The forest lay in an unnatural hush. Only the whisper of the wind and the crackle of firewood--stacked within a ring of stones to serve as their camp--broke the stillness. This clearing is near to Sheol than the village, far from anything that could be called safe.
Keiser stayed upright against the tree he'd been leaning on, his body aching but tolerable--he could ignore the pain for the sake of answers that kept slipping through his grasp.
"Why is the first prince looking for… me?" he asked. He'd been about to say 'the tenth prince' aloud, but referring to himself that way while wearing Muzio's face felt absurd.
Princess Yona only sighed, returning to her seat from where she'd been checking Lenko's ward sigils on a nearby trunk.
"Beats me. He just told me to watch for a black-haired, red-eyed boy who's just skin and bone. Oh, and to pay special attention if he's traveling with a copper-haired, green-eyed, freckled boy."
Keiser frowned. That was too specific--exactly Muzio and Lenko. But when had those two left the capital to hide in Sheol, of all places?
Yona had looked genuinely startled to see Muzio mid-fight with the Corvuses, and her 'keeping an eye' didn't seem to involve harming either of them… though she had stolen from them.
"You mentioned something about Hinnom. Is that why we're in the forest instead of the village?"
Her expression shifted into something halfway between amusement and mockery.
"You're easy to talk to, huh?"
Keiser's fingers itched for a stick to throw at her--just to see her do that worm impression again.
"I guess you'll take it better than that boy," she added, nodding toward Lenko, who was sprawled on the ground snoring.
Keiser hummed. Convincing Lenko to stay here instead of trudging back to the village must've gone as smoothly as negotiating with a rock. At least they'd put up their own wards, turning this clearing into something resembling safe territory. Speaking of sigils--
"So? The reason?" Keiser gestured toward the warded tree with a sharp tilt of his chin.
She followed his gaze, scowled at the sigil, then looked back at him.
"Have you been to this village before?"
Keiser paused. It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed her habit of dodging his questions, only to toss back ones meant to pull his attention elsewhere. But if she refused to answer, there was little he could do--she would keep circling around the truth. So he turned to her newest question instead.
He couldn't say for certain about Muzio, but he knew Lenko had.
"He has," Keiser said, pointing at the sleeping boy, who mumbled, 'Nooo… not Sir McKenzy's…spot.' as if in protest.
Yona grimaced, brushing stray hair from her face. "That means you two don't know about the disappearances in the village."
Keiser went rigid, leaning forward until his chest pressed to his knees.
Disappearances?
He sifted through memories from before this. No rumors came to mind--he'd been too busy with other matters months before the Gambit.
Hinnom was a remote place, only memorable to him as a battlefield during the Gambit's fourth trial, when the village had already been broken and abandoned. If people had gone missing here, the news had never reached his ears.
Yona studied him with disbelief that edged into pity.
"You'll understand soon. It's… not easy to explain right now."
She glanced skyward. Though the fire deepened the shadows around them, the night above was bright with scattered light. Keiser frowned, for a moment, looking up made him feel like he was falling into the sky.
The stars seemed to rush toward him--until he realized it was only glowing insects drifting down, weaving between them like tiny, living lanterns.
Keiser blinked at the flicker of movement--one of the glowing insects drifted so close to his face he nearly went cross-eyed. Its tiny body pulsed with light like a lantern on legs.
For a fleeting moment, he almost relaxed, reminded of quieter nights with his faction, when Aisha would put on little magic displays. It had that same quiet beauty.
Keiser didn't notice at first that Yona's gaze wasn't on the bugs at all--it was on her sheathed blades. Her brow was furrowed, as if questioning something only she could see.
One of the insects drifted close to her scabbed chin. She swatted it away, the faint crunch of its shell breaking under her palm. Her eyes tracked the dead bug in her hand… then flicked back to her swords.
A sharp, almost disbelieving laugh escaped her. "Seriously?"
A nasty grin curled across her lips. In one swift motion, she unsheathed her blades. The twin edges, pale as moonlight, trembled in her grip. She chuckled again, low and dangerous.
The spell of the moment shattered. Keiser's breath hitched like he'd just surfaced from underwater.
