A breeze moved through the trees, setting them swaying in gentle waves.
Birdsong drifted down from somewhere distant, weaving with the rustle of leaves into something almost harmonic. The sun sat high and unhurried, casting warm light across everything below.
On top of a crate in the back of a trade wagon, a young man rested with his eyes closed. Snow white hair swayed softly, matching the trees above him. He wore a black shirt, one sleeve rolled neatly to the elbow, the other hanging loose with nothing inside it.
He seemed to be enjoying it. The rustling, the warmth, the quiet.
His hand rested on a sheathed blade in his lap.
Kael opened his eyes and watched a leaf trace random patterns through the air as it fell.
He pushed himself to the edge of the crate and dropped down. His boots sank deep into the long grass without a sound. He reached back and shifted the scabbard to his lower back, then continued into the trees.
They weren't on the level of the Titan Woods, but they were majestic in their own right. Thick climbing plants twisted around the trunks as though trying to suffocate them, and the wood itself had begun to grow over the vines in response, the two locked in a slow and patient contest neither seemed close to winning.
The air carried a tangle of different smells, flowers and vegetation and something underneath both that had no name but was pleasant regardless. It all combined into something delightful to breathe.
Kael ducked slightly as a butterfly drifted toward his face without any apparent awareness of him.
He pushed through the last of the vegetation and stepped into a clearing.
A lake appeared, vast and crystal clear. Syleena stood at its edge with her hands folded behind her back.
She wore a cream chemise dress cinched at the waist with a woven sash. A wide brimmed straw hat shaded her face from the sun, lending her a quiet elegance that sat slightly at odds with everything Kael knew about her. When she wasn't wearing it the hat hung from a cord across her back, resting between her shoulders.
She was studying the birds circling above.
Kael watched for a moment. Then all at once they went limp and fell, utterly defenceless against the mind pathway.
Kael walked up beside her and drew his blade. He picked up two birds and began de-feathering them.
"Shouldn't be more than a few months before we reach Sole." Kael said.
Syleena glanced over her shoulder at him but said nothing.
By now the two of them had been traveling together for almost half a year. It hadn't gone entirely smoothly, but it had gone considerably smoother than he had initially expected. Though in hindsight that shouldn't have surprised him, considering their strength.
He moved the birds through the water, rinsing off the last of the feathers, when a shaky voice reached him from the direction of the wagon.
"Kael! When you're done, could you come help me with these crates?"
He turned his head and nodded without protest.
"I'll be there in a minute."
He threw one last glance at Syleena before heading back.
An old woman wearing a red shawl leaned against a crate, catching her breath.
"I'm telling you, young man. This is the last time I travel like this. I'm getting too old."
Kael shook his head with a soft smile and handed her the birds before picking up the crate and placing it among the others without effort.
"Don't say that. You're still so young, Lady Valdina."
This was one half of the pair Syleena and Kael had stumbled upon early in their travels. An old married mortal couple, who had spent their entire lives moving through the western continent. At first both he and Syleena had found that difficult to believe, but after a few months traveling alongside them they believed it completely. Experience had a way of making theory and books feel humble.
When they had first met, the couple had assumed Syleena and Kael were together and offered them a ride. They hadn't bothered to correct them and agreed. However, their Luminaire status became evident eventually, and the couple had been frightened at first, as anyone would be. But Syleena had quickly settled that. From there an arrangement had formed naturally. Syleena and Kael provided protection and hunted. The couple shared their knowledge of the land and their company.
Whether they were simply lonely or just glad of something interesting on a long road, neither party had minded the arrangement.
"Ugh."
An old man with a long white beard stepped out of the bushes, one hand pressed against his lower back.
"Ah, Kael. Just who I was looking for."
He straightened as best he could.
"There's a rare tree nearby. Could you help me cut it down? Makes a fabulous tea too."
Kael turned to Valdina for confirmation. She nodded with a smile and walked over to the pot.
Julian knocked on the trunk a few times when they reached it, as though testing its resolve.
"This is a Krokoa tree. Inside there's a core, similar to a palm tree's. Cut it into a fine powder and mix it with water."
"Quite interesting." Kael rested his hand on the handle. "We'll have to try it once we're done."
Then in a single clean motion he drew and sheathed the blade.
The tree separated from its trunk and began to tip. Kael caught it and pulled it back toward the wagon.
Before Valdina had finished cooking the soup the sky had long turned a warm gold.
The four sat around a small fire, each with a wooden bowl. Kael looked down at his and swirled it gently, watching fine slivers of wood drift across the bottom.
The taste was unlike anything he had tried before. Mostly sweet, but the wood itself had softened to the point where you actually had to chew it, which he found unexpectedly satisfying. He wasn't entirely sure why.
"How long will we spend at this lake?" Syleena asked, lifting a spoonful.
Valdina reached over and refilled her bowl before she had even finished asking.
"You needed some sort of ingredient, whatever it's called, right?" She handed it back. "Julian and I have no rush. You two finish whatever business you have here and we'll continue when you're ready."
"Then we'll try to be quick about it." Syleena said, looking out toward the water.
It was a strange experience for her, sitting like this.
Her entire life had been spent among noble families and Luminaires. Mortals had existed at the edges of that world, rarely closer. At first she had placed these two somewhere beneath her without thinking about it, the way she had been taught to. But as the months passed something had shifted. The closest word she had for what they had become was grandparents, though she had no real experience with grandparents to compare it against.
Kael tilted his head back and drank the last of his tea, then stood.
"I'll go look for it."
Syleena set her cup down.
"I'll come."
They cleaned their dishes and walked back to the lake together.
Soft crunches followed their boots along the shoreline as they moved, eyes scanning the shallows closest to them. After perhaps a dozen minutes Syleena stopped, took off her shoes, and stepped into the water, holding them in one hand.
What they were looking for was a rare freshwater mussel that laid eggs only once a decade. Lake Yunara, being brackish, had never offered the opportunity. This was the first time either of them had the conditions to even attempt a search.
The moon had appeared by the time they returned to shore, casting pale light across both of them, arms full.
They summoned a coffin each and tossed their finds in.
Kael's mind drifted as his materialised.
When he had refined it again after Aven destroyed it, it had contained everything that had been inside it at the time of its destruction. He still hadn't worked out how. A destroyed mote carrying its contents forward into its own refinement was something he had no framework for. But he was grateful. The ingredients he had lost hadn't troubled him much, but the books from the Valthorne mansion were different. Those were close to irreplaceable.
He summoned one from the coffin before dismissing it.
The Art of Fundamentals 27.
Kael raised an eyebrow at the title. He had already read the first 26.
He walked over to a nearby tree, pulled the scabbard free and leaned it against the trunk, then settled against it himself.
Syleena summoned a book of her own, dismissed the coffin, and started back toward camp.
Kael noticed none of it, already absorbed by the book open in his lap and the slow rolling of the waves pulling at the edges of his attention in the way only water can.