I woke up in daze. For a blessed moment I remembered nothing, but almost hesitantly my memories filled me in on the fact that last night had in fact happened. Cassie’s confession, my realisation, all of it. I thought for a while on exactly what I should do about my revelation, and settled on a fool-proof plan that had no possible chance of backfire.

  I would do nothing.

  It may sound foolish, but I was in just about the best position to keep my secret right now. Cassie seemed to feel a little bit guilty for forcing a revelation on me (I disagreed, but still). That made her unlikely to push. She also had an almost true version of events that explains my behaviour last night, so she shouldn’t be suspicious.

  All I had to do was lay low until I figured out what to do next, which meant I had plenty of time. We would be travelling together in a couple of days anyway. It also conveniently meant that I could postpone my talk with my mother, although I would almost be surprised if she didn’t somehow already know.

  With that matter settled, I reluctantly forced myself out of bed. I quickly dressed in some nondescript clothing, just a shirt and some practical trousers. I had basically nothing to do today, because the few things we were taking with us were already packed. I glanced around the room, finding the cot that Cassie had taken to sleeping on already empty.

  She must be up already. Out, too. The house is too quiet for her to still be here.

  I glanced out the window, spotting Cassie sitting in our training spot out the front. She had a concentrated look on her face, and she was staring down at the open page of her new spell guide. Looking at her her in the light of day, I felt like I was seeing her for the first time. She seemed almost radiant, although not in any way I could describe, not if I wanted to do the phenomenon justice.

  I couldn’t help myself, simply staring. I watched as the brown of her hair seemed to turn to woven gold in the morning sun, and her eyes squinted cutely as she re-read a passage in her book. I saw her turn when she felt my gaze on her, couldn’t help but smile at the dimples that formed when she grinned upon seeing me.

  I only broke from my trance when she began to stand, and immediately flushed red when I realised what I had done. Not only had I openly stared at Cassie, but she had seen!

  So much for acting the same as before, dumbass.

  I hurriedly ran from the house to see her, although I didn’t exactly have a plan for what to say to her. By the time I had rushed out the door Cassie had stood, cradling her book in her arms. She simply watched as I hurried over, almost unblinking as I scrambled to come up with something to say. When she spoke I was ready to thank her for starting the conversation, at least until what she had actually said registered.

  “Like what you see?” Cassie directed a mysterious smile at me as she spoke, which for some reason had me melting on the inside. She was also watching my eyes very closely.

  “Yep,” my traitorous mouth answered before I could swallow the response. I tried to think of a follow-up, or really anything to say. I couldn’t though, and the damage was done. I coughed and did my best to change the subject. “So, what spell were you looking at?” I hated the way my voice quavered slightly, but there was nothing I could do now.

  Cassie seemed a little taken aback by the sudden change in conversation, but in moments she was back to her usual self. “Oh, I was just looking at a modification that I could use in my spellform for Shield to attune it to lightning, which would make it so much more efficient.” She proceeded to spend the next several going over all of the ways this new modification could make her Shield spell more potent, as well as the potential drawbacks, such as a further reduced ability to handle multiple objects.

  For my part, I just bathed in the glow of her passion as she ranted. For all my slip-ups, all the potential awkwardness, all the inevitable stress that my recent revelation was likely to cause, it was all worth it to spend time with Cassie. Especially now. It was like I had tuned directly into her frequency, and everything about Cassie was more present in my mind.

  Now that I’d had time to process the interaction, it occurred to me that Cassie’s reaction to being creepily stared at was very strange. The thought that she may feel the same about me as I did about her came to me unbidden, but I smothered it in the crib. There was no way I could entertain thoughts like that, not without extensive evidence and a lot of time to think. Still, this newfound passion in me couldn’t help but be excited for the time we would be spending together soon, each other our only company.

  Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be just fine.

  ----------------------------------------------

  The next two days passed surprisingly smoothly. Aside from a couple of awkward moments in the first day Cassie and I were back to normal. The only change was that she was definitely more touchy-feely, nudging my shoulder or grabbing my hand more often. I didn’t really mind though, so I didn’t mention it.

  We didn’t really have much to do, so we ended up spending most of our time looking over Cassie’s spell guide. While I didn’t have any training for spellforms, I knew enough about magical theory to at least make an educated guess at what I was looking at. Cassie seemed to understand most of it easily, although there were several points where she had to look back over a few sections to understand something.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  We didn’t really make any practical progress, although I did enjoy just quietly looking over the material with her. Besides, I had my own magic to work on. I had ended up using my illusions to draw her attention to certain parts of the book, changing the colour of the text or magnifying it.

  By the time our final day in Vernal rolled around, I was more than a little nervous. Unless you counted my brief excursions into the surrounding woodland, I had never left the village. I knew that Cassie hadn’t either, but I guess she had been dreaming about this for longer than I had, because she seemed calm.

  We were only bringing two packs, the one from Laon for more valuable stuff and a larger one that Cassie already owned for general supplies. That meant that we really weren’t taking much with us, which had me a bit worried.