"I don't know how you did it, Your Highness," The Princess said, watching as Keiser swatting at the bugs that seemed to be multiplying around him, "but--"
"You released the sigil you stuck on me." Her twin blades caught the fire light, their edges glinting like they were aflame. Her grin was manic, her jaw tight. She fixed him with a look that burned almost as much as her words.
"And the other seals, too."
Keiser frowned, unsure what she meant--until she turned her blade toward Lenko.
"Wake that one up," she ordered, voice sharp, "or he won't awake at all."
Then he noticed the swarm gathering over the still-sleeping Lenko. His body protested the moment he moved, but he stomped over and kicked Lenko in the leg.
Lenko shot up with a shout--and a cloud of bugs fleeing from him.
The next moment, Lenko was flailing like a man who'd just discovered he was covered in bugs, smacking himself in places Keiser wasn't sure needed smacking.
Keiser ignored him, focused on his own swarm of glowing pests.
"What are these?" Keiser slapped one out of the air. "And what were they doing earlier?"
"Pyris, a 'guide bugs'," Yona said between slashes. "They don't carry their own mana--they carry yours. They'll make you sleepy, then keep you that way until you've got nothing left to give."
Keiser frowned while Lenko darted about, swatting at the glowing insects in panic. "What?! Then how'd they get past the ward I made?" Keiser's eyes flicked to the sigils--still active.
"Yeah? That ward keeps out wild beasts, right? These aren't beasts." Yona's strikes were deliberate, careful not to cut down the trees--or the boys--around her. Each time her blades cleaved an insect, it burst into purple fire and crumbled into ash mid-air.
Instead of slapping one away, Keiser caught it in his palm. Mana--Muzio's mana--flowed into it, dragging at his senses, pressing him into that suffocating underwater haze again. He crushed it in his fist, grimacing.
"They're not wild?"
"No. And they're not from Sheol either. They're from my--" She stopped mid-sentence, her head snapping toward the left.
Her gaze cut back to them. "They're here. Hide!"
Keiser yanked Lenko out of the path of her sudden slash. The swing blew out the nearby fire in a rush of wind, plunging the clearing into shadow. Without hesitation, Keiser ducked behind a tree, clapping a hand over Lenko's mouth as the boy slid to the ground.
He knelt low, peering from the trunk's edge. On the next tree over, the princess mirrored him--hood drawn up, face shadowed beneath her cloak.
Lenko noticed too and wordlessly shoved his cloak into Keiser's hands. Without looking back, Keiser took it and pulled it on, the rough fabric settling heavy on his shoulders. Lenko did the same. The bugs still drifted around them in lazy swarms, but the hoods helped obscure their faces--just in time for what came next.
A procession emerged from between the trees--a slow-moving line of cloaked figures holding lamps, their light casting eerie halos in the mist.
The ones at the front swung short blades, batting at the insects. Unlike Yona, whose cuts turned the creatures into curling purple fire, these men only managed to push them aside, the bugs circling back almost immediately.
But it wasn't the cloaked guards that made Keiser's jaw tighten.
It was the cluster in their midst.
Young children, some women carrying the smaller ones, and even a few older individuals. One was an old man with a cloth wrapped around his head--likely covering an open wound, judging by the fresh blood seeping through.
None of them wore cloaks, and their hunched shoulders and downcast eyes spoke of exhaustion and fear.
"Hurry up already!" one of the cloaked men barked from the flank, prodding the group forward. The unprotected ones flinched and quickened their pace.
Keiser glanced sideways at the princess. Her hood was drawn low, but her expression was unmistakable--her gaze locked on the procession, sharp and murderous. The group passed so close he could hear the shuffling of tired feet and the faint, panicked breathing.
Lenko swatted a bug away from Keiser's cheek, his own face twisted with worry. Keiser glanced at Yona, narrowing his eyes. He didn't understand why she had suddenly told them to hide earlier, but the weight in her voice left no room for argument.
"What is happening? Is this related to the disappearance?" he pressed, determined not to let her dodge the question or answer him with another 'It's difficult to explain.'
She didn't look at either of them, only tugged her hood lower. A bug drifted past her face, and the light from its glowing body reflected in her eyes--eyes that never left the captives.
"This," she said, her voice low and cold, "is the disappearance."