"Let's proceed with extra caution," I decided. "Clana, can you prepare a detection spell? Sothing passive that won't give away our position."
Clana nodded, her fingers already weaving intricate patterns in the air. Her Gift—Spell Synergy—allowed her to cast multiple spells simultaneously and blend them together in ways most mages couldn't achieve. Despite her perpetually sleepy deanor, she was one of the most skilled spellcasters in our year.
"Passive detection grid, layered with mana echo," she murmured, her eyes half-closed in concentration. Faint blue lines of light briefly appeared around us before fading from visibility. "It'll ping if anything larger than a rabbit cos within fifty ters."
We continued forward, moving more slowly now, more deliberately. The forest grew denser as we approached the area marked on our map, the undergrowth thicker, as if nature itself was trying to hide sothing.
It turned out to be nothing more dramatic than a recent landslide that had exposed a mineral deposit known to be toxic to ogres. The strange mana currents Rachel detected were simply the natural result of the earth being disturbed. Clana's spell grid confird there was nothing unnatural about the site - just a geological event that made the area inhospitable to the local tribes.
As we completed our docuntation and prepared to head back, I noticed sothing unusual on a tree near our position. Fresh marks carved into the bark - three diagonal slashes followed by a horizontal line. The pattern was precisely made, too deliberate to be random animal claw marks.
"What's that?" Rachel asked, noticing examining the tree.
"Trail marking, maybe," I said, though sothing about it felt off. I took an image with the docuntation device, almost as an afterthought.
The journey back to the outpost was uneventful, and Marshal ilyn seed satisfied with our report. As we were finishing our debrief, I ntioned the marking.
"Three slashes and a horizontal line. Carved recently."
ilyn's expression changed for just a fraction of a second - so briefly I almost missed it. A tightening around her eyes, a subtle tension in her jaw.
"Show ," she said, her tone carefully neutral.
When I displayed the image, she studied it in silence before closing the file with a deliberate tap.
"Is it significant?" I asked.
"It's a trail marker," she confird. "Used by higher-ranking mbers of the Savage Communion when they travel without an entourage. You perford well today. A simple mission completed successfully."
ilyn's words had been the sort of ambiguous that made people nervous. Not the ship is sinking sort of nervous, but definitely you might want to double-check the lifeboats nervous. She'd ntioned "high-ranking" Savage Communion mbers in the vicinity with all the enthusiasm of soone who'd found a spider the size of a fist behind their couch and then lost sight of it.
Which, in ilyn terms, probably ant sothing like an Orc Chieftain, an Ogre Chief, or—if the universe was feeling particularly codic—a Cardinal from the Savage Communion.
None of those were great options. The kind of figures you didn't so much fight as survive long enough for soone else to take over. Preferably soone with more firepower and significantly better life insurance.
Still, I wasn't afraid. That wasn't bravado. Not entirely, anyway. It was more... statistical optimism. We had ilyn with us. A peak Immortal-ranker. A walking magical catastrophe, second only to Valen Ashbluff in the Western continent, and stronger than the Tower Master of the Ebony Tower, which really said sothing, considering the Tower Master could probably blow up a moon if he ever got in a bad mood. ilyn could probably blow up two moons and have enough energy left over to order a coffee, non-dairy with just a hint of cinnamon.
The frontier outpost itself seed to recognize ilyn's significance. Soldiers straightened a little more when she passed, conversations quieted, and even the automated defense systems seed to hum a bit more attentively. Fear wasn't quite the right word for what they felt. It was more like the instinctive respect you might have for a thunderstorm or an active volcano—natural forces that could annihilate you without particularly aning to.
For now, though, there were no exploding moons. We had completed the preliminary task ilyn had given us—so kind of glorified border-scouting operation that was about as dangerous as poking a hedgehog with a stick if the hedgehog was asleep and mildly anaemic. Nothing had gone wrong, nobody died, and Clana only fell asleep once while standing up, which was a personal best. She'd claid afterward that she was "monitoring the tactical situation through passive sensory input," which was Clana-speak for "I can nap and scout simultaneously."
After returning to camp, we found a quiet spot behind the barracks—a little patch of cracked stone and synthetic moss that passed for a park in these parts. The kind of place where soldiers pretended they were on a picnic while surrounded by automated turrets and anti-orc barrier nodes. Soone had made a valiant attempt to plant flowers—tough, radiation-resistant blossoms that thrived in the sort of conditions that would make most plant life file for imdiate retirent.
Rachel leaned back against my shoulder, eyes closed, humming faintly. The tune was sothing old, a folk song from the Eastern Continent, though she'd probably claim it was a sacred hymn if anyone asked. Rose sat across from us, legs crossed, doing sothing graceful with a pocket mirror and a portable manicure device that probably cost more than a small spaceship. The device humd with more technological sophistication than most battlefield weapons.
And Clana… Clana was laying on the ground, arms folded behind her head, blinking up at the sky like she was waiting for it to blink back. A nearby soldier had walked past her twice, clearly debating whether to check if she was dead or just observing her natural habitat.
"You're not actually asleep, are you?" I asked her.
"No," she said, without moving. "Just practicing."
"For what?"
"Surviving this insanity by conserving my energy." She wiggled her fingers vaguely toward the sky. "You know, the stuff that keeps the rest of you moving around like caffeinated hamsters."
