“Ionat!”

Something grabbed me, and my body reacted before my mind was fully awake. My right hand lashed out, slamming into something hard but yielding, and the grip fell away from me. My left hand snatched the lomoraji’s knife from the sheath at my hip – mine was blackened and warped from the fire I’d poured into the leurik’s skull, so I’d had to replace it. I swarmed forward, grabbing the figure standing above me as it fell back from my blow. My right leg hooked behind their left, tripping them, and I landed atop them, my knife pressed to their throat.

A loud bark rang through the room, startling my mind to full wakefulness, and I saw Vikarik crouched before me, her head low and her teeth bared in a clear threat. I looked down and realized that I was laying on top of Renica, my blade pressed to her throat and my hand gripping her shirt. Her eyes peered widely at me in surprise and fear, and she held her hands out to the side, clearly trying to remain as unthreatening as possible.

I quickly let her go and scrambled back. “Sorry about that,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes and stifling a yawn. “You startled me.”

“Apparently,” she said, sitting up slowly. “It’s okay, girl,” she told Vikarik soothingly. “Ionat’s just a bit scary when he’s frightened, that’s all.”

I rose to my feet, then offered her a hand up that she accepted after a long moment of staring at it. “How’re you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m okay.” She rubbed the back of her head, which she’d probably just banged on the ground, and winced. “Well, mostly. My shoulder’s killing me, and I don’t remember anything after the leurik charged us and took you down.” She looked over at the now-cool corpse of the huge beast. “Sort of looks like you returned the favor.”

“Sort of,” I agreed.

She walked over to the altar and looked at the naked corpse of the lomoraji, then turned to me, her eyebrows raised expressively. “Looks like I missed a lot,” she said.

“It was quite the party,” I laughed, stretching as I did. After I’d finished searching the room, I went up top and found my war axe, still laying where I’d dropped it when the leurik attacked me, along with Renica’s oversized crossbow. Then, I’d sat down with my back to the wall to read over Florin’s book in a bit more detail. I must have dozed off while reading it, but to be fair, the book was pretty dry, and it had been a long day.

“Tell me about it while I skin this thing,” she pointed to the leurik, walking over to stand beside it. “Its hide is extremely valuable, and people use its claws and teeth for tools.” She examined the thing’s mouth and gave me a critical look. “Although it looks like these teeth are all cracked. That’s not going to be very useful.”

I shrugged. “If I hadn’t burned its mouth, its roar would have paralyzed me. Lesser of two evils, I’d say.”

“This has got to be quite the story,” she chuckled. “Go on. I’m listening.”

I told her more or less everything that had happened while she cut into the leurik. I didn’t leave out anything except the sense of imbalance the ritual gave me and what it all meant for my greater mission. She nodded as I explained how this place was a hot spot of sorts for bestial magic, how the lunar mage used it to tame the leurik, and how his ritual was what destabilized the forest. When I got to how he thought she would be a perfect sacrifice, though, she looked at me through narrowed eyes.

“Why would he think that?” she asked suspiciously.

I considered making up a lie, but the fact was, if I were Renica, I’d have wanted to know what he said about me. “According to the lomoraji – and this is just according to him, mind you – it’s because…” I hesitated. “Because you’re moon-touched, Renica.”

“That’s absurd!” she snapped, flinging down her knife and rising to her feet, her hands amazingly gore-free considering what she was doing, which at that moment was cutting off slabs of the creature’s flesh and packing them to carry back to the village. I guessed that leurik meat was valuable, too.

“I’m just telling you what he said,” I replied, looking her right in the eye as I spoke. “According to him, you have a gift for bestial magic, but I have no idea if he was telling the truth – or even if he knew what he was talking about.”

“He obviously doesn’t,” she spat. “Or didn’t, whatever. I’m not cursed, Ionat!”

“I never said you were,” I agreed, then hesitated. “Although – it does sort of make sense, really.”

“What?” she took a step toward me, and I sensed a faint tendril of brown energy surge out from her to her cairnik. As the canine felt the touch of the wisp of energy, Vikarik rose to her feet with a growl. “What do you mean, it makes sense?” Renica demanded.

I stood my ground, looking at her directly and staying calm. “Well, the lomoraji guessed that you’d always been drawn to the forest and the animals,” I said.

“Of course, I am! I’m the village’s hunter! It wouldn’t be hard to guess that!”

