Jongarn’s chamber was similarly laid out as his father’s. A long bed dominated the room, with a closet and a chest placed against the walls. Whispering, I explained to Sigmir what Lenore suggested, and we entered the room. I was looking for hair and Sigmir was looking for something he used a lot. She knew him, so she was a lot better suited to find something that he had an emotional connection to. If that failed, we would have to take something from his father and hope that it worked, somehow. Not that that idea filled me with confidence, I was unsure whether I could find someone using a sympathetic connection at all, not to speak of isolating one out of multiple connections when using a relative’s possession.

The first thing I searched was obviously the bed. Sadly, neither the pillow nor the blanket proved useful, both were clear, apparently freshly cleaned. I heard Sigmir grumble over by the closet, she wasn’t having any luck either. Together, we moved on to the chest and searched it as well. There were some clothes, but Sigmir discarded them as new and Lenore agreed that they didn’t matter enough for a person. After all, how much emotional connection does one have to ordinary, everyday clothing. Almost none at all, it’s just something that is needed, nothing to invest any great emotional energy into. If an ordinary shirt rips, it is either fixed or discarded, but not mourned in any way, shape or form.

I was getting frustrated by the lack of progress, when Sigmir spoke up. “Have you checked the mattress?” she asked. That simple question stumped me for a moment, why check the mattress? Then, the lightbulb in my head turned on. I was used to foam-mattresses, made in a factory and more or less sealed before ever seeing their customer. Here, a mattress was mostly a pile of fur over a bag of straw.

Next, I was almost ripping the bedding and mattress apart and it took only moments for me to find quite a few short, grey hairs at the top. Showing them to Sigmir confirmed that the length and colour was right, they could very well be Jongarn’s. That was good enough for me, we couldn’t really know if the hair truly was his, but the circumstances pointed to it. Add in the fact that we were in enemy territory and a protracted search a bad idea and we took the hairs and ended our search.

The next thing was to attempt the sensing. Holding the hairs in my hands, I focused on them.

In my mind, Lenore started speaking. “Feel the hair. Envelop it with your magic. Know, that a piece of the whole is connected to the whole. Know, that the whole is in the same darkness as you are.” I had a suspicion that she was making that up as we went along, but it helped.

Despite the pain in my head, I drew on my Darkness Magic. The knowledge that we were under the same sky, in the same night and in the same darkness helped. Before, I had used a physical connection within a patch of darkness, but was that really necessary? Why would a physical connection matter with a non-physical medium? It wasn’t as if darkness was like air, a physical medium around me. Darkness was everywhere, one just had to know where to look. During the night, it was easy, especially during a moonless night, darkness was all around us, enveloping us, hiding us and comforting me.

I was feeling something. As if I was slightly pulling at something bigger, something further in the distance. The sensation originated from the hairs in my hand and stretched into the distance. I wasn’t able to get a clear reading, just a rough direction and a feeling of distance. If I had to categorise it, the direction was west, pointing somewhere between Adernas and the region we knew was occupied by the dryads of Tegi. The distance was harder to feel, just that it was not close, if I had to put a number on it, I would guess that it would be at least one day’s march to get there. So, the one we wanted to kill the most was not even in the village.

A quiet but vicious curse sprung from my lips, causing Sigmir to look at me in question. With the termination of the magic, the pain I had experienced before returned with a vengeance. Groaning in pain, I explained my discovery and she looked just as unhappy as I felt. The icing on the cake would be to get discovered in the village.

I was a little unsteady on my feet but managed to get to the front room again. But now, we had a problem. In my wobbly state, I doubted I was able to hide our tracks like I did before.

In front of the door, Adra stopped us and, with a hand of both our shoulder, started chanting softly. I was unable to make out words or anything like that, until at the end, I heard her say “...and pass without trace.”

I felt a wave of magic wash over us, and she explained, “It’s a useful spell to prevent traces. I think it’s similar to the one used by the dryads. I didn’t mention it because it takes a ton of concentration and I can only use it twice, maybe three times a night and once those are up, I’m almost comatose due to exhaustion.”

