Six months after Mira's meeting with the Drokai councils, and a month before the harvest, her epic request went into effect.

  Kai Dairook was at a blacksmith shop in Theovale when his guide popped up to give him the announcement. It was an event triggered by the Wraith of Areswood Forest herself—and he liked what he read. But he set it aside because the dagger he was buying was far more important than the event—even if it could change his life. Unfortunately, the blacksmith didn't agree. He got the notification as well, along with every other person in the first and second domains. Soon, Theovale would be crawling with activity as the Melhans and Dantes and Claustra capitalized on the event Mira Hill had triggered just two minutes before. The world had shut down for everyone—but Kai needed that dagger.

  “Hey, I was haggling with you,” Kai said. “This is unprofessional.”

  The blacksmith looked away from his guide in annoyance. “Sorry, kid. We’re closed.”

  “Closed? I ordered this!” He pointed to a simple yet beautiful dagger he commissioned for his kid sister for her birthday.

  “Yeah, and now you’re not payin’ for it.”

  “I am payin’ for it. I just think it’s professional courtesy to haggle for just about everything.”

  “Who taught you that?”

  “If I had a father, I’d imagine it would’ve been him.”

  The blacksmith looked at the door. “Leave. I needa get ready.” He grabbed the blade, and Kai grabbed his hand.

  “Let go, boy.”

  “No. I commissioned this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of gold so thick that it left a dull thud followed by a light metallic clank of top coins shuffling. “Now it’s my sister’s birthday, and I ordered that blade. And if you say the word ‘closed’ again, I’ll break your hands and take my chances with the Harvest.”

  “Am I supposed to take that seriously?” the blacksmith asked, looking Kai up and down to appraise his shoddy wear and lack of armor.

  “So much for you being a blacksmith,” Kai said. He unsheathed the rickety sword at his waist.

  “Hey!” the blacksmith cried. “If you even lift that sword, the Dantes are gonna…” His eyes widened when he saw the blade.

  Kai smirked and threw the dull, chipped sword on the table. “The day you can make something like this, you can close your shop early for a Callin’. Till then, quit deluding yourself. Every blacksmith from here to {City} will be in Areswood by week’s end—and you’re going to get laughed at. Now, unless you want to go hungry this week, you’re gonna sell me that blade.”

  Kai dumped a sea of gold coins onto the counter. Then, he blindly cut the pile of gold in half with his hands. Both piles had far more money than he agreed to pay the blacksmith. It was dead of a lifetime for this middle-rate blacksmith.

  “You pick," Kai said, pointing between the two piles. "And do it fast. ‘Cause I’m in a hurry."

  The blacksmith pointed at the left pile, and Kai put the rest back into his coinbag. Then, he grabbed the sheathed dagger and its leather scabbard. “Thank you for your business.” He sheathed his sword and tried to leave, but the blacksmith pushed back the gold. “What now?” he asked.

  “For that blade. Use it to get it restored. Damn shame to even look at it.”

  Kai looked at the man and then at the gold on the table. “You think I could get this restored with that? Sorry friend, but you can’t even find someone that can restore this—let alone for pittance.”

  He turned and looked at his watch. “Damn. I’m late.” He rushed out, but the blacksmith called out again. “What now?”

  “That blade. Where’d you get it?”

  Kai unsheathed the blade three inches and clicked it back into its scabbard. “My father. You should’ve haggled.” He then turned and hit a breakneck speed home, bounding twenty feet upward to jump onto a nearby strip roof and then rushed across town, breaking the law in broad daylight.

  No one was going to stop him. Not today. Every Dante and other enforcement families were returning to their headquarters right now. Because everyone was going to the same place:

  The Third Ring of the Areswood Forest—

  The Oracle just gave a Callin’—and even third evs in the Second Ring would be answerin’.

  Including his sister.

  His sister was trouble, but her eyes shone like stars. And the way she hugged that blade against her bosom and said, “This is really for me?” made him feel special.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Wear it. You never know when a man’s gonna get fresh.”

  “Ew.” Jaylin shoved his shoulder. “Good will negated.”

  He smiled. Jaylin was eight years younger than him, which was inconvenient when someone needed to pick her up from schooling, but great when he left the house and got to be the one to spoil her. He loved that. His mom, Elio Dairook, didn’t. She was all smiles and waves until he got to the doorway. Then his plump mother gave him a big meaty hug as if she loved him, but in his ear, she hissed: “You gave her a dagger?”

