"Leave them for the harvesters," said Jalco. "They can be forest food."

"I'd rather the Forgers don't find out that I exist," I said, looking at the two of them. The last crystal in the area was near the Forger's body, and it kept pulling at my attention.

Kabi's eyes hardened as he stared at them.

"Either they come with us, or we need to kill them." My words came out dry.

A rush of air behind me as Lenna landed felt reassuring.

"Alex is right. We can't chance that the Forgers find out you have someone who can remove collars." Lenna nodded at me, then whispered in my head. "Could you use your skills on them?"

She didn't ask outright if I would eat them, which I appreciated. The thought made me freeze. Could I eat a sentient creature?

"We need to move," said Sile, rushing out from behind a mushroom farther up the path. He grimaced, and a sword vanished into his inventory. "Harvesters, and a second Forger, higher level than this one, are headed this way."

I didn't think as I moved.

One second, my hand was empty, the next, my spear stabbed into the first guy's chest.

[You have gained bonus experience from combat for surviving against a level 80, Betrayer.]

[You have gained a level.]

My eyes widened. "Holy shit, he was called a betrayer…"

Each of the Azura folk stepped back at that, though Sile stepped closer as I stabbed at the second guy.

"Not him!" He darted forward to block my spear attack.

I yanked back at the last second, just missing Sile.

"I sent him in," he said, rushing forward, glaring at Jalco. "I warned you I had a spy inside."

"He tried to kill Alex," said Kabi, stepping between Sile and me. He glared at the man on the ground.

I ignored all of it and raced back to the Forger's body. On its hand, the one clenched around its sword, it had a pitch black ring. I tried to slide it off, but it wouldn't come. The crystal felt strange, and I didn't dare touch it. Something warned me, as the hair rose on the back of my neck.

Instead, I steadied myself and used my knife to cut the finger off, which suddenly turned to dust. I jerked back as the rest of the body dissolved into nothing, much like when Noseen ate something.

"What the…"

"They do that," said Bera. "We need to move."

Kabi waited for me, but the others were already gone, including the body of the Azura person I killed.

We raced through the mushrooms and then through the wall that suddenly was intangible. People packed the bigger boat, including all the rescued Azura folk and the other members of the group. Geta remained in the smaller boat, and Sile joined him, dragging the second betrayer who was still unconscious.

Lenna stood next to the boat waiting for me, though her eyes kept drifting to the stars above. A worried look covered her face, and she motioned for me to hurry.

Bera raced to the larger boat, which vanished as soon as he climbed aboard.

We quickly climbed into the smaller vessel, and Geto triggered the runes. The boat slowly backed up, floating away from the cover. Light glimmered above the stone cliff as we made our exit.

The dude on the floor stirred.

[Fiko, Blade Dancer, Level 92, Prey, Unknown.]

That information felt fake, and I pressed it with my aura. Kabi and I both rested our hands on our weapons, and I tried not to think about the ring in my pocket. I needed to be alone before I tried to figure out how it worked. Though, now I wasn't sure that the Forgers couldn't trace them. I hoped they couldn't.

[Fiko, Spy, Level 131, Predator, Unknown.]

"Sile, what happened?" asked Fiko as he blinked and rubbed his head.

"You attacked one of us after we killed the Forger."

"Was that backstabber still going?" he asked, sitting up.

"Yes."

"Well, there you go," he said with a grumble. "Until everyone was dead, I wasn't going to break my cover. Also, what the heck took you so long? I've been with those monsters for months."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Sile chuckled. "Hey, be lucky we even knew where you were, because of the others."

"Mena didn't make it." Fiko sobered up quickly. "I whispered a prayer over her body before they took it."

"We all know what's on the line here…"

"Sorry to interrupt, but we shouldn't head back to any city just yet," I said with a frown. "I stole that ring, and I need to see if they can track us."

"We are heading to open water for the moment," said Geto. "You never head directly back to somewhere until you know for certain nothing is tracking you. The others probably have two weeks until they head to a safe village."

"Some of those people were from Needlecrest," said Kabi, to Geto. "You might want to send word to the people we left behind."

And now I felt dumb.

I pulled the black ring out and held it up in the center of my palm. It didn't shine at all, just sucked in light.

Very gently, I touched the ring with my senses, and felt a pulling sensation. A rune appeared in my mind, along with strings that reached outward. Most were completely cut off. Well, exactly twelve were cut off, while another 4 stretched out behind us.

"I might need Cekta's help, unless one of your guys knows how to read runes."

"How important is this ring?" asked Sile.

"It controlled the collars," said Fiko, before I could. "If you can track any others from that one, we can remove them from our lands."

"That's my plan." As of two seconds ago, though, I still wanted to help free others. This ring, though… something about it itched at the back of my mind.

