Faulty Lines

A group of goblins converged on their position, shambling through the rubble and pulling weapons from the ground as they came rusted blades, broken spears, whatever the battlefield had left behind.

Mariah relaxed. Minato blinked at her.

Tristan and Rowan were already moving.

"Our time to shine," Rowan said. "I'll take the left. You take the right."

Tristan nodded. They split without another word.

Tristan drew his longsword and settled into a hanging guard still and patient like the calm of water. Rowan did the opposite. She ran straight at them.

Her sword carved through the first wave without ceremony, each swing wide and unrestrained, her smile growing with every hit. Then the numbers caught up to her. Goblins piled in from the sides, from behind she disappeared under the mob.

Minato stepped forward. Mariah's hand came down on his arm.

He stopped. Watched.

The pile erupted.

Rowan came out of it the way something buried came out of the ground, a hearty laugh ran through in the midst of her battle. She had a goblin by the throat. Another came at her and she put her fist through its face. Blood ran freely from a cut along her hairline, her knuckles split and dark and yet she was grinning.

Minato turned to Mariah. "I knew she could fight, but she's not using any spells."

"She is," Mariah said. "We thought the same thing at first. According to her, she only learned one spell to pass the academy entrance exam. Since then she's practically forgotten everything else she was taught."

"Then I'm right. She's not using spells."

Mariah pointed. "Look closely. Her knuckles and the blood specifically. Focus."

Minato looked. It took a moment. Then he saw it.

The blood from her knuckles wasn't falling. It was circling slowly, densely wrapping around her fists and hardening like iron. And the blood that had dripped from her head and reached the ground had hardened the moment it landed, dark and fixed against the stone.

"Mariah, what is that?"

"The simplest way I can put it is that Rowan casts spells the way most people breathe without noticing she's doing it." Mariah watched her tear through another goblin with quiet satisfaction. "Simple-minded she may be, but in a brawl? She's left the rest of us behind in ways she doesn't even know."

Rowan's movements had slowed from frantic to deliberate not because she was tiring, but because something in her had settled. Her mind had gone somewhere else entirely. Her expression held nothing but a pure, clean longing for more of this.

"More," she said quietly, under her breath. "Come on. Give me more."

Her skin pulsed. The dried ironblood that had scattered around her began to move, converging from every direction before erupting outward in a single burst, tearing through the remaining goblins on her side all at once. She stood in the aftermath, chest heaving, and looked up at the false sky with an expression of complete satisfaction.

On the other side of the field, Tristan exhaled.

A single, measured breath and the goblins in front of him stumbled back as the gust hit them. His eyes sharpened. They came at him one after another and he met each one with clean, precise strikes: neck, abdomen, the gaps in whatever armor they'd scavenged. No wasted motion. No drama. He sheathed his blade before the last one finished falling.

Mariah and Rowan looked at him with quiet pride.

Minato narrowed his eyes.

More goblins were converging. Minato moved to step forward. Mariah held out a hand.

"Calm down. I've got this one."

She and Tristan stepped back as Mariah moved to the front. She rolled her shoulders, cleared her throat with great ceremony, and faced the incoming horde with the composure of someone about to deliver a formal recital.

"Rejoice, my dazzling companions. You as well, green filth." She produced a book from seemingly nowhere. "I, Mariah Veymaris, bring to you the Cadenza."

She opened the book.

"I bring to you the Siren's Psalter." Her voice dropped to something low and deliberate. "Surrender yourself to the Wrath of Man."

The sound that followed was unlike anything that should have come from one person. Soft at first almost gentle it moved through the air and settled in the minds of the goblins like fog. They stopped, every one of them, mid-stride, weapons half-raised, unable to move.

Minato had forgotten to close his mouth.

Then the voice changed.

It rose operatic and enormous, Wagnerian in its force, like a hundred horses breaking across stone and the goblins didn't stop this time. They turned on each other. Confusion became violence became chaos, the horde tearing itself apart with singular efficiency until only one remained: a hobgoblin, standing alone in the wreckage of its kin.

Mariah's voice softened into something solemn. Almost mournful. The hobgoblin walked toward her.

She took its head.

She turned around and opened her arms slightly.

"Applause is welcome. It was, of course, a stellar performance."

They moved forward to find the gate to the next floor. Minato had gone quiet still processing, still watching his friends with something between admiration and genuine alarm.

"Minato. Hello. Keep up."

Rowan's voice snapped him back. He jogged to catch up.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just you're all terrifying. If I'm not careful, you're going to leave me behind."

"Good," Tristan said pleasantly. "Keeps you sharp."

Minato caught up and put a hand on his shoulder. The group slowed.

"Tristan. What's going on with your sword?"

The question landed strangely. Everyone looked at him. Tristan turned his blade over, inspecting it.

"Nothing. It looks fine."

Minato's brow furrowed. "It's not about the sword itself. It's " He stopped. Tried again. "Tristan, did you become weaker?"

The silence that followed was the wrong kind of silence.

Tristan's expression turned cold and angered. A quiet displeasure moved through his eyes before he looked away.

"Tristan, I didn't mean"

"Save it." His voice was flat and clipped. "I'm sorry I'm not like you. That growth seems to come effortlessly." He sheathed the sword with a clean click. "Mariah, I'm going ahead to find the gate."

"Tristan"

He was already gone.

Mariah and Rowan turned to Minato. Neither of them looked happy.

"What was that?" Rowan said.

"I don't, I'm not sure how to explain it." Minato looked down. "When we sparred before, the way he fought felt different. What I saw just now is stronger on the surface. Technically stronger. But something underneath it " He shook his head. "I should have kept it to myself. I'm sorry."

