IBTRFL Chapter 13

That afternoon at lunch, a hard shock swept through the orphanage.

The Director came down to the dining hall himself to warn the children. Maybe to drive the shock home, he'd spiced up the same old story with something more lurid.

It worked completely. The children sat frozen-faced through it, and by the end they'd broken into tears—a few of the more nervous ones wet themselves right where they sat.

The priests ran through the tear-flooded hall trying to calm them.

In the middle of it, Aer bowed her head like a criminal. That's... me, she thought—but there was no way to actually say "that's mine" out loud, not without admitting she could use magic.

Either way, a nameless, creeping dread had the orphanage by the throat.

The children clustered together like a flock of sheep, terrified. The priests started carrying daggers, jumpy and ready to strike at anything.

The one behind the whole mess was gearing up to screw things up again.

Dressed and holding her breath, Aer eased the window open a crack.

She pressed her eye to the narrow gap. Priests moved past outside, faces set hard.

She shut the window and opened the door that had been locked tight. The dark hallway gave off no sign of anyone.

Aer cut straight across it and ran outside. Then threw herself toward the snow-whitened forest.

Her body, wrapped in thick clothes, sank deep into a heavy snowdrift. A moment later, a priest carrying a lantern came around the corner.

Aer eased herself up and pushed deeper into the woods.

Every step, the piled snow gave way underfoot and grabbed at her ankles.

She kept trudging on, forcing herself through it. By the time her wind-reddened cheeks had gone past feeling anything, the cave—today, of all days, achingly missed—finally came into view.

Aer shook the snow off her shoulders and kept walking.

A small flame bloomed beside her. The cold air trapped inside the cave warmed.

Before long, her throat—which had been coughing without stopping—steadied, and the body heat the knife-edged wind had stripped away came creeping back.

"Finally. Now I won't die."

Aer muttered it grumpily, let out a breath, and sat down on the ground.

She dug into the dirt beside her, and a black gleam she wasn't exactly missing showed itself.

Coated in dust, the light was dulled, but the creeping horror of it hadn't dulled one bit.

She conjured water in the air and washed the pale grime off the stone. Its light restored, the soul stone shone with something sly, a quiet, sly warning under the light.

You're going to eat me? You? A nothing like you?

Aer muttered back, nerves fraying.

"I can do it. I can do it."

You know how, now.

Aer made a botched attempt at the sign of the cross and put the soul stone in her mouth. Her jaw wouldn't move.

Holding a black soul stone in her teeth, she looked like a roast pig with an apple stuffed in it.

Her eyes trembled, unfocused, then sank shut, all strength gone from them.

Maybe I should just do it later. She actually considered it. Then shook her head.

If not today, there was no telling when she'd get back to this forest.

The search party would comb every inch of the forest hunting a beast that didn't even exist, and for however long that took, she'd be stuck locked up in the orphanage.

More than that—she had a goal she'd set for herself. If this was what it took to reach it—

Aer squeezed her eyes shut and bit down on the soul stone. Her jaw moved desperately, grinding the disaster in her mouth to pieces.

"Huh?"

The tight knot of her face loosened. Aer opened her eyes, bewildered, and ran her tongue around her mouth.

Nothing. No taste at all—like her sense of taste was just gone. Deflating. After all that dread, for nothing.

Aer leaned back against the wall, a sour, uneasy feeling stuck to her.

A sigh came out of her, sounding worn all the way through, and it echoed off the cave walls.

Mad Great Sage. Mad soul stone. The instant she let her guard down, something erupted inside her, sudden and out of control.

A new force had reached her heart and started swelling there, dank and insidious.

Aer moved her soul the moment she felt it—as if she'd been waiting. The energies that had already merged with her fell in line behind it, closing in on the black force.

The black soul stone's power was settling more easily than the last one had, but the small strands that slipped past her control spread out through her body anyway.

Those small strands carried more force than she'd expected. Her clenched eyelids twitched. Strength drained out of every muscle in her body.

Her heartbeat slowed. Her breathing, in the opposite direction, sped up.

