Altered Destiny

Ch. 11

"Oh my gosh!" Matt said, darting over to his sister in a panic. "One of them got you? How bad is it? Will—"

Ingressus pulled him back as Saylor hurried over with a water bucket. "Breathe," he told Matt.

Matt obeyed, taking calming breaths. Leah let out a sigh of relief as she dunked her hand in the water. "Oh. Oh, that's better. Thanks."

A scratching sound echoed from near the wall. Ingressus turned, impaling the spider that was crawling towards them. The creature twitched, then fell still.

"Ooh, can you get me the eyes from that—"

"Absolutely not," Matt cut Leah off. "Unlicensed potion brewing is illegal and you know it."

"I know it's illegal, I'm not gonna do that," Leah said, pulling her hand from the bucket and inspecting the slime burn. "But think of the stink bomb potential..."

"Why the Nether would you want to make stink bombs—"

Ingressus had never had a sibling. But as he watched the Humans bickering about the usefulness of being able to use terrible odors against the people you didn't like and the dangers of collateral damage, he wondered what it would have been like. Luciren and Volerik could go from hyper-competitive to best friends and back again in a heartbeat. Galleous could only spit his brother's name, but even as Leah and Matt argued and shoved at each other they did so with laughter in their voices, and he couldn't imagine them ever becoming so far estranged. Sinaran would roll her eyes at her little brother's antics, but she and Sorays were practically inseparable, having each other's backs even to the– even to the end.

Ingressus's heart twisted and he looked away, but the memory flashed before his eyes regardless. Sorays falling to a raider's blade, his blood staining the snow in a macabre parody of his blackened markings. Sinaran letting out a cry of sorrow and pure rage and engaging her brother's killer, stabbing the raider in the throat even as his spear ran her through. She had fallen beside her brother, their blood soaking together in the snow.

Ingressus turned away, his fists clenched against the memory. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to go home, go to sleep, and to wake up in the morning with the memories back in the past where they should be.

Ha. Home. He couldn't tell when he'd started thinking of the forge as home. Nor when he'd stopped resisting that label.

"Ingressus?"

He realized that Matt was talking to him. He glanced back and saw the Humans looking at him with concern, and Saylor with suspicion.

He turned away again, heading back up the tunnel. Charcoal marks on your right, like Matt had said. "Let's go. We're wasting moonlight."

The words came out harsher than he'd intended, but he didn't wait for a response. He heard Leah whisper "did we do something wrong?" and Matt make an I-don't-know noise. He could feel Saylor's gaze on the back of his head, as though the Kaltaris thought that by staring hard enough he could dig his way into Ingressus's brain and see whatever diabolical plan he suspected Ingressus of.

Maybe it was a blessing that Ingressus had never had a brother or sister. It meant there was one less person to mourn.

The resonance was no less unpleasant on the return journey. If anything it was worse, the feeling of death and unnatural silence building off of the memories in Ingressus's mind. Again he felt his gaze drawn to where the Songs should be, his mind's eye painting the picture of the four Song orders as they would have been all those centuries before. Aggressium, Mobilium, Supporium, Protisium; red, yellow, green, and blue light shining in the dark cave, waiting for someone to discover them.