The Weight of the Axe

Thunk.

Crack.

Thunk.

Crack.

The sounds of Calen’s work scored itself, providing a nice rhythm for him to allow his mind to slip into. Each strike of his axe’s broad head sliced into the fibers of the wood with ease as he motioned his body in a pattern that it was more familiar with than he was with even his own name.

Thunk.

Crack.

Sweat dripped down from his forehead, the shade of the trees around him doing little to protect him from the heavy sun overhead, but he enjoyed the feeling. He enjoyed that feeling of aching flooding him only to subside soon after, washing in and out of him like the ebb and flow of the tide. Besides, the faster he could fell a tree, the better. This kingdom wasn’t going to build itself, and quality wood went a long way.

Thunk.

Crack.

Each strike was nothing short of deadly accurate, and he carved through the tough material like it was cream, each chunk scooped out as he willed it. The process was soothing, but perhaps even better was what came at the end of it. One last swing of his axe, and he could tell just by the sound.

Here it comes.

Calen secured his axe in a loop along his belt and steadied himself as he brought a foot up to the trunk of the tree above where he’d made his cuts.

“Falling down!” he yelled out so loud that it roused several birds from the trees around him.

With one powerful push, he severed the thin connection that remained between the top of the tree and the new stump he had created. As it tipped forward, the sound of wood fracturing split the air, and a billowing of leaves crashing against listless particles of air preceded the resounding crash of the thirty-foot mass against the ground.

Perfect.

Stretching his body, he enjoyed a well-earned crack of his back and gave his muscles a little respite before he began walking to the other end of where the tree had landed. Calen snapped his axe into hand, hacked away the branches, and tossed them aside. Gripping the bare trunk, he grunted, his muscles straining as he heaved it forward across the brushy ground.

“Phew~!” the sound was forced out of him as he finally got moving at a steady pace.

Surprisingly, this one was a lot heavier than he’d judged it to be, but he was confident he could move it alone. Calen just hoped they’d set up closer than he remembered it being.

It took several minutes to reach the loading wagon, the uneven terrain littered with twigs and dead leaves that still needed clearing crunching under each labored step, but his legs weren’t ready to give out just yet.

Finally reaching the spot, he let go of the fallen tree and allowed the earth to take back its weight, giving his body the rest it deserved.

“Damn!” his wide-eyed employee exclaimed, having been watching him approach for the past couple minutes as he sat on the edge of the wagon with a drink in his hand. “You dragged that whole thing here by yourself, boss?”

“This one’s a lightweight, Ty,” Calen confidently replied, though the heavy breath he gave into betrayed his exhaustion. “Nothing a bit of Strengthening can’t handle.”

“A bit?” he leaned into the question. “Nah, I can’t even imagine. I’m already dead on my feet, and we’ve still got, what—four hours? Feels like my arms are gonna snap with every swing. Any chance we get a longer break?”

“Give it a couple more weeks,” he assured. “Your body will get used to it.”

Ty tilted his head, smirking. “You sure you’re human? ‘Cause every day, you’re looking more like an ox to me. No judgment, though.”

“Ha!” an unexpected smile and a fit of laughter found its way out of Calen.

An ox?

He’d heard plenty from the newer hires—jokes about his strength weren’t anything new—but that was a first.

“Where’d you get that from?” Calen asked, raising a brow. “Being called an ox is definitely a new one.”

Ty shrugged. “Had an uncle built like that. That’s what all his buddies called him anyway. Never figured out where he got his strength, but he worked the mines. Looked more like an ox than you do though.”

Calen smirked. “You’re not calling me ugly, are you?”

Ty held up his hands, laughing. “No way, boss. I’d never.”

He was giving Ty a bit of a hard time, but that was the kind of attitude that Calen liked to see. The weather today was anything but forgiving, and for as beat as Ty must’ve felt, the fact that he was still willing to crack a joke or two meant that he’d do just fine.

“Alright, get down here,” Calen encouraged.

“Aw, I was just joking around,” he lightly pleaded.

“It’s not like that,” he assured. “I just want to see your technique. This old ox might have a few tips that can help.”

“Oh, alright,” he set his drink down on the cart beside him and hopped down, picking up the axe leaning nearby. “I never said anything about ‘old’, though.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” he grinned.

“I’m serious,” he insisted. “You can’t be more than, what, forty?”

Forty?

Calen raised a dismissive eyebrow at the number. He didn’t look that old, did he?

“Hmm,” Ty scratched his head, noticing his error. “Too low or too high?”

“What do you think?” Calen posed the question, now intent to leave him guessing.

“Come on,” he urged. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Okay– Why don’t you show me that swing of yours?” he replied, crossing his arms.

“Alright, alright,” he stepped forward and adopted a wide stance, holding both of his hands near the end of the handle. After a moment of pause, Ty swung into the air, reaching his arms out almost as if lunging to grab something. As the momentum of the axe pulled him forward and with nothing to stop it, Ty momentarily lost his balance, hopping forward slightly to avoid stumbling entirely.

“Woah, careful there,” Calen reacted quickly and moved to place a hand on his shoulder. “Take it slow.”

“My bad,” he steadied himself. “Let me just–”

“Hold it– first things first,” he interrupted, walking around in front of Ty. “Keep those feet a little closer together—you’re not riding a horse—shoulder-width should do, and step forward on one of them.”

It wasn’t very often that Calen had to train people for the job; new recruits seemed to be scarce recently, and when there were any, most of them were locals who were well-familiar with the task they’d applied for already. But he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed having someone to teach. It wasn’t anything profound, but passing on what his family had taught him felt like a small way to honor them.

“When you start, start with one hand closer up on the handle, and slip it down as you come into the swing,” Calen continued, taking Ty’s hand and guiding him through the motions. “Should help you control it better.”

“Got it,” Ty replied, nodding to each piece of advice.

“Let me ask you,” he began as an apt thought came to him. “Have you ever swung a sword before?”

“Uhh,” he prolonged the sound as he thought. “A few times, but not a whole lot.”

“Alright, well if it helps at all, swinging an axe is kinda like the same thing,” he explained. “Keep yourself well-balanced, and use your whole body to generate force, not just your arms. Like this.”

Calen grabbed his own axe and demonstrated a series of swings, each one nearly perfectly identical to the last.

“Get the idea?” Calen asked, turning back around to face him.

“Yeah, I think so,” he nodded, practicing the motion at half-speed.

“Nice,” he grinned. “Just let me know when you start up again, and I’ll watch your technique for a bit.”

“You bet, thanks,” he returned the smile and walked back over to the wagon to sit down again.

Ty was clearly still exhausted, but he seemed like a good kid, and if he was willing to keep learning, he’d pick up the pace in no time. Besides, Calen wasn’t going to be too hard on him. It was only his first week here, after all. Calen might’ve been the one in charge, but he wasn’t a big fan of making a show of that position, especially with the people he spent most of the day with. It just always ended up being the case that he got closer with his personal logging group than with most anyone else in town. They were his friends, more like a second family than anything, and he preferred to lean towards that kind of relationship when possible.

“Hey, Calen, take a break for once. Have a drink with me,” Ty called out, lifting his wooden cup, condensation dripping down the sides. “You can’t just chop trees all day.”

Calen smirked. “Trying to get out of work by stalling me?”

Ty leaned back with a lazy grin. “Nah… maybe. But everyone needs a break, right? I’ve been watching—you don’t stop. No one works harder than you, boss.”

“Fair,” Calen glanced toward the treeline, giving it some thought. Finally, he exhaled. “Hah, fine. I’ll sit for a bit. But not for too long, alright?”

Grabbing an empty cup from the stack that was lay toppled over next to then, Calen uncapped his canteen and filled the cup halfway before taking a seat next to Ty on the cart. Meeting the cup’s rim with his lips, he had a sip of the refreshing drink as he and Ty watched the barren sky together.

Sighing, Ty put a hand to his forehead as he looked up, saluting the sun in distaste. “It feels like every day the trip back gets longer and longer.”

“That’s because it is,” he laughed. “Cleanup is at a standstill until the other wagon gets fixed up, and without them, we can’t get the path cleared. I hope you enjoy your walks.”

“Damn~,” Ty mused, relaxing his eyes for a moment. “I swear, at this rate, the whole forest’ll be cleared by next year.” 

“Yeah right,” he dismissed. “We’ve barely scratched the surface. Trust me, your grandkids’ grandkids will still be searching for where it ends.”

“Nuh-uh,” he vocalized with his throat as he finished taking a sip of the cool green liquid in his hand, swallowing before he spoke. “My kids aren’t gonna be choppin’ wood. Believe me, I’m going places.”

It didn’t surprise Calen too much that Ty wasn’t keen on sticking around. That was typically how it went with most people who passed by here, especially when it came to new hires for the summer, and that was always the expectation Calen kept. Every now and then, however, there were a few who found the job more enjoyable than whatever else they had planned initially. Some would stick around for a few months, some for a year or two, or in Remy’s case, for the better part of a decade.

“Yeah?” Calen raised an eyebrow. “So, what’s the plan for you?”

“Well, if everything works out right, I’ll move back home early next year and get started on my business,” Ty looked up to the side as he thought.

“Nice. You’re from the capital, right?”

“Mhm,” he nodded. “I’m just here to earn enough money to get me started.”

“And what kind of business are you looking to start?” Calen asked, intrigued.

“Ahh, well,” Ty leaned back on his arms. “I’m thinking of doing large-scale magical treatment for wood—construction, carpentry, that kind of thing.”

“No kidding?” Calen’s brow lifted. “You’ve got a process figured out?”

“Not exactly,” Ty admitted with a wave of his hand. “But I’ve got a theory that if you resaturate dried wood in an alchemical bath, the fibers will absorb properties from the solution. Strength, resistance—stuff like that.”

Calen nodded, considering it. “That’s an interesting approach. I know some people here who’ve toyed around with the idea for years, but as far as I know, no one’s ever figured out a reliable method. Sounds like it has potential.”

“Yeah, wood’s a pain to treat compared to metals and stone,” Ty said, glancing off. “But I got the idea when I started seeing those crystals from the south popping up more on the market.”

“I’ve heard about those. They’ve been getting a lot of attention lately,” he nodded. “But they don’t seem to be cheap.”

“They sure aren’t,” Ty shook his head. “I managed to get my hands on one, but I’m gonna need a lot more to really make it work.”

Ty was right about the challenge ahead. For nearly a century, people had tried and failed. Magically-treated stones and metals were already expensive and difficult to produce, and organic materials just didn’t respond well to the same methods. There had been some rare successes, but they were never replicable and impossible to scale. Still, someone was bound to figure it out eventually, and though Calen didn’t know much about the crystals House Aevum was pulling from the southern mountains, they just might’ve been worth exploring.

“Well, if you’re serious about that, this is definitely the place to be,” Calen said, leaning back. “Maybe except for the Floating City, I’m pretty sure there’s nowhere else with as many folks who’ve tried cracking that puzzle. Jacob’s old man even dabbled with it for a few years. Think he’s given up by now, but I’m sure he’d still be interested. If you pitch it to him, he might have some ideas to help you push it forward.”

“Really?” Ty turned, his gaze drifting toward the forest, clearly mulling it over.

“Yeah, I’ll introduce you to him,” he replied, giving Ty a firm pat on the back. “He’s an old family friend.”

“I’d really appreciate that,” he grinned. “That could help speed things up for sure.”

“Well, you know where to come if you ever need wood,” he laughed. “I’m sure I could get you a good deal. Just let me know whenever you get started.”

“Deal,” Ty agreed, chuckling along to his joke. “Thanks, boss.”

“Ah~, enough with the ‘boss’ stuff,” he shook his head. “I never got used to people calling me that.”

It wasn’t a standard in Marrah, but it wasn’t uncommon at least in Calen’s line of work to forgo those kinds of honorifics. Actually, thinking about it for a bit, he couldn’t recall even a single time anyone working for them ever called his mother anything other than ‘Gina’ when she was still around. That just wasn’t his parents’ style, and it seemed that attitude was something he inherited from them.

“You really are the boss though,” he encouraged, quickly swallowing and wiping his mouth of the drink he just took. “Shit, you felled two big ones before I finally got my first one down today. What are the trees around here made of anyway?”

“Last time I checked, just wood,” Calen quipped. “At least, I hope that’s what I’ve been selling.”

“Man, you know what I mean,” he clicked his tongue and shook his head. 

“Eh, cut yourself some slack,” Calen assured. “Use what I taught you, and you’ll catch up easily.”

“Yeah,” he stretched his arms up, catching himself as he nearly spilled some of his drink out. “I guess we’ll see.”

“Well, on that note, I’m getting back out there,” he stretched, stepping down onto the earth.

“Aw,” he groaned, jumping to his feet too. “You haven’t even finished your drink yet.”

“I’ve had enough for now,” Calen nonchalantly shrugged as he started to walk away from Ty and back towards the forest, already recovered.

“You aren’t thirsty?” the voice behind him asked.

“Nope,” he called back. “More would just slow me down.”

