We dodged hooves and side-stepped fallen packages, twisting and turning our way through the rabble. Somewhere to our side, Cho screamed that her bag was stolen at the top of her voice, making the merchants around us clutch their possessions in fright. The remaining swordsmen still on the sidelines jumped into the fray to catch the imaginary thief. Maya and I rushed to the edges of the road, to the nooks and crannies along the last buildings this side of Heikisato. Just beyond them was a few metres of wild grass, then the forest. The little white hundred-metre stones peeked out between the copse of trees. Thirty seconds of running, maybe less, and we’d be concealed by the trees too.

We hid in an alcove between pipes, cobwebs sticking to our bodies. A single swordsman guarded the meadow, his colleagues too busy calming the crowd.

Tackling him and exposing our identities wouldn’t work, as Minister Banji had no doubt imposed the curfew both to appease the public and as a ruse to make sure no one got out to ruin his plans. He’d probably guessed that someone, at least Ahio, would go looking for Kaede.

The guard paced across the road in boredom, his large blade held with an iron grip and a blue Heikisato sigil on the back of his shirt. I gulped. Not that I can take him down anyway.

A stone wooshed passed us, hitting a row of trash cans at the end of the street, toppling them. The guard rushed over to investigate. Now!

Maya and I creeped out of our hiding place, then galloped across the meadows, the grass beating against our ankles. My lungs seared and Maya huffed beside me. We didn’t stop till the trees shielded us with their boughs. The forest chirped with wildlife, and no footsteps came chasing after us. The plan had worked.

Thanks for the stone, Kei.

‘There they are!’ Ahio’s voice broke through the sounds of nature. He marched out from behind a twisted mossy tree, Dr Chiasa behind him.

‘Glad you got out safe,’ she nodded.

Huffing and puffing voices came from just behind us, and Tsubasa and Daisuke ran through the foliage. Daisuke’s face was red as he slumped on a knotted trunk, and Tsubasa clutched Tayo with shaking arms. The little animal blinked at us with its golden eyes, as if it hadn’t just caused a commotion.

‘Let’s get going.’ Dr Chiasa stepped across a gnarly root, marching further into the shadowed depths of the forest. ‘They’ll catch on sooner or later that we’d left.’

Shafts of light flitting through the leaves lit up the sprawling mass of undergrowth. Vines curled up the trees which stood in our way like sentinels, little red flowers dotting their tendrils. We trekked across the uneven terrain, just to the right of a road that wound through the forest. Everytime a merchant cart passed by, we held in our breaths and crouched behind the trees. Now and then, we’d stop and look around, startled by the snaps of breaking twigs. But they’d turn out to be forest creatures. Once I even saw a katu, its green arrow-head tail swishing across a branch.

Six hours later, when the sky had morphed into the red glow of sunset, we came to a stop within a clearing. My muscles cramped, but it wasn’t time to sit down yet. Dr Chiasa put us to work setting traps around the perimeter, showing us the easiest and most effective ones she’d learned back when she was a swordsman. Twilight set in and the earliest stars shone by the time we finished.

We sat beside each other in a circle, taking out our packed food.

‘I didn’t think we’d need so many traps,’ said Ahio between bites of his sandwich. ‘Thought you’d protect us well, seeing as you were an assassin.’

‘Assassins are taught more to stay in the shadows. They’re not like fighters, barging in swords blazing.’ Dr Chiasa glanced at him. ‘We have some training with close combat, but most of it is focused on silent take-downs, traps and poisoning. I use a blowdart as a long-range weapon too, but others use arrows or… or throwing knives.’ Her voice faltered and she fixed her eyes on her lunchbox.

My throat grew tight and the sandwiches on my lap didn’t seem as appetizing anymore.

‘She used to be scared of butterflies.’ Dr Chiasa laughed bitterly, a tear falling across her cheek. ‘She always froze when she saw one. We never grew flowers in our garden for her. I used to scold her for it. but since she graduated basic training, she promised me she’d grown out of it.’ Dr Chiasa wiped her face as more tears fell from her pained eyes. ‘We— we were planning a surprise party for her today. To make up for not being able to attend the ceremony.’ She closed her lunchbox, food barely touched, and walked off to the edge of the clearing. Her shoulders shook.

None of us took another bite, gazing at the grassy floor beneath us. It was in a clearing like this that I’d seen Kaede freeze for the first time. My eyes stung.

‘I wish my mother was like Dr Chiasa.’ Maya said in a low voice. ‘If I were kidnapped, I don’t know if she’d go looking for me.’

Her words broke our trance and we turned to her. But she picked at her food, ignoring our stares. I wanted to tell her her mother would be just like Dr Chiasa. Any mother would go look for their child. Wouldn’t they?

Would my own mother, if I chose a lifestyle she didn’t approve for me? Would she, even if I wasn’t the perfect child, the perfect son she wanted? Would she, if I ran away from home? ‘I don’t know either.’

Only the sounds of the forest, of cutlery and soft chewing broke the silence for the rest of the meal.

