Dear Diary,

  Sandy got her official invitation to The Guild today.

  I am happy for her.

  But I can’t help feeling like my lack of progress is even more obvious now.

  I tried talking to Dad about it. That was a mistake.

  He took it as an opportunity to tell me I should give it all up and help run the bakery.

  I know he always wanted me to take it over. And I do have a knack for it. I am Arturo Plad’s daughter — baking is in my blood.

  But it seems so boring to do for the rest of my life.

  I leave in a few days with Jupiter to Melite. I keep telling myself this could make the difference.

  For multiple reasons.

  Who knows? Maybe this will be enough to impress the Tar’Tesh Survivors and let me join them.

  Until next time.

  I woke to a dark room.

  The window was open, and the only light filtering in came from a cloud-covered moon. It had to be an hour or two before dawn.

  I felt around for warmth. Tee Tee.

  He was curled near my feet.

  I slipped from bed carefully, avoiding the squirrel so I wouldn’t knock him off as I stood. My body immediately reminded me how sore I was.

  I welcomed it.

  I had spent most of yesterday at the Red Post training yard. Jupiter always said I was free to use it, so long as I cleaned up after myself. To be fair, it was rarely occupied. Outside of Jupiter’s squad rotations, most Red Post soldiers didn’t train unless ordered.

  I ran the obstacle course fifteen times.

  Then archery drills.

  Then more running.

  I was aching in places I didn’t know could ache — but it was encouraging. Tangible proof of effort. I needed that right now.

  I hadn’t seen High Ranger Graysia in nearly two weeks. I wanted to see her before I left for Melite. Maybe squeeze in a lesson or two. Maybe prove I wasn’t stagnating.

  “Tee Tee,” I whispered, slapping my leg twice.

  A moment passed before the lazy companion stirred. He scurried across the mattress, climbed my side, and settled onto my shoulder in the most convenient position to fall back asleep.

  Typical.

  I grabbed my bow and quiver from their stand and moved quietly downstairs. I’d woken Jacob and Father one too many times before. And after yesterday’s conversation… it was best to avoid Father’s ire until I returned from this trip.

  Melrose before dawn was different.

  Not eerie. Not dangerous.

  Just… hushed.

  A respectful quiet.

  Farmers were already hauling in milk. A pair of Red Post guards walked a slow patrol down a side street. But even they seemed softer in their movements.

  The loudest thing in the world was my own footsteps.

  I reached the gate that led toward the Schulyer Forest and glanced up at the massive wall. The lanterns were still lit. Anastasia and Doug hadn’t snuffed them yet.

  Good.

  That would give me light for a mile or two.

  The clouds weren’t my ally tonight. Once I passed the wall’s glow, I’d be relying on magic.

  I hesitated at the word should.

  I should be able to make it.

  That uncertainty clawed at me.

  I thought briefly of Sandy — then forced the thought away before it could spiral.

  “I’ve got this,” I muttered.

  I stepped through the massive gate.

  I had only made this journey alone in the dark once before. It had been one of Graysia’s first tests for me. Just a torch and Tee Tee. I later learned she’d been watching the entire time from a distance.

  A test of mettle.

  She took me as her student after that.

  I looked up at the moon and stars, aligning myself the best I could. Directional awareness was still one of my weaker skills. Too many distractions. Too much doubt. And the overcast sky didn’t help.

  Still — I wasn’t blind.

  I entered the forest.

  Step by step, the wall’s light faded behind me until I stood in near-total darkness.

  I stopped.

  Closed my eyes.

  Listened.

  Creaking branches.

  A distant rustle of undergrowth.

  The soft whisper of wind through leaves.

  Tee Tee shifted nervously.

  “Gray-See-a,” I whispered.

  Warmth bloomed behind my eyes.

  When I opened them, the forest returned — but altered.

  Not as daylight would show it.

  Everything was washed in muted shades of gray, yellow, and brown. Edges softened. Heat signatures faintly glimmered. The world felt less like something I was intruding upon… and more like something I belonged to.

  A spell I had obsessed over for weeks.

  One Graysia doubted I would master.

  My frustration had driven me to near madness in practice.

  The vision would last less than an hour.

  But by then, dawn would break.

  And I could finish the trek by natural light.

  I exhaled slowly.

  “Alright, Tee Tee,” I murmured. “Let’s go see the High Ranger.”

  And I stepped deeper into the woods.

  I pulled my bow from my shoulder and loosely notched an arrow.

  There were few creatures this close to Melrose. Boar, wolves, coyotes — the occasional threat. There had been injuries before. Even a fatality once. But Graysia assured me that if I stayed on the proper paths and respected the wind, wildlife would avoid me.

  I was… almost certain I was on the right path.

