Intangible Feelings

“Princess, you mustn’t. We haven’t even started your magic-control lessons yet!”

“Look. It’s because I’m the princess that I must leave. Earth can’t defend itself.” Lacia slammed the book in her hand shut. The smell of old paper filled her nostrils. “We don’t have time to start from square one and I’m not enrolling in some academy so I can take more notes that I was never good at taking in the first place.”

“Kilhan really won’t be happy if you leave.”

Lacia sighed. “Look, I appreciate the wonderful care you and the other maids have given me, but I really can’t stay. Kilhan will understand, trust me.”

A series of knocks came at the door. Kilhan stood in the frame, unamused. He must’ve overheard Lacia’s entire conversation, though he made no moves to sway her one or the other.

“You’re a young woman now and can make your own decisions, so I won’t say you aren’t allowed to leave, but listen to me carefully, Lacia.” Kilhan’s eyes shone with worry. “It’s not that I’m concerned about Earth, I am, but I have a duty to protect you and promise to keep to your mother. If I let you run out there unprepared, Eaukea would haunt me from the grave.”

“My mother isn’t here right now—”

“All the more reason you should wait. No one is forcing you to perform four years’ worth of coursework and magic instruction in less than a month. In theory, you’ve accomplished more than what we can teach you, but that’s why we must teach you how to use it.” Kilhan was firm, but not unswayable.

Lacia placed her hand on her chest. “This is my fight and I have to carry on where my mother left off. Just because she’s not here doesn’t mean I don’t still love her, but it’s because she’s not here that I have to go.”

“I won’t stop you, but there’s someone you need to meet first. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been around for quite some time. However,” he pulled a photo from a side pocket, “I’d like you to take a look at this picture and tell me if you know this girl or not, first.”

Kilhan handed Lacia a photo of two little girls. She recognized herself, sitting along the edge of a riverbank, a light blue ribbon tied up in her hair. The other girl looked as if she was trying to fight Lacia for the same ribbon, but she just sat there, grinning like everything was under control. The only semi-recognizable feature about the other girl was her hair, but hair color alone wasn’t even enough for an educated guess.

Lacia shook her head. “I don’t recognize her, sorry.”

“Infuse a little of your mana into the photo and then tell me whether you recognize her or not. If you’re truly set on leaving, you need to know who she is.” Lacia looked hesitant. “All you have to do is close your eyes. Imagine your mana flowing into the picture, like a river.”

“Well, there’s no harm in trying if this is truly that important.” She scooted her chair out from the desk and immediately engorged herself among the red silken sheets and throw pillows of her bed. She closed her eyes as she held the photo between her hands. Her mana flowed seamlessly into the image.

She opened her eyes, frustrated, but she soon realized she was no longer in her room, though a familiar sense flooded her body. “I’ve been here before,” she said, nostalgic.

A sudden emergence of light startled her, but it was just the sunrise. Beams of fresh light illuminated a row of wooden cabins. Fresh morning dew dripped off the logs. The smell of wet grass greeted her as it glistened in the morning sun like a freshly cut diamond.

Birds began their morning chorus as if perfectly synced with the rise and fall of the sun itself, eager to get a head start on their morning meal. It was peaceful, a stark contrast to what her reality had been lately. She shuddered, not from unease, but the cold morning mist that crept onto the camp like an unseen thief, out to steal the warming presence of the sun. Shuddering, she grabbed her arms, palms brushing every miniscule goosebump as she desperately tried to warm herself.

“Hold on— I’m cold.” She made her way to the front of the nearest cabin, trying to see through the moisture laden windows, hoping for a warmer environment. Her knuckles gave the door a small knock. No answer. She tried again, a little louder. Still nothing. She grabbed the door handle. “Don’t say I didn’t knock first…”

Surprisingly, the cabin was devoid of any human presence. Blankets and sheets were perfectly folded in the center of each bunk, wooden chairs were pushed in, and the sink looked as if it hadn’t been used in weeks, but for some reason, the cabin was pleasantly warm. She stood in silence. The silence and warmth filled her with content, but she still felt awkward—it was too quiet.