  “Yeah. You never know when a man’s gonna get fresh.”

  Elio released him from her grip and smiled. Jaylin studied the blade and squealed and then rushed past them, kissing their mother on the cheek. It was the jovial version of puppy dog eyes when it’s used for doing first and asking later.

  “You did get the notification, right?” she said.

  His eyes darkened, and he nodded.

  “And you gave it to her anyway? That gift practically gives her permission.”

  He sighed and walked through the foyer. “I already ordered it.”

  “And you should’ve picked up a cake instead. You know what she’s going to do.”

  Kai looked around the living room. The sun’s rays streamed through so many plants that the rug and couch were illuminated with a quaint shade of chlorophyll. Mostly. There were reds and blues and purples in the plants, mostly poisonous, many illegal. It was a sign of status that they could buy or have them at all.

  “Well…” He began to answer but stopped himself. That was a conversation to be made after wine and flattery. So he pulled off his satchel and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Let’s drink first. No one’s going anywhere tonight.”

  “Tonight,” she huffed, stomping into the kitchen where eliquial, a form of pasta with three forms of meat, was stewing. It was Jaylin’s favorite. She wasn’t like the other girls. She was like Mira Hill. Or, at least, she wanted to be.

  Jaylin returned downstairs with a bright smile, saying, “Guess what Mom gave me, Kai?”

  “What?” He turned and frowned.

  She was holding a grown helki cat. It was a house cat with black fur and jagged white stripes.

  “Her name’s Rikki. Isn’t she cute?”

  Kai laughed and turned back to his mom. “You’re telling me that I’m sending the wrong message/”

  “I already adopted her,” she said. “I couldn’t take it back.”

  He scoffed. “Isn’t that what…” He turned to his sister. “What?”

  “Are you talking about me trying out?” Jaylin asked with wide eyes. “Are you really going to let me?”

  “Absolutely not,” Elio snapped.

  Jaylin turned to Kai for backup, squeezing harder on Rikki. The cat yowled and wormed his way out of Jaylin’s arms and then stalked the kitchen floor to Kai, where she looked up appraisingly. She liked what she saw and brushed against his leg exactly once before sauntering away. He watched her in grim amazement.

  “Come on, Mom!” Jaylin said. “You know how many people died in Areswood this year? Zero. Mira released a statement that—”

  “No,” her mother snapped.

  Jaylin turned to Kai. He shrugged in a “What do you want me to do?” motion. She huffed and sat down. “Mom. I don’t think you understand. This is my one chance. If she recruits ten at a time, it’ll all be Hellaras and Laskins. I won’t even get an audience. But with the Callin’, they’re understaffed. The Hellara can’t even fulfill the numbers if they released—”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “No. When you’re in my house, you’ll follow my rules. And I’m telling you no.”

  Elio turned to Kai for backup, but for once, he was with his sister.

  “No… not you too…”

  He looked away.

  “Kai Hectarino Dairook. Answer me.”

  He lifted a bottle of wine. “Drink?”

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself.” He opened the cabinet with the fine dishes and pulled out three wine glasses.

  “I just said no,” Elio said.

  “I’m not pouring you one.” He poured all three and gave one to Jaylin, who lit up like a firework, and then took two, hand in hand, drinking from both under his mother’s intense glare, and said, “Liquid courage. Helps me confess the obvious… Yes. I’m going.”

  Elio seethed.

  “This is where you say, You’re just like you’re father and let me go,” he said.

  She looked away and swallowed.

  “And you should let Jaylin go.”

  “No.”

  “And come with us.”

  That threw her for a loop.

  “Jaylin… you know more about this than I do. Just… explain. About Wraithwood, not… whatever you’re interested in.”

  Jaylin’s eyes became cold and professional, realizing that she had one shot to fulfill her dream—and she made it count.

  “Mom, Mira started Wraithwood to build a home for her parents. Her parents. And to do that, she hired Trigan Easan Reita Lore—you know who that is?”

  “Who?” Kai said rhetorically, looking into her mother’s eyes.

  “The man that made this city! Theovale. It’s the largest, most successful city besides Astermead, and Astermead is like… twenty million years older.”