  Wildlife, however, was not my only concern.

  Rangers had discovered poaching traps scattered through this region in recent weeks. No huntsman claimed them. No noble sponsored big game expeditions. Just cruel wire snares and butchered carcasses left to rot.

  And bandits had grown bolder along the roads.

  One farmer was found dead. Cart stripped. Horse gone.

  I had never truly been in a life-or-death fight.

  But I wanted to be ready.

  I moved quietly for miles as my forest sight slowly began to fade. A few rabbits darted. A small herd of deer grazed in the distance. Nothing more.

  The gray-yellow haze dissolved, and natural color returned to the world.

  I felt two things at once — disappointment that the spell didn’t last longer… and pride that I had finally mastered it.

  Graysia was not cruel, but she was stern.

  Where Father Bruno turned failure into spectacle and lesson, Graysia simply let you fail — and expected you to fix it.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I liked that.

  She never sugarcoated weakness.

  The sun began to crest through the canopy, splintering into gold between branches. My fear of the dark loosened its grip. I kept my bow ready, but my breathing steadied.

  A familiar clearing came into view — two miles from Graysia’s cabin.

  Blackberry bushes spilled along the edge of a small ravine.

  My stomach lurched.

  Like clockwork, Tee Tee began chirping excitedly.

  I slung my bow and stepped toward the bushes.

  “Don’t worry,” I muttered. “You get first dibs.”

  As I reached for the thorn-covered brambles, a voice boomed through the trees.

  “Are you certain they’re ripe enough?”

  I smiled without looking up.

  “No red or green patches,” I replied, examining one carefully. “Plump. Slightly soft to the touch.”

  The voice returned, closer now.

  “Just making sure I don’t have to drag you back to the bakery.”

  Tee Tee grabbed the blackberry from my fingers and vibrated with delight.

  She stepped into view without a single sound.

  High Ranger Graysia.

  She moved like the forest had parted for her.

  An absolutely stunning elven woman — though you’d never guess she lived in the wilderness. Her hair fell in long, golden waves down her back. Not a tangle in sight. Her emerald eyes were sharp and assessing, framed by angular Kenith’La’Quil features and long ears that pierced through her hair like elegant blades.

  She wore an outfit nearly identical to mine — green jerkin, brown leather trousers — though hers fit like it had been tailored by the gods themselves. The elven boots on her feet were dark and subtle, and I knew without asking they were enchanted.

  Two short blades rested at her hips.

  Her bow was nowhere to be seen.

  Which meant it was very close.

  I tilted my chin up at her.

  “Well,” I said, brushing blackberry juice from my fingers, “I suppose my surprise visit wasn’t much of a surprise.”

  She looked at me with that unreadable softness that never quite reached her eyes.

  “Not even close,” she smirked.

  “Come,” she said, turning back into the forest.

  I obeyed.

  She strode forward with effortless confidence — not reckless, not hurried. Fearless. This was her domain. She knew every root, every shift in wind, every hollow log and hidden burrow in the Schulyer Woods.

  She belonged to it.

  And I wished, one day, to understand it the way she did.

  Being a ranger was in her blood. She had alluded to that many times. She was not a druid — but there were similarities. Druids were one with nature. Rangers respected it.

  I remembered Tonta once saying:

  “Druids commune with nature to keep balance. Nature allows rangers to borrow its strength to stop those who would harm it.”

  I wondered where the old Goliath was now. He had returned to Fjordlyn years ago.

  “Where was your torch?” Graysia asked without looking back. “Or did Tee Tee guide you?”

  Having Tee Tee guide me was an option in emergencies. We had trained him to return to her homestead if we were separated.

  “Neither,” I replied confidently. “I used Forest Sight.”

  She kept walking — but I saw it.

  The faintest hesitation in her step.

  I smiled at her stoicism.

  “How long?” she asked, brushing through a thicket without disturbing a single leaf.

  “An hour. Maybe less. It didn’t vanish abruptly. It faded slowly.”

  A pause.

  “That’s good.”

  Pride swelled in me — then drained just as quickly.

  “So what’s wrong?”

  It drove me mad how easily she read me.

  “I’m fine,” I said too quickly. “Just… nervous about the mission in Mellite.”

  She stopped.

  Turned.

  Said nothing.

  Her eyes pressed into me the way Father’s did when he knew I was lying.

  I sighed in frustration and threw my hands up.

  “Fine! Sandra Lynn Thatcher received her letter from the Guild.”

  I began walking ahead of her, mimicking the formal tone.

  “Dear Ms. Thatcher, we were most impressed with your demonstration of trap construction and mechanical ingenuity. We humbly request you join our ranks for future endeavors. Take as much time as you need to decide.”