“Jeez,” Ty sighed. “I don’t know how you do it.”

◊◊◊◊◊

“Haaaaah,” Remy yawned, stretching her body out in the middle of the rolling cart. Somehow, she consistently managed to take up well-over half of the space, leaving only the extremities for the rest of them to sit along. “Remind me why we have to wake up so fucking early again.”

“Would you rather get back at night?” Calen asked.

“Hmmmm, maybe…” she pondered the question, staring up at the brightening sky that floated with clouds. “Say, when’s the next time I’ll be leading?”

“Next week,” he replied, a bit distracted. “Good thing you reminded me, actually. It’ll probably be about five days, but I’ve got to head over to Callow for a bit, and I’m stuck in meetings for a while before that.”

Calen was a little surprised that Remy brought it up.

She usually preferred to keep her role in the background, not one to flaunt her position, but over the past few years, she’d effectively become second in command in their group after himself. When Calen’s duties had grown, expanding both in the town and his business, he found himself needing someone to take charge of his crew during his absence. 

Remy was the obvious choice.

Not only was she dependable, but she already knew everything she needed to know. She was also the most experienced, she could keep people in line if necessary, and she could effectively compensate for Calen’s absence. It wasn’t something a person would guess just by looking at her, but after Calen himself, Remy was by far the most efficient worker they’d ever had. In fact, she was the whole reason that he could keep his personal crew so small in the first place.

“Callow?” Remy repeated the nearby city’s name. “It’s been a while since you went over that way. What’s going on over there?”

“Just renewing a couple contracts nearing the end of their terms.”

Pausing a moment, Remy stared away in thought with a hand on her head. “Ah, with those nobles? I remember we visited them a couple years ago at around the same time,” she mentioned, leaning over slightly onto one arm towards him.

“Mhm,” he nodded, recalling the occasion. “These are the same ones.”

“It’s been that long? No fucking way,” she muttered, a contented smile and short laugh escaping her.

“Yeah,” he returned the wistful smile.

Calen didn’t have to leave town very often, but he usually ended up visiting either Callow or Tenebris once every couple months for one reason or another. Depending on when it all lined up, sometimes Remy would tag along with him. It was nice to have her company on the trips there, and since those were the only times either of them left Marrah, they usually spent some time exploring different areas of the cities together.

“Our output is higher than it was back then,” Remy remarked. “Are you gonna get a better deal with them?”

“That’s the plan,” he nodded. “We’ve been offloading a lot of our surplus onto Shul recently, but I should be able to negotiate larger contracts to offset that.”

“Nice.”

When Calen’s parents passed and the business fully turned over into his hands, production took a hit for a while. They prepared him well to take over, but they couldn’t have prepared him for everything. Regardless, he was in a much better position now than he was a few years ago, and they’d been steadily growing.

“Hey, do you remember what that one treat they had when we went a couple months ago was?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she honed her thoughts. “Amber something…”

“Oh,” he expressed, the recollection coming to him. “Those pieces of crystalized honey with bits of fruit and stuff in them?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” she snapped her fingers. “Damn, those were good.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” he said, a grin tugging at his lips as the memory of their redolent flavor stirred his senses. “If I come across any, I’ll bring some back.”

“Sweet, thanks,” she grinned, soon turning over slightly to face Jacob and Ty. “And while you’re doing that, we’ll be sleeping-in next week. Right, guys?”

“Sure,” Ty acknowledged. “Sounds good.”

“Fine with me,” Jacob assured. “I still don’t understand how you need more rest, though. All you do on the rides here is sleep anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered, already sinking back against the floorboards. She let out a sigh, her eyes closing. “It’s just different when you’re not moving.”

But as she got comfortable again, someone else chose to keep her from her peaceful slumber for a little bit longer.

“Hey, Remy, I’ve been wondering something,” Ty voiced.

She reopened an eye and tilted her head over slightly to face him, giving him an approving nod. “What’s up?”

“You’ve been doing this for a long time, right?”

“A good few years, yeah,” she confirmed with a wary eyebrow. “What’s it to you?”

“Well, I was just wondering if you had anything else planned,” he said, his voice steady. “I’m starting my own business soon, and I want to understand why some people stick around while others just leave.”

She didn’t answer right away, and after a moment of silence, she shrugged. “Nope. Nothing else planned.”

“Alright…” he hesitated before asking, “So, you think you’ll be doing this forever?”

“Probably,” she replied without much hesitation. “Forever or until my body gives out. But I don’t see either happening anytime soon, so I’m not gonna waste time worrying.”

“Huh, alright,” he sat back against the wall of the cart, dangling one arm over the side. “Guess you like it here a lot, then.”

She stretched her arms out, then settled them back behind her head. “What’s not to like? Good people and honest work, sometimes that’s all you need. It’s simple here, and I like that. Beats where I was before, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah? Where was that?” he asked, curious.

After a long silence, Ty’s question hung in the air, unanswered. Calen couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle, a smirk tugging at his lips as Remy closed her eyes once more, audibly pretending to drift off to sleep. He’d expected this, but for a second, he thought maybe Ty might’ve cracked her tough exterior.

“Huh–? Remy?” Ty leaned in, looking confused.

“Yeah?” she replied, her voice a little too tired, her eyes still shut. “What’s up?”

“Where were you before here?” Ty asked again, a bit more persistent.

“I heard you the first time,” she muttered, offering nothing more.

“Then–”

“Give it up, Ty,” Jacob cut in with a laugh. “You’re not getting anything out of her. Trust me, you’re not the first to try.”

“Bad past?” Ty glanced at Jacob.

“Dunno. She keeps that information tighter than the vaults in the capital,” Jacob replied with a shrug. “Some things are just better left alone. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, there’s not much anyone can do.”

Just like Jacob said, Remy kept her past locked away tight. Calen had known her for at least eight years, and he still couldn’t get anything out of her. No mention of family, no childhood stories, not even where she was from. All he knew was that she’d shown up in Marrah one day, looking for work, and his parents had taken a liking to her. Everything else? A mystery.

“I don’t see why you guys have to be so goddamn nosy about it,” she complained with a harsh exhalation.

“I was just curious, that’s all,” Ty shrugged. “I don’t know a lot about you.”

“Then ask me what my favorite color is,” she half-heartedly suggested. “But that shit’s in the past for a reason. I’d rather not have to relive it.”

“Okay,” he conceded, giving up the endeavor. “I guess it’s none of my business.”

“Glad to hear it,” she rolled over onto her other side, trying to get comfortable again.

Calen kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead, listening quietly as his employees spoke. He’d stopped pressing Remy about her past a long time ago. Whatever it was, she clearly struggled to talk about it. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still curious, but he respected her too much to push. Moments like these, when she let slip a bit of something new, were the closest he’d ever get to learning more. If she ever wanted him to know, she’d tell him, but he’d come to accept that it probably wouldn’t ever happen.

She was right anyways—they didn’t need to know, and Calen wasn’t going to risk losing one of his best lumberers over something so inconsequential.

“Well?” Remy’s question broke through the silence with an expectant tone.

“Hm?” Ty looked to Calen as if seeking guidance, to which he replied with an unknowing shrug.

“Are you going to ask me or what?” she pressed further.

“What–” he uttered, confused, stammering with his thoughts for a while before finally realizing her intent. “Oh! Uh–”

“It’s aquamarine,” she answered before the question even started to form. “Don’t ask why.”

“Got it,” he smiled.

“Now,” Remy yawned, “I’d like to–”

“Sorry,” Calen interjected as the wagon’s bumpy cadence came to an end. “Nap time’s over.”

Letting out a disappointed sigh, Remy relaxed herself and enjoyed one last moment of her brief repose.

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” she muttered a moment later, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Well, looks like you owe me a nap, Ty.”

“How–?” he exclaimed, taken aback by the nonsensical statement.

“You’ll figure it out,” she reached over and gave him a firm slap on the back.

Taking from the trunk his old pair of axes in one hand, Calen walked over to the edge of the wagon and jumped down onto the soft morning ground, letting the force course through his legs to start to warm them up for the long day ahead.

“I’m getting started,” he said, starting to walk off towards the horizon of trees. “Get the horses settled.”

“Sure,” Jacob replied.

Sheathing his smaller hatchet, Calen threw the larger one that he used for felling across both of his shoulders, holding onto the end of the handle with one hand and the neck of it with the other as he walked and observed the growing morning sky. It was going to get hotter as the day progressed, which was part of the reason that they got out here so early, but the air had been keeping relatively cool recently, making the past week much more enjoyable to work in. And feeling a gust of wind brush past his face and wave his medium-length, light brown hair around, it seemed that they would get to enjoy a nice breeze as they worked too.

This time of the year was his favorite, just when the seasons were starting to shift away from the hot months.

“Yo, Calen!” a hurried voice called out from behind him. “Wait up!”

Looking over his shoulder, he smiled and stopped to let Ty catch up with him.

“You know,” Ty said as he caught up to Calen, matching his stride with a casual ease. “I’ve been thinking about something lately.”

Calen glanced over. “Yeah?”

Ty flexed his fingers, as if testing them. “I’ve gotten stronger.”

“Well, yeah–”

“Not just physically,” he clarified. “My magic’s improved too. Feels more natural.”

Calen gave a knowing nod. “That’s to be expected. This kind of work pushes every part of you, magic included.”

“Right,” Ty hummed in agreement, then hesitated, as if weighing his words. “It got me thinking… have you ever thought about becoming an adventurer?”

“Huh?” he tilted his head, caught off-guard.

“Well, after doing this for so long, you must be pretty strong, yeah?”

“Ah,” he pondered the original question. “Well, I guess I thought about adventuring once or twice when I was a kid, but nah, not really.”

“I bet you’d be pretty good at it though,” he assured.

Calen shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Just never felt like the life for me. Why do you ask?”

Ty puffed out his cheeks, clearly turning the idea over in his head. “I dunno. I’ve just been thinking about it myself lately.”

“I thought you wanted to start a business,” he said.

“I did. Still do,” Ty said, gazing up at the sky, where clouds drifted lazily overhead. “But part of me wonders if adventuring could be just as useful.”

Calen raised a brow. “How so?”

Ty exhaled, thinking it through. “Well, I figure I’d meet people who know enough about magic to help with the treating process. I’ve heard magical implements—like staffs—are reinforced with magic, so maybe there’s some overlap.”

“Hmm,” Calen considered the proposition. “There could be, but I think if it were that easy, it would’ve been solved a long time ago. Besides, it’d be best to do some research yourself first, and then look for people afterward.”

“Probably,” he agreed with a sigh. “Still though, it makes you wonder.”

“Do you think the business will fail?” Calen asked. “Is adventuring your fall-back plan?”

He hesitated. “Maybe. I’m not sure yet. But, It’d be pretty neat to go down in history for slaying some great beast or discovering something amazing.”

“That’s fair. I used to think the same way,” he said, a warm smile crossing his face as old memories surfaced. “But adventuring isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. Most people picture the thrill of the journey, the glory of their achievements—that’s the image the Adventurers Guild sells anyway. And yeah, it sounds like a good deal when you put it like that.”

“Not that simple, huh?” Ty knowingly inquired.

Calen shook his head. “There’s always a bit of luck involved. Actually… a lot of luck. Few people have what it takes to become real adventurers. The rest either die trying or never figure out what it truly means to be one.”

Admittedly, Calen wasn’t a huge fan of the kingdom’s growing craze for adventure. He respected the profession and those who dedicated their lives to it, the kingdom wouldn’t exist without them, but he simply felt that it’d become a buzzword today for a dream that most people would never actually realize. The Adventurers Guild sold that dream in greater quantities than he sold wood, but something built on dreams alone wouldn’t stand for long.

“Do you think you don’t have what it takes?” Ty asked, studying him with curiosity. “You seem plenty strong to me.”

“Physically? Maybe,” he admitted. “Truth is, I don’t really know how strong you need to be, but I could never honestly call myself one. I just don’t have the passion for it. No real reason to be one.”

Ty smirked. “For me, I could think of a few.”

Calen chuckled. “Oh, sure, there are the obvious ones,” he said with a grin. “But I’m happy where I am—happy with my life. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

That was just one of the parts Calen had an issue with when it came to adventuring. They got so obsessed with chasing glory that they neglected everything they already had—homes, families, friends. For some reason, that wasn’t enough. They were willing to leave it all behind for a shot at greatness. The irony wasn’t lost on him; it was the opposite of why the original adventurers set out in the first place.

“Hey, let me ask you something,” Calen said, turning to face his apprentice more directly. “Is there something you want to see?”

“Hm?” he pursed his lips, a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Calen paused, his expression growing a bit more serious. “Adventuring isn’t really my thing, but I’ll tell you this. There are two reasons someone becomes an adventurer. Either they do it because they have something they want to see, or they do it because they can’t see anything else for themselves where they are.”

“Can’t see anything else for themselves…” Ty repeated the words, his voice trailing off in a pensive murmur as understanding began to dawn. “You’re talking about–”

“Yeah,” Calen cut in, his voice flat.