Aer clamped her eyes shut and grabbed at the savage energy trying to spread. If she loosened her grip even a little, it felt like the whole thing would tear loose past anything she could hold.

Her nose stung, and a dark red fluid started leaking out. It ran down over her lips, past her chin, and soaked into her neck.

This soul stone, too, had turned out to have a mind of its own. If anything, it left a stronger impression than the first two. Aer couldn't even wipe the blood away—she just kept grappling with the unfamiliar force, a fight for her life.

Despite everything she threw at it, the black energy refused to be tamed. Instead it pushed out, destructive, and started eating into her body wherever it touched.

The strangeness of the sensation made her open her eyes and look down.

"..."

Underneath her skin, blackened veins had risen up like tree roots. It was grotesque—her own body—and the disgust that hit her was vicious, almost too much to bear.

If she could have, she would have grabbed something sharp and scraped every bit of it off.

"And now this—"

The shadow her body cast under the firelight had split apart like an octopus's tentacles, writhing.

Every time the shadow rippled, the stones and sand on the floor scattered around it. Sometimes, when the movement got rough, it dented the hard stone floor as if something had struck it with an iron chisel.

She had serious doubts you could still call that thing a "shadow."

That was when it happened.

Her sight went dark, the way a room goes dark when someone snuffs the candle.

She blinked a few times. It didn't come back.

Aer shut her mouth and focused on everything else her senses could give her. Cold air, the sound of wind, the scent of a winter forest. Everything but her sight was still alive.

If this power eats me, I'll turn into something like the shadow beast. And then I'll walk out of this cave and destroy everything around me.

And that everything would include the children at the orphanage, the priests, the people of Solbo.

Aer gritted her teeth and moved her soul. When its owner moved, the other energies bound to it followed.

The black force thrashed, fighting not to be dragged along, but it couldn't win against the desperate current pulling at it.

The force, gathered by main strength, wound itself together like thread spooling tight.

At the same moment, her sight came back, and everything sharpened into shape again.

"Done."

A violent dizziness hit her all at once. Aer went still and waited for it to pass.

Before long, the dizziness faded. Aer tilted her head to the side and wiped the blood dripping from her nose.

She pushed her sleeve back and found her arm bruised a deep blue-black. The veins had settled, but the aftermath had stayed behind, written plainly on her skin. She probably wouldn't be able to push her sleeves up in front of anyone for a few days.

"Good thing it's winter."

The tension draining out of her, Aer slid limply down the wall to the floor.

Unlike the other forces, which had gone docile once subdued, the darkness was still writhing. It wouldn't scatter the way it just had, held down by her soul and the other energies—but she couldn't let her guard down either.

Thinking of the shadow beast gave her a rough sense of what kind of power the darkness held.

How much more difficult it was than water and fire, too. Probably several times more time and effort than the other two combined.

"Only now, just barely—"

Aer murmured it, drained.

Her body was in tatters, but she'd gained a great deal. Fire. Water. Darkness. Three elements, in total.

After brushing past death more times than she could count, she'd finally reached the starting line.

Without meaning to, Aer let out a sad laugh. She'd tried so hard. She'd hurt so much. And all of that had gotten her—the starting line.

She knew the road ahead was going to be long and rough, but a hollow ache had already claimed a corner of her chest.

"A year left, maybe—"

Aer stared blankly into empty air. Short if you called it short, long if you called it long. Within that stretch of time, she had to finish every preparation she could and leave the orphanage behind.

"..."

Faces of people she'd grown fond of surfaced without warning.

Once, every single day, she'd prayed to leave this place. Now, she just wanted to stay.

The place that had once been stained with brutal nightmares had somehow filled up, little by little, with small, ordinary, pretty memories.

Every one of them was precious beyond reason. Because they were a kind of gentle happiness she'd never once thought to imagine, before.

Aer lifted both hands and covered her eyes.

Because that happiness was fleeting and precious both, leaving was the right thing to do.

"That, if I can stop it."

Leave. Without regret.