  My voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “She’s six months younger than me,” I continued. “I started training at ten. I learned to mend headaches at twelve. You taught me to tame Tee Tee at fifteen. My best friend is joining the most prestigious adventuring body in the world and I can barely get past intermediate lessons with you and Bruno.”

  I stopped abruptly.

  “Have I wasted my time? Am I going to be stuck in Melrose forever?”

  The forest swallowed my frustration.

  Graysia walked past me calmly. Tee Tee leapt from my shoulder to hers without hesitation.

  “And so,” she said lightly, “you believe she does not deserve it.”

  I hesitated.

  “She deserves it more than anyone.”

  I deflated.

  She didn’t slow.

  “The person you are angry at,” she said, “is not Ms. Thatcher.”

  Silence.

  “It is the person holding you back.”

  The words stung.

  “Tell me, Benethasia. What motivated you to master Forest Sight?”

  I opened my mouth.

  “You may lie and say it was me,” she continued. “Or Bruno. Or perhaps you’ll say it was envy of Ms. Thatcher.”

  She turned her head slightly.

  “But only one person could train that skill. Only one person was willing to fail repeatedly until it worked.”

  She stopped walking.

  “Speak.”

  “…Me,” I said softly.

  She nodded once.

  “Rangers do not measure themselves against others. The forest does not care who is praised. It does not reward insecurity. You worry too much about how you are seen — instead of who you are becoming.”

  I bristled at that.

  I had changed everything about myself. No more dresses. No dolls. No piano lessons. I had reshaped myself from the girl I once was.

  But the thought dissolved when I realized what she truly meant.

  I didn’t just want to become strong.

  I wanted to be seen as strong.

  Like her.

  Like Bruno.

  Like Prosic.

  Like the Draughts.

  Not as a baker’s daughter.

  Not as a town girl.

  Silence lingered between us.

  “Today,” she said at last, “we put your favorite skill to the test.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “Tracking.”

  A cold sweat crept down my spine. I had failed that lesson more times than I could count. Once, I spent three days searching for her only to discover she had been sitting by a single oak the entire time.

  She saw the tension in me.

  “But,” she added lightly, “because your Forest Sight is active…”

  She let the words hang, turning to face me fully.

  A rare, mischievous smile curved her lips.

  “I have a new spell for you.”

  We walked for nearly an hour, and the entire time she questioned me.

  Why does moss grow heavier on one side of a tree?

  Which direction is currently downwind?

  If you saw that hare bolt, where would you place your snare?

  This part was easy.

  I was always a quick learner. School had been painfully dull for me — Mother had accidentally overprepared me long before I ever stepped into a classroom. I did not truly learn anything new until my final year or two, and even then most of it felt designed for the average Melrose townsfolk seeking certification rather than mastery.

  Managing my time had been the true test.

  Dawn with Graysia.

  Mornings at the bakery.

  School.

  Back to the bakery.

  Evenings at Bruno’s.

  Then home to finish my studies.

  It wasn’t until Bruno himself told Father to hire help and allow me room to grow that anything shifted. Father resisted, but after everything Bruno had done for our family, his words carried weight.

  My mind returned to the present when I realized we had entered a familiar stretch of forest.

  This area had been planted in straight lines — man-made, deliberate. I had trained here with Tee Tee nearly a year ago. We would race: I ran past thirty trees while he bounded from branch to branch. It was never meant for me to win. It was meant to teach me to track him without sight.

  At first, I always lost him.

  But eventually I learned his patterns — the rhythm of his chirps, the scratch of claws on bark, the tiny thump of his landing. It had become instinct.

  Why were we here now?

  I looked to Graysia. Tee Tee sat calmly in her palm as she whispered to him in her native tongue. He chittered back, tail flicking high. She was speaking with him.

  I would be able to do that one day.

  Not yet.

  She plucked a few hairs from his tail.

  He didn’t flinch.

  He would rage if I shifted too much in my sleep — yet in her hands he was still as stone. Her mastery never ceased to humble me.

  She whispered once more, then set him down. He darted off into the trees.

  “Eyes on me,” she said.

  I obeyed, though a flicker of worry followed Tee Tee into the brush.

  “I will teach you something today,” she continued, “that will address the gap in your training.”

  My chest tightened.

  “You believe Forest Sight is mastery. It is not. It is the threshold.”

  I forced my face neutral.

  “Forest Sight is a prerequisite. Junior rangers can activate it perhaps twice a day, and only briefly.”

  Briefly?

  It had lasted nearly an hour.

  “We are going to test whether you can push beyond what you think are your limits.”

  That almost sounded like insult — but I swallowed it.

  “Now,” she said. “Enter the Sight.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Eyes open.”