Ty hesitated, then asked carefully, “…You?”

Calen laughed softly, shaking his head. “You think I’m some retired adventurer? I don’t look that old, do I?”

“Well, you never told me if it was higher or lower,” he chuckled with an innocent shrug.

“Lower. Definitely lower,” he answered, still laughing. “Besides, I told you already, adventuring isn’t my thing.”

“Got it,” he smiled. “So if not you, then…”

“My grandparents,” Calen nodded simply.

Adventuring was a double-edged sword, sometimes one there wasn’t a choice in wielding, but he got to learn a little about it from the stories that his grandparents shared with him when they were still alive. Both moments of awe and moments of terror were interspersed throughout the days of toil, and while the prospect of treading new land and meeting danger appealed to some instinct inside of Calen, ultimately their experience informed him enough to deter him from the idea.

“Gotcha,” Ty chuckled and scratched his head.

Calen gave a thoughtful look before speaking again. “If the business doesn’t work out, that’s alright. You can always try something else. But think it over before jumping into adventuring. Even if it might help you in the long run, there are always sacrifices,” he paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “I’ve found my calling here, but if there is something you want to see… who knows? Maybe that dream of yours is worth chasing.”

“Well…” he began, his gaze drifting as he thought to himself.

Looking back ahead of him towards the forest they approached, Calen squinted as he spotted something in the distance. Near the trees, growing in his bobbing gaze, he saw…

People?

“I’ve been thinking that–” Ty started to finish his thought but was quickly cut off.

“Wait. Hold that thought,” he interrupted, narrowing forward and securing his free axe as he bolted off towards the trees.

Something’s going on.

Maxine’s crew had no reason to be here today, and from the looks of it there were far more people scattered along the tree line than they had anyways. There were clear agreements with the other lumberers in Marrah regarding territory, so unless they were from out of town, they were in for some serious trouble. He didn’t appreciate when people went behind his back.

Breaking into a full sprint, instinctively channeling magic to hasten his approach, he quickly closed the distance between him and these encroachers. Noticing him, the three people closest to him gathered to meet him as a group.

Strangely, they didn’t look anything like lumberjacks. They didn’t even look like they were from the third kingdom.

The woman in the group raised her hand to wave him over, and a second later, he stopped in front of them.

Now able to get a better look at them, he scanned them from top to bottom. They wore rather formal clothing of a style that he wasn’t fully familiar with. Initially, he identified it as old-kingdoms formalwear of some kind, but there was a quality to it that felt distinctly different, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint what.

Regardless, this information neither comforted nor worried him. They likely weren’t here to compete for lumber, but people from the old kingdoms never came by this part of Asteria. Even with living here for his entire life, he could probably count the number of times he’d seen someone from the other side of the desert on just his hands.

“What’s going on here?” Calen firmly asked, his focus initially fixed on the woman who had beckoned him to them, the gold, thick frames that adorned her face giving him a place to direct his attention.

“I assume you’re the person in charge around here,” the man in the middle of the group pulled his focus, the man’s hands stowed away in the deep pockets of his long, light brown coat.

“That’s right. This is our lumbering zone, so you’d better explain why you’ve got a bunch of men crowding it,” he replied.

“Calm down, Mr. Lat,” the woman with her black hair slicked back in a bun blended condescension and kindness in a lightly patronizing tone.

They’ve done their research.

It wasn’t exactly a secret, but Calen wasn’t too fond of using his last name outside of professional documentation. To him, ‘Lat’ was just another relic that his family should have let go of a long time ago. Everyone already just called him by his given name anyway. In fact, despite working with him for as long as she had, he was pretty sure not even Remy knew what his last name was.

“I’m Riku, 6th Head of Environmental Investigation,” the short-haired man in the middle resumed his role as the speaking head. “These are my colleagues, Sari and Fin.”

“Environmental Investigation?” Calen repeated the name with a wary look. “Never heard of it before.”

“We’re a department under direct orders from House Torelli,” he starkly remarked.

“House Torelli?” he repeated again, his surprise underpinned by a layer of simultaneous skepticism and apprehension. “Awfully far from home, aren’t you?”

“The empire is home to House Torelli, no matter which kingdom the land claims to belong to,” the man sharply returned.

“Well, if you truly are under their command, I’m sure you have some proof of that,” he insisted, still wary of their identity.

Calen didn’t have any first-hand experience dealing with the Torellis, but this seemed unusual, even for that house. They might’ve founded the empire, but this was the other side of the continent and two kingdoms removed from their noble origins.

Did they really operate within such a wide breadth?

As an answer to his question, the man withdrew a pendant of five silver, concentric circles—the indisputable symbol of House Torelli.

Everyone in the three kingdoms knew the trademark symbol of the Torelli. Supposedly, it had existed for as long as the empire itself—some even believed even longer—unchanged for a thousand years. He flaunted it proudly, letting the emblem speak for itself. Calen’s gaze narrowed as he studied it, weighing his response.

Though he couldn’t fully trust it as proof of their connection to the Torelli, it was convincing. Forged, stolen, or otherwise, falsely abusing the symbol of any Major House was a crime far worse than simple impersonation, and with the Torelli’s mark, the consequences were even greater. These people would be fools to parade it around illegally, and if they were that reckless, there was no telling what else they might do.

“Well, what do you want?” Calen crossed his arms, charily allowing them to continue. As he stared at the man’s grey irises, he took notice of a pattern of three almost parallel scars on the left side of his face that vaguely seemed to point in the direction of his ear.

“Plainly put,” the other man, Fin, stepped forward, his hand resting on the handle of a rather long silver cleaver at his waist, “we’re shutting down this operation of yours.”

“What?” Calen raised his voice.

“We’re not shutting you down,” Sari shot a hard look at her associate.

“Damn right you’re not,” he definitively asserted. “My family helped build this town. This business has been around practically for as long as the kingdom has.”

“Please stay calm. As we said, we’re not shutting you down,” she repeated, continuing her statement with an explanatory cadence. “However, we do have to ask you to postpone all current lumbering operations in the region of the Erethon Forest closest to Marrah for the foreseeable future while we investigate the–”

“Do you think I can’t read between the lines?” Calen interrupted, repressing his vexation with a baffled exhalation. “This better be some kind of joke.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lat, but this is not,” Sari replied, that same imperiousness supporting her words as their foundation. “We’ve received several reports of unexpected and unusual mana signatures from this region of the Erethon Forest that have demanded our investigation. To humanity’s silver, it is our duty to investigate this matter as thoroughly as we can, and it is your duty to comply by ceasing operations until we have finished our work.”

Scoffing, Calen shook his head, keeping his tone firm. “Show me the damn papers. This is my livelihood, and I’ve got people under me who rely on this work to make due. If you’re shutting me down, there better be compensation, and I want it in writing.”

“Absolutely,” she said, opening her hands as though offering a compromise. “Once our investigation is complete, House Torelli will reimburse you for the losses, and it’s likely you’ll be able to resume business as usual.”

“After the investigation is complete?” His frown deepened. “Why not before? I’m sure you’ve got the funds.”

“Of course,” she replied. “But it will take time for the funds to be approved, and calculations would most easily be made after we’ve finished our work.”

“Why couldn’t you wait for approval before starting all this?” he asked.

“This just became an urgent matter,” she replied. “If we had the funds on hand, we would’ve given them to you. But with the timeline so tight, we’re doing the best we can. We’ll make sure you’re compensated more than what you’ve lost during this downtime.”

… Maybe it’s no big deal.

Calen tried to assure himself that this wasn’t going to be an issue, but he didn’t readily accept the thought. He wasn’t taking a word of theirs at face value—the First Kingdom had a habit of assuming whatever was good for them was good for the rest of the empire—but letting them carry out their business uninhibited might have been easier. He wasn’t looking to start a fight with the Torellis anyway.

But her response didn’t ease his concerns.

“So, just to be clear,” he asked, emphasizing the key point, “You’ll be giving me the money after the investigation is finished? How long is that gonna take?”

“Depending on how things progress, our timeline may vary, which is why we cannot readily provide just compensation,” Sari began her reply. “Likely, it will take longer, but based on our initial estimates, we may finish everything in about a month from now.”

“A month?!” he emphasized the word, his eyes widening in disbelief. “And what am I supposed to tell my people? You want them to just starve?”

“I suppose they will have to find work elsewhere,” she replied coolly.

“What?” His eye twitched, frustration bubbling over. “It’s our wood that builds the Third Kingdom. And now you First Kingdom folks think you can waltz in here like it’s your right?” He stepped closer, his voice low but edged with threat. “This is beyond unprofessional. If you don’t–”

“Calen! Man, you run fast!” an out-of-breath Ty finally rejoined him by his side, huffing several breaths before he could continue speaking. “So, what’s happening here? Who are these guys?”

Gritting his teeth, he stifled the resentment he felt like lashing out with. He didn’t need this to become a big scene. Though, with the way this exchange seemed to be headed, it was looking more and more likely to be an unavoidable outcome.

“They’re nobody,” he plainly answered, keeping his gaze on the devious woman in front of them, not even turning to acknowledge his eager employee. “Get to work.”

“Huh? But–”

“Now,” he articulated the word with force that made it sink down in the air. “Or I’ll tell Remy she can have your lunch today.”

His worker stared at him with a slightly disappointed and conflicted expression, but it only lasted for a few moments before he acquiesced with a sigh.

“Aight,” Ty started to walk past him towards the jagged line of trees.

“I’d stop if I were you,” Riku calmly warned.

“And why would I do that? Last time I checked, you weren’t my boss,” he retorted as he breached beyond the group.

Not waiting even a second after Ty finished his final word, Riku uttered one sound. “Fin.”

Instantly, the young man vanished from his place beside Riku, his hoary hair flowing like smoke as he turned around and sprinted towards the trespasser. Calen’s eyes could only follow by their natural action before his brain understood what he was seeing. In less time than he could count, Ty’s feet were torn from their place on the ground and his body slammed towards it instead, the agile bruiser toppling him with ease and crossing one leg under the other as he sat down on Ty’s back.

“Hey!” Calen shouted, finally reacting to the situation and his hand rushing to draw that large axe that hung at his waist.

Anticipating his response, Sari had extended her hand out in front of her, warning him to stop, and Calen narrowed his eyes back onto his subordinate as sound finally surfaced from him.

“Hey–! Get off–!” he pressed his body against the ground haphazardly and flailed his couple free limbs about. But as he felt the cold, silver edge of Fin’s cleaver-sword press against the back of his neck, Ty took a sharp breath and froze, clearly rethinking his course of action.

“If you wanna die, keep it up,” Fin coolly informed him, one hand on the weapon’s handle and the other pinning down Ty’s left arm.

Walking up to him as Calen hesitantly stood powerlessly in place, Riku approached him until they were mere inches apart. The smug look on the man’s face fought with the tense one that strained Calen’s face as he clenched his jaw tight.

“Perhaps you misunderstand,” Riku disparaged, a crude professionalism, or lack thereof, marring his voice. “You don’t have an option here.”

“You old kingdom pricks think you can control everything,” Calen muttered, barely holding back his frustration.

Riku smirked, letting out a corrosive laughter that transitioned into a low chuckle. “And you outcasts think you can escape from the real world on the other side of the desert,” he turned to a scornful whisper. “But no matter how far you run away, as long as you live under the name of the kingdoms, the word of the Torelli is law.”

Bullshit.

Each word ate away at Calen’s already thin composure. Every muscle in his body wanted to pounce at the opportunity less than a foot away from him to squeeze vengeance free from any orifice he could find. But somehow, the severely eroded string of his self-control remained intact as he locked eyes with the man in front of him.

He couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t what his grandparents had given everything crossing the desert to build. It was supposed to be a land free from the troubles of the past, yet still they were getting pushed around by old powers.

He was going to fight this somehow, but right now he couldn’t take the risk.

“Let go of my man,” he said as calmly as he could.

A complacent curiosity revealed itself before Riku chose how he would react. “Fin,” he simply said with an identical inflection as before.

Unpinning Ty and throwing his wide blade back behind his back, Fin rejoined Riku and Sari in his previous position, lackadaisically leaning his weight onto one foot. How he’d understood Riku’s command that way, Calen had no idea, but it wasn’t something he was going to dwell on.

As he scrambled onto his feet, Ty quickly dusted himself and looked around until his eyes found the man who had bested him. Gripping the handle of his axe tightly with both hands, it was clear he sought to even the tally.

“Ty!” Calen urgently commanded. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

A confused and annoyed expression washed over him. “But–”

“Just–” he paused, reluctantly finishing the order. “Come on.”

Furrowing his brow as he struggled against his bosses orders and his personal desire, he stared at Calen for several seconds before relenting his course of action and walking back. Ty kept a wary eye on Fin until he reached where Calen stood, and understandably unsatisfied with the outcome, Ty bounced the handle of his axe over the top of his shoulder as he trodded along without saying a word.

Once Calen was sure Ty wasn’t coming back, he turned back to greet once again the self-satisfied smirk so close to him that he could smell its breath.

