I open my eyes to the sound of slow, bubbling crackles. A bird sings, trying to attract a mate. Fireflies flash green and yellow near our logs. A frog hops next to my cot and looks me in the eyes.

  I stare back at it, unmoving. I don’t want to blink anymore.

  Closing my eyes is worse than death.

  Slowly, I prop myself up, tuck my knees in and stare out into the waning darkness. Shadows flit beyond the trees—critters of nature roving in the twilight. I wish I could be an animal. A spirit. Free, unthinking, undreaming. A nocturnal creature who doesn’t have to suffer what I endure.

  The dream she gave me last night… it was different. Not the usual bout of physical torture. This one was… internal. I touch my chest carefully and my fingers graze over the litany of lightning scars that score down my skin in veiny, red stripes.

  I can’t do it anymore, I realize.

  I don’t care what Hypna said. No matter what, I can’t sleep. If I do, then…

  I shake my head, taking a stand. My arms roll out and I pump my legs up, warming my body through the morning chill. Move. Train. Do whatever it takes.

  No matter what.

  Do. Not. Sleep.

  …

  Practicing Aether in the dream is far different from reality. In the dreamscape, I have unlimited mana. Unlimited opportunity to make mistakes, learn, and try again. And, I also have what might be the best Aether user in Katal instructing me directly.

  But out here?

  I have no one. My innate mana is limited. Below average, according to Hypna. She said that if I kept training, kept using my mana to its fullest, then eventually, my stores of it would increase.

  “It's like a muscle,” she told me while walking around my seated form. “Work it till exhaustion, then try again later. You’ll become stronger and you’ll gain the ability to employ the element more. But that takes time.”

  Well I don’t have time.

  I need to progress to the second stage so I can get a better grasp of lightning. I need lightning to kill Masaru, Souta, Baroth, the Lady, and the witch.

  And…

  I need to make these fingers.

  Light shears over the horizon in pink splotches, biting away into the dark. The canopy above rustles in the soft, yet cruel machinations of the wind. Trees shed the last of their leaves and seem to grow paler the more I move away from the campfire—like white spines cast forth from the earth.

  I sit below one of the trees and summon two needles of Aether. Next, a yarn of azure—long and deceivingly thin—forms between those two needles. Knitting is a brutal art. It takes years to really master properly. I never respected it until Hypna drilled into me why the art mattered—how a single careless loop could collapse an entire construct.

  Now, when I think of the old women in Takemeadow, hunched on their porches for hours, eyes narrowed, hands moving without pause as they knit clothes for their children… I almost want to bow. They certainly have more patience than me.

  But I am learning.

  I know the difference between a knit stitch and a purl stitch. I know how alternating them changes structure—how ribbing grants flexibility, how stockinette favors smooth strength. My hands still tremble as I work, but the needles move cleanly, piercing and drawing the Aether through itself, loop by loop, forcing the yarn into ordered, repeating patterns.

  Still, it's not enough. When I finally finish looping the last tendon, the construct fizzles away. I made a mistake this time. Biting back a yell of frustration, I just puncture the needle into my hand till blood wells.

  As the blood coagulates, an idea forms. A very stupid idea.

  But it might help.

  I draw my dagger, bite my uniform, and set my pinky finger against a tree.

  Then, I swing.

  …

  An hour later, I come back to camp, covering my hand and doing my best to ignore the pain. Blood reddens the cloths I placed against the missing finger.

  “What happened to you?” Umbrahorn asks. Both he and Sorina are already packing up. Sorina looks at me for a moment, notices the hand, and her face actually twitches.

  “A plagued ambushed me. I killed it.”

  Sorina eyes scrutinize me now—longer than she ever had since our miserable trek back to Takemeadow began. However, she eventually looks away, focusing on kicking out the remains of the fire.

  …

  Two plagued attack us today. Both adults. It takes a while to kill them—and the whole time I’m cursing myself for the stupid shit I pulled earlier today. Eventually, I kill one while Umbrahorn eats the other. As I stand up from the poor man, dagger dripping in blood, something hits my head. Something small.

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  I glance at Sorina before another ball hits my head. A grape.

  She almost throws another before I catch it.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Eat,” is all she says. I wait for her to elaborate. She just moves on, continuing down the root-conquered path.

  Well, at least she’s talking to you. If you count that as ‘talking.’

  I shake my head and follow after her.

  …

  Sorina continues talking. Small instructions. Eat. Stop. Let’s rest. Let’s move. Using the least amount of words she can. It's a start. Two days pass. Each morning, I use up all the Aether I can to imitate the structure of my own finger, which I hollow out and examine. It's far more complex than I gave it credit for.

