They’d camped without a fire once they’d found a field full of shrubs to offer some cover. The mercenaries may have retreated, but no one wanted to sleep in the open sand.

Dia woke them one-by-one, quietly. By the time she rustled Elrick awake, everyone else but Elise was standing up yawning and stretching.

Elrick looked up and saw only the slightest hint of the sun on the horizon opposite the mountains. The otherwise black sky was the faintest hint of purple.

“Why are we waking up so early?” Elrick asked, not standing up.

Dia kicked him, and he jumped awake.

“Take off your shirt,” Dia hissed.

She moved over toward Elise and shook her awake.

Durka and Jocha had already taken off their shirts, but were looking around in confusion. They clearly didn’t know why they’d taken their shirts off.

“What’s with Yaraka?” Elrick asked. “She still hasn’t woken up?”

Elise, who looked extra grouchy from just being woken up, shook her head. “I gave her another dose to keep her down. I’m not ready to deal with her yet.”

“Is that going to hurt her?”

“No, not unless it were for a very long time. She won’t be able to eat, but I’ve been giving her water...speaking of.”

“Take off your shirt,” Dia snapped at her, and then she glared at Elrick.

Elrick took his shirt off. He was tired of women being mad at him, and he never would really complain about a woman telling him to take his shirt off, especially now that he had some big muscles.

“I’m not taking off my shirt,” Elise said flatly.

Dia pulled her shirt off. Elrick’s eyes widened as her breasts—which looked way better than he could have imagined they would—popped right out. If only the sun had come out, he would have really been able to see them in full, glorious detail.

She turned her back to him almost immediately though, and he wouldn’t have been able to get another look without doing anything super obvious.

“Then you get no water,” Dia said, wrapping her shirt around her waist so that it hung down along her leg. “Wrap your undershirts around like this,” she said, speaking louder so everyone could hear, “and walk through as much of the shrubs as you can. Your shirts will collect the dew. Drink as much as you can. It will all be gone within an hour of the sun rising. Once you’ve had enough, everyone can give some to the mage.”

She looked down toward Yaraka and frowned. Elrick got the impression Dia would have preferred if they’d never risked bringing Yaraka with them.

Elrick, Durka, and Yocha all wrapped their shirts around like Dia had.

Yocha came up beside Elrick, “I’m thinking maybe I should have taken my chances with the guild. Too many women are in charge here.”

Elise glared at him, because Yocha never knew when to lower his voice.

Elrick elbowed him and gave him a look.

“You’re not going to take your shirt off, sweetheart?” Yocha said to Elise, winking at her.

“Fuck off,” she said, “not with Elrick nearby.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Yocha laughed. “I’ve never seen your eyes go so wide as when Dia took off her shirt! They’re just boobs, man, haven’t you seen ‘em before?”

“I have,” Elrick grunted. “If you don’t want to Elise, I can give you some water.”

“I will not drink water out of your filthy shirt,” she said, turning around.

With her back to him, she took off her shirt and walked into the shrubs.

“Damn,” Yocha said, “I was hoping we’d get a look.”

Durka glared at Yocha. “Do not disrespect her. She is much stronger than you.”

“I’d let her go on top,” Yocha said, “as long as—”

Durka lunged at Yocha, but he managed to step back enough to dodge the punch. When they came at each other again, Elrick managed to get between the two of them, holding his hands out.

“Come on,” Elrick said, “let’s just get the water. There are too few of us left to fight each other.”

Durka looked ready to back off, but Yocha tensed, and Elrick had to hold him tight to keep him back.

Elrick whispered into his ear, “Elise will not be in charge for long, not unless I have to keep babysitting you that is.”

Yocha turned his anger on Elrick, but it was enough to stop the fight, as Durka was already walking off into the shrubs.

“What are you planning?” Yocha asked, whispering for once.

“It’s nothing personal against Elise.”

“You don’t have to defend her to me!”

“Lower your voice, idiot, your voice can go lower, can’t it? I don’t think Elise has a good plan from here. She’s tunnel-visioned on getting back to Rakote, and then to Antium. She’s not seeing what we have here.”

Yocha looked out over the shrubs. “What is that? Free water that we have to drink out of our fucking shirts? Some free peeks at some boobs? I’m not seeing much upside here, Elrick.”

“We’ve got those mountains,” Elrick said. “We’ve got ingots. We can turn this into our territory. We build a forge, and then you and I can mine and make armor and weapons out of the slippery bronze. We recruit Kalhu from the desert. We can raid the river—”

“You want to attack the river? Like fucking dune rats?”

“You already chose your side, Yocha. You might want to stop calling them that.”

He grumbled and stomped off into the shrubs. Elrick went in shortly after, but he kept a wide distance from anyone else. Partly because he wanted to hit shrubs that hadn’t been harvested yet, but mostly because he was tired of talking to people.

* * *

They were about a half-day from the mountain range when Yaruka started groaning.

“I think we need to do something,” Elrick said.

She was slowing them down, but more than that, she was looking worse and worse by the day. Her lips were cracked no matter how much water they squeezed down her mouth, and she was moving around a lot more than usual, even though Elise was giving her the same dosage as before.