"I'll send a message to Rees. We can pick up Cekta from a safe location. For now, we go to a safe place to rest and recharge."

Fiko and Sile exchanged a look. "We have much to discuss."

Lenna poked my side, and I turned to face her.

"Are you okay?" she asked, quietly watching my face.

"I think so, though he did try to kill me, after all." I noticed the body of the one I'd killed was tucked in the back of the boat, but Fiko hadn't noticed or commented on it. While I could eat part of it, I didn't plan on it. The thought of it felt strange.

"He did," said Kabi. "Never leave an enemy to stab you in the back."

I thought back to Jennifer, and how I should have taken her out as soon as she attacked me. Instead, I'd let it drag on, and people got hurt. Part of me wished the universe wasn't like that, that people could be redeemed. And maybe they could, somewhere, but everywhere I'd been so far that wasn't the case.

"Thanks guys, I'll be fine."

"He betrayed his people," interrupted Fiko. He stared at me. "And not like a little betrayal. He killed people to prove he was on their side. Not to mention… other things."

"What did you do to prove your worth?" I asked, unable to help myself.

"My friend Mena was captured with me. We went in knowing only one of us would be taken seriously as one of them. She gave her life to the cause, even when I wish it'd been mine."

Truth wavered inside him like a burning, bright light.

"I will reach for the stars in her honor, not stopping until they are gone from our home and beyond." He glanced at Sile. "What rune do you need help with?"

Geto froze and stared at him in surprise.

"You can…"

"How do you think I remained undercover as long as I have?"

I traced out the rune in the air.

Fiko shook his head and pulled out a piece of charcoal with a scrape of a leaf. "Draw it with this on here…"

I touched the ring, bringing the rune back up, then carefully drew it onto the leaf.

"Agh, whoever taught this to them deserves to burn." He crumbled the leaf up. "It's a binding rune. Only a master would know that one."

He let out a sigh as Sile and Geto glanced back and forth.

"Did any of the cities lose anyone?" he asked, staring at the stars

"Not that we know of…"

"You're saying they have a Master Runemaker on their side?" asked Kabi carefully. "How do you know that rune?"

"I'm a senior apprentice. I know of the rune, but I couldn't get it to trigger if I tried."

"That doesn't mean they have a master…" I said, thinking of the crystal singers that went missing. "It could mean that they have offspring with one of your kind who uses runes."

All of the blue people glanced at me with eyes wide and lips parted. Geto bared his teeth.

"One of us wouldn't do that!"

"They might not have had a choice." I glanced at Lenna and swallowed. "The Forgers have done it with other races before. The only positive is that those created can't have more offspring with the ability. At least, as far as I've read."

"How certain is this information?" asked Fiko, leaning in close.

"I'd swear my life on it. It's from a protected library from Lenna's people, where it happened to the crystal singers. People died to record it."

He nodded and leaned back. "Your people dealt with them before…" he said, looking to Lenna.

"Badly, unfortunately. We destroyed the rift they entered our world through, though not without a large loss of life."

"That's the plan here, too, but getting to the teleportation portal they set up in the Rustlands will be hard."

"Back to this rune," I said, holding up the ring. "How does it work?"

"It reinforces a rule on someone. They were hard to use for any length unless it was tattooed on someone's body, and then they only needed to remove it."

"A rule…"

I touched the ring again, and this time pressed forward, trying to see how the crystal and the rune interacted. The energy flow between the two of them just worked. Like the crystal strengthened the rune. It kept it steady. That rune then blasted energy to the strings reaching out from this crystal.

The four other strings stretching behind us stayed connected.

"So, the ring is attached to four other collars," I said a little hesitantly.

"Can you force them to a certain location?" asked Fiko. "Can you see through the collars on them? The rumor was that they could see out of our eyes."

"Give me a second." I held up a hand to slow the questions down.

I wrapped my fingers around the ring and stretched out my senses down a single one of the lines stretching behind us. The boat slowed down to a crawl.

Then I wasn't in the boat anymore.

Instead, I stalked the trees, my radar stretching from that point. This body moved through the mushrooms without a care, hunger pulling at its belly. My aura read all around this single point.

The energy felt familiar, and I pulled back.

"The first one's a harvester." Then I dove down the second line. Again, this was a harvester, one also hunting in the trees with the giant auras. I went immediately to the third line.

Not a forest!

Other presences slammed into me. Panic and fury came from this person, and it was a person. It had the same feeling as one of the Azura folk. I couldn't see anything, only sense that they were in an area away from the trees.

That left the last.

It felt different. Strange, but I crept along the connecting line anyway.

I pulled back as soon as I touched the other end, which contained a rune. Other lines stretched off of it.

Quickly, I yanked back, but I felt something try to follow me.

"Shit!"

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