Morning in Efrem’s hut always carried the taste of old copper and damp mold. I woke to the right hand—the one encased in a crust of healing clay—pulsing in rhythm with my heart. It wasn’t sharp pain, more a dull, pressing sensation, as if the bone inside had swollen and was too tight in its own skin.

  I sat up on the straw mattress, my stiff neck cracking. Efrem was already on his feet. He stood at the workbench, cobbled together from scraps of an old boat, methodically cleaning some tool—not quite a knife, not quite a bone scraper, etched with tiny runes. His movements were precise, economical.

  “Don’t scratch,” he muttered without looking back.

  “I’m not scratching,” I mumbled, though the itch under the dry crust was unbearable.

  “But you wanted to. You’re breathing like you’re about to peel your skin off. Get up. The swamps will be vicious today—there was a release in the north overnight, all the mana drained to the southern channels. We have three hours before the seals in the marsh reset.”

  He tossed me a piece of stale bread wrapped in an oiled rag. The crust was hard as a shoe sole, but inside was a thin layer of salted fat. The best meal I’d had in days. I chewed, staring at the small green box on the table. In the dim morning light, the crystal inside barely glowed, looking more like a chunk of cracked, murky glass.

  “Why are we going back there?” I asked, swallowing the last bite. “Yesterday we almost ran into the Eraser.”

  Efrem finally turned. His eyes, faded and cold, locked onto my face.

  “Yesterday you saw the lines. Today you have to feel them with your skin. If you don’t learn to distinguish a dormant trap from a wandering curse, your next encounter with the Eraser will be your last. These golems don’t just roam—they sense any disturbance in the ether. If your magic leaks like a cracked cauldron, the Hunters will find you even under a layer of silt.”

  We stepped outside. The swamp air was so thick it felt like you could cut it with a knife. Mist hung in ragged strips, clinging to snags like the bones of drowned giants.

  “Go ahead,” Efrem commanded.

  I froze.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. But if I go first, you’ll just watch my back instead of looking at your feet. Go. Feel the ‘living.’ Remember: anything that seems too convenient is a trap.”

  I took the first step. My boot sank with a squelch into the sticky black mud. I forced myself to relax, closing my eyes for a moment, summoning the state Efrem called the “open gaze.”

  The world shifted.

  The gray of the mist remained, but over it ran threads. Thin as spider silk, pulsing with faint light.

  Most threads were dull yellow—the natural currents of the earth, decaying roots, moving water. But woven between them, like rough stitches, were bright red veins. Seals of the Order. Traps left by inquisitors during the first purge.

  “I see the first one,” I whispered. “Three steps ahead, across the path. Strung between two alders.”

  “What’s it keyed to?” Efrem’s voice behind me was casual.

  “Sound. Air vibration.”

  “How will you bypass it?”

  “To the right. There’s a hummock; the moss will dampen my steps.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I moved right. My leg shook. Each shift of weight felt like the hummock might sink and snap an invisible string. The mud squelched mockingly. At one point I felt the vibration of the trap stir. It didn’t trigger, but it heard me. A cold sweat ran down my spine.

  “Don’t freeze,” Efrem murmured. “A pause in the swamp is an invitation for quicksand. Move smoothly, like a snake.”

  We walked for about an hour. My legs were leaden; my injured hand throbbed so fiercely that spots swam before my eyes. We passed an overgrown channel where bits of someone’s form floated in the water—gray shreds of cloth clinging to white bones. Here, the seals were denser. Red threads wove into complex, knotted patterns.

  “Stop,” Efrem laid a hand on my shoulder.

  I froze, nearly stepping on a barely noticeable mound.

  “See?” He pointed at the reeds.

  Something moved among the grass. It wasn’t an animal. A black, oily shadow slid silently across the water, leaving no ripples.

  The Eraser.