Elise reached into her pouch, but Elrick put a hand on her wrist and shook his head. “We need to deal with this now.”

“We could kill her,” Dia suggested.

He’d always associated girls that had bangs like Dia to be sweet and nice. That was probably just a stupid impression from Elrick as a dumb kid, but it was an impression that stuck. Seeing Dia—who he had suddenly realized was very, very hot—being so ruthless somehow made her even more hot. He’d really blown the opportunity to comfort her right after the battle.

“Then who will train you?” Elise hissed.

“Yaraka is a nice lady,” Yocha said, “she’s always done good by me. I won’t let you touch her, dune rat.”

“This nice lady could vaporize all of us,” Dia said. “I wouldn’t take it personally either, even if she did. If our positions were swapped, I wouldn’t begrudge Yaraka for killing me.”

“Everyone get behind a chest,” Elrick said. “Make sure the chest is between yourself and Yaraka.”

Everyone looked at each other, wondering what he was planning. Elise scoffed and pulled out a potion. “We’ll deal with her after we have shelter.”

Elrick still had hold of Elise’s wrist, and he squeezed tighter. He looked her in the eye, trying to give a sympathetic look. They’d been through a lot together, and even if she didn’t want to admit it, and even though he did get her killed eventually, he had rescued her from the Alchemist’s tower back in Antia. He hoped that would buy him some extra goodwill.

“Elise,” he said, “do you have anything that will, like, jolt her awake?”

“I do,” she said, “but why would we do that?”

“If we’re never going to wake her up, we might as well kill her.”

It was more of a bluff than a real suggestion. He was forcing the issue, and he knew that Elise wanted Yaraka alive.

“Whether we wake her now or after we have shelter, it’s going to be the same outcome,” Elrick said, “except she’s looking worse and worse the longer we keep her under. She might hold that against us if we wait too long.”

Elise slipped the potion back into her pouch and removed another one. “Dia, Espa, ready your bows. Jocha and Durka, I want you behind those chests, but in spear range.”

She handed the potion to Elrick. It was a crimson color. “This will wake her up immediately. You better know what you are doing.”

The others crowded behind the chests, which they arranged in a semi-circle around Yaraka. Elrick didn’t bother keeping a chest of slippery bronze between himself and Yaraka. He wanted her to see that he trusted her—or at least that he wasn’t afraid of her. Waking up and seeing a bunch of weapons pointed at her, and people hiding behind chests of slippery ingots was likely to make her uneasy. He wasn’t sure how much seeing one person unarmed and unafraid of her would do, but he had to hope it would count for something.

He lowered himself down onto his knees in front of Yaraka. She was still covered in the slippery bronze net. He wanted to remove it, but he knew he’d never win that argument, probably not even with Jocha.

They’d discussed this earlier, that Yaraka had no spellbook or ore to work with. Elise had said that strong mages didn’t necessarily even need their spellbooks, and that a Red Mage could do plenty of damage with sand alone.

He uncorked the bottle and held it over Yaraka’s mouth. He was used to giving liquids to her ever since that first morning in the desert, and it felt routine enough as the first drop of the potion fell onto her tongue.

Then she jolted awake, her eyes were wide and furious, and the last thing Elrick had expected was that Yaraka would reach out and grab his throat with both hands.

“Don’t shoot!” Elrick croaked, struggling to get air through his windpipe.

He was afraid Dia and Espa were going to fire, but if they hadn’t yet done it, they likely weren’t going to. Not unless Yaraka used magic.

Elrick flexed the muscles in his neck. “Yar-aka,” he hissed, in two labored syllables.

She let pressure off his throat. Just a little bit, but enough that he could speak.

“They took you hostage,” he said, “instead of killing you.”

Her eyes were wild, and when she tried to speak, only a hoarse croak escaped.

“Get her water,” Elrick wheezed.

Jocha came forward, offering her his waterskin. Her eyes flickered with recognition when she saw Jocha, then she looked back at Elrick.

She snatched the skin from Jocha and chugged. Jocha frowned, because it had taken him all morning to collect that much water from the dew-covered shrubs.

Yaraka coughed, then let go of Elrick’s throat. “They’re holding us hostage?”

“Well,” Elrick said, “we’re kind of on their side now.”

“Who is we? Who are you to speak for me?”

“I know that you were kind of being held hostage by the guild—”

“They paid my guild a very high sum if I was merely a hostage.”

“Right,” Elrick said cautiously, “but you were still a hostage. You were being rented off by your guild to mine, like some piece of property. How much of that money did you get? Not your guild.”

She narrowed his eyes at him. “I was given enough compensation.”

“Says who,” Jocha said.

Elrick looked back at him with an admonishing glare. They’d agreed ahead of time that Elrick would do the talking, but he had to admit that Jocha had more history with Yaraka than he did.

Jocha sauntered back and kicked his chest. It popped open, and the slippery bronze shimmered in the desert sun.

“You robbed the guild?” Yaraka asked, eyes widening.

Jocha nodded. “Think how much this is worth.”

“I can never be free,” Yaraka said, “I’m a Red Mage.”