Asshole.

He wasn’t even trying to hide his prejudice.

One punch.

That’s all Calen would’ve needed.

His fingers tightened around the handle of his axe, twitching for something to let their fury out on, but he killed himself to subdue the tempestuous urge that every raging fiber of his body desperately felt like satisfying.

Somehow, he turned away, but each moment until he met back up with his younger companion felt like trying to carve a straight line on a very thin rod of metal. One misstep, one sliver of a dither in his path of thought, and he would slip.

“You gonna tell me what that was about?” Ty asked.

“Are you okay?”

“Man, don’t dodge the question,” he grumbled, ticked off from the whole situation.

“I’ll tell you later,” he replied, unsure whether he was convincing himself or Ty. “My day just got a lot worse.” He rubbed his temples, and sighed to ease the tension. “Are you okay?”

“It was nothing,” he dismissed the question, seeming to be perfectly fine with avoiding talking about his part of the story.

Against his wishes, the encounter replayed itself throughout Calen’s mind, unavoidable no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes to try to block it out. 

Disgrace.

For some reason, calling himself that gave Calen some warped form of comfort.

For the first time, he was glad that his parents weren’t around. That thought in and of itself sickened him, but the thought of them seeing him in that moment was even worse.

What would they have done?

He pondered that question to no answer as he thought about his next move.

Calen didn’t want to believe that House Torelli would act in such a way, but as of right now, he didn’t know what to think. The one thing he did know for sure was that this was something he was going to need some help on.

In the worst case scenario, a temporary furlough was still better than potential dissolution altogether, but he still wanted to avoid even that outcome if he could.

“I can’t believe we’re just leaving after that,” Ty complained, voicing what Calen’s own inner thoughts said for him.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t over yet,” he assured, his voice still tense with anger.

“It’s not?” he questioned, an eager curiosity showing in his eyes. “Well, just tell me what you want me to do.”

“You? Nothing,” Calen replied, shaking his head. “Let me handle this.”

“Hey, you saw what they did back there,” he countered, an annoyance tinging his words. “I want in.”

“Sorry, Ty, but this isn’t something that involves you,” he denied.

“Man~,” Ty clicked his tongue, sulking, but Calen knew he’d get over it.

The next couple minutes as they walked in dismal silence were long. Only the snapping of twigs and the tearing of leaves underneath them survived the vacuous atmosphere that pervaded around them.

Eventually, they ran into the others on their way back.

“Forget something?” Jacob asked as they walked towards each other within several feet.

“We’re heading back,” Calen replied.

“Yeah, right,” he laughed.

As they passed each other, it became clear Jacob wasn’t going to stop. Without thinking, Calen shot out his arm, grabbing him by the shirt and halting him in his tracks. The sudden motion knocked the air from Jacob’s chest, nearly sending him to the ground.

“Shit– What the fuck, Calen?!” Remy shouted, stepping forward to steady Jacob.

“I’m not joking,” Calen said, his tone sharp. “We’re heading back.” He shot them a decisive look before turning toward the wagon.

“Okay, okay, we got it,” Remy muttered, clearly frustrated.

Jacob coughed, brushing himself off. “It’s fine,” he said, reorienting himself before following them back.

As the others quickly caught up with Calen and Ty, an awkward tension hung over them as they continued the walk. Calen tried his best to ignore the obvious looks of mild communication between the other three in lieu of speech, but he knew what they were thinking anyway. Right now though, he wasn’t sure which he’d prefer, answering their questions or standing still in the biting silence.

“So…” Jacob finally chose to speak. “What’s the plan now?”

“Remy, once we get back, let Maxine know her crew’s not to step foot anywhere near our lumbering zone until further notice,” he directed, being strong and clear in his words.

“Calen, what is this?” she asked in response, her voice carrying a severity that he rarely saw from her.

“I don’t know yet,” he answered. That was the unfortunate truth, after all.

“Then what are you going to do?” Remy followed up, looking for a moment back at the forest they were leaving behind and the pests that plagued it, so far away they appeared only as specks in the distance.

“I’m summoning the council.”

◊◊◊◊◊

Calen tapped his foot against the dim yellow planks that patterned the floor, leaning forward in his chair as he watched another one enter the building. People had gradually been trickling in over the past couple hours since Calen sent out the notice, and although not everybody confirmed their attendance, he felt that they were nearing all the people who were going to show up. They were at nineteen members currently. A couple of them he knew were out of town, and a few others made their absence clear in one way or another, so that only left a handful unaccounted for, but he figured he’d give it just a few more minutes before they started.

Overall, they had about two thirds of the council’s fellows in attendance, which was actually impressive given this wasn’t one of their scheduled meetings. Most importantly, they had enough people here for a vote, if it came to that, and although he maintained the right as the summoner to hold the meeting until he deemed it concluded, he didn’t want to keep people waiting for much longer. Besides, all the people he needed to talk to had shown up already.

In the past hours as he waited for more people to arrive at the town hall, he spent most of that time discussing the situation with his business partners and fellow lumberers who were also members of the council. Calen still had enough backlog of unprocessed trees to last a week or so, but assuming the worst, he said he’d be out of supply for a while once that was gone. His associates were understanding, after all they had other suppliers, but to say they were surprised was an understatement. If there was one thing his family was known for throughout their history in this town, they were consistent.

Of the six other large loggers part of the council, only two confirmed running into the same people that Calen had, and of them, only one found himself at any sort of odds against them, but to nowhere near the same degree that Calen seemed to be. Besides merely being witness to their presence and a brief interaction, none of them had no real information that Calen didn’t already know.

He’d singularly been screwed over by this situation, but that didn’t mean he was alone. Whether it was by terrible luck or by targeted intention, he didn’t know, but he needed answers and he needed allies, and this was the only place where he might be able to find both.

Click.

The front door swung open once more as another person entered the building, and Calen sat up as they took a seat at the table.

“Alright,” he said, giving a moment for the few side conversations to quell as the room’s attention focused on him. “Let’s get this started. Thank you for all coming on such short notice.”

“You’ve never called a meeting before, Calen,” Steven, one of his fellow councilmen, mentioned, his arms crossed as he sat on the other side of the table slightly to the right of himself. “So, what’s going on?”

“I’ll cut straight to the point,” he nodded. “Many of you are already aware of the situation, but a group of people claiming to be under orders from House Torelli have seized a large perimeter around my lumbering zone.”

“The Torelli?” a person repeated the name in surprise and seeking confirmation.

“Yes, that’s what they claim, at least,” Calen replied, making his mild skepticism clear. “They’re performing some sort of ‘investigation’ of the forest there, and because of that, they’re trying to force me to stop working there for the next month until they’re finished.”

A babbling uproar emerged near the end of his statement as people broke into small bouts of conversation, and he allowed it to run its course. 

While it was true that this was his first time calling a meeting, he’d been taking part in them as his family’s representative for a decade by now, and even when his father held that position, Calen was still dragged along as a child to observe them for several years. Suffice to say, he’d been well-prepared, and he understood all the quirks and behaviors that came along with these meetings. Outrage wasn’t uncommon, and he found that when it came up, it was best to simply let it die down on its own.

Council meetings carried a certain respect. Each member had earned their place—some, like Calen’s family, had been in Marrah since before the council was formalized, while later families gained seats through approval and voting. Only those who’d contributed to the town’s development were considered.

Every person in the room mattered.

As the stream of noise died down, one voice near him raised a question.

“So, the Torelli are here to investigate. But investigate what, exactly?” Riley, one of the other major loggers, asked, the concern for her own operation clear.

Calen took a moment to recall the precise phrasing used by the woman he met earlier before reciting her words. “Unusual mana signatures.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, resting her chin on her hand as she narrowed her eyes, unsatisfied with his response.

“Beats me,” he simply answered.

“You didn’t ask?”

“Didn’t get the chance to,” he explained. “They didn’t give me a whole lot of time to ask questions before taking one of my guys and threatening to kill him if we didn’t back off.”

The room burst into noise once more as he finished speaking, but one serious voice, who had until now remained silent, pushed above the rest.

“Be careful of the allegations you throw around,” the rough voice of the council’s eldest member silenced the rest of the din of commotion around it.

While Marrah’s council in theory was a board that shared equal power among its constituents, there was still some level of undeniable sway that a few of its members held over the others.

Teno, the last of Marrah’s second generation and son to one of its founding families, was one of those who found favor where there was otherwise none, and that support was well-deserved. He’d been part of the council for over fifty years, and Marrah’s industry would be leagues behind without the network of transport that his family established basically all by themselves. Officially, there was no leader here, but if Calen were to give anyone that title, Teno was undoubtedly the closest person to it.

“I understand the significance of these claims,” Calen acknowledged, meeting his contemplative yet calm gaze. “I don’t make them lightly.”

Judging Calen’s eyes as if assessing their tenacity, Teno sat in silent ponderance for several moments, his fingers interlaced in front of his face like they held his next words in a tight grip.

“I’ve dealt with the Torelli before,” he finally said, raising his head above his hands. “These don’t sound like the actions of that house.”

“That’s why I summoned this meeting,” Calen returned, diverting his eyes to greet other members of the council. “This whole situation is really starting to get under my skin. I need to know what’s really going on here, because right now I’m stuck with a lot on my plate and no way to move forward.”

As he found understanding looks among the others around him, he returned his gaze back to Teno, who gave him a nod as if permitting him to continue. It wasn’t something Calen needed—he was going to continue until he had his answer regardless—especially as the meeting holder, but it was still better to have Teno’s approval than to not.

“Dalia,” Calen turned to the other side of the table to the young woman who had been flipping assiduously through a large book. “Have you found anything?”

Her eyes darted back and forth as she finished scanning the page she was on before answering. “Still looking,” she vocalized as she turned to the next page.

Calen contacted Dalia separately, right after he got back to town and made the summons for the meeting, to start digging through any and all files she had access to for anything that could’ve been relevant. Over the past couple decades, she’d gradually become the go-to recordkeeper for many of the loggers in the area, including Calen’s. Her parents ran a mixed-operations business, and they found out when she was really young that she seemed to have a propensity for organizing numbers and information.

“If there’s anything that can corroborate their identity or if there was any sort of notice about this that was missed, the sooner we know, the better,” he urged. “I don’t care if it’s signed from House Torelli, House Tenore, the Yakiri government, Environmental Investigation, the–”

“Environmental Investigation?” Teno reiterated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “That’s the department they claimed to be a part of.”

“Hmm,” he drew out the thought, staring down at the ashen-gray wood of the table they sat around. “I struggle to recall where exactly, but I’ve heard that name before.”

“So they’re legit?” Calen pressed, leaning against the back of his chair.

“I… don’t know,” he shook his head and exhaled a heavy sigh. “What proof did they provide that they were sent from House Torelli?”

“They bore the symbol,” Calen answered, reminding himself of the rippling emblem.

“In silver?” Teno asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well then.” He crossed his arms, his face tightening. That wasn’t a good sign, that much was certain. “Not much else to say, is there?”

“It’s possible it was a fake,” he proposed, already expecting the harsh response to that statement.

“Not unless they have a death wish,” Teno scoffed, accompanied by a mixture of sentiments on both sides.

“It’s possible,” Calen insisted.

“It’s absurd,” Teno firmly denied, making his thoughts on the matter clear.

While Calen thought that Teno was dismissing the idea far too quickly, it really didn’t matter who was right. Even if they truly were sent from House Torelli, he was sure this had to be overstepping their bounds.

“Then if you’re right, there would be some record of it, wouldn’t you agree?” Calen calmly countered, looking back to Dalia for an update. “So, anything?”

“Still looking,” she repeated, her head buried deep into the pages.

“Check further back,” Teno enjoined, his tone closer to a demand than a suggestion.

“I’m nearly a year in already,” she snapped back, barely looking up from the paper for a moment to flash a displeased scowl back at the old man who merely let out a mildly disgruntled hiss.

Dalia was probably the only one who could get away with it without consequence. To most, Teno was either a respected elder or a reliable business partner, but to Dalia, he was more like a mentor or an older sibling, despite the age gap. He was training her as the next unofficial leader of the council, and while Calen knew she still respected him, she managed to maintain a more balanced rapport with Teno than most. Other council members tended to defer to him, but Dalia’s mutual respect for him allowed for frequent clashes, a dynamic Calen appreciated—especially in moments like this.

“So, are they Torelli or aren’t they?” Calen opened his arms as he proposed the question to the entire council.

“You tell us,” Shul, one of the southern traders, returned a question. “You’re the one who saw the mark.”

“I don’t give a damn about the mark!” he spat, letting his frustration seep into his words. “Look at everything else; it just doesn’t feel right. You think I’m going to let some piece of metal tell me what to do?”

“Whether you agree with it or not, that piece of metal is more respected than this town ever will be,” Teno gravely reminded him.

“That doesn’t mean they can just come here and do whatever they want,” Calen shot back. “You said this doesn’t sound like something the Torelli would do. So, which is it?”