  “No hyperbole,” Kai said.

  She pouted. “Well, it’s not like I have statistics. I’m just saying, she has Dante guards, and Felio Hellara is there. Felio. You think that the Hellara family would send their scion into Areswood Forest if they didn’t think it was safe?”

  This was the usage of scion in the direct sense, which meant the child meant to inherit the family, as opposed to “Scion,” which denoted people, like Mira, who earned the title for being the inheritor of a god’s legacy. It was still impressive, but Jaylin missed the mark.

  “I do,” Elio said.

  That was the bottom line. The Hellara family risked their daughter for financial, political, and resource-focused gain.

  Jaylin heard the definiteness in their mother’s voice and changed their course. “Well, that may be. But the track record begs to differ. This is Felio’s second year, and she hasn’t even been injured. Trigan’s there, too, and he’s fine. Not just him. There are a lot of people there, and none of them have died. None! And now she’s recruiting an army. Seven hundred and fifty with prior war experience in two domains, and seven hundred and fifty top specialists. And you know how she did that? An epic request. Mira is so strong that she literally used an epic request on an army. You know the last time an epic request was used for something other than magic?” She paused and looked at Kai and back nervously. “I actually don’t know. But it’s probably long.”

  Elio laughed and stirred the pasta.

  Kai put one of his glasses down so he didn’t look crazy. “Mom. I don’t know anything about Mira Hill. Most of what I know comes from Jaylin, and I don’t care about… kronka root and large cats. But I do envy her.”

  “Why?” Her mother put down her spoon and spun to face him. “Because she killed Kal Melhan, and her father said sorry?” she asked.

  “Well, yeah.” He laughed. “Do you know how insane that is? She killed a scion. You know what type of message that sends? It means that she doesn’t care about this legacy bullshit that’s keeping us down—that’s keeping Jaylin down. We have no future here, and you know it. But there? Jaylin’ll become a queen. I’ll be respected. And you’d be taken care of.”

  Their mother stirred the pasta and cut the heating array under the pan to let it cool. It was already overcooked. Then she turned to Kai with honest eyes.

  “You know your father died during a Callin’, right?”

  The house fell silent.

  “He was the best of them. The strongest of them. Then, some army coaxed him to leave his family and rush off on some pipe dream. Sure, it may not’ve been some grand Callin’ or whatever you’re talking about. But there was a Calling. Recruiters posted up fliers and knocked doors, and your father said, no and no and no until the Dante showed up and said, Hey. We’re doing this. If you join us, we’ll let you start your own family. Well, we have our own ‘family.’ And apparently that’s not good enough because both of you are trying to run off to kill yourselves.”

  Rikki must’ve sensed Jaylin’s distress because she jumped into her lap and magnanimously allowed Jaylin to hug her. According to Jaylin, “Kline” was the same way. Rikki was the perfect present for someone who was obsessed with Mira Hill.

  “Well…” Kai took a drink and said, “I’m going. I could point out that I don’t have a family, and I want to go. I could point out that Mira has a track record of keeping people alive, and all the other stuff Jaylin said. But really, what it comes down to is that I’m going. And if Jaylin comes? I’ll protect her with my life. I’ll protect you with my life. I’ll make sure you both have the life you deserve. That’s my vow. But you need to understand—I’m not going to stay here. I’m laying bricks, Mom. I have the skill to rout legacies—and I’m laying bricks.” He paused and then started laughing and said, “That’s funny, isn’t it? That the Dante said we could start a family, and I’m laying brick. That pretty much proves my point. Doesn’t it?”

  She frowned.

  He took another drink. “Well… this is one fucked up birthday. But… who knows. It might be the best. He handed the bottle of wine to his mother. “You can have the rest. Agree or condemn—you’re going to need it.”

  And that’s how Kai and his sister Jaylin ended up in the third ring of Areswood Forest one month before that year’s Harvest.

  Due to its proximity to resources, Theovale was the home of the Great Seven and Middle Families. And thankfully, it was close enough to Areswood that they could walk there. The trains had shut down, and flying carriages and ground dragons were booked out. Everyone was going.

  Thankfully, their mother didn't have to join them.

  “Parents and young siblings are welcome after the proving period,” Mira had declared in another public message. So Elio could stay behind. Unfortunately, Jaylin was seventeen, so she had to prove herself if she wanted in—just like him.