She stepped onto the porch, bothered by the eerie lack of human presence, but then again, actually getting away from people was nice too, she supposed. She turned around to take one last look at the cabin before coming face to face with three agonizingly familiar numbers: 009.

“Cabin number 009— Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Glad the doors didn’t magically lock me in there or something creepy like that,” she mumbled. “What do I have to do to erase those memories of the ship?”

The remainder of the cabins were in nearly the same condition as the first: tidy, unused, and warm. Before exiting the final cabin, a piece of paper floated to the floor at her feet. A sharp pain erupted across her forehead as she picked it up. She sat down on the couch, examining the blotched ink.

“It’s a list of all the campers per cabin.” She scanned the list. “Cabin 009… Lacia Amana: Camper No. 009.” She crumpled the paper up and threw it across the room. “Ok— I’ve officially had enough of this.” Her head felt like it was on fire as she stood up. “Dammit… There’s gotta be something here for pain relief, right?” She rummaged through the cabinets before finding a bottle of pain relivers and herbal tea.

Everything was right where it should be: the kettle, sugar cubes, even fresh milk. The more she dug around, the less she wanted to find—she felt like she was being watched. She sat back down on the couch. Having brewed a cup of tea, she read over the list once more. One name in particular stood out, but the ink had been smudged making the camper’s last name illegible.

“Lyra. I wonder if this is the same girl I met back in Chiipha… When I really think about it—”

The front door slammed open causing Lacia to spill hot tea across her lap. She jumped up, aggravating her headache. Her head suddenly grew fuzzy, and her ears buzzed as she fell back onto the table, splintering the wood. The ensuing pain cleared her mind just enough for her to realize the devils had been tipped off.

The rough scratch of rope burned irritating red rashes into her skin. She was helpless, crumpled on the floor in agony. Frustration filled her like a rage as she felt articles of clothing ripped from her body.

“I don’t see it. Should we just take her with us?” A male voice spoke.

“No. If there are no runes on her body at all, then she’s not a true Illiern and we’ve been chasing the wrong person this whole time.” Another voice replied.

“So, what do we do with her then?”

There was a momentary pause. Lacia took advantage of it. The underside of the table was made of glass; all she had to do was find a big enough piece to—

“Unf!” A firm kick had been planted into Lacia’s side, winding her as she gasped for air. It all felt like a dream: half-awake, barely conscious. She could hardly differentiate between physical and mental pain.

“Watch it. Ahzef told us to be careful. He wants her in pristine condition and your kicking her that hard probably broke a couple ribs.”

Lacia feigned unconsciousness. She allowed her breathing to steady, carefully listening in on the conversation of the two individuals, still squabbling.

“She looks the exact same as the picture Ahzef gave us, though. How can you be certain that she isn’t who we’re after?” The first voice had grown uncertain.

“Because there isn’t a single rune on her body. Obviously, we can’t have word of this getting out to anyone, so we’ll just throw her in the lake.” The second voice was decisive.

Lacia’s heart skipped a beat as the two individuals picked her up. She’d panned for this, barely, but if she moved too early, she’d blow her only chance at escape. The picture Kilhan gave her was pinned to her thigh.

“Thank God for garters,” she thought.

Just a single finger was all she had to do was make contact with the photo. It was only a theory, but she assumed the photo had something to do with why she was at the camp.

“All of this teleporting to different places is growing old.”

Her eyes remained closed, but she allowed her arms to lay across her body, slowly inching her bound wrists towards the picture. The person holding her upper body adjusted their grip, jolting Lacia’s arms from their place atop her body. Luckily, the unsteady motion widened the slit of her dress, exposing the picture that was pinned to her thigh—the opportunity she’d been waiting for.

“This one can use magic, so make sure you finish the job,” the second spoke. “If we just throw her in and leave, she might still get away.”

The two individuals stopped moving. Lacia could hear water lapping against the shoreline as anxiety ran through her veins. Was this the dream she used to have? About drowning? If her hunch was wrong, was she doomed to a watery grave after all?