Staring broodingly at Calen with his sunken, brown eyes, Teno intertwined his fingers once again as he considered his answer, and Calen matched his iron gaze. He’d never had to show such a strong position in any meetings before, and that was why it was imperative that he didn’t back down, especially not while he was still without any form of recourse. Teno wasn’t an unreasonable man, in fact he was one of the most sensible people on the council. Calen knew that he understood where he was coming from.

“You’re right,” he finally spoke, maintaining his formidable position. “As of right now, we can’t be sure of their identity. We need to find out who they really are, Torelli or otherwise.”

Finally.

Calen nodded, following his line of thinking.

“We’ll send word to Tenebris to let them know about our situation and to see if they know anything that we don’t,” Teno continued, looking to Dalia who was already writing down his instructions.

“And in case they don’t know anything about it,” she added, “we’ll request confirmation directly from Kalasira as well.”

“Good idea,” he agreed, then turning back to Calen to address him. “This will take some time, however, and until we know for sure who they are, it’d be best to err on the side of caution.”

“… In other words, you don’t want to do anything,” Calen plainly put, taken aback by the crass suggestion.

“I’m saying we don’t make an enemy when we don’t know who that enemy is,” he evenly returned the sentiment. “Once we know their identity, we’ll know how to handle this. In the best case scenario, it’s possible that this is one large misunderstanding and it’ll be resolved without any direct intervention on our part.”

That was far more optimistic of a reality than Calen was willing to believe in right now, but if Teno was right, then that did sound ideal. Calen wasn’t confident that would be the case, though.

“How long?” he asked, allowing it some consideration.

“For word from Tenebris, we’ll probably hear back within the week,” Teno answered, stroking his gray beard. “Communication with the capital has gotten fairly reliable.”

Assuming the capital did know something that could help, that timeline lined up fairly well with the small amount of leeway that Calen had available to him, but he wasn’t going to bet everything on that working out.

“And from the First City?” Calen probed.

“Hard to say for certain,” he admitted, closing his eyes as he thought. “If I had to place an estimate on it, I’d give it a few weeks to receive news from Kalasira. Maybe sooner, if we’re lucky.”

“Great, so by the time we’re able to do anything about this, there’ll be no point,” he derided, shaking his head.

“And what would you rather us do?” Teno inquired, presenting the question like a statement.

“I say there’s no reason to wait,” he leaned in and swept his gaze around to the rest of the council, pressing a finger down onto the soft grain of the table. “This is our land; we have every right to do as we please with it.”

“That’s brash, Calen,” Kali spoke up far to the left of him, sitting back in her chair. “I think Teno’s idea is best. He’s got more experience with this kind of thing anyway. Besides, there’s been some weird air with the old kingdoms lately. Best not to stir up anything worse.”

“And what does that say about our kingdom if we don’t even try to fight back?” he criticized.

“This isn’t a fight, though,” she threw a hand into the air. “They’re just investigating, and honestly, it’s probably best to just let them do it. If they came all the way out here, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Maybe it’s something dangerous.”

“Then I’ll commission the Adventurers Guild to take care of it,” Calen sardonically replied, waving away the laughable prospect without even needing to think about his answer.

Ridiculous.

While many dangers did lurk in Asteria’s vast land—several of the Third Kingdom’s settlements were founded on battles against beasts or nature itself—Marrah was different. The region had always been tame, and as far as Calen knew, the forest had never caused trouble before.

There was a reason they didn’t see many adventurers here, despite a small Adventurers Guild existing in the town, there simply wasn’t much incentive for them to come. Regardless, if they did end up facing any unforeseen risks, Calen was confident they could handle them without the Torelli there to warn them about it. The Third Kingdom was born out of the old kingdoms’ dereliction; they created this kingdom on their own, and they could defend it on their own.

“This is our kingdom, not theirs,” Calen concisely voiced his thoughts. “We have more power than you think we do. Unless King Bel gives them explicit authorization, we shouldn’t have to listen to them.”

“I get what you’re saying, but they made this empire,” Kali sighed, frowning as she visibly struggled with her response. “Maybe you’re right, but this is way over our heads. If they are the Torelli, then they will answer to King Bel, but I don’t want to get involved.”

“Look at it this way. Do you think they’re going to stop at just my territory?” he pivoted, trying to appeal to her sense of autonomy. “Tell them, Dullen,” he turned to the person next to him, another lumberman, whose lumbering zone was right next to his.

Taken by surprise by the sudden bid, the grizzly man uncrossed his arms and sat up a bit, giving a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Well, it’s true, they’ve blocked off some of my area as well, but only a bit at the edge,” he shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t give it much thought. They said I was fine to keep working everywhere else as long as we didn’t get in their way, so I just told my guys to steer clear.”

Tsk.

It seemed like he couldn’t fully rely on Dullen here after all. If only a fraction of Calen’s land was at risk too, perhaps he would feel the same way, but unfortunately, he didn’t share that same luxury.

“And what happens if they determine they need more?” he pressed, trying to convince him to see his point. “Or if they decide that they want to keep whatever they’ve found?”

“By then, if this whole thing hasn’t already been taken care of, the royal council will know all about our situation,” Dullen reasoned, gesturing towards Dalia who was fervently drafting together a letter. “We’ll have support from people who can actually speak with them on the same level. It’s like Kali said, it’ll be easier if we don’t get involved.”

“So you’re okay with it if it’s just my business that suffers until then?” he accused, his growing annoyance showing less gently now. “Just what am I to this town?”

“Stop acting like we’re the ones against you,” Teno spoke up, raising his voice just loud enough to jolt several of the people around the table. “You know precisely how much you and your family have meant to this town—we answered your summons, that should be proof enough of that fact—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to set myself as a target for the Torelli to shoot down. The council will help you get through this, Calen, rest assured, but not at Marrah’s expense.”

Why couldn’t they get it?

His jaw clenched tight as he matched Teno’s severe gaze for a moment, and Calen became aware of the lump of void balled up at the back of his mouth, swallowing the harsh words he felt like saying before they could escape. Torelli or not, if they stood together, he knew they could handle this.

“The Council exists to handle situations just like this,” Calen said firmly. “The First Kingdom shouldn’t have this kind of sway over the Third Kingdom’s affairs, no matter who they are. If things go wrong, we can call it a misunderstanding. King Bel would back us up if it comes to that.”

Teno met his gaze, unflinching. “And what if it’s not? What if the First Kingdom decides to move people around and get things done their way? You know how powerful they are. It’s not far-fetched to think they might shut everyone down—permanently.”

“Asteria wouldn’t allow it. And you know that.” Calen growled, the frustration evident in his voice. “This is exactly why our ancestors came here to begin with.”

Teno’s eyes softened slightly, but his voice remained steady. “I understand you’re upset, Calen. We all do. But you won’t get my blessing to start a war over this.” His gaze sharpened, the weight of his words pressing in. “This isn’t the Kingdom of War. If that’s what you’re after, you’re in the wrong place.”

War…

No, that wasn’t what he wanted.

Argh~

He took a long breath in as that sensation plagued him again.

Since morning, a lingering nausea had gnawed at Calen, rolling through his mind like a relentless tide that left behind a slowly building film of heat. It had been manageable—until now. He squinted as it worsened.

Shaking his head to try to quell the feeling, Calen took another breath.

A little more.

“I want a vote,” he calmly declared.

The building fell back into the silence that he broke, somehow quieter than it was before, and Teno turned to him with a disconsolate, almost empty expression marring his face. Although he didn’t look around to confirm it, he knew everyone was watching him with a similar thought in mind.

But this was why they were here anyway. From the beginning, Calen had come here seeking more than mere guidance. Words weren’t loud enough to move trees.

Even though he was already pretty sure the results wouldn’t be in his favor, and with only two thirds of the council here, the odds of success were even slimmer, he could still try. Most people had yet to say anything; this would let him know if there was a chance. If the vote was split enough, he could at least force it to a blind revote with the entire council present.

“Very well,” Teno finally resigned. “It is your right, after all. Let’s vote.”

The despondent man looked down for a moment and let out a soft, sullen sigh before panning his gaze around to the other members of the council.

“Those in favor of immediate resistance, raise your hands,” Teno said.

Raising his hand high as Teno finished speaking, Calen looked around to see who else was joining him.

He had expected those who had spoken up against him already to maintain their positions, so it was no surprise to see Teno, Kali, and Dullen remain unmoving. Still, he’d hoped someone would agree with him.

But he found no such support.

Feeling a heavy swallow as he looked to the rest of his fellow lumberers, his eyes unsteadily darted between their arms held down at their sides, and he searched their faces for answers to their absence of aid. A couple of them returned his look with solemn sympathy, and others avoided it with bleak contrite.

In the long seconds as the vote was allowed its duration, he tried each person around the table, trying to salvage the belief that he hadn’t been let down by all of them, but he didn’t find a single hand raised other than his own. Even Dalia eluded his gaze, writing meekly with a hand partially covering her head.

As those thirty seconds passed by like one still frame and Teno started to speak again, Calen slowly dropped his hand.

“Those opposed, raise your hands,” the man wearily gave the second half of the formality its turn.

As expected, he was entirely outnumbered. He almost didn’t feel like looking, but he had to be sure of all nineteen hands raised against him.

Sure enough, there wasn’t even a point.

“The council has voted to not support immediate resistance against the supposed Torelli,” Teno spoke, finishing the vote. “We will proceed with seeking information and support from Tenebris and the grand capital. Everyone shall know as soon as there is any update.”

Calen lightly nodded in understanding, but he kept his eyes down on the table below.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss?” Teno asked.

Pausing a moment, but not to think about the question, he finally gave his answer.

“No,” he simply said. “This meeting is dismissed.”

There was a brief lull before the sounds of many chairs screeching against the floor cascaded in. As they left the building one after another, some people like Dalia gathering their few belongings before finding the door, not a single person uttered another word. A medley of footsteps grew in volume, weakly accompanied by the creaky swing of the door back, and then faded, and Calen remained seated throughout it all, staring driftless as the emptiness within his mind enveloped his focus, the thought of getting up not yet even crossing him.

Eventually, only one disciplined footfall remained with him, and he only barely noticed as it approached him.

Feeling a warm hand on his shoulder, the voice it belonged to waited a few seconds before speaking.

“I’m sorry, Calen.”

The old man gave him a firm, steadying squeeze before his steps too found their way out of the door.

And then he was alone.

◊◊◊◊◊

A lively chatter suffused the air as people shared food, drinks, stories, and laughter, but at the small, round table where Calen sat, the cumbrous atmosphere sat still, trapped like in a bubble of fog.

Right now, he didn’t really feel like doing or even saying much, but he had to speak up at some point. He was just waiting for the right moment, even if he didn’t know what exactly that meant. It’d been at least ten minutes since the three others of his personal crew had joined him in that wait, sat with him around the table mutually engrossed in the dead silence.

Tens’s Tavern.

The founder, Tens, passed away long before Calen could’ve met him, but he’d journeyed here from the old kingdoms back before Asteria was formally established, and his descendents who ran the place commemorated him with a gimmick where every ten visits would earn a person a free drink. That was as good a reason for Calen to come here as any.

Even if they hadn’t already agreed earlier to meet back here, it was likely that they’d all be here anyways. It had long been their go-to spot to hang out and have a few drinks after a long day’s work, a little workplace tradition that his parents passed down to him. He’d made countless memories here—some clear, others lost to alcohol—but tonight, it felt different. The familiar aroma of chicken and ale wasn’t the same as he last remembered.

Trying to shake away that unpleasant feeling, Calen returned his mind to the task at hand.

After the useless council meeting earlier today, Calen gathered and explained the situation in full to Maxine and the crew she ran for him on their off days. Except for Remy, he’d known Maxine longer than anyone else who worked for him. She was one of the few people who worked with him back when his parents were still running the business, and he felt he was letting her down more than anyone else.

But as always, she was understanding. In fact, they all were. Each person there assured Calen they’d return to work for him once they could again, but he didn’t want that kind of loyalty.

He had failed them.

What kind of allegiance did that deserve?

And now he had to break that news again.

“So,” Calen cleared his throat, finally alleviating the strange pressure around them and sitting up a little straighter to address his friends and colleagues. “The meeting didn’t go too well.”

“Yeah,” Jacob gently bobbed his head. “We figured.”

“You told them what those guys did, didn’t you?” Ty asked, clearly still a little ticked off.

Nodding to Ty’s question as he replayed it all over again in his head, his face fell into a wry grimace. “They want to wait things out and handle it diplomatically.”

“Bunch of assholes,” Remy sighed, somewhat helping to distort that still heavy mood. “Who cares what they think?”

“You should,” Calen replied, giving the words a faintly warning-like quality. “I’m not going to pretend that I like or agree with the decision, but the council is Marrah. They won’t support a direct confrontation.”

Breathing out sharp exhalation in dissatisfaction, Remy leaned to the side, propping up her chin on her hand.

“We could appeal, couldn’t we?” Jacob suggested. “I remember when I was a kid there was this–”

“It wouldn’t make a difference,” he shook his head, sparing Jacob the breath. “They didn’t budge.”

