A clang of metal was sent through the air as Umbren and Mortis sparred. Sweat dripped from Umbren’s brow and he breathed heavily, but Mortis seemed unfazed.

“What are you doing? You have to commit to your attacks. A half-hearted one will leave you dead.” Mortis said fimly.

He then rushed at Umbren once more with a kukri in his hand. He pounded on Umbren’s defense relentlessly, and it was all Umbren could do to ward him off.

“More aggressive, if you act meekly, you’ll never win.” Mortis’ blade never faltered while he spoke.

Anger rose in Umbren’s chest at the comment. He wasn’t being meek; he was just trying to survive. When Mortis gave him a moment to breathe, he gave his all into a strike with Cronai, but Mortis saw it coming from a mile away and swung his kukri to meet it.

Umbren recoiled from the impact, taking two steps back. Mortis also was fazed by the impact, but his recovery was timeless as he grabbed ahold of Umbren’s arm and swung him to the ground.

“I think we’re done for today.” He spoke as if they had finished a leisurely stroll

Umbren was left panting on the ground, “No…I can still…”

Mortis sheathed his kukri, signaling that he would not entertain the idea, “No you can’t, but you’re done for if you fight like that in front of the other Hounds. Though it would also be embarrassing if you did it in front of the fulgcere as well.”

“Why...are we…even going to….Canalith?” Umbren struggled to speak through his heavy breathing.

“That is something that doesn’t concern you. When I was your age, I trusted my master without question.” Mortis' face twisted into a grimace as he remembered something horrible, “I’m not incompetant, I wouldn’t be going out of my way to visit the land of fulgcere if it wasn’t necessary.” Mortis motioned towards the Bluecloak tents nearby, “They have faith in me so why can’t you?”

Umbren slowly stood up to face Mortis, “Have faith in you? Mortis, I respect you, but after what I saw in Sangai…”

“What happened in Sangai was necessary.”

Umbren’s gaze turned into a glare, “You can’t possibly say that.”

Mortis' gaze seemed to overpower Umbren’s, but it was different in a way. There was a certain sadness or regret in it, and it never faltered at Umbren’s words.

Umbren clenched his fist to calm himself down, “That is exactly why someone without faith in you is needed.”

Mortis shrugged and moved past Umbren, “If you say so, but now it's time to spoil Morta’s fun.”

Umbren furrowed his brow suspiciously at Mortis, “What do you mean by that?”

Mortis looked back with a small smirk, “It seems that the wolf Morta’s been hiding from me has been following us for some time.”

Umbren thought back to his and Sadine’s conversation in Ambis. Was she still following them? There was no reason to. He couldn’t understand why she would do that, but then again, he didn’t understand the girl that well, “how do you know?”

“Her soul is…unique. It's almost as if Tenebrage’s blessing isn't that strong within her.”

Umbren remembered how Kagi had told him that Thestra had no talent for the blessing of the soul and reasoned that that was the reason for why her soul was like that, but the whole situation seemed uncanny to him. Though Morta had hid her for a reason, and he was in debt to Thestra, so he couldn’t tell Mortis his conclusion.

As he was thinking this Mortis had already started off and he was forced to follow.

***

Kagi had long abandoned Thendle. The moment he sensed that another attoka was nearby she let him go back to the camp. Unfortunately, he would easily give her presence away to Thestra, and she couldn’t have that. Kagi now crawled through the bushes that were a little ways away from the camp. Though the bushes here were massive, giving a good place for any tenebrage to hide. That was probably why the luxcian had a hard time invading Skotous.

Though Kagi wasn’t thinking about the bushes, Thendle, or even if Sadine would be happy with her. The only thing that filled her mind was the image of Thestra’s shocked face when Kagi pounced on her without her knowing she was there. The mere thought made Kagi so excited that she had to cover her mouth to muffle a giggle once or twice.

Kagi focused inwardly once again and found that the faded line was almost right next to her, but this only told her a vague area where Thestra could not be, but not an exact one. Kagi immediately halted and looked around her. Everything seemed fine, some dead branches and leaves dotted the floor, but nothing…Kagi’s face instantly lit up as her eyes rested on a twig broken in three places and around it there were noticeably no dead leaves to be found.

Kagi speedily went off in that direction, and shortly found Thestra in an enormous bush with plenty of room to move around inside of it. She was lying looking up through the bush’s branches at the stars above. The weird attoka she had sat further away without a care in the world.

A wide grin came to Kagi’s face as the moment she had been dreaming of had finally been placed in the palm of her hand.

Without a second thought Kagi pounced out of the pushes at Thestra. Thestra’s eyes immediately popped open in fear and shock at the intrusion. Kagi took great great glee in that and savored the millisecond in which it had occurred before Thestra used Kagi’s momentum against her and sent Kagi tumbling through thickets behind her.

As Kagi slid to a stop she let out, “Worth it.”

Before Kagi could get up, Thestra leapt over towards her with her kukris brandished. Kagi barely had time to unsheathe a sai in time to block the incoming slash. She then rolled into where Thestra originally was, “Okay, okay, I understand why you're angry, but can you really blame me.”

Thestra glared at Kagi and readied her blades, “I thought I told you not to do that anymore.”

Kagi raised her hands defensively, “Well you did, but Sadine told me…”

Thestra rushed at Kagi before she was finished, “It doesn’t matter who told you, but you better follow through with your actions.”