“Use this neriolite. We don’t know why, but it seems to have a negative effect on her. Secure it to her body and it should ensure she drowns successfully.”

“Understood,” the first voice said nervously. Were they having second thoughts about drowning her?

Lacia felt her back hit the ground. “God, I hope these useless crunches we used to do in P.E. come in clutch.” She arched her legs as she lunged forward, trying to pull herself close enough to reach the photo.

A sudden sharp pain tore through her hand and leg. Blood flowed from fresh wounds, however she managed to make successful contact with the photo, funneling her mana through the blood-stained image. The world began to morph into an image of her room. She was so close she could almost reach out and touch it.

“More,” she demanded. “More.”

She took a deep breath… of water. Her eyes flew open. There, at the shoreline, stood the two individuals. They’d thrown her in without hesitation. Air bubbles slowly filtered to the surface as the morning light faded to watery darkness, ensuring her worst nightmares. She tried to kick with her legs, but it was no use. Even without the neriolite, she was fated to drown in this lake, unable to free her arms or legs.

The deeper she sank, the colder the water became. Her lungs screamed at her, but what little oxygen remained was of no use and she didn’t have gills. The more air she lost, the faster she sank until she hit the lakebed, expelling the last of the oxygen in her lungs. How could water be such a giver of life, yet such a deadly force?

There was no use in struggling, but if there was even the slightest chance she could potentially free herself, it was worth a shot. She rubbed her arms and legs raw between the rugged bindings, but the rope remained resilient and unwavering.

“Dammit, Lacia, think! There has to be something I’m missing here…”

A gargled static played in her head: “La…c… can… hear …e ?”

“That sounded like Licht, but how?”

A large bubble grew to displace the water around her as it filled with oxygen. A clean pocket of breathable air. But how? She mashed her knees into the muddy earth as she struggled with her binds. Water forced its way from her lungs, seizing her in a coughing fit.

“There we go. Now I have a clear signal!” It was him!

A small vibration tickled the back of Lacia’s hand startling her before she recalled the Leyliner. Never in her wildest dreams did she think he would be the one saving her—much less with a device that hadn’t been used in over two years.

“Licht,” she croaked, “how the hell did you find me? I thought I was about to drown. I’ve had nightmares about this kind of thing!” She squirmed into a sitting position. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to be able to cut these ropes, would you?”

“It’s not that I didn’t know where you were; it’s that I couldn’t get a strong-enough signal to reach you.” Lacia’s binds snapped as they fell into the mud. “I don’t know where you went, but when you appeared on the Leyliner again I knew I had to find you,” he continued.

She rubbed her wrists where the rope dug into her skin. “Let me be more specific: How did you know I was drowning and where this place was?” She paused. “Actually, where is this place and what happened to that neriolite…?”

“Can’t say. I’ve yet to see one. As for the Leyliner, it’s always sampling the environment around it, so when it was suddenly submerged in water, I deployed a small mana field to create a pocket of air,” he explained. “I don’t know where we are, but something tells me, with a better look, you will. Though, the environment itself is almost surreal.”

“Maybe, but,” Lacia stood up as she examined the wall of water around the bubble, “there’s a lot you’ll be explaining later. For now… How do we get out of here?”

“The same way you went in.”

She looked up, wondering how deep she was. It had taken at least a couple of minutes to hit the bottom. Swimming back to the surface might kill her even faster—she would have to expend more energy as she considered the stab wound in her hand and leg.

“I’ll have to try and heal it when I get out of here,” she mumbled. “Can—”

Without warning, the air bubble lifted her from the mud as it slowly ascended to the surface. A school of fish swam around her as she peered through the transparent pocket of air.

Moments later, she broke the surface. Water slid off the sides of the bubble before it abruptly popped, depositing Lacia back onto the rocky shoreline, wincing as she landed on her tailbone.

“Fair warning, this version has a bug that can read your thoughts. Be careful what you think while you have this line open,” Licht warned.

“Normally I’d hit someone for saying something creepy like that, but you just saved my life, so I guess I can’t be too upset.” She looked around, nervously scouting the camp for her attempted killers but they were nowhere to be seen. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.