  It was closer than yesterday. A tall golem of black wood and bone, wrapped in rune-marked chains. Its face was a smooth plate; its hands ended in long, bony spikes. It moved mechanically, probing each hummock with a long feeler that occasionally glowed dim blue.

  “Is it looking for us?” I whispered, my voice breaking.

  “It’s looking for an anomaly,” Efrem corrected. “The crystal in your pocket is like a burning torch to it. Right now, your will dims it, but your fear… you’re trembling too much. Fear sends ripples through mana. Calm yourself, or it will turn this way.”

  When the golem’s shadow slid around the bend of the channel, I finally exhaled.

  “We need to move on,” Efrem said. “See that old willow? There’s a stash under its roots. We need copper clamps and alchemical salt if we want the crystal to stop burning your nerves.”

  We reached the willow. Its roots were upturned, exposing black soil and wriggling white worms. Efrem started digging while I kept watch.

  And then I made a mistake.

  I saw a strange glow among the roots. Not red, not yellow—delicate green, almost like young leaves. Later, I would call it the chance. It wasn’t part of the Order’s system. It was something ancient, trapped in the roots.

  I reached for it.

  “Don’t touch!” Efrem shouted, but it was too late.

  My fingers brushed cold metal—an old amulet fragment. The world exploded.

  The red threads around us flared scarlet. The vibration trap we had avoided an hour ago screamed at such a pitch that blood ran from my ears. The ground beneath shook.

  “Idiot!” Efrem grabbed my collar and yanked me back. “It was a guard circuit! You closed the network!”

  Somewhere in the mist came a response whistle. The Eraser heard the signal. Now it wasn’t just gliding—it was charging at us, smashing reeds with its bony legs.

  “Run!” the old man shouted. “Not the path—jump the hummocks, straight through the red! The crystal! Grab the crystal!”

  I snatched the box. It pulsed in my hand, burning my fingers with blisters.

  “Squeeze it!” Efrem yelled, fending off the oncoming threads with his bone staff, sparks blinding my eyes. “Make it absorb! Drink the power, or it’ll shred us across these hummocks!”

  I shut my eyes. I didn’t know how to drink mana. I just imagined my hand as a funnel, the crystal an endless pit. The shoulder pain became unbearable, like molten resin in my veins. The green glow in my hands blazed. The red threads around us began to dim, their energy being drawn into the box like smoke into a crack.

  For a moment, silence. The Order’s network at this section… just died.

  “Did it work?” I gasped, collapsing to my knees. My lungs tore.

  Efrem stood over the disturbed earth beneath the willow. He was breathing heavily, his face earthy pale. In his hands, he clutched a small bundle.

  “It worked,” he said grimly. “But now you’re marked on every Order map. Let’s go. Fast. Before the golems cordon off the sector.”

  The return was hell. We didn’t walk—we slogged through mud. My hand hung like a whip; the crystal in my pocket felt like a cannonball. Efrem almost carried me, constantly glancing back. Several times, we heard the Hunters’ whistles close by, but the mist and the mana void I’d created threw them off our trail.

  When we finally slammed the hut door, I collapsed onto the floor.

  Efrem didn’t help me. He went to the table, tossed the bundle down, and sat heavily, hands braced.

  “You almost killed us, boy,” he said, his voice low and cracked.

  “I… I saw something else. Green. I thought…”

  “You’ll think when we get out. In these swamps, there’s no ‘else.’ There’s what eats you, and what lets you live another hour.”

  He lit his pipe. The hut smelled of bitter tobacco and scorched wool.

  I looked at my hand. The clay crust had cracked, revealing young, pink skin threaded with strange dark veins. The crystal remembered my impulse. It remembered how I pulled power.

  “Tomorrow,” Efrem said, exhaling smoke, “we’ll dissect what you did. If your brain hasn’t melted yet, maybe it’ll be useful. But today… today just be glad you’re still breathing.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling the floor slowly rocking beneath me. We had survived. But I felt that the crystal in the box was now watching me. And it was the gaze of something that had just tasted its first blood.