Appeals to the council were few and far between, and they typically only came into play from the public when there was a case to be made on matters that the council wasn’t already very privy to, so usually public queries that they addressed in bulk during their monthly meetings. Calen had already laid everything out for them. There was no convincing them otherwise.

“So…” Ty drew out the word as he struggled with the next. “What does that mean?”

As Calen started to open his mouth to answer, he found it was harder to say what he needed to than he expected. He could feel a tightness in his chest that tried to sink the words, holding on to them inexplicably.

Come on.

Coughing to clear his throat, Calen found his voice again.

“You guys should start looking for work elsewhere,” he earnestly acquiesced. “It’s possible this could all be settled sooner than expected, but I wouldn’t bet on it. There’s still a bit you can help out with, but what I’ve got left probably won’t last even a week. That should at least give you time to look around, though.”

“Eh, I’ll pass,” Remy casually shrugged, still leaning on that arm. “Never really got along with any of those other guys.”

“Then what are you going to do?” he asked, a little surprised by her response.

“Nothing, I guess,” she simply answered.

“But–”

“That seems like the popular choice around here anyway,” she quipped, and while Calen expected a smug look on her face, what he actually found was markedly different.

Her rueful visage stared solidly at him for several seconds, a look he hadn’t quite ever seen in her eyes. Something about it seemed pensive, like she had something more to say but couldn’t. As Calen struggled to decipher the meaning behind the superficial jab and whether it was aimed solely at him or the council altogether, she blinked and looked away.

Part of him wanted to ask, but he decided against it.

“Well,” he continued, reeling his attention back towards his original point. “It should be easy enough for any of you to get a gig with Riley or any of the other big loggers, if you want.”

His statement finished, he awaited a response, but the rest of the table remained silent, half of the eyes around it turned down with either nothing to contribute or unwilling to at the moment.

“I’ll put in a good recommendation,” he assured, “but they all know what’s going on, so I’m sure they’ll accommodate you.”

“How long is it going to be again?” Ty looked up as he asked, and Calen could see the indecision on his face clearly. “A month?”

“Don’t worry,” he succumbed to a heartfelt smile. “You guys will always have a place on my team, whether you decide to come back in a month, a year, or whenever. This isn’t goodbye.”

Matching a battled smile of his own, Ty gave a firm nod, and they allowed a moment for the mood to settle.

It wasn’t ideal, nothing about this was, but somehow Calen had found a bit of warmth at the end of this bitter day. At the very least, it gave him some solace to know that they cared like they did; it meant that he’d been doing something right.

“What about you?” Jacob finally spoke up again. “What are you going to do?”

“Me?” he returned, unprepared with an answer.

With the sudden deluge of tasks and running around that he’d been busy dealing with all day, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

What was he going to do?

He considered joining one of the other logging groups temporarily, but something about that just felt wrong. That would’ve been like admitting defeat entirely; he couldn’t just disparage his family’s legacy like that. But the more he thought about it, the more his head started to pound, and he didn’t feel like lingering on it any longer.

 “Well, it’s just a month. I’ll find something to do,” he assured, putting a hand to his crown and massaging a few fingers into it. “But right now, I could really use a drink.”

◊◊◊◊◊

Clink.

Calen incautiously set his newly emptied glass mug down onto the bar, having moved closer to the source of the drinks a while ago, and gave unto it the weight of much of his upper-body as well. His eyes were heavy with the desire for sleep, but his mind restlessly burdened him. Despite his efforts so far, it seemed that he couldn’t quite quench the subtle burning sensation that had been torturing him on and off all day, but the alcohol at least dulled the pain that came with it.

Groaning as he lifted himself from the countertop, he squinted and rubbed his eyes, shaking his head as his sluggish senses returned to him.

“Get me another,” he motioned to the bartender who seemed less than enthusiastic to fulfill his order.

“Damn, that was already your eighth round, Calen,” Jacob commented, leaning into his field of vision to get a look at his face. “Take it easy, will you?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he groused, forcing an assertiveness to his attitude of complaint. “I’ve had enough of that for one day.”

Calen’s goal tonight was simple: keep drinking until this headache went away. He might’ve had a lot already, but the night was still young, and he knew he still had plenty left in him. Breaking his personal record wouldn’t have been a bad outcome either.

“Man, I’m telling you, I was this close to socking that guy right there,” Ty let out a disgruntled sigh as he recalled the story to Remy, compared to the rest of them only having had a couple of drinks so far and seeming to be taking the rest of the night pretty slowly.

“Pssh,” Calen nearly coughed as the vocalization was forced out of him. “Sure you were.”

“I was!” he exclaimed, getting close to Calen. “If you’d just let me stay for a little bit longer, I swear, I would’ve–”

“Just– Can it, Ty,” he shook his head. “You nearly got yourself killed today, that’s what happened.”

“I tripped, that’s all,” he defended himself.

“Is that so?” he jeered. “Well, if you wanna let them know that, maybe they’ll let you have one free punch.”

Clicking his tongue in discontent, Ty walked around back to his seat and remet with was left of the drink he still had.

The kid was optimistic, that was for sure, but he stood no chance against that ‘Fin’ person. Calen figured he probably could’ve taken him on in a one-on-one himself, but Ty seemed to be practically a novice when it came to magic still, and although he’d been developing some sturdy muscles over the past several weeks, it was obvious to anyone that he had a long way to go.

But Calen quickly lamented this line of thinking, feeling sick as the image of his young subordinate pressed against the ground only one short motion away from decapitation replayed in his head.

Damn it.

He’d heard stories good and bad about the old kingdoms, but if there was one fact he’d always been sure of until now, it was that the Torelli were a respectable family. They were the empire’s founders—champions of knowledge and progress who’d brought together humanity for the greater good.

Would they really act like this? Had everything he’d heard been wrong?

He didn’t want to believe that, but then were there really people pretending to be them running around the kingdoms unchecked?

“Where’s that beer?” he urged, wishing to wash the sullied taste from his mouth, looking up to find the bartender who halfheartedly took his glass for a refill.

Clunk.

Slamming down her mug onto the counter with a satisfied sigh, Remy wiped her mouth as she started to speak in that trademark cadence that she assumed when she went on one of her rants. Normally, Calen found them entertaining, but he had a feeling that it was only going to add to his persistent discomfort tonight.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” she began. “Something about those Torelli guys, or whoever they were, reminded me of something.”

“We didn’t even see them,” Jacob arraigned, furrowing his brow.

“I got a decent look at them,” she shrugged.

“How?”

“Just because your eyesight looks like you’re constantly staring through piss, that doesn’t mean mine’s shit too,” she spoke each mocking word with enough care to ensure their clarity.

“Oh, fuck off,” he returned, half-amused and half-tired of listening already.

“Anyways,” she continued. “You remember those people who came by before. You know who I’m talking about, yeah?”

Jacob gave her a blank stare, her vague description woefully unsatisfactory. “No.”

“Sure you do,” Remy insisted, tapping a finger on the wooden surface. “It was like a week ago, I think. The two of ‘em came by with their fancy suits and said they were checking out the place.”

“Are you sure your eyes are actually that good? Because it sounds to me like you might be hallucinating things,” he quipped, slouching and resting his head up on his standing arm.

“Hey! Jerk, I’m not the only one who saw them,” she retorted, leaning onto the counter and pointing past Calen. “Come on, tell ‘em, Ty.”

Barely paying attention to the conversation, Ty only reacted at the mention of his name. “Huh?” he looked up.

“The people last week,” she alluded, drawing out her words slightly. “One was dressed in this red getup.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he gave a slight nod. “I saw them.”

“Right, then do you remember what the other one was wearing?” she pressed. “Didn’t it look just like what those guys from earlier had on?”

“Well… I guess, yeah,” Ty admitted after thinking about it for a while.

“There!” she shouted. “You see!”

Huh.

Calen remembered Remy telling him about a couple of strangers who came by and asked a few questions. He’d found it odd at the time, but he figured they might’ve been adventurers. But if they were also sent by the Torelli though, wouldn’t they have come straight to him instead? And why did they go to the actual lumbering zone first instead of their office?

Between his headache, the noise around him, and the booze, Calen was finding it difficult to process everything swirling in his head, but his mind managed to fixate on one last thought.

If the people from today and last week were together, then the two from before must’ve been sent to assess the area for some reason. That already didn’t match with what that woman had told him before, but even ignoring that, they would’ve had to report back to the Torelli in the First Kingdom before getting approval and sending the second team here.

How could that have happened all in a week?

“Hey, Calen, you listening?” she said as she slammed her glass down on the bar, causing several cups on it to jangle in unison, causing his thoughts to scatter.

Shit~

“Can you shut up for a second?” Calen interjected, the pain ringing in his head getting the better of his words. He held his temples in both hands, trying to recover his train of thought.

But it seemed that it would escape him a little longer.

“Well don’t get pissed off at us,” Remy’s tone of voice changed from eager to mildly irritated, tilting her head at him. “You’re the one who wanted to come here tonight anyways.”

“And who said you had to stick around?” he countered, taking a sip of his freshly refilled glass. “It’s not like you’re getting paid to drink with me.”

“Well damn, and here I thought I’d found the perfect new job to fill my time,” she joked, lightly flipping her empty mug in the air and catching it with the same hand. “I guess I’ll just have to do tonight free of charge.”

Remy actually managed to eke out a laugh from him with that, bringing a short smile to his face that he’d been missing for a while.

Despite the image she seemed to like to portray, Remy had always been pretty clever when it came to words. She always knew what to say to liven someone up.

When Calen’s parents passed, she was the one who helped him get through it, even though she was suffering as well. She hid it well, but he knew how much they meant to her.

“You know, Ty’s got a point,” Remy began again, a sternness now bolstering her voice. “You really should just kick those First Kingdom shitheads out.”

“Hey– I didn’t say it like that,” Ty defended himself with a hushed urgency, tipping forward on his seat.

“Close enough,” Remy shrugged. “Either way, those Torelli fuckfaces should just–”

“Watch it,” Calen warned, his tone steady but tinged with caution as she carelessly insulted the founding family. Whatever his thoughts, they were in a public space; she was treading dangerously. “Not here.”

“What, you think anybody here gives a damn?” she shot back, waving toward the crowd, all seemingly lost in their own conversations.

“…Whatever,” he muttered, hoping to shut it down.

Turning back to his glass, he stared down at the muddy liquid for a bit and took a swig.

She was too reckless.

Even if nobody here gave notice to it, they weren’t ignoring her words. Calen was still torn on what to think about the Torelli and if those people were under their command, but even if he’d hated them, he wouldn’t go running his mouth about them.

“No, not just ‘whatever’,” she clearly intoned, her boots clicking the ground as she pushed off of her stool, causing it to wobble back and forth. “What happened to that whole ‘these trees are the foundation of Asteria’ spiel you’re always telling people? I really started to believe in that shit—I believed in you—and now what?”

“Remy,” Jacob interjected. “Just-”

“What the fuck was the point of any of this?” she cut him short by raising her voice, drawing the attention of several other patrons around them, and as she started to cross the distance to where Calen sat, he thought he could hear a pang of distress in her last few words.

But he found it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying, with all the noise in the building compounding with her volume that felt unusually sharp in his ringing ears. Calen kept himself turned away, focusing on and fidgeting with his drink as he sparsely twisted it around with three of his fingers.

Calen didn’t even know why she was getting so riled up in the first place. It could have been the alcohol speaking for her, but he seriously doubted that. Out of the innumerable times they’d drunk together, he’d never really seen her like this before. Whatever her gripe was, she’d get over it sooner or later.

“Calen!” she voiced earnestly, resummoning his attention.

Agh–

The sudden noise overwhelmed him, and instinctively, he held his hands to his ears for a moment. He’d been so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t realize just how close Remy had gotten.

“Calen,” she repeated, softer this time but equally urgent. “What was the point?”

“The point of what?” he finally replied, turning around to meet her. Her face at the exact same level as his in his chair, he stared directly into her dimly azure pupils, but he hadn’t expected what he saw in them now. He had to blink and look again to make sure of it.

It felt like they were pleading with him.

Calen felt as if the entire bar around them sat still, frozen in time. It seemed that the quiet he’d sought had arrived, though it wasn’t quite what he’d hoped for, dragging on for a hesitant eternity. His mind revelled in the relief of silence, but he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy it.

Lingered on her gaze, Calen tried to understand what was going on in her impossible mind. She stared back, her breaths unsteady, but she remained determined. He struggled to know what to think—what to do, and it seemed Remy was the same. Her mouth twitched open to speak a couple times, but the sounds didn’t make it out, indecisive.

“Come on,” she finally said in a low voice, grabbing onto him by the shirt and starting to move away. “Too many fucking people in here.”

However, Calen resisted, leaning back onto the bar as he slowly replied. “Let’s just–”

“Just come on,” she insisted, looking from the corner of her vision back at him as she uttered the words. “This is important. We need to talk.”

