Chapter Two

Chapter Two

It wasn’t fair.

Perched atop the topmost branches of a colossal kingwood, Miranda could see for dozens of miles in every direction. Up here, what should have been mighty, towering trees looked like blades of grass compared to a monstrous oak. Thin white tendrils of mist rose up into the sky as the morning sun warmed the verdant, untameable woodlands. The treetops rose and fell, like waves in an ocean of green, as a breeze wafted through the forest.

Behind her to the east, Sequestrinous’ monolithic walls stood obstinately against the overwhelming presence of the Andaan Vaer woods, as gray and monotonous as the people who lived behind it. Miles to the west, the waters of Lake Addronax sparkled in the morning sunlight. To the north, she could just faintly make out the jagged shapes of the Hel Vandish mountains.

Anyone who said Nyr wasn’t a beautiful, breathtaking sight was lying, and that was what twisted Miranda’s insides like a dishrag. It wasn’t fair. This world had taken everything from her. It should have been as ugly as sin itself. It would have been so much easier to hate if it was ugly. And she did hate it. But when she looked down at it from up here, taking in its unearthly majesty and grandeur, she couldn’t help but love it too.

And that love burned.

The thick wooden limb groaned as it swayed from side to side. What was a light breeze down below was a gale force wind up here. It did its best to blow away her wide brimmed hat, but the way her horns poked up through the brim kept it from flying away. Her cloak waved and thrashed behind her, but Miranda stood as confidently as the kingwood itself.

She walked to the far end of the branch, her black hooves making sharp little taps against the bark, until it narrowed to barely the width of her fist.

There were some days she regretted becoming a Faun. She still felt human, but looking down and seeing hooves where there should have been feet was a sharp, cold reminder that Nyr had left more than one kind of mark on her. Her entire body was a scar, just as much as the actual scars that crisscrossed her skin after thirteen years of adventuring. She hated it for that too.

Her mind flashed back to Jeremy, with his glassy-eyed stare, hollow words, and cold indifference when her lips touched his.

Hate. So much hate. If she could, she would have burned this entire world to the ground. And yet, there wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t wake up and feel her heart leap with joy at the thought of what new adventures Nyr had in store for her.

Curse Nyr. Curse whatever evil god had created it.

And curse her most of all for loving it.

A long, low moan came from the west, and Miranda looked in surprise to see the gargantuan shape of Melodia rising from Lake Addronax. The beast was just a murky shadow from this distance, but its mournful song—which it rose from the depths to sing every morning—was as clear as the sun was bright.

Her heart skipped a beat. Was it that late already? She needed to move fast!

Bending her knees, she launched herself out of the kingwood. The wind roared in her ears as she plummeted toward the ground thousands of feet below, and her cloak whipped behind her in a frenzy of motion. She fixed her eyes on her destination and pulled the silver dagger, Eagle Feather, out of her inventory with a blue flash.

“Silverwing!” she shouted, barely able to hear her own voice over the wind, and hurled the blade into the distance.

The ground came rushing up to meet her, and half a second before she made contact, the world became a rush of silver light. Suddenly she was perched in the lower boughs of a beech tree. It was a strong, old tree, but it barely looked like a sapling compared to the kingwood. Eagle Feather was lodged in the branch nearly up to its hilt, and her fist was once again wrapped around it. Pulling it free, she put it away again with another blue flash.

Beneath her sat a hastily assembled excuse for a camp. The embers of a campfire still smoldered, and three bedrolls lay around it. One was empty, but the occupants of the other two were snoring despite the sunlight that wove between the leaves to speckle the ground.

That meant nothing, though. Her eyes sought out the tree on the very edge of camp. This one truly was a sapling, barely six feet tall but still covered in a respectable amount of leaves. She narrowed her eyes, watching it for over a minute. When it didn’t move, she relaxed and let herself drop down into the—

“Glad you saw fit to join us.”

“Flaming slur!” Miranda cursed, nearly falling over backwards in a rare display of clumsiness. Eagle Feather reappeared in her hand, though whether to escape or defend herself, even she wasn’t sure.

The tree turned around, its wooden frame creaking as it moved, and a pair of green and amber eyes opened to glare icily at her.

“Ashes, Derrick!” she cursed again, ducking her head so her hat’s brim would hide the redness of her face. “Don’t scare me like that!”

There was a soft, crumbling sound as the living tree pulled his feet out of the dirt one at a time. His joints popped as he uncrossed his arms, and the leaves he had sprouted during the night promptly turned brown and fell to the forest floor. A row of thin green vines lay flat atop his head, pointing backwards to give the illusion of a swept back hairstyle. Above him, a character box appeared.