  Each night, while Sorina sleeps, I also venture into the dark and try again.

  And before I sleep, I always end up throwing my coat and blanket over her. Even though I always find them cast on the ground when I wake up in the morning—thrown away gifts. She won’t accept anything from me, it seems.

  That’s fine.

  As long as she’s fine, I can keep going.

  On my third sleepless night, snow actually begins falling from the sky. The edge of briars is finally in sight. Soon, we’ll be out of this hells’ forsaken land. My eyes droop. Plagued attacked us again today. Sorina nearly got injured—though, she also carried our party to victory. Her wind magicks are the only reason I haven’t had to use the amulets.

  I’m at my limit.

  Everything feels like one mushy dream—the darkness moves in the corners of my vision, like ghosts of my past. I see Kiren sometimes. Playing cards. Laughing. Telling me a story of his childhood. Illusions of my sleep-deprived mind, I know. I indulge them nonetheless. What’s wrong with a little bit of fantasy, when reality and dreams are just a cavalcade of horrors?

  I crawl over to Sorina’s cot. Her stomach rises softly, breath misting white in the cold. Flakes of snow gleam down from the sky.

  I begin to weave.

  I nearly fall asleep twice during it. The construct falters a few times. But, I don’t panic. I don’t let the fear take hold. Instead, I just work and let the hours of training guide me, Hypna’s own instructions echoing in my head, memories controlling my fingers.

  Of course, studying the anatomy of my own severed finger helps quite a bit now.

  Finally, I make the last stitch. The finger construct hums with energy—Aether glowing softly in the dark.

  And it lasts. No longer does it fizzle away. I almost laugh in jubilation.

  It won’t sustain itself forever, of course. The construct lasts only as long as my mana reserves. I’ll have to find a solution for that later. Yet, at least for the remainder of the night, and maybe in the morning even, Sorina can have another part of what she lost. Before I can celebrate, my body slumps over, head hitting the ground. Sleep digs its dirty nails into my mind and drags me to the depths. Fear replaces all the joy.

  And darkness becomes all.

  …

  Once, Daichi tortured a transgressor in the clan with a public execution. This one was particular grotesque:

  He placed the poor man on a table, strapping him to the ends. Then, he carried a bucket forth, swinging it like a girl might swing a basket of flowers—true joy smeared across his face. The Elder placed the bucket, face down, on the man’s stomach

  Rats squeaked within it.

  And to finish this masterpiece, Daichi had a hot, burning coal applied to the very top of that brittle bucket.

  The rats, in their panic, began to gnaw into the abdomen of that man. He writhed and screamed as those rats tore through his skin, his flesh, his organs, and quested through his body to escape the heat.

  So when I am strapped to that table, and Daichi comes by swinging his bucket—I start screaming well before the rats start chewing.

  Tears leak down my eyes.

  I thought I could take any pain. I thought immortality made me a wrathful specter of vengeance.

  But I am just a man. Less than that—a boy.

  And I…

  I’m so afraid.

  …

  My screams leak into the night as I startle awake, biting harder into my hand, tears wetting down my cheeks.

  I can still feel them burrowing, sinking their teeth, feasting and—

  Someone clenches me tightly from behind. I realize now that the blanket and coat are on top of both of us.

  “It’s alright it’s alright, I’m here,” she whispers.

  The nearby stream trickles with slow, bell-like tinkles of water.

  I begin to weep.

  Sorina hugs me from behind, shushing me. “I’m here Raiten, I’m here now. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  I curl in tighter, clutch her hand around my chest, and cry my heart out.

  I don’t want her to see me like this.

  No one should see me like this.

  But Sorina doesn’t seem to care. She just keeps on whispering, telling me everything will be fine.

  Her warmth is a boon.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m. Sorry.” I keep repeating it, voice shaking with sobbing hicks each time.

  “I know, Raiten! I know. It’s all going to work out.”

  “How do you know?”

  Her only response to that is to hug me tighter. She buries her face into my back, nuzzling her nose into the nook between my shoulder blades.

  And together, even as the cold wind assails us, even as the snow trickles down and blankets our form in white, we are able to sleep through the dark.

  And even though the dream just restarts once more—

  The fear is gone.

  I see Thraevirula watching at the edges of my blurry vision. The rats continue to burrow.

  “Is this it?” I spit. “Is this the best you can come up with?”

  She disappears into the crowds of the Adachi clansmen.

  And I laugh madly as the rats continue trying to escape the heat.

  For I know, at the very least…

  There’s some warmth at my back in reality.