Scrunching more of his shirt together in her grip, she jerked her arm hard as she started to walk away, impelling him forward with such sudden force that he stumbled onto his feet as the stool disappeared from beneath him. Although Calen didn’t appreciate being dragged along like this, he was too caught off guard by the unexpected display of strength to fight it, and his footsteps quickly fell in line. If she was this determined, he figured he could at least listen.

“Hey,” Jacob called out as they started to drift away from the bar area. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t follow us,” Remy sharply ordered back at him.

Although Jacob didn’t initially appear intent on obeying, he’d already succumbed to his notoriously low tolerance already, falling to the ground along with his stool as lost his balance trying to get off of it.

“Damn it– Ty, a little help,” he voiced, slouching back against the bar and having given up the endeavor.

Remy didn’t take them very far, only passing through the nearby door that led out to the vacant patio. The warm amber light from inside disappeared as the door swung closed behind them, shutting out what remained of the already stark soundscape they left for the quiet ambience of the town dead as night grew alive overhead.

Letting him free, Remy walked alone several feet over to the wooden railing that overlooked the empty road, and standing where she left him, Calen watched and waited as she leaned onto it. Though his body wavered back and forth, he didn’t dare move. In fact, he found his own patience remarkable. Maybe it was the comparatively much cooler air outside of the tavern, or perhaps it was the glow of the barely bleeding sky, but despite still yearning for another drink to wash everything down with, he felt he could stay here for as long as he needed to.

“How many years has it been already?” Remy spoke out into the vast night with her back still towards Calen, seemingly prompting the sky for a response.

“Eight,” he answered.

“Fucking wild,” she replied, an exhalation of seeming amazement escaping her. “Eight whole years, and in one day it feels like they could all fade away. If that happens… I don’t know if there was any point in having them at all.”

As she turned around to face him, lightly leaning back against the rail, she met him with a steady yet uncharacteristically unguarded expression that carried into her voice.

“You can’t just accept this,” Remy affirmed. 

“You think I want to?” he shot back, jabbing a finger into his chest. “I’ve felt like shit all day because of this. I feel like I’m–”

But he stopped himself, unwilling to speak the thought that churned in his mind. As long as it stayed just a thought, he could still deny it.

“I just need to get through tonight,” Calen sighed, rubbing a hand into his head.

“And you think everything’s going to suddenly be better tomorrow?” she criticized.

“Maybe,” he shrugged half-heartedly.

“It won’t,” she was quick to reply. “Don’t you get it? This is everything to you, Calen. You can’t lose that.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” he acknowledged, looking away slightly. “But the council has made their decision, and maybe they’re right; things might just get worse if we refuse to listen.”

“You’re not alone in this, Calen,” she insisted. “The council can’t completely abandon you, and the people in this town will support you, just–”

She paused as her words rapidly outpaced herself. Taking a small, slow breath, her chest rose and fell as she composed herself.

“You know,” she began slowly, her tone more serious now, “this means everything to me too. I can’t afford to lose it either.”

Her words hit Calen harder than he’d expected, pressing down on him like an invisible weight. The silence that followed thickened the air, and Remy watched him, breath held, waiting for his response. The truth in her voice was undeniable. Though he’d suspected it before, it was clear now.

Pensively, as he looked towards the ground, Calen walked over to the railing next to her and placed a hand on it.

“Look, we’re going to be fine,” he said with a faint smile. “Just one month, and we’ll be up and running again. We’ll take a small hit, but otherwise it’ll be like it never happened.”

But as soon as he finished speaking, Remy grabbed his shirt tightly and pulled him closer, her serious, sober countenance taking hold of him.

“Stop fucking lying to yourself,” Remy rebuked through gritted teeth. “This means more to you than just your business.”

“What are you–”

“I know what your family went through.”

Each word resounded clearly in him, and although nobody else was around to hear them, she still spoke them with delicacy. His gaze flickered away for a moment, but it had nowhere to go, soon returning to her blue eyes and the few short, lightly rosy-brown strands of her bangs that hung down around them.

How long had she known?

She stepped back slightly, creating a bit more space, but they were still close enough that her words felt confined to just the two of them. Her grip on his chest tightened, enough to sting, but there was something oddly relieving about it.

“… How–” he started the question, cutting himself short before he could finish.

“Gina,” she answered with a bittersweet modulation in her expression. “Your mom told me about it.”

Ah.

As he let that knowledge sink in, for a while, the only emotion he could summon was a sparse laughter, the audible bursts of breaths coming out of him involuntarily.

“This whole time?” he asked, his tone thoughtful.

“Sorry,” she replied with an apologetic smile before narrowing her eyes with renewed resolve. “Listen. I know the old kingdoms weren’t kind to your family, but still, when I look at you, I think you’re lucky. You had parents who cared for you. Mine never even treated me like I was human.”

“Remy, you don’t–”

“Just fucking listen for a minute, would you?” she complained, visibly irked as she stopped him. “I really don’t want to have to say this again.”

Calen gave a subtle nod, assuring her of his silence. Even if part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to listen, he would take in each word she had to say. Pausing for a couple seconds as she gathered her thoughts, she then continued with a sigh.

“For the longest time, all I felt was… trapped. But I didn’t know what to do about it,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “I thought there’d be a point where everything started to get better or make sense, but… that never happened.”

Remy paused, blinking and looking away for a moment to take a long breath before proceeding.

“I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, but that feeling doesn’t just fade on its own,” she said, her voice softening. “The longer you sit back and do nothing, the worse it gets—the more it eats away at you. I’ve been down that road—constantly feeling trapped, like acid’s raining down on you. You’ll regret not acting sooner, and if you wait too long, it’ll reach a point where you can’t do anything about it. Then it becomes a shadow. It follows you everywhere, no matter how far you try to run.”

After a couple seconds more, when he thought she was done, a quiver in her lips gave way to one last plea. “Don’t let that happen. Please.”

As she finished, she released the firm pressure on him, dropping her hand to her side, and she made her finality clear as she pushed herself away from the railing. Calen’s eyes followed her as she went back towards the tavern, and as she placed a hand on the door, the words came out of him.

“Then what?” Calen hollowly asked. “What am I supposed to do without the council’s support?”

Remy stopped in front of the door as his words reached her. She dithered for a moment, but she didn’t look back.

“Sometimes, you just have to trust your gut,” she replied, still facing the door. “I don’t know much about the Torelli, but do you think it’s really them?”

Calen tilted his head to the sky, considering the question a bit before answering, “No.”

“Then I’d follow that feeling.”

Without another word, she pushed on the handle and she walked through the door, leaving Calen alone with the new stars.

Calen stood in the quiet for what felt like an eternity, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard, wrestling with the thoughts that had been haunting him all day. In his head, a yenning ember and a sharp, pulsing sting vied for dominance. Though the headache gnawed at him, he pushed it aside, focusing instead on the other feeling swirling within him. He clung to it, hoping it would lead him somewhere.

Please.

The word persisted in his head. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her say that to him before.

Perhaps that burning feeling wasn’t going to go away any time soon, possibly ever, but it wasn’t like he’d just given up without trying.

As he languidly walked over to one of the empty chairs, Calen dragged it over closer to the edge of the patio and slumped down on it. He desperately felt the need for a drink, but he swallowed the urge to step back inside and allowed his brain to race, fueled instead by the moon’s silver spirit.

The council wasn’t going to lend any more aid in this matter, that was definite, no matter how much he pushed them to. He might’ve been able to convince one or two of them onto his side, but he’d known them all for long enough to know that he wasn’t going to get anywhere near a majority vote on this.

All they wanted to do was protect themselves.

But he supposed that was all anybody was after.

After all, wasn’t that what he wanted too?

Calen had a business to run. It wouldn’t collapse in a month, but what if it lasted for longer or happened again? What would his employees do then? If he wasn’t in charge, he knew he wouldn’t tolerate a sudden furlough more than once, and he didn’t expect anyone else to either. That kind of instability was unacceptable.

But Remy was right, it wasn’t just about the business. Whether what was driving him was pride, legacy, resentment, or some blend of the three, he couldn’t let it go, no matter how much he’d been trying to all night.

Fuck the council.

If they were willing to do what it took to protect themselves, then he saw no reason why he shouldn’t do the same.

He paused, letting that resolution settle in him.

Then, slowly at first but gaining momentum, a thought began to form. It was simple, yet there was a certain appeal in its impulsiveness. Maybe that was what drew him in.

If the council couldn’t realize that they had the power to fight this, then he just had to prove it without their help.

Why not?

Calen sat on the idea for a bit longer, a kind of clarity resonating from singularity, and although he could think of a number of downsides, as he allowed himself to follow the assurance that was growing in him, he found those concerns irrationally inconsequential. Something about it just felt right. It was the kind of thing that his parents would’ve done, even if they told him not to do so himself.

◊◊◊◊◊

The sky was deep in the middle of its slumber, but light still rained down sufficiently from the stars and the half-darkened moon overhead to guide them. Crisp, night air filled his lungs with every breath, invigorating him and keeping his senses sharp as he set his sights on the unending line of trees he’d turned away from earlier the previous day.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Ty excitedly commented as they walked side-by-side to their destination, shivering slightly as the air nipped at him.

“You can turn back now, if you want to,” Calen offered. “I won’t mind.”

He enjoyed Ty’s company, but he didn’t need to drag anyone else into this just because they worked for him. Ty had caught him before he left and asked to come along, but whatever the outcome, this was something Calen felt was duty to follow through with.

“Nah, I’m with you,” he smiled and gave a definitive nod. “I’ve got a grudge to settle too.”

“You really think you can take that guy on?” Calen turned his head, doubtful.

“Well,” he paused, looking to the side. “I dunno… Maybe.”

“Tell you what, if I think I need your help, I’ll give you a shout,” he suggested, giving Ty some leeway.

“Sure,” he smiled.

In truth, Calen didn’t plan on asking for Ty’s assistance at all, but he didn’t want to fully reject his efforts. More likely than not, if it came to a confrontation, him getting involved wouldn’t end well, and Calen wasn’t keen on putting Ty on the line for something that he was doing mostly on a whim.

“You really think this’ll work, though?”

Calen shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

“Not the most inspiring thing you’ve said…” he joked, looking back to feign concern.

“Don’t worry,” he assured. “Just leave the talking to me.”

“And what about the chopping?” Ty asked.

“Don’t tell me you’re here just for the show,” he raised his eyebrow.

“I’m just kidding,” he laughed, waving the look away with his open hand. “I gotta get paid somehow, right? The show’s just a bonus.”

“Well then, let’s get to it,” he grinned as they reached the boundary between where the forest began and where their previous efforts had ended.

Wandering along the edge of the wooden spires that soon engulfed the entire scope of their vision, Calen wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for. Any tree would’ve worked, he supposed, but as he looked at each trunk that they walked by, something inside of him told him to keep on searching, and Ty silently followed as he spent the next couple of minutes trying to find the right one. Never before in his life had the question of ‘which tree’ ever been one he’d struggled with, they were all equal goals for him in the end, but for some reason, that question suddenly had significance.

Finally, he stopped in front of one, and instantly he knew this was the right choice. Looking it up and down to determine how best to approach it, Calen soon got closer and pulled out his hatchet.

“This one’s massive, Calen!” Ty remarked, walking around its sizable base as if seeing the other side might reveal he was wrong. “What happened to ‘don’t start a tree you can’t finish’? You taught me that.”

“I’ll finish it,” he cooly replied, patting the wide trunk. “You go find another one.”

Ty looked at him skeptically for a moment, but Calen wasn’t going to be deterred by his fledgeling logger’s doubtful stare.

“Alright, if you say so,” Ty finally gave in and shrugged as he walked off past him, turning around to take one last look in disbelief as he left to find a tree of his own.

Holding his axe with both hands, Calen got to work removing the layer of bark from around where he was going to cut. Normally he wouldn’t bother, but with a tree this wide, he preferred to maintain a level of consistency once he really got into the workflow.

Admittedly, Ty did have a point. This late into the night, there was normally no way that Calen would’ve started on a tree this size, not that they were usually out this late anyway, but the circumstances were different tonight. The tree was well over a few feet in diameter; he estimated it at around four feet at the bottom of where he would be cutting. These kinds of trees were a special rarity, even in the vast Erethon Forest—so impressive it was said they were born with the essence of life itself.

Golden Nae.

It was an honor to fell one, and this was the largest he’d seen in a long time. Their timber was incredibly strong, and as such, one had to be particularly powerful to be able to take them down, even with the aid of magic. In fact, he’d never downed one entirely by himself; it was just the kind of thing that multiple people usually helped on.

Maybe that was the reason he chose it: he had something he needed to prove to himself. Or maybe he just felt like taking on one last challenge in the event that his inchoate plan didn’t work out. At this point, Calen didn’t really care why. He’d grown tired of questioning himself.

It took a few minutes to get it cleaned to a satisfactory level, but he knew it would be well-worth the time later on. Clearing away the last of the bark, he tossed the hatchet down onto the ground beside the tree, and he smiled as he heard the start to a familiar rhythm begin in the distance not too far away from him.