“I don’t think he knew that you were a hunter, Renica. Or maybe he did, and he just used that to make a predication, I don’t know. He also said that the village would have felt uncomfortable for you, especially the people in it. Something to do with the Sun’s Peace.”

She froze, staring at me, then shook her head. “No. I just – I like to be alone, that’s all.”

“Maybe.” I looked over at Vikarik. “What about her?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“Well, if the lomoraji’s right, then you used the ambient bestial magic in the forest to tame Vikarik in the first place.”

She shook her head. “I just found her young and trained her well,” she said.

“Has anyone else tried to do the same thing since then?” I asked. “It seems like having tame cairnik guards in the village would be useful, after all.”

Her face went slightly pale. “They – they just don’t have the bond that she and I do,” she protested. “Plus, Vikarik is special!”

I considered explaining that I’d just seen her use bestial magic to summon Vikarik, but Renica was already getting worked up, and I didn’t need her deciding to abandon me – or to sic the dog on me. She wasn’t the first person I’d met who didn’t want to hear something that was true but unpleasant. Hell, I’d been guilty of that myself plenty of times over the years.

“It’s the Heart, John,” Sara said quietly.

“What?”

“The Heart is full of bestial energy, and bestial energy stirs up strong emotions, especially negative ones. Once she’s out in the sunlight, she might think more clearly.”

“You might be right,” I finally told her, shrugging and holding up my hands. “I’m not exactly an expert, here.”

“I am,” she insisted. “If I was – if I had been – the Sorvaraji tested me!” Her eyes flashed. “She said I had the potential to use solar magic, Ionat! Don’t you think she’d have realized if I was – what he said?”

I nodded, but in all honesty, I had a feeling that Viora realized exactly that and had tried to train Renica hoping to keep the hunter from using moon magic. Either it didn’t work, or Renica really was just gifted at bestial magic to the point that solar magic wasn’t suitable for her. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Viora would tell the girl, either; how did you tell someone they could use a power that you considered evil and that drove its wielders insane?

She turned back to the leurik after a moment, and I gave her a couple minutes to calm down before finishing the story. When I told her about the tattoo, she stopped what she was doing and walked over to examine it curiously.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she admitted. “Of course, I’ve never left the Darkwood, so that might not be saying much.” She looked at me seriously. “You should ask Vasily about it. He’d probably know.”

“He might, but he might not tell me,” I pointed out.

She snorted. “After this? If he doesn’t, I might have Vikarik bite him a few times to straighten him out.” I sensed another flicker of bestial energy pass between the girl and canine, and Vikarik wagged her tail happily. I refrained from shaking my head; Renica would realize things in her own time.

Renica finished cleaning the leurik corpse, and we dragged the remains of the creature and mage out into the open to dump them in the lake, where hopefully they wouldn’t attract more predators. We exited the tunnel into fresh but icy air, and Renica turned to examine it. The tunnel’s mouth was hidden behind a rocky protrusion and obscured by several trees, and she shook her head in amazement.

“I never knew this was here, Ionat,” she admitted. “All these years, three visits to this island – and I never had a clue that there was a Moon Altar here.”

“It’s not exactly easy to find,” I pointed out. “Between the fog and the camouflage, you’d pretty much have to know it’s here to spot it. I’m having trouble making out the entrance, and I know where it is.”

“Me, too,” she agreed. She sighed heavily. “When I report this to the Sorvaraji – she’ll have the Vanatori come destroy it.” Her voice sounded faintly regretful.

“So, don’t tell her,” I shrugged.

She looked sharply at me. “What?”

“Don’t tell her. Keep it to yourself.” I laughed. “Hell, this can be your hideaway when the village gets too much for you and you want to spend a couple days out hunting. Vikarik likes it.” I pointed to the cairnik, who kept looking back toward the tunnel and whining slightly.

She nodded slowly. “Maybe – maybe I just don’t have to say anything right away.” She sighed. “I can think about it when we head back.” She looked at me. “Do you want to wait for moonrise?”

I shook my head. “Hopefully, the forest will be returning to normal now, and I’d honestly like to find out what Vasily will tell me about that tattoo as soon as possible so I can move on.”

She nodded. “I can guide you to Nadmeva, the village to the north of us and the closest to the edge of the Darkwood,” she said. “From there, you can get someone to take you Panja, on the Sparkling River, the closest real town.”

“Sounds good.”

