Eleutheromania

Getting Credit

||If you find any typos or grammatical errors, please point them out in the comment section so others, as well as myself, can be aware of it. I'm not planning on editing small mistakes until I've got a good chunk of this story out there. However, like many books, things will be a bit slow in the start before the pace starts to pick up.

Enjoy the chapter!||

Caelus rolled his eyes at her reply.

"Well duh- you wouldn't have it if the mage were already dead."

Caelus was staring at the bottle. She lifted an eyebrow, moving the bottle just slightly to see his eyes following it. His fingers were probably itching to grab them. Liora scoffed and pocketed them, knowing exactly what was going on in his head. They were only given bottles of these herbs for specific missions. They were trackers, and their job was to track down witches and awaken them, taking them back to June before the hunters of The Pyre got to them. She hadn't told him yet, but she was the one who was going to be going with him on his first mission.

"Relax, Caelus. The mission won't start until you actually get to the target area. And you still have a whole week before you have to go."

Caelus glared at her, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking pebbles across the pavement.

"You may be able to relax, but I can't. It's my first mission. They haven't given me any herbs or told me who my partner is. If I screw this up I'm out! I'll be wayyyy down on the scoreboard. Practically left for the crows to tear apart." He said.

"Oh, really? You do realize this is only my third mission, right?"

Caelus's jaw went slack. Liora tried her best to keep her mouth from twitching upwards again, moving further down the alley. She could understand his disbelief. She was often called in by June. Needless to say, most people assumed she was getting loads of missions. Which was strange since she'd only been promoted from trainee to tracker around two months ago. And they weren't entirely wrong, but the majority of her missions were just simple tasks like collecting or grinding herbs. And they happened to be on good terms with each other. This time though, she was to go out and bring a mage back to him- a real mission. Her third. Caelus's first. He followed silently behind her, clearly still in shock.

If she remembered correctly, it was easier to track mages rather than witches for whatever reason, so it would be perfect for beginners like them. A witch often partially awakened during the age where they have hormonal imbalance, causing the magic to flicker on and off. A mage, on the other hand, normally awakened in half during either their younger years, or far into adulthood. Even though they would be catching a mage, Liora could still see how anxious Caelus was.

Honestly, she could understand his worries. Some of the more experienced people had a bad habit of harassing the others lower on the scoreboard, whom they thought weren't working hard. It was terribly easy to lose a witch or mage to the hunters of The Pyre. Though they still weren't sure how the hunters had been tracking and retrieving witches, they knew that they were a force to be reckoned with. And she certainly didn't want to see another innocent die on that creepy stage. She'd nearly lost her first target to them. She'd been saved from getting bullied by getting called in so frequently for more jobs. People often thought she was going to suddenly get a large jump in rank, which made them nervous to be around her.

But they might not be so cautious around Caelus, being as young and naive as he was. Most people didn't start at his age. Generally, everyone would try to graduate training around fifteen years old- her age. And if Caeluss' monkey business was anything to go by, maybe it was better that way.

What had he done this time? Blow up a kitchen...?

She sighed, stopping to pat Caelus on the back. "C'mon, June is probably waiting for you to go and apologize for your mess. Again. Better hope you're not demoted back to a trainee this time around."