I want to hate her.
I do hate her.
We followed the lights to find her, through a city that was old and buried. Gemstones in the walls, I think, that held the light of torches and reflected it back. Then, when there were no more lights, we followed the carnage. Whatever creatures she found down there were not friendly. There were dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe, and so many of them were dead. When we finally caught up to Eska. She had a Chronomancy Source. By the moons, where did she get a Chronomancy Source? I should have let her die. But I didn't. And then someone else was there. I felt so helpless as the knife cut.
I didn't die.
I should have died, but I felt something. I felt the warm touch of Biomancy stemming the blood and healing my wound. I don't know how. I haven't so much as tasted a Biomancy Source since the fall of Orran. Yet I could feel it working within me. I guess such lengthy exposure to the magic has made it seep into my flesh. I've never heard of anything like it but...
I didn't die.
I saw those monsters, the ones from the city. After Eska left me, I could barely move. I saw them come and drag away the bodies. They're still alive down there. Monsters so close to the Pit. I have to tell the overseer. He must know.
Horralain found me. I guess Deko had sent him and some others. Horralain went on, following after Eska, but he told the others to drag me back to the Pit.
And here I am. No one has been to see me in days, except for the guard who feeds me the porridge. The overseer left me these papers, my only way of communicating. My only voice. I don't think the guard can read. I grunted at her and she just shook her head. I have to be useful to the overseer. I must give him what he wants. Maybe if I do, he'll send me to find Eska again.
I know you'll never read this, Eska, but you've taken my voice from me so I have no other way to tell my story.
I'm sorry.
I didn't die.
Chapter 4
I stopped keeping track of the time we spent in the Forest of Ten, but Tamura counted the days and remembered, despite his addled memory. I once asked him exactly how many days he had spent down in the Pit and he replied instantly with seven thousand one hundred and eleven. Half a lifetime spent underground; no wonder he can remember so little. For two months we moved through the forest, making a new camp every day, Tamura hunting and scavenging to feed us. I ate a lot during those months, though thankfully not a single shroom, and the flesh burned away by Chronomancy quickly returned to me. The years I had lost, however, did not.
Each morning I would wake, force down some cold meat or berries from the night before, and set about training with Hardt. It was tough going at the start and I would like to say it got easier, but that would be a damned lie. With the big Terrelan as a teacher no matter how much I improved, I was always a lifetime away from his equal. At first much of the training was designed to make me stronger. Hardt claimed there was no sense in teaching me how to punch unless I could make my target feel it. I remember bristling at that, but I was skin and bone since leaving the Pit, and even before that I had never been strong of arm. I've always been something of a slight woman and I relied on magic, wit, and guile. Regardless, a well thrown punch can hurt, no matter how small the thrower.
I was exhausted every day by the time we broke camp and started walking. I say walking, for me it was very much trudging. Hardt stayed beside me. He was always there in case I ever needed him though he never offered me help I didn't ask for. I carried everything we owned every day that we were in that forest to improve my strength and stamina. Admittedly, we didn't own much and what we did was worth nothing, at least except for the Sources, but I carried it all the same. Tamura ranged ahead and around. He couldn't tell us how he knew about forests and tracking and hunting, but the skills were there even if the memories were not. Every day he found some fruit or berries or some small animal to cook. There is much to be said about the bounties of a forest; three people can live off it indefinitely if they know how.
My evenings were given over to Tamura and they were even more frustrating than the mornings. By campfire light he would instruct me in the basics of whatever martial art he practised. The basics included, for the most part, learning to fucking breathe. I was fairly certain I had the art of breathing figured out, having been doing it all my life, and, in fact, having been tutored on it previously by tutor Bell at the academy. Tamura was not impressed with the academy teachings. I cannot blame the old man. I have learned much since leaving the academy and a lot of what I have learned shows their teachings for lies, half-truths, or the ignorant babbling of fools. Still, at the time I was sure of myself. I spent almost as much time complaining, as I did learning the new method of breathing.
For the first week all I did was sit and breathe. It was bloody frustrating. I had set my mind on learning the old man's mysterious arts, and instead I was sitting still and doing nothing. I may have unnaturally aged a decade, but I still had the foolishness and impatience of youth about me. It didn't help that the forced meditation gave me a lot of time to think, and that was something I was actively trying to avoid. More than once, my breathing turned to sobs as grief snuck up on me. It does that, lies in wait for a quiet moment, and before you know what's happening you are feeling utter loss. Remorse for the things taken from you, taken from the world. The second week Tamura had me maintaining my breathing while holding various positions, none of which seemed likely to help me disarm a foe or break any limbs. What can I say other than, it was a slow process.
The snow soon melted away and the forest went from powdery white to damp green and brown. It was beautiful, and there were many times during my breathing exercises I found myself drifting off and remembering Keshin, the forest village where I was born. The snow barely touched us there, despite how cold it could get in the winter. It is odd but no matter how many places I have called home, and no matter how long I have called them such, it is still the forests that make me feel most at ease. I sometimes wonder if I would have led a happier life had I called off my quest for vengeance and settled down amidst the trees. Perhaps taken up basket weaving like my mother before me. But I could no more give up my quest than Tamura could give up his crazy. It was set in me, branded onto my soul. Back then I had nothing else to drive me, only my need to see my enemies as broken as I felt. As broken as they had left me. Grief and self-pity often go hand in hand. That's one more reason I run from my grief; pity does not suit me.
At night Ssserakis flooded my mind with nightmares. Sometimes they were visions of creatures from the Other World, sometimes they were memories of the things I had done and seen. Sometimes they were visions of a home in flames, and friends in pain. I lost track of the number of times I watched Keshin burn. Each night I would wake in a sweat, despite the cold, and each night I would see a ghost in the darkness, just beyond the reach of the firelight. More often than not, it was Isen, but sometimes it was others, those from the Pit whose names I couldn't even remember. Ssserakis only ever visited me with the faces of the dead. I thought the horror was just trying to scare me; it fed off fear, and down in the Pit it had grown fat, but in the Forest of Ten there was nothing to be afraid of. I imagined it was starving, and only by inspiring fear in its host could it survive. There was much more to it though. More I didn't yet know.