DERRICK VELSTADT

LEVEL 20 PRIEST

(SNIPER CLERIC)

“Oh, I scared you, did I?” he asked coldly. His face didn’t have a mouth or nose, but he still got his emotions across perfectly through his eyes and voice. Miranda had never understood how he was able to talk, but at the moment she didn’t care. Not when she was fighting not to shrink back in shame.

“I had a pretty nasty scare last night, myself,” he went on. “About an hour before dawn, I was woken up by a bright flash of light. I looked around, thinking something might be happening. Care to guess what I saw?”

Miranda didn’t answer.

Derrick folded his arms. “No? Then maybe you’d like to guess what I didn’t see?”

“If you’re accusing me of ditching my watch,” Miranda said, putting her hands on her hips, “then your night vision must be even worse than I thought. I was up in that tree all night long!”

“Then why didn’t I see you up there?”

“How should I know?” Miranda answered flippantly, turning away. “Maybe you should ask Elise for a spare pair of glasses.”

Trying to act unconcerned, she waved her hand, summoning a rectangle of semi-transparent light to float in front of her. Dozens of images appeared and disappeared as she scrolled through the party’s inventory. Mushrooms, leaves, moss, and various other ingredients Derrick could craft potions out of if he needed to. Pelts, horns, claws, and fangs from mobs they had killed on the way here. A gold ring Miranda had pickpocketed from an NPC at the last town, much to Derrick’s annoyance.

She stopped when she came to a small lump of white cheese and pointed at it. The menu was psychically linked to her, so she could have made it work just by thinking about it, but she had never been able to break the habit of using her hands. There was a blue flash, and the cheese materialized in her hand.

Before she could take a bite, Derrick grabbed her by the wrist. His skin was tough, like bark, but there was warmth behind it that regular plants didn’t have.

“Do you not realize,” he hissed, leaning in closer until their faces were only inches apart, “the danger we’re in here? You let the campfire go out! What would have happened if a monster wandered by while we were all asleep? What if there had been a Shield Warden patrol and you weren’t here to warn us?”

“That wasn’t going to happen!” she snapped, yanking her arm away. “We made this our camp because they don’t patrol here!”

“So you admit that you left your post!”

Miranda scowled at him for a few seconds, then turned away and took a bite of her cheese, stubbornly chewing and swallowing before she answered him.

“I had to see him,” she finally admitted.

She could feel the Mandrake’s eyes drilling holes into the back of her head, but then he sighed. “And was it worth leaving your team unprotected? Seeing him walk around like some kind of mix between a robot and a zombie? Listening to him spout words that mean even less to him than they do to you? Knowing he doesn’t recognize you, and never will?”

“Shut up!” Miranda snapped, throwing the cheese on the ground in a moment of rage.

“You asked Father Lancaster before we set off, and he said no!” Derrick shot back. “You know he can’t make exceptions like that for—”

“I said shut up!” Miranda spun around. Eagle Feather flashed back into her hand, but Derrick didn’t even flinch. He knew just as well as she did that she would never attack him, no matter how angry she got. “I haven’t seen him in eight months! I had to make sure he was still alive. He was being attacked by a goliath rat when I got there, Derrick! If I hadn’t gone, he would have died!”

“He was only attacked because you were there. You know as well as I do that mobs leave NPCs alone unless there’s a Hero nearby to save them.”

She clenched her jaw. “Don’t call him that!”

“That’s what he is, and you know it! All you’re doing by going to see him is torturing yourself, and the rest of us could have died because of it!”

Miranda tugged her hat down to hide her face, then went back into her menu until she found an apple to replace the cheese she had wasted.

She knew Derrick was right. Even worse, he knew she knew he was right. She had left the camp completely undefended while she was away. She’d been fairly certain that nothing would happen…ninety percent sure…but there had been that nagging doubt in the back of her mind anyway.

Even so, she didn’t regret going. Today was her last chance to see Jeremy. Nobody could say how long it would be before she could make all the way out here again. Derrick could talk all he wanted about responsibilities and following orders, but did he really expect her to just pretend the man she loved didn’t exist?

Even if he may as well not exist? the voice in her head whispered mockingly.

Derrick looked at her, and then over at the two sleeping forms, and he sighed. “I won’t tell the others what you did. Or Father Lancaster. But you know as well as I do what we’re going up against today. I need to know that you’re focused on what’s important: keeping yourself and the others alive. Can I trust you, Miranda?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Stop being so over—”

He stepped up to her, his spindly six foot frame suddenly seeming to tower over her. “Can…I…trust you?”

She met his eyes, the only part of his body that wasn’t made of wood or vines, and nodded.

“Good.” With that, he turned and walked away. “Rise and shine, Grave Mistakes! Miranda was kind enough to let us sleep in, and now we’re behind schedule. I want us moving in ten minutes!”

Miranda let out the breath she’d been holding and allowed herself to relax, but the shame lingered in the back of her skull.