The sun had moved to the center of the sky indicating it was already afternoon. How long had she been in the water? It was early morning when she found herself at the camp; she was tied up not thirty minutes later. How had so much time passed? If that were truly the case, shouldn’t she have drowned hours ago?

“Licht. What time is it?”

“A quarter to ten, why?”

A set of chills ran down Lacia’s spine. It was still morning, like she thought, but the angle of the sun was too high for it not even being ten.

“Ahzef sent me to another world, another dimension, like ours. While I was there, I watched as the sun was devoured and the moon crumbled into dust. Ahzef doesn’t want to just change the world—he wants to destroy it and rewrite it.” Lacia wrung the water from the skirt of her dress before finishing. “This world,” she emphasized, “is next on his list and we’re running out of time—fast.”

“How far are you from Seria? We need to regroup and then find the others if what you’re saying is true.”

“I’m still not sure where I— Actually…”

The rusted remains of an old metal sign glinted in the sunlight. She pushed aside the tall grass to find the sign half-buried in the earth.

“Camp Solsummer,” she read aloud.

“Got it. Stay put until I get there. If you’re out in the open, you could be an easy target for the devils.”

“I feel like making a run to the convenience store, to be honest. Maybe I’ll find Ahzef there while I’m paying for my snacks,” she said sarcastically.

“Do you tease everyone like this, or…?”

“Seeing as you’re the only one I can tease at the moment, just you.”

Loud shouting echoed from across the lake and by the sounds of things, someone wasn’t in a very good mood. Lacia crouched down in a patch of tall grass as she listened to the ensuing loud shouts. Who knew she could use a dress as a form of camouflage?

“I think you jinxed me,” she whispered. “Someone’s fighting on the other side of the lake and they’re super mad. Any way you can enhance my hearing with this thing, too?”

One small click from the Leyliner later and Lacia had the hearing of a bat. There were multiple voices, not just one, she realized, and it sounded like one of them was on the defense.

“We stuck around for twenty minutes to make sure she didn’t come back up. We even tied her hands and feet. Besides, if there’s no blood trail anywhere, how do we really even know she got away and we just didn’t see her corpse?”

The first voice began to shout again. “I explicitly warned you two fools that she was no ordinary girl and to keep an eye on her. Dead or alive!”

“We’ll go back in and look again. We just must’ve missed ‘er,” a third voice said.

“You do that and when you come back up, explain to me why there’s a giant wet spot over on the other end of the lake that’s about the size of a human girl.”

“Licht,” Lacia whispered, softer this time, “there’s three other people here. Two of them are the ones who threw me in the water. The third I’m almost certain is Ahzef.”

“I’m almost there and I’ve got the car. I’ll idle at the entrance to the camp. Try to make your way there as best you can.”

“Understood. I’ll meet you at the front then.”

The two men and Ahzef were still quarrelling. Good. The tall grass and thick weeds would help conceal her from their sight and dampen the sound of her footsteps. She crawled through on her hands and knees until she reached the closest cabin. Once there, she’d make a beeline toward Licht, hopefully waiting for her.

“Tell you what, you two can join her supposed overlooked corpse at the bottom of the lake. In fact, I’ll even give you an assist,” Ahzef said.

A series of loud splashes broke the composure of the water’s surface. Lacia turned around as she watched the bodies of her attempted killers hit the water… piece by piece.

“If you want a job done, you have to do it yourself, I guess. Isn’t that right, Lacia?” the devil shouted.

“Why mention me specifically? I don’t kill people when they get something wrong.” If she could bottle up her thoughts and put them on display, she’d label it Lacia’s Cynical Thoughts.

“Did you forget my little insurance policy? Tell me, Lacia, where is it that you think you can hide?”

She approached the backside of the nearest cabin, out of sight of the waterfront and Ahzef. The front of the camp was just up ahead, though it looked like Licht hadn’t arrived yet and there were no signs of any approaching vehicles. She couldn’t outrun Ahzef forever and she was a sitting duck without him.

”Licht, where are you? I’m nearly to the entrance gates,” she hissed.