  Logically, I knew that we didn’t have much to worry about. The first leg of our journey would only be about a week on foot to Perch, a small town further out to the coast. From there, we would find a caravan that was heading to Meria. Meria was a proper city, and also where we thought the closest branch of the Adventurer’s Guild would be. All in all, we weren’t going to be away from civilisation for very long. Still, I couldn’t help but worry.

  I finished packing and repacking the bag we had gotten from Laon, which had all of the money we could scrape together, as well as both of our canteens and Cassie’s spell guide. I had already packed both bags multiple times, but I was out of time now.

  I hefted the satchel, which could only just hold everything. Cassie had confiscated the other bag, which held all of our food, our second and third sets of clothing, a couple of magic theory books Almon had lent to me and a thick bestiary. We had thought it was likely to be needed at some point, and books were expensive.

  I stepped out into the daylight, a weight dropping onto my shoulders as I left the house I had grown up in for the last time. Well, in all likelihood it wouldn’t be the actual last time, but that’s how it felt in the moment. Cassie was already there with my mother and Almon, who had presumably all been waiting for me to be ready.

  “There you are! How long does it take to fetch a single bag?” Cassie called out to me as I walked over. She was dressed for the road, practical leather trousers and a simple tunic, covered by a thick dark cloak, hood down and draped over her shoulders. She also had her wand belted on, currently in its sheath. Despite the fact that I was wearing pretty much the same outfit, I couldn’t help but think she looked rather dashing.

  “Well, I had to check everything was still there. And then I had to repack it all. Then I had to check it was all there to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and then-”

  “Okay, I get it,” Cassie dramatically threw her hands in the air, giving my mother a look that said ‘can you believe this?’ answered by a small shrug. “Everything was there, right?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Actually, maybe I should check again…” I teased, earning a groan from Cassie and a polite chuckle from my mother. Almon simply watched, but for the sake of my self-confidence I assumed that he was laughing on the inside.

  “If you spend any more time checking we’ll be a day behind schedule. Come on, Lia!”

  “Fine, fine.” I huffed, before turning to my mother. “Thanks for being so good about this, Mum. I’ll miss you.”

  My mother miraculously held it together, although she did pull me into an incredibly tight hug. “Be safe, sweetheart,” She mumbled into my shoulder.

  “Of course. When have we ever done anything reckless?”

  “Well, there was-”

  “I’m gonna stop you right there. If you actually start listing things we’ll be here all day, and you heard how passionate Cassie was about staying on schedule.”

  My mother shook her head. “Hah. You’re right. You two should get going, I have some worrying to catch up on and I need all the time I can get.”

  I extricated myself from my mother’s embrace, turning to see Cassie going through a similar farewell with Almon.

  “Take care, Cassandra. You’ll need to if you are to return my books in their proper condition.”

  “Sure thing. You had better still be here when we get back, old man.”

  After a year’s worth of practice with their interactions I could tell their real fights from their casual insults, and there was no venom in their words. If anything there was genuine care there, disguised under the surface. I couldn’t help the smile that found its way onto my face at their interaction, although it turned a little bittersweet as I remembered that I wouldn’t be seeing Almon or my mother for who knew how long.

  I wasn’t surprised to see that Jolene hadn’t shown up, but I was disappointed. It was obvious that she still cared for her daughter, in her own way. Now that I knew the reason their separation had begun, I couldn’t help but be a but more frustrated about her behaviour though. I had been assuming that one of them had made some mistake, but no. Jolene simply seemed to be being petty because Cassie’s future was turning out differently than expected.

  Once Cassie was done with Almon, I tagged in. Out goodbye was a lot more brief, considering we’d only truly known each other for a year or so. Even still, I was thankful for the old man. He was certainly less affectionate with me than my mother was with Cassie though. You’d think that she was also my mother’s daughter to look at how upset they were. Still, it didn’t take too long before they parted.

  With our goodbyes said, Cassie and I turned and walked away. We were heading to the actual entrance and exit of the Vernal, which was somewhere I rarely visited. For all of my time in the forest, I tended to just leave from and return to my house. Since we were properly leaving though, we needed to follow the road. Cassie’s bag had a map, but laying it out and figuring out where we were was quiet a lot of effort, and the road out of Vernal went to pretty much one place, since we were in the middle of nowhere.

  Before long, we were walking through the large wooden gates at the edge of the village. I had never really understood what they were for, since anyone coming into Vernal could just walk a bit to the side and enter that way. We got merchant caravans maybe twice a year, so needing to stop them for whatever reason couldn’t be a top priority. I supposed that it was probably symbolic, saying ‘this is the edge of our village’ to anyone who saw it.

  It certainly felt symbolic when we emerged from the other side officially in the wilderness, albeit right on the edge. I felt strangely giddy as we took our first steps into the rest of our lives. I had been leading up to this moment for almost a year, and it was finally happening.

  “Lia? Hellooo?”

  I startled, and realised that Cassie had been talking. “Sorry, what? I was thinking.”

  “I was asking if we could swap bags. Mine’s really heavy.”

  Oh yeah, this was the life.

  new plan, which I am still using eleven chapters later.

  magic, but for the overall developmental stages are similar. Expect a lot of the technology to have some magic in its creation or utility though, given that it's way easier to get some mage to carve self-renewing energy into a big stick than mine for coal.