The following day for Rawani was something incredible. After many months, the sun had been something unknown and rare, and seeing the dawn and feeling the first rays of light on her was magical.

The orc woman took a deep breath, and as if the problems that until then affected her head, they went away along with the wind that caressed the plains.

The woman looked at the small shrine she made in honor of Uhor, The Liberator. She couldn't remember how many times Rawani had prayed to that ancestor of the Orcs, a divine figure that the people who received her revered as one of their gods. Gods to the orcs were things unlike any other, and Uhor was one of the few gods they revered along with the elements of nature.

The orc woman had carved the branches of trees near the lake when the first rays of the sun appeared. Traditional symbols of her people were carved into the wood, along with a circle of stones placed in the damp earth near the water. The ring had four smaller ones, symbolizing the four elements of nature.

"I thank you, Liberator, for giving me another chance," said the Marked warrior between murmurs. "I will travel these lands again under your guidance, and I will endure a thousand more trials in your honor if you let me remain free."

Rawani then used the knife with which she carved the branches to make a cut in her hand, and in that way, she filled in the gaps within the circle that symbolized each element and then stained the branches she used to form the symbol of Uhor.

The blood fell, and by the time she looked at her hand, the wound she had made had sealed itself, and the blood dried.

The orc woman returned to camp, where Peck was preparing breakfast in a cauldron. The girl would then reach inside her traveling bag, plunge her arm in it, and pull out spices from it, which she sprinkled.

"Smells good," Rawani said with a smile. "I guess it's meatless..."

Peck shook her head, "I promised Xindal I would prepare it so he could eat it. I'm sorry."

The orc woman snorted as Peck handed her a bowl with her breakfast.

The orc woman raised it to her lips, and when she tasted it, she flooded the food in her mouth and swallowed it almost without chewing.

"Tastes good?" asked Peck, smiling.

The woman thumped her chest as she felt the food go down her throat. "It'd do better with meat; I'll hunt some for us later..."

Peck laughed and was soon remixing the food before pouring a bowl for herself.

"Where are Kyrus and Xindal?" the orc woman asked.

"Xindal left before dawn; he said he would be back for breakfast," the girl exclaimed. "Kyrus, well..."

The trickster girl pointed her fingers at the plain. In the distance, Kyrus stood motionless, his gaze on nothingness and the horizon.

"Ever since he got up, he's been practicing spells and doing wizard stuff."

"Wizard stuff?" asked Rawani with a grin.

Then Kyrus crouched down in the grasses. The Infernal closed his eyes and began to feel the life around him. His senses could travel so far below the surface that he could hear the creatures that dwelt in the darkness or go as high as the clouds, where his feelings mingled among the birds. Quickly, he grabbed a patch of grasses and, with a couple of words, caused them to grow overgrown until they reached the height of a tree.

"Sometimes I'm amazed at the crazy things wizards do," Rawani said with a hoarse laugh.

"Me too," Peck said with a smile that soon faded from his lips along with murmurs. "I think he does it, so he doesn't feel like he's just creating fire, lightning, and hurting people..."

The girl, sitting on her rock, lowered her gaze to her plate, then looked at Rawani, waiting for her opinion.

The orc woman watched the girl and sighed between her long fangs.

"He'll be fine; he knows what he's doing. Despite the actions he's taken lately, I trust him."

"You think?" asked Peck with concern in his voice.

Rawani smiled and approached the girl, "When I left the Triumvirate, they said that since that time, many of our brothers and sisters treated me with distrust. I told them I didn't mind, as long as four of us trusted me; Kyrus was one of those, then Xindal, Ronan..."

"And me?" the girl asked, regaining her jovial smile.

The orc woman smiled and pressed her fingers to the girl's cheek. She didn't need to say in words that truth they both knew.

As they ate, they both watched as a message flew around them, and when it didn't find the one, it was looking for. Rawani took it in hand.

"A letter for Kyrus?" asked Peck. Like before, she knew that the Marked wizard usually hid his essence to avoid being searched.

Rawani read the first few words of the message and was soon alarmed by the words.

"Go call Kyrus..."

The girl ran to where the wizard was, who ran along with the girl to the camp.

"Kyrus, Rawani, Peck, I hope these words reach someone.

Something horrible has happened; I am sure it did. The letter you are holding in your hands came to me empty, so I know it came from the hands of Fynn, the Talhari boy.

I don't know what happened, and I regret not being there to stop it. But, I hope you can help me find the kid. Otherwise, they are lost. And so are we...

I am desperate; I will leave for Thornstone, capital of Mizuna, as soon as possible..."

The Infernal wizard recounted the letter until he soon stopped, keeping the words that continued in secret.

"What happened?" asked Rawani. "What does it mean about the essences?"

Kyrus watched the woman as he learned she had read the entire letter.

"I guess you read the part the most sensitive part..."

"So it's true he summoned the boy?"

Peck widened her eyes in disbelief, but that didn't stop her from taking another sip of her breakfast.

Kyrus sighed, "It's about time he was able to perform the ritual well..."

"Is that good?" asked the trickster girl.

