Garec brushed Elethe’s hair gently as she shook in his arms. Everyone had left. He’d heard the innkeeper out in the hall asking what the matter was, and Donnan was able to reassure him that everything was fine and being taken care of. Elethe had stopped crying, but something must have gone horribly wrong for her to still be shaking so violently. Had she failed to learn where the Tyrdens were? He braced himself for the bad news.

  “We didn’t have a way out, so I learned what he was most afraid of,” Elethe whimpered. “I made them real. The… the monsters. They ate him, limb by limb. I knew it wasn’t real, but he believed, I could tell from… oh Heaven… I can still hear his screams. And the… the wom… I couldn’t…”

  So that had been why the Kircans were suddenly mobilizing in the streets.

  “You did what you had to,” Garec said softly. “It’s something every soldier learns to do eventually.”

  “I think I… k-killed him.”

  Garec’s heart skipped a beat and he pulled back to look Elethe in the eye. “Are you absolutely certain?”

  She looked at him, eyes still watering. They were different from this morning, haunted by imaginary monsters. “I don’t know, I used telepathy to check… and there was nothing.”

  Garec tried to remember if it had been written that Mind Intruders could kill with their Emogic. There was only the memory that they could be extremely dangerous given enough intelligence to use their Emogic the right way, but nothing about the Emogic itself being capable of killing someone. But then the effects of using Boredom to do something that extreme had never been documented, to his knowledge.

  “Listen to me,” Garec said slowly. “Whether he is dead or not isn’t your fault, it is his. He chose his path and dealt with the consequences. May Heaven rest his soul if that is what he deserves, but it does no good to dwell on it. Remember why you’re here.”

  Elethe sniffed and shook her head. “I want… I want to go home.”

  Those were not the words he wanted to hear, but he had made a promise to himself that if she wanted to go back, he would let her go back. Yet his heart froze in that moment, and the words she would want to hear got caught in his throat.

  “The Kircans will be on high alert,” Garec said, heart pounding. He made a good show of being calm and collected, so he thought. Would she notice? “You should get some rest. I don’t think they’ll come back here for us. We’ll see how safe it is in the morning.”

  Elethe’s face darkened, but she nodded slowly. Garec led her back to her room and was mildly surprised the hall was empty. He would have expected at least Dowyr to be loitering around, maybe trying to listen in. The noise from the common room had quieted as the patrons began discussing what had gotten the Kircans running around so frantically.

  Sirona gave Elethe a worried look when she answered the door. Garec exchanged brief words with her to make sure Elethe got some sleep, and for the rest of them as well. Clarine was sitting by the window, peering down at the streets as Kircans rushed by. She looked at Garec with sunken eyes.

  “We know where they’ve been taken now,” Garec said, trying to put some hope into his voice. “It shouldn’t be much longer before we find them.”

  Clarine nodded gratefully, and Garec left, closing the door. He let out a long sigh and nearly opened the door again. Elethe still hadn’t said where the Tyrdens were, or if she knew. She would, he was confident of that, but not knowing gnawed at him. It was an effort to force himself to refuse bothering her more, especially after what she’d been through. Instead, he went to the room across from his and knocked. Weynon opened the door and stepped aside to let him in.

  “How are you doing?” Garec asked him.

  Weynon nodded. “I’m okay. Worried about him.” He looked at Dowyr, who sat on his bed staring at the wall. “He won’t tell me what happened.”

  Garec pat his shoulder reassuringly and went to sit down next to Dowyr. The boy didn’t even look at him. Garec tried to see what might be so fascinating about the wall and failed.

  “You’re wondering if I know whether Elethe knows where the Tyrdens are,” Dowyr channeled.

  “It would be good to know,” Garec admitted. Had he used telepathy on him?

  “Nope, I figured that out on my own. Hah. Yeah, she knows. At least that’s what she told me.”

  “Would you tell me what happened?”

  Dowyr shrugged and finally looked at him. “We looked around the courthouse for a while. The Colonel found us first. He was a Ghost. Tried to kill us by dropping the floor. Then he screamed, and screamed, and screamed until he dropped. I think Elethe killed him.”

  “Can Boredom do that?”

  “Yes.” He’d never seen Dowyr’s eyes so serious before. “I read about it once. Boredom can overload someone’s senses enough to cause brain damage, to the point of killing them. It’s something that I’ve tried to forget about. We also found some Parastenian women in the Colonel’s room, and… I couldn’t do anything to help them. We just left them behind. I hope they’ll be okay. I… I really hope.”

  Garec decided there was something fascinating about the wall after all. He had no words for the women. At least they would be better off with the Colonel dead. Maybe.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Elethe wants to go home.”

  “What?” Weynon asked. He had gone to a chair beneath a lightstone to read his copy of The Five Sentinels. Putting it down, he got up and came closer. “She can’t go back, we need her.”

  “I promised her if she wanted to go, I would let her go.”

  Dowyr gave him a curious look.

  “Why would you do that? She’s the only way we’ll—”

  Garec held up a hand. “We can survive without her. With Heaven, anything is possible.”

  Weynon frowned and looked to the door. He marched towards it. “I’m going to talk to her.”

  Before Garec could react, Weynon froze for a moment, then walked right into the door and rebounded onto the floor. He shook his head in confusion, then looked at Dowyr accusingly.

  “Why?” Weynon asked. “If she leaves us… Yeah, but, it’s different…” He stood up and gave Garec a grim look, then marched back to his chair. “Fine.”

  Garec sighed and turned back to Dowyr. “Thank you. But I’m confident that Elethe will decide to stay in the morning. Let me handle it and everything will turn out right.”