The frigid air about the Heart numbed my fingers, ears, and nose, even with the sun in the sky, and the clinging fog obscured the blazing orb overhead. We sloshed through the water covering the hidden walkway, the stones still totally invisible beneath the water’s surface even in the sunlight, and Renica led us back to the path that wound away from the Heart. She hesitated at the edge of the trees, looking back toward the lake. Her face grew wistful for a moment before she turned her back on the Darkwood Heart and led us into the forest.

We moved a bit slower in the daylight than we had at night, but the sun-dappled forest was much more pleasant – at least, it was once we got clear of the Heart and its biting cold. We traveled until the sun was close to setting, when Renica found a sheltered grove that she judged was a serviceable campsite. I set up the tents while she dug the firepit and started cooking some of the leurik meat. After a short while, we sat at the fire, watching the sky fill with silvery moonlight and tearing pieces of almost pungent meat off to eat.

I glanced up as Moarte, the silver moon, drifted into the sky, examining it closely. “Is it just me, or does it look a little smaller?” I asked almost rhetorically.

“Yeah, maybe one more night of it,” Renica sighed, wincing as another of the hungering screamed in the distance. “You know that means we lost a day, right?”

“A day?” I echoed.

She nodded. “There should be two more days of the close moon. If there’s only one – then we lost a day.”

I winced. I hadn’t realized I’d been out for a full day; although, if I’d been injured as badly as the lomoraji said, I supposed I should have known I’d slept for longer than a few hours to be fully healed. “Will the village be worried that you’re gone so long?”

She shook her head. “If we make good time and travel through half the night, we can make it back just before moonrise tomorrow, which is about when they would expect me.”

“Glad to hear it,” I nodded, taking another bite of the tough but heavily flavored meat.

We sat in silence for a while before Renica broke the awkward stillness. “Ionat, that lomoraji – do you believe what he said?” she asked.

“What, about the moons once being one?”

She shook her head. “No, idiot, about me! Do you think he’s right?”

I looked at her quietly for a few moments. Her muscles practically screamed with tension; she had hard, fine lines around her eyes, and her lips pressed thinly together. Her fingers moved restlessly, probably without her thought, and her entire body radiated stress.

“Do you want me to tell you the truth?” I asked quietly. “Or would you rather I make up a comforting lie?”

“What?” she asked, her eyes widening.

I shrugged. “The truth can be a pretty hard thing to deal with, Renica. I wouldn’t blame you if you preferred to ignore it.” I looked at her and smiled. “Personally, I think the woman who came with me to face a lomoraji and stayed, even knowing that we might be attacked by a leurik can probably handle facing a little thing like the truth. However, it’s not my life, and I won’t judge you either way.”

She looked down at the ground, picking up a stick and poking it absently at the fire, even though there was nothing in the pit to really move around. “I want you to lie to me,” she said so softly that I could barely hear it. “But – I need to hear the truth.”

I nodded and set my food down. “Okay. The truth is, I don’t just think he’s right, I know that he is. You can use bestial magic – in fact, you use it all the time.” I grimaced. “You’re using it right now and don’t even know it.”

“What?” she started, sitting up straight and leaning back from me. “What do you mean – how could you know something like that?”

“One of my talents is that I can see magic,” I sighed. “Well, not see, exactly. It’s hard to explain, but whenever there’s magical energy around, it looks like a sort of mist in my mind. It’s part of how I picked up that spell so quickly, I think. I can see the solar energy swirling around me and direct it pretty easily.” I looked around. “Right now, the whole world is covered in a silver fog. I can see through it just fine, but it’s there in my head nonetheless.”

She stared at me, her eyes wide. “Does – does the Sorvaraji know?”

“No clue,” I shrugged. “For all I know, it’s something anyone who can use magic can do. Maybe she can see magic the same way, or maybe she can sense it but in a different fashion.”

I leaned toward her. “The point is, I can see bestial magic, Renica. The air in the Heart was thick with it, so thick I could practically taste it. And every so often, I see a little wisp of it fly from you to Vikarik – usually when you want her to do something, or when you’re feeling strongly about something.”

“What?” she repeated, staring at the canine. “What do you mean? I’m not doing…” Her sentence trailed off, and I saw her eyes go wide. I nodded as I realized that she understood.

“Something I did learn from Viora’s book is that everyone can use magic,” I prevaricated slightly. “In fact, everyone does use it without realizing it, all the time. Whenever you greet someone with ‘Sun’s Peace’ or ‘Moon’s Truce’, you’re actually using magic. Whenever the people do the Highsun devotion, they’re using magic. People use it in small ways without realizing it almost constantly.”