"We'll decide that when I meet the boy face to face. I hope to do it before the Triumvirate gets its hands on him."

"How will you find him?" asked Rawani.

Knowing so many tricks and spells, the Infernal magician looked at the card in his hand.

"Let's find out..."

Kyrus leaned back on one of his legs and, while taking a deep breath, closed his eyes and muttered a long spell. Then, Kyrus opened them again, and they had ceased to be white; now, his eyes were black and stormy.

The wizard knew that all objects in the universe had a memory; all had a truth that could be told. Consequently, Kyrus watched as the paper bird soared for several days through sunny, hazy, or stormy skies. The Marked wizard flew across the continent in the blink of an eye, over forests and hills, and through towns and villages.

Kyrus saw Ronan as he wrote that letter. The golden-haired man looked pale, haggard, and bruised. He needed more, so he just pushed himself to look for his needed answers.

As if going back in time, he saw when it came into that man's hands, and then he saw it flying for a couple of days through that realm until it went into a raging, stormy sea.

Kyrus then saw how the paper bird was perched in the hand of the boy he had seen enter his mental palace. He saw him clinging to a plank along with an Akajsi girl who kept talking to him. The look on the boy's face, strained and exhausted, along with the wounds on his face and neck and the glimpse of the wreck, made him fear the worst. Straining that spell to its limits, Kyrus tried to go further back. All was dark, looked like the boy carried that part stored in his breastplate, but he heard screams of pain, fury, sword fights, and explosions.

With a pull, the Infernal came back to the present, and he did so panting hard and bleeding from his nose; he almost staggered, but soon Peck and Rawani came to his aid.

"What happened?" asked Rawani, holding the wizard by his arm as Peck grabbed him from in front, thus preventing him from falling to the ground.

"The boy..." gasped Kyrus, feeling his legs shaking. "The boy wrecked... he did it with an akajsi girl. I saw them clinging for their lives to a plank of wood, bloody and trembling."

"They were wrecked?" asked Rawani, alarmed.

The Infernal wizard nodded quickly. He gasped; his head was spinning, and he felt his body burn from the magic. He had pushed that spell to the limit by tracking an essence that had traveled so far and for many days.

"Are you all right?" Peck asked worriedly as she felt the man's chest burn. "You should go to-"

"No," he soon replied as he tried to stand and turned away from them. "I can't rest, not now."

Rawani tried to talk some sense into him.

"Kyrus--"

"I'm not going to rest, not now!" he exclaimed with a voice with many voices. One more havoc from the magical overload. The wizard staggered and fell to the ground.

Quickly, Peck and Rawani went to his aid. Kyrus' eyes were blurry, and he couldn't focus well. The orc woman then carried him on her shoulder and took him to her tent.

The place was decorated and elegant, filled with books, even on the wizard's bed.

Kyrus was breathing heavily; in his mind, he saw the images of that letter's journey, and in turn, he tried to focus on how to get out of it. Now, the lives of those children depended on him.

"Where have you been?" asked Rawani, alarmed.

Xindal made his appearance as he entered through the entrance of Kyrus' luxurious tent. The Akajsi man saw his friend lying down in his ornately barred bed.

"What happened to him?" asked Xindal in further amazement.

"This," said Peck, sitting next to Kyrus, dipping a cloth on his head to lower his temperature. Then she picked up from the nightstand next to the bed the paper bird that was trying to unravel without effect.

Xindal took the letter and soon began to read it.

"Oh for... the children were shipwrecked?"

"It would seem so," replied Rawani, sitting by the bed.

Shaken, Kyrus tried to get up, "I must get going..."

"Are you crazy? You can barely stand," Peck exclaimed, annoyed, forcing the Infernal still resting on the bed.

Kyrus raised his blurred gaze to Xindal, who worriedly demanded an explanation.

"I forced the Spiritual Vision; I twisted time and space to find out where they had made the letter. Apparently, the letter had been in the air longer than it should have and traveled much farther."

"That explains the demon to the embers smell," Xindal joked, approaching the bed where his companion lay.

"Where were you?" asked Peck.

"Oh, tying up a couple of loose ends," replied Xindal. "Also, I was looking for a couple of ways to get us to the Marches without getting caught. I was thinking of using the port of-"

Kyrus interrupted him, "I must go to Narazah."

"Narazah?" exclaimed Xindal in amazement. "But, that's where it is located..."

"One of the schools of the Artaham Mages Guild. The school has a Primordial Sphere that I must use."

"In the name of whoever created us, what the hell do you want to do?"

"I must find those children, I must communicate with them, and I need to feed my magic from somewhere."

"Have you gone mad?" asked Xindal in dismay. "Tell me it's only madness from him."

Rawani shrugged with her big sword slung over his shoulder. "Kyrus is convinced that's what he has to do. I'll accompany him, so he doesn't die trying."

"And where the two of them go, I'll go too," Peck replied, shrugging her shoulders.

Xindal watched both women with great concern, incredulous that they would go along with such an unhinged plan.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Kyrus said.

Xindal turned and looked at his bedridden friend. Then, after a few moments, he sighed resignedly.

"With you, I never have options to refuse..."