunted and fell, limbs held tight at his sides.

  He smiled. Daven had secured their future informant.