Lifting his broad axe into his hands, he massaged it for a few seconds until his hands fell into the right places and he got into position. Feeling its weight, Calen took a deep breath of the cool, night air and then took the first swing.

Thunk.

The noise was crisp and clear in the night as he angled the head of the axe down into the silvery trunk. Tainted only by the gentle chirping of crickets, the soft sound of the breeze shaking the forest’s greenery, and the steady hammering of Ty’s axe into his own tree, the first chop echoed like a stone tossed into a deep cave.

Despite the tree’s reputation, he’d managed to sink the blade sufficiently into the wood, though compared to its overall size, he’d barely made a dent. Pulling the axe out with a heaving grunt, he anchored himself once again, twisted his axe around, and swung straight on towards the bottom of where his axe had reached previously.

Thunk.

A piece of wood dislodged itself from the tree, blown away by the force of his strike.

Taking another angled swing down, he dug into the grain.

Thunk.

And as he Strengthened the axe like an extension of his arms, he twisted it out towards him, ripping off the chunk of wood that was in front of it.

Crack.

It was going to take hours at this rate, Calen knew that from the moment that he set his sights on the tree, but he was already committed to seeing it through to either its end or his, whichever came first.

The rhythm of the activity setting into his body, Calen felt his thoughts mellowing and his body warm up to match the bitter chills of the winds that licked his skin occasionally, creating an idyllic balance of temperature that made him wonder why he didn’t go out this late to chop more often.

Minutes ticked along as he carved his way deeper and deeper into the trunk of the tree to seemingly little progress when reminded of the whole of it. Eventually, even with his well-trained body, he started to reach the point where each strike challenged him. Like he was fighting a battle against a formidable opponent, his muscles started to wane in their once unbound vigor, inundated with built-up, aching fatigue. But he wouldn’t let that stop him.

“Falling down!” Ty yelled out from afar, giving Calen some indication as to just how much time had passed.

Not bad.

Not long after it hit the ground, he smiled as he heard Ty’s axe dig into another one.

The progress on his own tree had been steady yet unavoidably slow, and as his notch dug deeper and deeper into the trunk, where exactly he needed to aim became more and more difficult to see. That didn’t worry him, however. This was something he could’ve done with his eyes closed.

After long enough, Calen felt his body crossing a certain threshold where his muscles started to feel rejuvenated and his mind seemed to reawaken as if it’d been in a slumber without even realizing. With the exhaustion fading, his pace quickened, each swing coming in faster and harder than the last and the forest bouncing around the noise of each booming crack produced by his intense attacks like miniature explosions.

“Shit,” Ty cursed, barely audible to Calen. Raising his voice, he gave a warning. “I think people are coming.”

“Good,” he replied, driving his axe into the wood. “Just leave it to me.”

Here they come.

Postponing finishing his next tree, Ty took his axe and rejoined Calen at the Golden Nae he was far from finished working on.

“Damn, you’ve cleared that much already?” He bent down to get a closer look at the cavity Calen had carved out. At the notch’s deepest point, he’d already reached just shy of a foot in depth. Although each strike was becoming more difficult to properly target, and the wood only seemed to get denser as he made it farther in, he was getting close to finishing the front cut. ‘Close’ was a relative term, however.

“Still got a long way to go,” he heaved his axe up and out to prepare for another strike, and Ty backed away from the zone of impact.

Thunk.

Crack.

“You’d better get out of sight,” Calen advised, grunting as he twisted another chunk of wood away from the middle of the tree.

“Sure you don’t want some help?” he asked.

“If it gets messy,” Calen paused, reconsidering what he was originally going to say, and then finally continued, “use your own judgment.”

“Got it,” he grinned and flashed a thumbs up. “You can count on me.”

Calen nodded in response, and Ty quickly turned around and found a spot among the trees behind to observe from.

Not long after, the thumping of several feet against the ground as they trampled grasses and twigs grew louder coming towards him. Then, following the sounds, an orange light swelled until it shone like a spotlight down on him. The source of it hovered in the air, bobbing up and down slightly as if being moved by invisible waves. It illuminated him and his work, and at the same time, it allowed the three who had come to find him to be clearly visible.

Despite his singular and brief prior encounter with them, each of their faces had already burned his memory.

Their breaths mildly labored following their quick arrival, the man leading them composed himself slightly before asking with a firm utterance of each word, “What are you doing?”

Calen took another swing into the wood before he answered, not taking his eyes off of the tree for a moment. “Sorry, I don’t usually work at night,” he replied, allowing the sounds of his work to fill the space between his words. “It didn’t even cross my mind to bring a light of my own. Thanks.”

“Do you think this is my first time dealing with Third Kingdom prats like you?” Riku began to walk forward, his seething words more an attack than a question. “Interference with our investigation will not be taken lightly. I strongly recommend you rethink your actions before–”

“Stand back,” Calen raised his voice and warned with a definitive clarity, tightening his hands around the handle of his axe as he held it ready for his next strike. “Unless you want to lose a leg.”

Stopping immediately, he squinted his eyes at Calen, trying to discern just how committed to those words he was. In return, Calen met and locked onto his gaze, not shifting away until Riku warily took a step back. But stepping forward in his place, Fin approached, holding one hand in front of his mouth to catch a yawn and the other one stretched far above his head.

“Need me to take care of this?” Fin sleepily asked.

“The last thing we need is casualties,” Sari snapped at him with a deadly stare, not giving Riku the chance to answer.

Trying not to allow the situation to phase him, Calen took another swing into the tree, maintaining a loose control over the situation as the loud sound caused each of their heads to twitch in response.

“I hope you don’t mind the noise,” Calen teased in an unenthused voice.

“Mr. Lat, this is for your own good,” Sari assured in a calm, professional tone as she tried to play the role of biased mediator and walked slowly towards him.

Bullshit.

“Until our investigation is complete,” she incessantly continued as she walked forward, and Calen could hear that meek arrogance slowly start to tinge her voice like metal in water, “your presence here jeopardizes not only the probability of our success but also the lives of your own workers. I know you don’t want to be responsible for–”

Having gotten far too close despite his warning and having spoken well-beyond the limit of his patience for blether, as Sari carelessly got within a couple feet of Calen, he gave in to the impulse to quickly sidestep towards her and force some silence into her with a harsh elbow to her face.

Knocked to the ground in an instant, the strange, brief moment of peace he had brought on as everybody comprehended what happened wasn’t exactly comforting, but Calen did feel good about it.

“Hey!” Riku finally reacted, rushing to his companion.

“FUCK!” Sari woke the forest with her scream as the pain forced her to curl onto her knees.

“Sari, are you–”

“Get the fuck off of me!” she screamed.

Violently pushing away Riku with one hand, she kneeled over the ground using the other hand to support her, Almost immediately, a current of blood began to rush out of her nose, painting the dirt and grass below with a lustrous, deep red that shined brilliantly with the intense light that reflected off of it. Sari nearly fell forward as she moved her hand back to cover her nose, wincing as put too much pressure on the fragile organ.

“You piece of shit!” she cursed at Calen, messily rising to her feet and backing away. Blood dripped down from her nostrils despite her best efforts to cover them, trickling through the gaps between her fingers and onto her mouth. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Consider it payback for laying a hand on my crew,” Calen replied, his eyes never leaving their movements.

“That’s it,” Riku sharply turned his head. “Fin.”

“On it,” the man answered and immediately began running forward.

Anticipating his attack, Calen braced himself and held ready his axe, but Fin unexpectedly stopped almost as soon as he’d begun.

“Ah–” Fin uttered, patting around his body and stepping back. “I don’t have my sword.”

“Seriously?” Riku hissed.

Gaining some confidence, Calen committed to an ultimatum. “I like to think I’m generally a pretty nice person, but you guys are really starting to piss me off, so I don’t feel like giving you many options. Get out of here,” he definitively ordered. “If I see you trying to mess with me or my people again, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Are you crazy?” Riku stepped forward. “House Torelli is not so clement to–”

“You think I buy that shit?” Calen angrily interjected, thoroughly annoyed. “You can wave that emblem around all you want, but that doesn’t mean you’re with the Torelli. Your story doesn’t add up, and I know about your guys who scouted this place out last week. If you think I’m going to let a bunch of impostors tell me what to do, you’re dead wrong.”

He had the wool pulled over his eyes for a while, but he could see clearly now. They’d likely been trying to shock him into compliance using the name of the Torelli, but he wasn’t having it anymore.

“Besides, even if you were with them, this ain’t their kingdom,” he definitively stated. “So unless you come back with an order signed from King Bel himself, you’re not stepping another foot on my land.”

Gritting his teeth, Riku stared at Calen with a contemptuous scowl, but he didn’t move. If the time ever came, Calen didn’t know if he’d actually be able to follow through with what he said, but he meant every word, and it seemed like the vehement eyes that stood across from him were battling to figure out just how strongly he would stand behind them.

“Riku,” Fin said, handing his other companion her slightly bent glasses and helping support her with her arm over his shoulder as blood continued to dribble out of her.

But his voice was ignored, drowned out by the silence.

“Riku!” he said again, this time much more urgent.

“I know,” he replied, still not taking his eyes off of Calen’s.

“Then what do we do?” he insisted on an answer.

Allowing the question to drag out, Calen could tell just by the look on his face that the man was battling a decision; it was a look he’d become quite familiar with. After several long seconds more, Riku eventually closed his eyes and turned away.

“This isn’t worth it,” he finally conceded. “We’re leaving this shithole.”

“What? Are you serious?” Sari yelled at him, spewing tiny drops of blood as she spoke.

“This wasn’t the only place on our list,” he responded, trying to convince her.

“I don’t care about that!” she dismissed, pushing herself off of Fin and lightly staggering towards Riku. “Look at what he did to me!”

“I said it’s not worth it!” he shouted, shutting her down. “It’s already gotten too out of control.”

Her mouth slightly agape and a grimace souring her face, she took one last look at Riku before starting to storm away in the direction they came from.

“Fucking pathetic,” she insulted as she walked off.

Looking at each other, Riku sighed and gave Fin a knowing look, sending him trailing after Sari, before turning back to meet Calen’s scrutinizing gaze.

With Fin’s departure, the hovering light followed him back, the area soon becoming enveloped in darkness once more, leaving them only barely illuminated by the meager, dim, blue light from the sky that managed to seep through the wall of leaves above them.

“Goodbye, Mr. Lat,” the dark face said in a somewhat sullen and displeased voice but with a sense of apathy to it.

As Riku left to join the others, Calen’s gaze followed him to the edge of his purview, a part of his body still anticipating the inevitable need to fight, ready to act at a moment’s notice.

But that caution went unneeded.

With the situation dimming to an unexpected quell, he started to become very cognizant of the adrenaline that still coursed through him. Stumbling back, he placed a hand back against the tree that was still far from cut down to steady himself, and then he turned around and pressed his back against it, slumping down to the ground to give his body a rest.

Taking a deep breath, he set his axe onto the ground and he let the moment sink in as the sounds of the forest gradually returned to full volume.

Somehow, that had gone much better than he’d anticipated.

If they were really sent from House Torelli and didn’t respond kindly, he was sure the ensuing confrontation wouldn’t end well in his favor, but hopefully by then he’d have the capital’s support. Calen really hoped they weren’t Torelli though. Aside from the potential consequences, he wanted to believe in the family that had built this empire, even if that empire had its issues.

The rest of the council probably wouldn’t be too pleased with his actions, but there was nothing to be done about it now. At worst, they might vote to suspend him, but he knew what they really cared about; if this did come back to bite him, he was prepared to accept full responsibility for it, whatever that entailed. Marrah didn’t have to suffer because of him.

Eventually, the noise of something approaching from behind caught his attention, but he wasn’t concerned. He already knew what it was.

“Damn, Calen!” Ty exclaimed, rounding the tree squatting down to greet him on the same level. “You really showed them who’s in charge around here.”

“Hah,” he laughed, a smile coming to his face. “I guess so.”

“I followed them for a bit,” he elaborated, pointing to the direction they left in. “It doesn’t seem like they’re coming back.”

“Good,” Calen nodded, the motion bringing him relief.

“Let’s go tell the others,” Ty got up, scanning the area until he found the way they came from. “We’ll need them to bring in the cart so we can haul these back.”

“You go,” Calen said.

“Huh?”

Pushing himself up using the notch in the tree as a support, Calen picked up his axe, turned it around in his hands, and stretched his arms a bit.

“I’ve still got a lot of work to do,” he patted the Golden Nae and surveyed it once more to remind himself of his progress.

In his short time away from it, it almost felt like the tree had gotten even larger than what he remembered, and although he could hardly believe he’d made so much progress already, even harder to believe was just how much there was left to go.

“You don’t want to wait until it’s brighter?” Ty scratched his head.

“Nope,” he resolved, shifting his feet into position and bouncing the weight of his axe in his hands. “Now hurry up. You’re gonna want to be back in time to see this one fall.”

In one fluid motion, he brought the axe up and dug it down into the silvery-white, rock-hard substance.

Thunk.

Crack.