Kagi gulped and leapt out of the way of Thestra’s charge. At that point fighting back was not even a possibility in her mind, so she continued to dodge Thestra’s strike. Luckily Kagi was faster than Thestra, but not by much, so some of the blows came dangerously close.

Kagi’s fortune soon came to an end as she fell for one of Thestra’s faints. Kagi watched a kukri come down on her face in slow motion, and she had accepted that this was her fate, closing her eyes.

After a moment though she became very confused because she was still very much so alive, so she slowly opened her eyes and found that the blade of the kukri rested a centimeter from her nose.

“Huh?” Kagi let out, still shocked that her end hadn’t yet come.

Thestra was not looking at Kagi but to the side into the bush.

“What do we have here? I hope you weren’t actually serious about killing poor Kagi.” Morta slowly stepped out of the brush, revealing herself.

Thestra averted her gaze from Morta, “I knew you were there.”

Morta gave a reassuring smile that contrasted with her slightly irritated tone, “So you just trusted that I would interfere in time before it got out of hand.”

Kagi looked to Morta in disbelief then back at Thestra. As she recovered from the shock, she started to notice black strands around Thestra’s arm that held the kukri.

“Kagi goes back to Sadine,” Morta didn’t avert her gaze from Thestra.

Kagi was a bit confused by Morta’s suggestion, but then she heard a muffled laugh from a bush a little further away, and strands of darkness parted it, revealing Sadine in a fetal position muffling a guffaw with her hand to her mouth.

Kagi’s face went red as she realized that Sadine had seen how Thestra had sent her flying. She hung her head as she headed over to Sadine, “You're the worst.”

The strands of darkness slowly unraveled from Thestra’s arm, but her alert posture never faltered.

It was the right decision too, as Morta readied Night, “Let’s see how you fare with someone who can match your strikes,” Morta gave an annoyed grin, “I know you want to.”

Thestra gave a glare and went low to the ground like an animal who was about to pounce. Though Morta seemed to find it amusing, “Let’s see how much you’ve forgotten what Shelta taught you.”

Thestra sprung onto Morta with unprecedented ferocity, but the disciple barely faltered. Morta met Thestra’s fierce attacks with the calmness of water and nothing Thestra did changed this.

Kagi could barely believe her eyes. For one to attack a disciple was heresy, and Thestra was doing just that. Kagi had seen Thestra fight Mortis, but that was more self-defense. In this she was the aggressor, but even so she didn’t look like one. Even though the two were exchanging blows in a way that Kagi could never dream of matching, Thestra still looked helpless. It was like she was trying to batter squash a fly that she couldn’t catch.

Thestra still fought like a dancer, but it almost seemed like she lost her composure as time went on. Everytime she thought she thought there was an opening Morta would prove her wrong with a block or darkness would consume her path to victory. Kagi knew that darkness would be impossible for anyone to disperse, it might as well have been solid stone, but Thestra swept it away with great effort. However, once she did this Night would come for her throat, and she would quickly have to block or jump out of its grasp, then the dance would start again.

With each cycle's completion, Thestra seemed to become more feral. The facade of a dance was still there, but it grew dimmer and dimmer. Frankly Kagi had never seen Thestra like this, not even when she was fighting General Amian in Sanghai.

Finally, when the facade seemed like it was about to break, Morta called out, “Enough!”

Thestra was brought to the ground as strands of darkness tied around her. SHe struggled in vain against them.

Morta pointed Night at Thestra with the eyes like that of a disappointed parent, “You're too eager to prove yourself. What even was that towards the end. It was beyond sloppy.”

Kagi looked with wide eyes at Sadine as they still sat in the bush together. Sadine met them with a heavy nod. Even towards the end Thestra fought better than any Hand.

Morta let Night drop with a sigh, “You could easily defeat me one day Thestra, just right after you find your true self. There’s too much turmoil inside you.”

A gasp went up from Kagi and Sadine. The only person that was believed to be able to defeat a disciple was another disciple. A normal person achieving such a thing was unheard of.

Thestra stopped struggling and let her head fall to the ground, “There is no turmoil inside me. My mind is clear, and you can’t blame me for wanting to prove myself. You’ve been hiding me away so that I haven’t been able to do anything for the past year.”

“Shelta never worried about such frivolous things.” Morta said bluntly.

Thestra clenched one fist as her other lay on her eyepatch as her whole body went limp against the strands of darkness that held her in place. It was as if all of her strength had been sucked out of her with those seven words.

Kagi was frozen in place. She thought that when this day came that it would be the happiest day in her life, but this…was nothing like that. Seeing Thestra so…defeated just left her feeling drained and almost anxious. When she looked to Sadine she saw that she had a hard but solemn expression.

Though as she thought this the scene was interrupted by a cloud of darkness rushing past them. Once it passed, wisps of it remained with a purple hue to it, and after a brief second it recoiled back to where it came from.

Once it vanished Kagi was about to ask what it was, but a stern hand from Sadine stopped her. Kagi wondered why and searched inwardly to find out who was nearby, but she recoiled, covering her eyes as if she had been blinded by the sun.

Morta and Thestra didn’t seem to take heed of the intrusion, but after a moment Morta broke out of her fixation of Thestra and turned to the side with an irksome look on her face.

Mortis stepped out cooly from some brush followed by a hesitant Umbren and a disheveled Bluecloak who averted his gaze from Morta.

Mortis gave a wide grin, “What do we have here?”