I gestured toward Vikarik. “You do the same thing. When you want Vikarik to do something, you send a little bit of magic her way, and she does it. I can see the little trace of it passing between you.”

“You mean…” Her face looked stricken. “Have I been controlling her? Enslaving her?”

“That would take way more power than she’s using, John,” Sara informed me.

“I don’t think it’s anything that strong,” I said reassuringly. “I think you’re just giving her an idea of what you want, and she does it to make you happy.” I lifted my chin toward the cairnik, who lay on the ground, her chin between her paws, looking tired and unhappy. “Right now, you’re telling her that you’re worried and upset, so she is, too.”

“It’s okay, girl,” Renica reached out and hugged the huge dog, whose tail thumped happily on the ground. “I’m fine. Or I will be.” She sighed. “I think. When the Sorvaraji finds out, though, I might have to hide in the Heart after all.”

I shook my head. “I’d bet my axe against your knife that she knows, Renica.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her face startled and wary again.

I shrugged. “How could she not? She’s known you your whole life, and if I can sense the magic you’re using, do you think she can’t? In fact, I’ll bet it’s why she chose to train you: she knew that you had magical talent, and she was hoping to turn it toward solar magic instead of bestial. I’m guessing that you’re just too talented or attuned toward moon magic for it to have worked.”

She frowned, and I saw her eyes go distant. “That – makes sense, really, Ionat. I mean, she seemed almost desperate for me to learn, but the solar magic…” She shuddered. “It felt too – intense, I guess. Too hot, like using it would burn me. It just seemed – wrong.”

I nodded. “Again, I’m no expert, but that’s probably because you’re just really attuned toward bestial magic.

She sighed and hung her head. “I – I think you’re right. I’m – I’m a lomoraji.” Her eyes gleamed, and I saw a tear roll down her cheek. “Ionat, do you know what this means? I’m an outcast, now! I can never return to Borava; I have to hide…” She paused, and her eyes grew wide. “I’m going to go insane!” she whispered softly.

I couldn’t help it; I had to laugh. She looked startled for a moment, then her expression turned to irritation and finally to anger. “Is my coming madness amusing to you?”

“No, but your drama is,” I chortled. I caught my breath and leaned toward her. “Renica, you’ve probably been doing this your whole life without knowing it. Now that you know, do you suddenly feel the need to run off and learn bestial magic spells?”

“Well, no, but…”

“Of course not. You’re still you, you just know yourself a little better.” I shook my head. “If everyone in the world uses magic naturally, you can’t be the only one who uses moon magic without realizing it. If it was somehow addictive – using a little made you want to use more and eventually drove you insane – I would think that crazy lomoraji would be running all over the place, with more of them appearing daily.

“If you don’t want to be a lomoraji – don’t. Don’t look for instruction. Don’t experiment with the power, trying to figure out how it works. Don’t try to cast spells. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to do it, right?”

Her face shifted from angry to thoughtful, and she nodded slowly. “That’s – that’s true,” she admitted. “I mean, I know how to cook, but I don’t have to be one of the food preparers for the village. I probably could be one, but I don’t have to if I don’t want to.”

“Exactly. It’s the same thing. Just choose not to do it, and you can live out your life normally – both you and Vikarik.”

She looked down at the dog and smiled, then took a deep breath. “Thanks, Ionat,” she said after a moment. “And – I’m sorry for the way I acted in the Heart. When you told me what the lomoraji said, I was terrified and furious at the same time, terrified that it was true and furious that you made me think that.

“But it wasn’t your fault. You were just being honest with me.” She gave me a crooked smile. “For a really scary guy, you’re a pretty decent friend, you know.”

“I guess I should say thanks?” I laughed.

“You should. I don’t have many friends.” She made a face. “Or really any except Vikarik. I love the villagers, and I’d do anything for them, but – there’s always been something that’s made me hold them at arm’s length. Now I know what that is.”

“Maybe knowing will help,” I suggested.

“Maybe.” She looked up at the sky. “You know, I’m not really tired, and you don’t look it, either. From what you said, we were both out for a whole day. It doesn’t make any sense to just sit here when we could be spending the night productively.”

“Renica, are you propositioning me?” I grinned. I honestly couldn’t help it; it just sort of slipped out.