I chuckled, tossing her a ration bar. She caught it without looking, her hand moving with surprising precision for soone who appeared to be auditioning for the role of corpse. "You're a very lazy soldier."
"I'm efficient," she said, unwrapping it with the delicate care usually reserved for defusing bombs. "Sa thing. The less you move, the less energy you waste, the longer you survive. It's basic mathematics."
"Admit it," I said, "you're starting to enjoy our company."
She squinted over at , one eye opening just enough to suggest mild interest. "You're tolerable. Rachel talks too much. Rose is too shiny. But you—yeah, you're alright. For soone who seems determined to find trouble in places most people would actively avoid."
It was the Clana version of friendship—high praise indeed from soone who usually expressed affection by not actively walking away from you mid-conversation. I gave her a slow nod. "High praise."
She grinned faintly, the expression looking almost foreign on her perpetually tired face. "Just don't die, alright? Paperwork for deceased team mbers is excessive, and I'd have to be awake to file it."
"Not planning on it."
Rachel shifted against my shoulder, her golden hair catching the afternoon light in a way that seed deliberately photogenic. "This is nice," she said softly. "Almost makes you forget we're sitting on the edge of civilization, surrounded by creatures that would happily use our bones as toothpicks."
"Your optimism is inspiring," Rose remarked dryly, not looking up from her manicure. The tiny device in her hand emitted a soft beep of completion. "Though I must admit, this assignnt has been less hazardous than expected."
"Don't jinx it," Clana muttered, her eyes closed again. "Universe loves a challenge."
As if on cue, a ssenger approached—a young private who looked like he'd been chosen for the task through a particularly brutal ga of not-it among his peers. He saluted stiffly, his gaze darting between us like he wasn't quite sure which academy student might spontaneously explode.
"Captain Nightingale," he said, addressing with the careful tone of soone handling unexploded ordnance. "Grand Marshal ilyn requests your team's presence tomorrow at 0600 hours. Full field gear, prepared for extended reconnaissance."
"Any specifics?" I asked.
The private swallowed visibly. "No, sir. The Marshal just said, and I quote, 'Tell them to be ready for anything and not to bring anything they can't afford to lose.'"
With that cheerful ssage delivered, he retreated with the brisk efficiency of soone who had successfully completed a suicide mission and wasn't about to press his luck.
"Well," Rose said into the ensuing silence. "That sounds ominous."
"Could be routine," Rachel offered, though her tone suggested she didn't believe it either.
Clana sighed deeply. "This is exactly what I was talking about. Universe. Challenge. Imdiate response." She sat up with the reluctance of continental drift. "I'm going to take a pre-emptive nap. Wake when we're about to die."
The peace didn't last.
The next day, ilyn summoned us again, exactly as the ssenger had warned.
She took us with her. No reason given. Just said we were to accompany her on patrol. Which, again, wasn't how things usually went. Grand Marshalls didn't do patrols either. Not unless they were expecting sothing that couldn't be left to people who hadn't levelled entire fortresses with a sneeze. It was like having the general personally inspect an anthill that had been giving the regular troops trouble.
We followed her into the wastes, riding in a hovertruck shaped like a beetle and sounding like it had asthma. The vehicle protested each elevation change with a wheezing noise that suggested it was contemplating early retirent. The landscape outside was a patchwork of scrubland and rocky outcroppings, occasionally interrupted by the twisted remains of trees that had evolved to survive in conditions that would make most plant life file a formal complaint.
Rachel, Rose, and Clana rode in the back compartnt while I sat up front with ilyn. She drove in silence, her golden eyes fixed on the horizon, occasionally checking a device on her wrist that displayed information in a format I couldn't quite decipher. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, but it had weight to it—the kind of silence that cos before important words.
Eventually, as we stopped near a ridgeline that offered a panoramic view of the frontier's edge, she pulled aside.
"Walk with , Arthur."
I did, following her to a rocky outcropping that overlooked a vast expanse of borderland. From here, you could see where the controlled territory ended and the wilder regions began—a transition marked not by any physical barrier but by a subtle shift in the landscape itself. Sothing about the quality of the light, perhaps, or the way the vegetation grew.
"You've studied necromancy," she said, her voice as flat as ever.
"So," I nodded. "It's one of my focuses, yes. But I'm not purely a necromancer."
"That's fine," she said. "I'm not either. You know what necromancy really is?"
"Raising the dead," I offered.
She snorted, the sound almost startlingly human coming from soone who generally presented herself with all the emotional range of a particularly stoic rock. "No. It's control. Understanding. It's the discipline of keeping things from falling apart when they already should have. Necromancy is balance, Arthur. Not just bones and corpses. It's mory, legacy, structure in decay. And you? You have potential."
I blinked, surprised by the assessnt. ilyn wasn't known for casual complints or ntorship speeches. "Is that why you brought ?"
"Part of it," she said, her eyes scanning the horizon with the practiced vigilance of soone who had survived countless battles by never assuming safety. "The other part is that I have a very bad feeling."
Which, coming from soone like ilyn, was the equivalent of being told by a dragon that they slled smoke. Not just concerning—downright apocalyptic.
"Bad feeling as in…?"
"As in we're being watched. And I wanted more of a reason to stop him."
As soon as her words dropped, so did the sky.
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