“Sorry— Had to make a detour. I’m still a couple minutes out.”

“A couple minutes is a couple minutes too long and I have a funny feeling Ahzef won’t take the long way around, either.”

“Keep moving, Lacia. If I stop the car and he hears, he’s going to know we are here.” His voice was stern. "I can slow down, but you’re going to have to jump in. If you miss—”

“Have I told you what happens if you miss? We all die. That’s what happens.”

She snuck past several other cabins, finally reaching the front entrance of the camp. She knew Licht wouldn’t drive off without her, but if she missed the car, she would lose precious time. If Ahzef knew she was still in the vicinity, there’d be hell to pay, and she’d be paying it.

“I didn’t get to use my other toys against you during my fight with Hika. I wonder how she’s doing now, considering I nearly stole all of her life.”

Ignoring the devil’s taunts, Lacia hid herself behind a tree closest to the road as she waited for Licht. She watched in horror as Ahzef began to seamlessly cross the lake, but what frightened her most wasn’t that he could walk on water—it was the simultaneous, disjointed bending of two boney fingers.

“Let me hear you scream, girl. If I can’t contain you, then I’ll just kill you and steal that lovely little gift of yours that way.”

Lacia watched as Ahzef’s fingers dragged against the palm of his hand, but nothing happened. She felt herself up and down. No cuts or bruises and no blood. Was she just immune to his attacks now or was he only able to use his “insurance policy” within a certain range?

The hum of an approaching car instilled Lacia with the single-biggest ounce of hope she’d had since waking up. She would jump in and tell Licht to gun it; that she wanted to be as far away from this god-forsaken place as possible. She watched as the vehicle began to slow, passenger doors flying open.

“It’s certainly no carriage, but it’ll have to do. This princess is not about to be locked up for a third time.” She sprinted to the car. “I guess Ahzef bought the knockoff insurance because it’s clearly not working,” she surmised.

She could see Licht in the driver’s seat, motioning for her to hurry, but what was that look of panic on his face and… was he mouthing something?

“Don’t… turn… around?” she mouthed back.

He nodded fervently.

A sharp sting shot through her ankles, causing her to stumble mid-sprint. Something dark and shapeless shot up a nearby tree as the leaves began to brown and the trunk rotted away. It fell across the path behind her, barely missing her entirely. Ahzef really was intent on killing her and he wasn’t looking to take no for an answer again.

Despite her stumble, she was parallel with the car but not close enough to make the jump, ultimately causing her to miss the car by a mere inch. Her hand swiped at the swinging doors, hoping to grab one, but all she caught was a cloud of dust and gravel to the face.

“Dammit!” she shouted. “That’s what you were going for then, huh? By causing me to stumble, I lost just the right amount of time!” There was no use in trying to hide. Ahzef had known she was still on the camp’s grounds.

“Perceptive as always, Lacia!” Ahzef shouted back. “Last chance: come with me or rot away like that tree.”

“I’d honestly rather try my luck at making friends with a Yeti, but thanks for the offer anyway,” she yelled. “Now, how the hell am I—” Squealing tires and burning rubber filled her senses. “That idiot. He turned around, but I won’t miss this time.”

“Then I won’t either,” the devil leered. He pulled the string of a makeshift bow, firing another decaying black mass at Lacia—faster than she could blink.

She watched as the world seemed to move in slow motion. The string on Ahzef’s bow vibrated, returning to its taught state. Even the trees seemed to sway slower than normal, steadily rocking back and forth like a hypnotic dream.

The decaying mass flew by in a blur, grazing Lacia’s cheek as it passed. Panic quickly set in. It was just a graze, but how much damage would it do? Would her flesh start to rot away like the tree? Her cheek erupted in a flurry of blisters and searing pain. She wailed in torment.

Tears streamed down her face, but she mustered up the courage to sear the rotting flesh away. The pain was agonizing as she cauterized her own cheek, hardly able to remain conscious. Her knees slammed into the dirt and gravel beneath her feet.

“We could have avoided all of this, but I’ll have you, either way. It’s too bad I have to kill you now.” Ahzef’s voice rose from behind her.