She’d just said she could never be free, but Elrick heard a glimmer of hope in her voice.

He was still on his knees so that he’d be level with her, but he scooted ever so slightly closer to her. He locked eyes with her. She was beautiful, and as scary as Dia and Elise could be, Yaraka was far too scary for Elrick to look at her as anything other than terrifying, regardless of how beautiful she might be. “Yaraka, look around you.”

He reached for the net. There was a hidden mechanism near the bottom that undid it, and he triggered it, which released the net. He heard Elise gasp, but he ignored it and pulled the net up off of her.

“Look around,” he repeated. “You’re free.”

She did look around, but then she laughed and shook her head. “The moment I disagree with whatever it is you want me to do, those two will put arrows in me. That isn’t freedom.”

“They want you to train them,” Elrick said. “We’re going to survive out here, in those mountains,” he pointed behind her, and she looked back at the mountain range. “We’re going to exist outside of the control of the guilds. We’ll be free to make our own way. Keep our own profits. You won’t be bound to them anymore.”

“I won’t be able to die,” Yaraka said. “I’ll only have one life to live. The guilds would never resurrect me if I betray them.”

“We’ll protect you then,” Elrick said, “you won’t die. We’re all kind of in the same boat, aren’t we? None of us can die out here. Dia, Espa, lower your bows.”

“I will not,” Dia hissed.

“I couldn’t even ignite a pebble right now,” Yaraka said.

“That’s what you want us to think,” Espa said, holding her arrow back.

Elrick was very impressed that both women could hold an arrow back that long. They had lithe and sinewy arms, but no bulging muscles. He wasn’t sure exactly how long they could hold though, and he guessed it wasn’t much longer than they had already done.

Elrick turned so he was halfway facing the archers, but still half facing Yaraka. “Just relax, everyone. Yaraka, are you going to kill us?”

“If I killed all of you, I would be dead,” Yaraka said. “And as I’ve already explained, dying would be very bad for me right now.”

“You haven’t betrayed the guild yet,” Elise said, waving a dagger at her, but from too far away for it to be any real threat. “Dying would be good for you. They’d still res you.”

Yaraka frowned. “If dying were good for me, then it would be easy enough to get these two to shoot me, wouldn’t it?”

“She’s talking too tricky,” Durka said, “I don’t like it.”

Jocha laughed. “Anything is tricky for a dumbass like you.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” Yaraka said, “if I go missing, they will come looking for me. If you did kill me, I don’t think they’d bother searching for you so far from the Strach.

“Oh, she’s modest too,” Espa said.

Yaraka shook her head. “Do you really think I care about modesty or boasting in this situation? I’m telling you the truth, because it’s all I have right now. I honestly don’t know which I prefer, having you kill me right here, or trying to start over like this. I may have fantasized about being free as a young girl, but now that the possibility is real and in front of me, it terrifies me.”

“It doesn’t have to be scary,” Elrick said, his voice low so that he was speaking just to Yaraka. “This is the third time I’ve had to start over in the last few months. Each time you start fresh, you learn from your old mistakes. You get stronger, and smarter, and—”

“If you got so strong and smart, then why do you have to keep starting over?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, because it takes a few tries to get it right. This is my last time starting over though. I promise.”

“Oh, you promise,” Yaraka said, “that settles it then.”

“See?” Jocha said, pumping his fist, “Elrick did it!”

Elise rolled her eyes and sighed. “She was being sarcastic.”

Elrick held up a finger and scurried to his feet. He opened the chest with the spellbook in it and showed it to Yaraka. “They sent a violet mage after us. I got this after I took her out.”

“After we took her out,” Dia said, finally lowering her bow.

Espa frowned, but lowered her bow too.

Yaraka reached for the book. “Let me see.”

Elrick handed her the spellbook, and she opened it up.

She studied each page very carefully. There were only eight pages in the entire book, but each was covered in ornate writing. Yaraka looked at each page much longer than he’d have thought necessary, until she finally finished and shut the book. “This is worth a lot. It’s very rare that a violet mage gets taken out at close range so that a book can be recovered like this.”

“We’re not going to sell it!” Elrick said, “we’re going to use it! You can cast these, right?”

Yaraka shook her head. “I can cast the red ones. Only two of these spells are red.”

“What about the spells you already know?” he asked.

“I’ve memorized my spells. Given fresh scrolls or a blank book, I could reproduce them.”

“We’ll get more pages,” Elrick said. “Whatever you need. Then could you train us?”

“Us? I thought you just wanted me to train those two.” She pointed at Dia and Espa.

“You train me too,” Elrick said.

“This book has enough to work with,” Yaraka said, “but only for people who already have some skill in Red Magic. If you are all untrained, these spells will be far too complex. I can’t teach you anything with this.”

He wanted to say that he had 50.1 skill in Red Magic, but he knew it would be gibberish to her. “I know something already. See if you can teach me, but I will get you more supplies. And soon, and then you can teach those two as well.”

“How are we getting more supplies?” Elise asked. “I imagine we could get ore in the mountains, but…”

“We’re going to raid the river!” Jocha said, thumping his fist against his chest. “Elrick told me!”