She responded with an eye roll. “We just had a moment, Ionat. Don’t ruin it.” She chuckled, and I laughed along with her. “Seriously, the hungering aren’t any danger to us, so there’s no real reason for us to camp here. I think we should just keep traveling.”

“And waste all the time I spent putting up the tents?” I asked with mock disbelief. “How dare you?”

“You needed the practice anyway. Old Ferka could have done it faster, and he’s so ancient he can barely walk anymore.”

“Maybe next time, you can put up the tents, then, and I’ll make dinner,” I suggested. “It’ll be burnt on the outside and raw on the inside, but the tents will be up quicker, so it’s worth it, right?”

“No, I’m fine with cooking,” she chuckled, rising to her feet. “Come on, it’s a long way back to Borava, and then we have to get you to Nadmeva.” She looked at me hesitantly. “Ionat, about what Vasily did – I’m sorry that it happened.”

“It’s fine,” I shook my head, also standing. “It’s probably for the best, actually. I needed to be moving on, anyway.”

“Some things are just wrong,” she said firmly. “That was one of them. You saved us from the hungering; you stopped Emilina when I don’t think the rest of us could have. You ran into the forest and fought the hungering alone to give us time to build defenses. What Vasily did was poor repayment for all that.”

I didn’t argue since I privately agreed with her. “Well, it’s done, and there’s nothing much to be done about it.”

“Vasily could offer to restore the Sun’s Peace to you,” she suggested.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t accept,” I said firmly. I glanced at her and saw her slightly stricken face, and I sighed. “Look, Renica, Borava is a fine place. It is, and I don’t have anything against it or the people in it, but I have other places I need to be and things I need to do that are likely far from this forest. I can’t stay here, so there’s no point in tying myself to the village again.”

She nodded a bit glumly, and we dismantled the camp in silence. The night passed quickly, the forest creatures still hiding from the hungering and the hungering held back by my turning. Now that I’d taken the Etfelyen profession and had See Magic as an actual ability, I easily made out the glowing orange and silver strands of the shield I’d woven to drive the creatures off.

Even better, I could see what I’d done and realized how the spell worked. The orange-red solar magic targeted the monsters’ hunger, shattering it when they got too close. Without that hunger, the undead lost their urgent need to attack, making the grayish bands of death magic woven throughout the spell were strong enough to hold them at bay. The solar magic alone wouldn’t have kept the creatures out, and the death magic alone wouldn’t have had the power necessary to keep them at bay in their mindless hunger. Only the two magics melded together were strong enough to turn the creatures in a lasting way.

We stopped at sunrise for some food, then continued on. We chatted a bit as we walked beneath the sun, no longer chilled by the screams of the hungering or worried that any noise might draw their attention. As the day passed, though, Renica grew increasingly uncomfortable, twitching and shifting about, constantly glancing around, and starting at odd noises.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked. “Renica, are you still worried about how Viora and Vasily will react to what you found out? I told you, they probably both know already.”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “Something’s – wrong. I don’t know what, but I feel like something terrible is about to happen.” She looked around at the forest and shivered. “Like there’s something waiting to pounce on us at any second.”

I glanced around at the trees, but I couldn’t sense anything amiss, either with my normal or magical senses. Still, Renica knew the forest far better than I did. If she said there was something dangerous about, there probably was. I hefted my war axe and took a step away from her, giving myself some space to use it.

“How far to the village?” I asked quietly.

“A couple hours, no more,” she said. “We should reach it well before moonrise.”

“Okay, let’s keep going then – but quietly. Hopefully, when we get closer to the village, whatever you’re sensing will go away.”

As we traveled, though, Renica’s fidgeting grew more pronounced. She jumped at any sound, and her hands gripped her crossbow so tightly her knuckles turned white. I saw the outline of her clenched jaw muscles, and her eyes shifted about almost frantically.

“Something’s wrong,” she muttered darkly. “Something’s really wrong, Ionat.”

We entered a clearing, and we both froze, staring at the sky overhead. A thick plume of smoke swirled up into the air ahead of us, curling and twisting in the winds above the forest. The smoke was dark and far too concentrated to be a forest fire. My heart sank as I realized what I was seeing.

“Renica, is that the direction of the village?” I asked quietly.

She nodded, her face white, and without a word, we both took off at a run. She was correct; something was wrong, and that something wasn’t in the forest. The village of Barova was burning.