Lacia’s hair fell in front of her face as she stared at the ground. She fought to keep her focus, but her voice was dreadfully cold. “Not only did you destroy my makeup, but you also forced me to tear my own face up in the process,” she grumbled. “I’m not some fragile—”

“It’s true you have a wonderfully pretty face,” Ahzef said, lifting her up from the neck, “but that won’t matter once you’re dead, now, will it? Just think: no more fighting, no more suffering; you won’t have to worry about a thing.”

Lacia struggled to free herself only for the devil to tighten his grip. “You won’t gain anything from my death,” she choked, “but by all means—sabotage your own plans.”

Azhef tightened his grip further. “I’ll crush your throat right here and now. Don’t tempt me, girl.”

She caught something scurrying around in the underbrush through her peripherals. She knew better than to draw attention to it or she’d put Licht’s life at risk as well. “You idiot,” she thought.

“Before I kill you, why don’t you tell me how I can find this so-called “Omnis” and the second Halipher. If you do that, I’ll be merciful and kill you quickly. Deal?”

“I don’t know what you’re… talking about,” she struggled. “I didn’t have access to the last Halipher anyways. Aria—”

“Wrong answer.”

“But it’s the tr—”

A sucker punch to the gut knocked the wind out of her, and Ahzef’s grip was too strong for her to recover her breath. “Those are beautiful nails you have. The polish looks expensive, too. It’d be a shame if one were to get pulled off.”

Lacia’s eyes widened. She didn’t want to imagine the torture of having her fingernails pulled off. The cheek was one thing but having to endure her own fingernails pulled from their beds was another.

She stared into Ahzef’s eyes, still watching Licht work from the corners of her own. There was an open wound on his hand, and it looked as if the blood had been smeared, like it was being used for something. What was that boy up to?

He stayed low, using the underbrush and trees to keep himself hidden. The leyliner must have been reading her thoughts after all considering Licht was also scurrying around in the dirt. Without warning, his head rose above the grass as he gave Lacia a quick thumbs up.

“A thumbs up?” she thought. “I’m about to asphyxiate and he’s popping his head up in the grass like some safari animal.”

“Any last words, Miss Amana?”

“That’s… not my name.”

Licht snapped his fingers, illuminating a series of red sigils. Some took on a honeycomb pattern while others resembled triangles laid out in the shape of a star. Each glowed with the intensity of a large flame as they grew increasingly luminescent, bleaching everything in fierce white light.

“I’ve been hoping to practice my magic a little more. After all, I had two years to hone my skills,” Licht stated. For a moment even Ahzef was stunned by his situational command. “Hope you won’t mind if I learned a few tricks from a certain someone.” He smiled.

Ahzef hurled Lacia like a baseball before centering his wrath on Licht who was nowhere to be seen. “Aghh! Why does it keep getting brighter?!” the devil snarled. “As soon as I find you, I’m going to cut you into pieces in front of your friend here! I’ll finish what those two idiots couldn’t. How about that?”

“Actually, she’s right here.” Licht stood behind Ahzef, Lacia cradled in his arms. “I mean, if you want her that bad, I guess I could just hand her over. Here— Catch!”

“H-hey! Don’t just give me up like this,” she yelled. “If Ahzef doesn’t kill you, you better hope I don’t.”

The devil stood there, remarkably confused by the sudden turn of events. He caught Lacia as Licht disappeared in a literal flash. Or was he just incredibly fast?

“So, uhh, how about not killing me—”

“Out of the question,” Ahzef said, breaking one of Lacia’s pinkies. “I will not play this stupid game of tag you keep engaging me in, but you will play one of my favorite games: how many bones can I break before the heroine dies?” He continued, one finger after the other.

Ahzef tapped on Lacia’s now post-broken foot. “Tell me, does it hurt when I do this?” He twirled a finger around in a circle; Lacia’s foot followed.

“Mmm!!” There were no words for the kind of pain that shot straight through her body. Her spine tingled and chills raced through her body like an electric current. “Licht is so dead when I find him,” she thought.