  Her tone was sharp.

  “You will not be granted the luxury of closing your eyes in battle. Do it again.”

  My heart pounded.

  I focused.

  “-Gray-See-A,” I whispered.

  The world shifted.

  The forest drained of color, returning in shades of muted amber and grey. Every tree, every root, every disturbance sharpened in subtle contrast.

  “I did it,” I breathed.

  “Good.”

  For a split second, her arm lifted in approval — a rare, restrained triumph.

  Then she placed something in my palm.

  I looked down.

  One of Tee Tee’s hairs.

  “Think of him,” she instructed. “His scent. His warmth. The vibration in your shoulder when he settles. The sound of his claws on bark. The word that binds that memory.”

  I closed my hand around the hair.

  I felt something stirring — not outside me, but within. As if my body was waiting for permission to move beyond its boundary.

  The word came.

  Not forced.

  Remembered.

  “Ton-Tuh.”

  The forest responded.

  Threads of pale light flickered across the ground ahead of me — faint at first, then steady. A winding shimmer through roots and underbrush.

  My breath caught.

  “I think it worked.”

  She gave a short, satisfied smile.

  “Then why are you speaking to me?”

  Her voice sharpened.

  “Go.”

  I ran.

  Not out of panic.

  Out of exhilaration.

  Out of hope.

  I followed the glittering trail as I ran.

  Whenever the light brightened, something revealed itself.

  In a patch of fresh morning dew, a tiny squirrel print shimmered faintly against the earth. A few strides later, atop a fallen branch, glowing scratch marks where Tee Tee had climbed over it. Then another hair of his, wedged between twig and soil, illuminated like a beacon.

  Every sign was something Graysia had told me to look for.

  I had been oblivious before.

  Now I understood.

  Another print appeared — the mud slightly shifted where he changed direction. The light bent with it, guiding me.

  I nearly cursed myself for ever underestimating Forest Sight. I had treated it like nothing more than a way to walk in the dark. I had my Vyxis spell for light. I thought that was enough.

  It wasn’t.

  My adrenaline surged. The soreness from yesterday’s training evaporated as I weaved between trees, following my companion’s path.

  It only took five minutes.

  Tee Tee sat proudly on a low branch, chirping triumphantly.

  I approached slowly.

  He launched himself at me, landing against my chest. I scratched behind his ears and he purred so loudly it vibrated against my ribs.

  When I turned back toward where I’d come from, the shimmering trail had faded — but now I didn’t need it. I could see my own footprints clearly in the disturbed soil.

  Graysia stood where I had left her, restringing her bow — which, as always, had mysteriously appeared in her hands without my noticing.

  My practice was not done.

  She pushed me further.

  I entered Forest Sight again.

  Then again.

  Then a fourth time.

  For a moment, I thought I had broken some kind of record — until I later learned most elves could sustain the state naturally. Still, for a human, she admitted it was uncommon. The duration alone was impressive.

  That was enough to fuel me for days.

  When the sun rose higher and my legs finally began to tremble, she signaled for a proper break.

  “You seem famished, Benethasia,” she said, leading me toward a small travel tent she had pitched nearby. “Have you eaten today?”

  “Besides the blackberry I gave Tee Tee?” I laughed lightly. “No.”

  I braced for a lecture.

  Instead, her expression shifted — not stern, but concerned.

  “Why?”

  I hesitated.

  “I’ve been following a strict diet. When we spoke last, I thought I’d try to match yours.”

  Her face remained blank, waiting.

  “I guess I thought if I acted more like you… it would help.”

  She reached into her satchel and handed me a strip of jerky.

  “I admire your tenacity,” she said evenly. “But remember what I told you earlier. Do not be the one who holds yourself back.”

  She studied me carefully.

  “You are in phenomenal condition, Benethasia.” A pause. Then, softer: “You are the daughter of a world-renowned baker, for crying out loud.”

  A real smile touched her face.

  “Whatever you were doing before was working.”

  Relief flooded through me.

  “So,” she continued, crouching to build a small fire, “tell me about this mission.”

  “Lieutenant Commander Nouns and I are heading to Mellite. A farmer was killed. Livestock missing. He suspects goblinkin.”

  She went very still.

  “A bugbear was sighted near Melrose months ago. Stealing sheep. A bounty was posted.”

  She looked up sharply.

  “You said this was an investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is there any expectation that you will be the one apprehending it?”

  I shook my

  head quickly.

  She held my gaze for several long seconds.

  “I am your mentor,” she said finally, rising to her feet. “I would not willingly send you into danger.”

  She picked up her bow.

  “But.”

  Her eyes sharpened.

  “I may teach you one more spell before you leave.”

  I straightened.

  Determination met determination.