Just above Liniar, the second moon of the night, Tenehes, appeared. The musicteller looked up and squinted his eyes on the bright moonlight. Everything around him was bright and moving like a flame dancing against the blowing wind. Even the darkness wasn't as dark as it was seen by the naked eye. In the eyes of a Mage in Merge it was bright red and sometimes deep green.

Nelrue Aysanier Pulled the Flow around him, decreasing his mass and gravity. The tip of his feet lightly touched the bough of leaves. He stood there and surveyed the sprawling forest below him.

Where are those two, he said annoyed as he searched for the girl and the clumsy boy.

Beside him Ettran tighten his hold around his neck all the while gasping at the intensity of his vertigo.

"How could you stand... on leaves without falling?" He said as his other eye looked down.

"I bend the Flow arround me and decrease my weight," he said. "But it was something hard to maintain as it consumes too much concentration."

"Could they also do it?" Ettran asked.

"Renaeril perhaps," he said.

"Why not Nefaaya? Isn't she more experienced?"

"Nefaaya was an Erumancer," he said. "Someone who controls nature. And Renaeril was someone I still didn't figure out."

Truth be told, he thought that there was nothing promising about the boy on the first time that they met. But on the moment he Merge himself with the Creation, he realized how wrong he was. Only if... Only if he could teach him.

Nelrue looked up and announced, "we're leaving."

He was about to jump when a sudden burst of flame erupted in the forest. A wall of blazing fire rose from the ground, it surged on the trees and burned the branches in its path.

He shook his head, whoever did that was someone who wasn't thinking. Burning a forest was a double-edged sword. It would confuse the enemy, but the Mage's life would also be at risk.

Nelrue jumped away from the top of the tree and flew straight in the sky. All the while looking below him for any presence of the two that he could have missed.

"Why are we leaving them?" Ettran complained.

"We're not," he said. "We're just waiting for them in a different place. The forest would be less thick any minute from now... we're descending when we reach that part and run to search for them, before the fire or the damned Deprives get at them."

The boy didn't talk anymore but he could feel his uneasiness as he tightened his at him. But he knew that there was less he could do but to move faster on the area where the canopy of leaves is less thick.

Before him, he saw the opening that he was searching for.

Nelrue flew high once more, he Pulled the Creation around him and made his legs stronger to endure the fall as he landed on the ground. Despite his effort, he felt his legs go wobbly as he landed on the uneven ground of the forest. Here there was less undergrowth to sustain his fall.

He put Ettran on the ground and pulled back from his Half-Merge. For a second there was nothing for him to see but the darkness that surrounded him.

"We're running from here," he said.

Ettran nodded and held tightly on him.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the woods around him, from afar he could see a bunch of yellow suncatchers reflecting the light of the sun that they had stored in their petals. From his left, a small stream with a lone group of moonshiners, rising its head in the direction of the first moon Liniar, their normal dull white petals were silvery-blue, the color of the moon.

Nelrue Soaked himself in the Creation. Around him the light started to brighten but it wasn't the same bright light that he always saw in Half-Merge or Submerged. With the two everything looked as if burning in fire, but in Soak it was as if everything around him was just surrounded by a faint glow. He nodded to Ettran and started running towards the direction of the fire. All the while looking around him, trying to search for the kid. It wasn't as if he cared for them but he strictly followed the Way Of Flow.

The Flow who had been nothing but silent to him for a very long time. But eight years ago, while he was fooling around and making a career as a musicteller. The voice of the Flow, the Eye itself visited him.

When he says that he knew everything, Nelrue wasn't pretending. He really knows everything. He was even aware of the time that the Eye visited the girl.

What was the Flow's intent on this pattern was something he didn't really know either.

The Flow did what was necessary.

It was his mantra, the belief that had made him hope that the Flow was really doing something that was necessary.

And right now he was the Flow's weapon, the one who would bring the child to safety.

"The Flow favored me," he whispered as he realized that perhaps the Flow was giving him a chance to atone for the things that he had done, a chance to end all things. To end all things that was all that mattered to him, if he perished after this was something that was of no concern to him.

To be free of the sins that I had done, to wash the blood on my hands, that's all that matters. To end all things. To end my guilt.

Something flashed in front of him. His eyes widened, and turned left as a fireball dashed towards his direction.

Nelrue sat behind the tree.

"Wh-"

He put his fingers on his lips, silencing the boy.

"The Deprives got to us first," he said. "I'm leaving you here Ettran."

Despite the darkness he saw, the boy became uneasy at the thought of being left behind.

"But, I can't fight," he said. "I'm going to die. I'm not like you, I'm not like them."

Nelrue shook his head. "The Flow favored you as It favored us. The Blessing of the Life River was with us all. Accept your destiny Ettran for you're already bound to one."

He stood, the boy was still holding on to his hand. He looked at him one last time and pulled his dagger on his belt. He pushed it on the trunk of the tree.

"If you cannot accept your fate," he started. "Just remember that the Venedralis' torture was too cruel. You would rather wish that you kill yourself."

The boy stared at him dumbfounded. Nelrue Submerged, all colors around him glowed brightly. From it, he saw the deprive—in different of anything in the creation

Those Who Lose Their Grace looked as if a shadow, a dirt in a white cloth that stood out among anything that surrounds it.

Nelrue ran at his direction. Wind whipped at his face and the leaves started to thicken again as he headed in the direction of the Deprive direction. But still the moon was peeking among the small holes in the canopy as if eager to watch how this event would end.

As he neared on the Dperive, he heard him screaming, "Nelrueeee!"

Nelrue jumped upwards and Pulled the Flow, he made the weight and force on his closed fist strong before he dashed forward.

The Deprive has no time from dodging as his fist hit his face.

For a minute there was nothing but silence around him. Then beneath his fist where the crushed face of the man laid he heard a laughter. Nelrue immediately pulled back.

Slowly like a dead rising from its grave after a long slumber, the man rose, his bones cracking in the process.

The wind picked up and waved away the leaves above. The light of the moon hit the mutilated face of the Deprive, it was shattered, his nose was broken flat. All over his face there was nothing but blood. The Deprive smiled at him, and as he did one of his front teeth fell beneath his feet.

"Shall we begin..." he said enduringly. "Wicked Cernalis?"