“Hey, devil man. You can’t just go around breaking people’s bones like that, ya know?” He stood by the road, placing Lacia into the backseat of the car. “Oh, and I’m taking her with me this time. Thanks for holding onto her for me!”

Lacia blinked in bewilderment. “Huh?”

“Oh, and some parting words for you: Voxillumisaru.”

The sigils burst into an array of dazzling white and midnight black as a series of lines swept across the ground, connecting each sigil to its nearest neighbor. They chased each other through the trees and into the underbrush as they turned everything into a surrealistic version of a video game. Everything began to devolve into a game world, full of nothing that offered only solitude.

Ahzef’s form dissipated into a bony shadow-figure as he tried to claw away the enclosure, but it rebuilt itself faster than it could be torn apart. “You’re the next one I kill after the girl, boy,” the devil warned.

Shivers bristled Licht’s spine. “He won’t be leaving for a while. It won’t last forever, but it should buy us some time,” he explained to Lacia. “I’m sorry about the fingers and foot. I truly regret not thinking this out more and that you got hurt in the process.” He clasped his hands together and bowed his head. “Please forgive me!”

Lacia’s good cheek reddened slightly. It was embarrassing, going from protector to protected. She still stood zero chance against Ahzef and it felt like every move she made she took two steps back in the process. What would it take to finally put her best foot forward?

“Just… drive,” she said, turning her head away. “I want to get as far from this place as possible. For more reasons than one.”

Licht nodded. They didn’t have to exchange words to know what the other was thinking. The leyliner had purposefully been disconnected to give Lacia as much time with her thoughts as possible. The mood didn’t seem despondent, though. It was more like a sense of acknowledgement, but uncertainty as how to come to terms with it.

“We’ll head for Buunit. Seria has become too centralized. Buunit is, well, it hasn’t changed since Mana and Brendan left. It’ll make us hard to track, especially if you’re able to suppress your mana.” Lacia raised an eyebrow. “I’ll explain once we’re all together again, but for now, two years was put to good use.”

She sighed. “I trust you, Licht and I don’t blame you for what happened back at the camp." The road was a blur of asphalt and yellow stripes as road noise filled the car. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. The only person who can explain all of this isn’t here and I don’t know where to find her.”

The outskirts of Seria came into view, sprawling across the landscape. Lacia was glued to the window as she took in the enormity of the architecture. Licht surmised she’d never been to the city before, considering the small community that Azalea was, there wasn’t much reason to ever leave. If anything, Seria was more like a symbol of growth and change, something that went beyond the here and now.

A light blanket of snow had begun to coat the roadways as the car sped north. It was strange, he thought, being in the same car as the girl who was the supposed catalyst for world-altering events and the reason he found himself entangled in the threads of fate and chaos. The falling snow was an eerie reminder of that. After Brendan and Mana left to find Lacia, he couldn’t help but stand there and watch as their silhouettes faded into the endless night and blanket of white. For the first time in his life, he’d felt truly alone.

Having Lacia with him was a tad awkward, but if she truly was the key to everything, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and get to know her. What did a little small talk ever hurt, anyways?

Lacia caught his eye in the rearview mirror and gave him a small laugh which she immediately regretted. She was tired of broken bones—again. “Either we play childish car games, or we get to know each other. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“You got me. It’s a long drive to Buunit anyways. I’ll fill you in on some of the in-betweens before Ahzef attacked us back at the Gila border, too. What do you say?”

“Well, I’m sitting here with three aching fingers and a broken foot, again, and Aria is the only one who can use powerful-enough healing magic, so… help me take my mind off things?”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “My name is Licht Hinaar and it’s nice to meet you, Miss—”

“Ook. Stop right there,” Lacia giggled. “While it’s nice having your last name, we definitely don’t have to start from scratch.”

The remaining fringes of sunlight gently caressed the back windshield, warming Lacia’s back and neck as the two carried on in conversation. What had been a trial of a day gradually turned into something neither Licht nor Lacia had expected, but it was nice. The presence of the other was the one thing keeping them going.

“Thank you.”