I groaned in annoyance; so now, we had two people who were largely useless. Adra needed to concentrate on her spell or we would quickly be in trouble and I was limited in my magic. Even thinking about Ice or Blood-Magic made me nauseous, the only thing that made Darkness-Magic different was the strengthening effect of my class, helping me during the moonless night. But even that would not help me much longer. I had two, maybe three magic uses in me and after them, Sigmir would have to carry me.

By that point, my mind felt as if it had been through the wringer and I was confused enough that Sigmir simply took the lead. Comprehensive thought eluded me, or I would have proposed a different plan of action.

Covered by Adra’s magic, we made our way towards the edge of the village. Not to escape, we had one more target during that raid. Taking down the shaman. The mere thought of killing the bastard that tainted my Sigmir’s soul was a balm on my mind and it drove me on, happily marching forward, despite the pain.

The building-clusters were far enough apart that we did not have to worry about being easily seen and soon, we were close to the shaman’s hut. Or rather, his building-cluster. It was not only for the shaman, his apprentices lived in the area as well, alongside a few care-takers.

Knowing that spell-casters were living here, I forced myself to check with Lenore’s vision, searching for magic traps and wards and it was good that I did so, the area around the buildings and the entryways was littered with magic. I was unable to easily detect what the various formations did but I was willing to bet that at least some of them would be bad. Probably not all, but enough of them.

“Wait for me.” I groaned to the other two and drew on my magic. My mind was focused on darkness, on concealment, as I drew the deep shadows of the night around me, pulling them closer, like a cloak. Wrapping around me, enshrouding me, keeping the world away from me and me away from the world. Around me, was a dark nothingness, the nothingness of the void, the emptiness between stars. My proprioception was going wonky, I knew the feeling from the migraines I got sometimes and the pain medication I took for them. It felt as if I was a floating head with a body attached, as if my head would fall off if I tilted it too much.

My walking turned into a shuffling or maybe floating - at that point, I was no longer lucid enough to make out the difference - only propelled forward by my will, or maybe my stubbornness.

The magic formations flowed around me, not reacting to the slightly different patch of darkness within an ocean of darkness, the one shadow amongst hundreds of shadows. Even my sense of self was starting to get a little strange in the shadows I had called.

Who was I? Morgana? Titania? Samantha? Jade? All those names, but did they really matter?

A door was before me. To keep me out? But why would it stop me? There was a crack under the door, a small crack, but filled with shadow. I was shadow, wasn’t I?

I was here… Why was I here again? Sigmir. I remembered that name. My Sigmir. Someone had sullied her soul. I was here because of that. Where was the defiler? There was a cawing in my head, why was someone cawing in my head? No, find the defiler. I felt a trace of miasma, coming from one of the doorways. It tasted similar to the parasite that had latched onto my Sigmir’s soul.

That had to be the right way. Within the room, a figure was standing, back to the entrance and in deep concentration, concentration on something in front of him. Magic Circle? I had seen something similar, hadn’t I used something similar? Within the circle, a strange thing was standing, bound by shackles of magic, of blood and stone, of ritual and tradition.

The shaman was making noises, speaking to it. He was the defiler. He would die. In my hands, there were two blades. Sharp, cold blades. But what were hands? No matter, I had the tools to do what I was here to do.

One blade pierced into his kidney, the other was placed further up, stabbing into his chest, hunting for the heart. A piercing scream. The thing in the circle was making strange noises, undefinable. It felt hungry. Maybe I should feed it. Pulling the blades out, I gave the defiler a shoving kick, not hard, just to make him move forward. Into the circle. The thing within made happy noises, maybe it would be sated soon.

I had done what I was here to do. Now what, who was I and what did I have to do now? Did it matter? Why had I been here in the first place? My Sigmir. Her soul had been sullied. Revenge had been meted out.

My Sigmir, where was she? I felt her, nearby. The scent of her body, the taste of her lips. There she was. In the shadow. So close to me.

I was a shadow, so I was next to her. But a shadow could not hug her? To hug her, the shadows need to be gone. Pushing them away. Hard.

Suddenly, I was falling...