  Dowyr nodded and turned back to the wall that so fascinated him. “I’m sorry for how I’ve treated Elethe through all of this. For my behavior overall. I’ll try to do better.”

  “We all will. And we’ll win.” Garec pat Dowyr on the back. “Get some rest. Whatever happens tomorrow, you’ll need your strength.”

  *

  Dowyr managed a few fitful hours of sleep. They’d been full of dreams; being kidnapped by Kircans in the night, the Colonel chasing after him and the floors falling into an infinite darkness, screams ringing in his ears. He awoke with his heart pounding at least twice, and a furious chattering was happening in the back of his mind. A prayer. It went on and on through the night and his dreams, faint in the background. There were no distinct words he could recall, only the general sense of a plea for help, for safety, and to know what to do. Dowyr blinked his eyes and violently shook his head to make it stop, and then had to wonder why.

  Because it’s stupid, he told himself. It doesn’t change anything. Stop thinking about it.

  He got out of bed and went to the window. It was still dark out, though there were plenty of oil lamps illuminating the streets. A light snow fell. His eyes fell on someone standing next to one of the lampposts, a woman, whose gaze met his own. His breath caught, wondering if she might be a Kircan soldier, unlikely as that was. Staring directly at him, she made the hand-sign for safe, then turned and disappeared down an alley.

  He blinked and turned back to climb into bed. He could hear Weynon breathing softly and wondered if he was awake. Channeling telepathy, he tried to listen to Weynon’s thoughts, but there was only the unintelligible buzz of dreams. Sometimes he was able to make out what someone was dreaming, though it was unpleasant more often than not. He sighed as he closed his eyes and flexed his fingers and toes. A sense of aloneness enveloped him, the same aloneness he had often felt lying in bed at the orphanage. There was nothing waiting for him after this was over. Perhaps he’d be hailed as a hero for helping stop the war before it really began, or perhaps not. He could die. What had happened only hours ago reinforced that idea, though it didn’t bother him too much. Without anyone back home waiting for him, there wouldn’t be anyone to mourn him. Weynon would be upset, but he was young. He’d be okay after a little while. Or Weynon would die as well. That idea certainly bothered him. There was a slight appeal to having absolutely no one around to mourn him, but there was just no abiding the thought of Weynon dying. No, they were both going to be safe. The strange woman in the street signed so.

  Dowyr let out a soft chuckle. He was becoming as superstitious as Weynon.

  *

  Elethe was going to leave. She kept telling herself that, and that she had made up her mind about it already. So why, at this early hour, was she awake and still thinking about it? Part of her wanted to scream, but Sirona would wake up and give her the rough side of her tongue for doing so. Not to mention waking and bothering Clarine was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Poor Clarine. Elethe had hardly spoken to the woman since she joined the Company, mostly since Garec wanted to keep them separated as often as possible. Clarine still didn’t know Elethe was a Class 3.9, and still thought Dowyr was supposed to be her Booster. The woman had become hardened steel ever since that first Kircan ambush that felt like it had happened months ago. It sickened Elethe to have to participate in that lie. Sirona had been livid when she learned what Garec had Dowyr do, yet she said nothing. No one did. The entire Company went along with it, and she couldn’t blame them. That didn’t stop her from hating the situation.

  She felt a small spike of anxiety from nearby. Garec’s room, she suspected. He must be awake, worrying that she wanted to go home. She could tell that he was afraid when she told him that. She could tell he wanted to delay her into changing her mind. And every second of knowing that tormented her, making her rethink the decision and try to reinforce it, only to come back to the promise she had made to herself that she would see this through to the end. But how could she? The weight of it all, of killing the Colonel, especially the way she did it, of deceiving Clarine, of leaving those women behind. It was too much to bear. She hadn’t trained for this as an Emogician. Yes, all Emogicians trained to always keep their emotions under control, but it was no easy task for an Empath. Especially one that wasn’t trained to be a soldier by any means.

  I’m going to leave, she told herself again. Gwyn was powerful enough to make up for her absence. She wasn’t needed now that he had joined, and…

  I promised both Dowyr and Weynon…

  Well, those promises were reliant on her being in a situation where she could save only one or the other. If she left, it wasn’t like she’d be breaking any of their promises. She could avoid having to choose one or the other entirely.

  That hadn’t been what she promised in her heart, however, and it gnawed at her. If she left, and the mission came to ruin, or either of those boys didn’t come back, or her uncle, she would never be able to forgive herself. What if Gwyn couldn’t be trusted? She didn’t know him. Though being a Booster and a Parastenian, she had to give him some credit.

  No, none of that mattered. The pain was too much. She was leaving, that was the final decision.

  Wanting to cry out in frustration, she slowly climbed out of bed and went to the window. It was still dark, but by the lamplight she could see the streets below and that a light snow fell. Standing below a nearby lamppost was a man. Elethe’s breath caught. He seemed to be staring right at her. No, he was staring at her. Eyes locked on hers, he hand-signed, safe. Then he turned and disappeared around a corner. Elethe blinked, rubbing her eyes. Something about that moment almost didn’t feel real. Was she dreaming? Had there really been a man there?

  Turning back and climbing into her bed again, she had the sudden urge to wave her hand in front of her eyes. It was too dark to make out anything except its silhouette. She closed her eyes and waved her hand again, still sensing an impression of where her hand was, like a faint glow. She had never understood why she could sense it like that with her eyes closed, but something about the man under the lamppost made her think of that sensation.

  You’re tired, Elethe told herself. Just go to sleep. Leaving in the morning.

  Sleep did come, though with what the morning brought, she almost wished it hadn’t.