Chapter 17: Journal/First Meeting

Entry 1 — Ashes

17XX, Day 03

This is dumb.

Leon said I should write in a journal, that it’ll “help me sort my feelings.” What kind of mage keeps a diary? If anyone finds this they’ll laugh until they piss. Kaelren, keeper of notes. Real heroic.

But here I am…

It’s been a month since… since the flames. When I close my eyes I see the fire—Mom, Dad—gone.

Renfield. That bastard.

“Skitter away, insect.”

I swear, I will find him. I will cut him down. I don’t care if the whole world is against me.

This diary already pisses me off.

I’m done for the night.

Entry 2 — Leon

17XX, Day 14

Leon tried to swap a branch for bread today and nearly fainted from the effort. I laughed. He punched me. He’s useless at magic. He talks too much, eats like every tavern owes him food.

But when I wake in the dark, I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore. The stupid little things. His jokes, the way he cleans his nails, make the nights easier.

If he ever swaps my coins for rocks again, though, I’ll drown him.

Entry 3—First Blood

17XX, Day 29

We almost died today.

Bandits—three of them—with swords and knives and axes. They thought we were easy marks. I made a blade move in the air and it landed in my hand. For a moment I forgot everything else. My heart felt like it might blow right out of my chest.

Leon swapped a dagger for a rock and stabbed the one trying to creep up my back. He started crying afterward, said he didn’t mean to kill him.

I told him he saved us. He needed to hear that. Maybe I did, too.

We’re alive.

We’re still here.

That’s what matters.

I’m tired.

Entry 4 — A Dream

17XX, Day 44

I can't sleep. Leon snores like an ox two feet away. He said something weird while we cooked river fish today—some old-man nonsense about life being a dream, and one day the dreamer would wake and we’d vanish.

“So be happy now,” he said. As if that’s a switch you can flip.

I can’t stop staring at the fire.

I wonder if I’ll ever be strong enough…

Entry 5 — The Thief

17XX, Day 62

We met a thief today.

Leon and I thought we were raiding a bandit camp for a stolen jewel. Turns out the “jewel” was the lord’s daughter.

The thief showed up the same time we did. Moved like wind.

Hair like fire, eyes bright as frost.

She nearly took my arm off when she thought we were bandits too.

“My heroes!”

Her name’s Sera. Said she was after the jewel for herself. I hate to admit it, but she saved our hides more than once. Kicked herself into the air like she was stepping on nothing, blades flashing in the torchlight. I’ve never seen anything like it.

When the lord’s daughter was safe, Sera grinned and pulled out a pair of dice. Said she’d let fate decide whether she’d stick with us or take the girl and rob us blind.

“If I roll double sixes, I’m in.”

I watched them clatter against the dirt. One die hit a rock and tipped, just as a breeze blew through.

Twin sixes.

Leon was pissed. Sera just smiled and pocketed the dice like it was nothing.

I don’t know if I like her. I might, though.

The beach was quiet that night, the tide low. Hayate had run his fill and stopped near the waterline, sweat cooling on his brow. He rested his hands on his hips and let his breathing settle, eyes drawn toward the horizon.

The ocean stretched wide, the moon’s pale light quivering across the surface. He’d always liked this spot. It felt like the only place left where he could just be. Him, and the sea.

His eyes drifted to the moon, hanging above the waves. His granddaughter used to ask him if people lived up there. He’d laugh, tell her it was just rock. She’d insist her father said it was made of cheese, and he’d find himself looking a little longer afterward, as though she might be right.

His smile softened. Those days were gone now.

Hayate blinked, certain the midnight air was conjuring phantoms before him. The moon shimmered, but not over the waves. A shape slid through. It crashed into the waves.

Slowly, something moved. A figure dragged itself from the surf, stumbling, clawing for purchase in the sand. Not driftwood. Not a drunk. A young man.

The sight of his injuries sent alarms ringing in his head. Blood spilled from a torn sleeve, his lip split, a chest wound darkening his shirt. Torn plates of charred armor clung to his frame, battered and scorched, like something from the fantasy games his granddaughter adored.

The boy staggered, head hanging. White hair, cut short, plastered to his face with seawater and blood. He looked up at him, and Hayate saw his eyes—brilliant gold, glowing in the dark—unlike anything he’d ever seen.

His lips moved, words slipped out in a voice Hayate half-understood: Japanese? But it was laced with another tongue, the cadence wrong but the meaning clear. “I beg you,” he gasped, his legs giving out. “Help me.”

Hayate splashed into the shallows, scooping the boy up as carefully as he could, warm blood mixing with the salt water against his skin. “Easy,” he muttered, steadying him. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

He didn’t know the boy’s name. Didn’t know where he came from. But as the tide washed back and forth, he knew one thing with a certainty that sank deep into his old bones. He couldn’t leave him alone.