Dr Chiasa volunteered for first watch, and we took out our sleeping bags, arranging them to give each other as much legroom as possible. Ahio strode to the opposite end of the clearing from me. I brushed away the hurtful truth of what that meant and placed my sleeping bag next to Maya’s.

She gazed at the stars, her mouth quirked with a mournful weight. Everyone was like this, lost in our thoughts with the quest pressing down on our shoulders. If only I could turn back time, to when we were in real squads, battling against bandits, laughing together and competing in tournaments. Or to the uncertain future, with Kaede back.

‘How—‘ I cut myself off as I got into the bag. Obviously, she wasn’t fine. This is way harder than I thought. ‘Um, what’re you looking at?’

Sighing, she turned my way, her curls bunching up beneath her head. ‘Nothing really. It’s stupid.’

‘You can tell me.’ I smiled.

She bit her lower lip and looked away. ‘I—I was wondering if there was somewhere out there where we were really meant to be born.’

Her words struck a chord in my heart, at that longing I used to feel before I came here. The calling my other self still has. ‘It’s unfair, that there are so many places to be born in and we were never given the chance to choose.’

Her arm rose as if to touch the constellations above us. A crescent moon hung like a beacon leading us into the depths of the universe, plumes of purple clouds the remnants of travellers before. Though our view was marred by crisscrossing branches and leaves, the skies were infinite, swallowing us whole into its starry mouth. ‘Do you ever feel like— like breaking away from everything? Running away somewhere with nothing to hold you back?’

I crossed my arms beneath my head, eyes transfixed on the velvet sky. ‘Always. That’s why I came here, to Saishu Riku.’ Lifting my arm, I grasped at the stars with Maya. ‘Somewhere out there, there’ll be a place for you too.’

‘Maybe only in the stories I write.’ She chucked.

‘Doesn’t sound like a bad place to live in.’ I grinned. ‘Especially with those cool elemental powers.’

‘If I were in my book’s world, I want to have the power of fire.’ A little smile grew across Maya’s cheeks. ‘Most people hate it, but it’s not afraid to show everyone how beautiful it is.’

‘I don’t know what mine would be. I’d like earth or plants or something. They’re peaceful.’ But it would probably be storms, messing everything up without meaning to. ‘How are the powers different from the elementalists’ by the way? Besides having more than four types?’

‘Elementalists controlled the elements like they were a tool. They even made weapons with the help of witches to imbue their powers in them.’ Maya said, her voice infused with fascination. ‘But in my world, the elements are a part of you. Your inner spirit itself is like fire, earth or the other elements, just like the spirits who stopped the war. They were part people and part element.’

‘I see.’ Part element. My heart skipped a beat, then drummed into my ears. Several clues fit together in my head, forming a jigsaw of clarity.

What if the stones were part element too, instead of enchanted by witches like I’d thought? Did they have something to do with the spirits— were those even real? I clutched my sleeping bag, the coarse fabric rubbing against my fingers. Way back when, Maya’d told me the spirits’ graves lie in the Graveyard of Stars. Mr Cesar had also said there weren’t any elementalists since something happened in the Graveyard. Were they connected? Did the spirits’ death cause the elementalists to lose their powers?

My breath hitched as I recalled the runes from the manga. Release the elementalists— No, release the elements!

What if it were the spirits that got sealed away? Sealed away in the stones.

0 AE was when the elementalists lost their powers. Records from that time should mention these spirits and maybe the stones, if I was right.

I threw my backpack onto my lap, fingers scrambling for the straps and zippers in the dark. My heart beat with fury, with excitement. Grabbing my little wind up torch first, I dug into my bag, looking for one of the books I’d gotten from Daisuke. It was written by a witch in 103 AE. Unlike the abridged volumes for children they’d used in my classes, this covered all important events from 50 BE to 100 AE in detail, though with ample presumptions and little citation. I’d hoped to find something about the Sakashi incident in it, but now it had a different purpose.

Finding the book, I flipped to the contents page. My eyes scanned over it, till it stopped dead on three words.

23: The Elemental Spirits

Breath held in my chest, I caught a glimpse of another chapter title below it, just within the beam of yellow light.

27: The End of the Era of Spirits

Torch in my mouth, I riffled through the book. The chapter was only a few pages long, but impatience burned in my veins, wanting to know the answers right now. I skimmed the well-thumbed pages for the word stones, passing by references to an unrest among witches, an ancient ritual and sealing the spirits away.

There!

After the spells were complete, Mama said the mountains gave a mighty rumble, dislodging bits of rock with parts of the spirits trapped within them. A year or so later, some suckers began collecting the stones, saying they brought luck to their sorry lives. Fire stones for the swordsmen, Water stones for the fishermen. The farmers believed Earth stones helped their harvest and the merchants said Air stones led them to smarter deals. What fools they were. I’d heard rumours a few were even trying to bring back the spirits. Hah! As if anyone could break such a powerful curse.