Mariah sighed and squeezed his shoulder briefly. "Compose yourself, don’t worry I'll speak to him. For now we have a dungeon to finish. Let's catch up."

They found him at the gate to the second floor. The air between Minato and Tristan was tight but Mariah walked them through it without acknowledging it, which was somehow the most effective approach.

The second floor opened into an underground body of water vast and dark, lit from above by clusters of pale crystal growing from the ceiling like inverted trees. The ground rumbled almost immediately.

The sea serpent came up fast, enormous and ancient-looking with water cascading off its scales. They had barely taken their positions when Tristan stepped forward and took its head in a single stroke.

It was over before it started. The gate to the third floor unlocked.

Tristan sheathed his sword. He looked at Minato steady, direct, saying nothing then turned and walked toward the door. Minato said nothing back. Mariah touched his shoulder once and shook her head slightly. Rowan fell in beside Tristan and knocked her shoulder against his.

The third floor was a forest dense and old, no monsters anywhere in the scout report, fruit hanging from branches throughout.

Mariah pulled out the report and stepped to the front. "No enemies on this floor. Tree houses are marked on the trail ahead. We rest there tonight and push to the fourth floor tomorrow." She looked sideways. "Also the fruit is fake. Don't eat it, Rowan."

She said it without turning around.

Rowan's hand stopped inches from a piece of fruit she had absolutely been about to pick up. She set it down with great dignity.

Even Tristan laughed. It lasted only a second before he and Minato caught each other's eye and the silence came back but for that second, it had been real.

Mariah's description of "quite the journey" proved to be a significant understatement.

They walked. And walked. And kept walking. The forest stretched endlessly in every direction and the light never changed and the tree houses never seemed to get closer. Stamina drained in a way that had nothing to do with the pace, a deep and rapid exhaustion that built without warning.

Rowan went down to her knees first. "I can't do it. I just can’t!"

They stopped. Everyone sat down on the ground without discussion.

Tristan stared ahead with heavy eyes. "This is worse than training with my father. What is this place?"

Minato looked at Mariah. She was already rereading the report with the expression of someone who had found something they wished they hadn't.

"You won't like this."

Three sets of eyes fixed on her.

"The pollen from the flowers in this forest accelerates stamina drain by a factor of five." She looked up with a strained smile. "We feel like we've been walking for hours. We haven't been walking for an hour yet. The effects end when we reach the tree houses." The smile held. "I think we may be in trouble."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Minato stood up.

"It's not time to lose hope yet. Everyone up we're not stopping here." He paused. "Nobody gets left behind. Come on. Let's fly."

Shadows poured from him and wrapped around the other three, tendrils firm and careful. The moment the pollen's drain hit him multiplied across four people he felt the weight of it immediately, like his legs had been replaced with stone. He kept his expression level.

"Minato, you don't have to"

"You're going to exhaust yourself before we even get there," Tristan said. "But you're not going to listen to that either, so."

Minato laughed despite himself. "Sit tight."

He spread his wings wide, gathered whatever strength he had, and threw himself into the air.

Rowan spotted the roof first, a shape among the canopy in the distance. "There! Straight ahead!"

He flew toward it. Mana bursts kept the momentum going. The tree house grew closer. His concentration started to slip at the edges as the stamina drain compunded, his vision narrowing slightly.

He made the decision at the last moment and so he threw them.

All three of them cleared the threshold. He reached for the edge of the platform and missed it, and the exhaustion hit him all at once like a door closing and he fell.

A hand caught his wrist.

Tristan dragged him up and onto the platform, breathing hard, and set him down. Minato lay on his back and looked up at the canopy overhead. His smile stayed even as his eyes closed.

Night settled over the third floor. Rowan was asleep almost immediately.

Minato lay still and let his eyes stay shut.

Outside the tree house, Tristan sat on the open platform in front of the entrance, his sword beside him, his eyes closed. He heard Mariah's footsteps and spoke before she could.

"You're going to ask me what's wrong."

"Well. That saves time."

She sat beside him. He was quiet for a moment, then reached into his jacket and handed her a folded piece of paper.

She read it. Her expression moved through understanding and arrived at something harder.

"Don't," he said. "He's not wrong."

"He's not right either. Not like that. Not after what you'd just been through."

Tristan looked at the letter without taking it back. He was quiet for a moment, remembering the night he'd first read it carefully, hopeful for father's response, the way it had gone cold in his hands.

"From his perspective, I've lost my edge. I called myself Minato's rival, and my father said I sound like a bard praising another man's story instead of writing my own." He closed his fist slowly. "He's not wrong. I've been watching Minato. Talking about Minato. Measuring myself against Minato. And somewhere in all of that I stopped " He stopped.

"Stopped what?"

"Stopped listening to my sword."

Mariah was quiet for a moment. Then she stood.

"I won't tell you what to do. But don't let ambition make you a stranger to yourself." She put a hand briefly on his shoulder. "Minato's words earlier were clumsy and about as well-timed as a lightning strike in a library. But he meant something real by them. Listen to your friends. Listen to your sword." She paused. "We head for the fourth floor tomorrow. Get some rest."

She turned toward the door and passed Minato's sleeping form and stopped.

His eyes were open. Just slightly. He was looking at the ceiling.

She looked at him for a moment. He said nothing. She smiled once small, knowing, a little exasperated and left him to the silence.

Outside, Tristan sat with his sword and his father's words and the night, turning it all over in the quiet.