  It still wasn’t clear how Mira would judge people. There were twenty thousand packed outside Galfer's Gate in the Third Ring of Areswood Forest, the colossal gate separating the Third Ring from Areswood proper. There were people as far as the eye could see, and all arguing and bickering that their skills or weapons or armor would suit the “Callin’s” need better than the next guy’s.

  Everyone wanted in—everyone.

  Epic requests were far out of the league of diamond requests. With a diamond request, people could gain lifelong magic or recipes, and that was enticing. That’s why Mira could buy a decade of top Dante protection for it. But epic requests were different—to earn one, a person needed to do something of freakish distinction, or they had to accomplish something of multiversal significance.

  Multiversal significance. Significant over billions of planets. He couldn’t even conceive how she got one, and wouldn’t have believed that she had earned three in free requests, and four in gifts.

  Yet she did. He’d later learn she created a fabled core, attacked and survived a third evolution entity within minutes of integration, conquered an ancient crypt, completed three god trials, and took first in the Multiverse-wide Trial of Worth competition. All of these things were indeed freakish or Multiversally significant—and they deserved colossal rewards far higher than anything a normal neophyte could ever obtain. A god’s bow, alchemy equipment fit for gods, arrays that could instantly transport equipment and armies across vast distances, and a god’s soul guardian, amongst magic that could scale into godhood.

  Rewards fit for lower gods and demigods.

  So unsurprisingly, the reward was unbelievable when she asked for an army of qualified people. She prioritized quality over quantity, turning down a qualified fifty-thousand-troop fighting force for twelve hundred handpicked individuals—twelve hundred who would gain gold rewards and unique reward questlines for aiding her.

  And he and Jaylin planned to be part of that army.

  So he got into line—but there was certainly no point to that. With twenty thousand people, he could barely see the gate, let alone get near the swaths of candidates from Great and Middle families.

  Unlike before, when the families offered qualified people to Mira as a sign of goodwill, often getting rid of the brightest talent they had, this year, the families were unloading qualified, and sometimes vital, personnel. As mentioned, every candidate Mira picked earned a gold reward and obtained unique reward lines for aiding her in the goal she designated. Combined with the overwhelming, death-free success of Wraithwood Village the year prior, everyone wanted to go—and families were willing to let them go, in exchange for their gold reward.

  In this agreement, families could earn hundreds of gold rewards at a time, and their people would not only obtain their freedom, but would also get soul meat, power, and reward lines that would rapidly provide them with rewards, so long as they contributed to Mira’s request.

  Such was the overwhelming power of an epic request,

  And so, there was a lot of talent—and people like Kai and Jaylin were just one of thousands of people peddling their wares and trying to flaunt their talent.

  It was a bleak situation—but a fortuitous encounter made it possible.

  “I’m the ‘Heath’ in Heath and Roe Enterprises! Now get the hell out of the way!”

  Kai just so happened to be near the street where famous beast tamer Aiden Roe’s business partner, Everan Heath, was when people who didn’t know his name didn’t move out of the way for him.

  Jaylin’s face paled. “Everan? Why isn’t he on the legacy route?”

  Kai turned to her. “Legacy route? Who is that?”

  “He’s business partners with Aiden. And he runs Mira’s business accounts. It’s crazy he’s not on the path the legacies took to get in… either way, if he doesn’t get through, heads’ll roll.”

  Kai looked around. Even if people wanted to get out of the way of Everan’s carriage, they couldn’t. He should’ve been using a sky carriage or a route for important people instead of the main road. Then again, it made sense. The Melhans wouldn’t help their competitor. They’d likely take the opportunity to prove that they were better. That, or it was a test of some kind.

  “Who’s Heath and Roe?” Everan asked, shouting over the sea of talking people. “I run Mira’s bank accounts!”

  “Is that so?” A chilling voice came through the crowd, and a blast of mana followed. The area silenced, and the crowd pushed to give way as a man pushed through. Judging by the robes, the individual was a Loklan—a Middle Family that specialized in daily security for merchant trade routes.

  This man walked up to Aiden’s carriage.

  “Thank God,” Everan said from his window. “Are you here to escort us?”

  “Escort you?” the Loklan troop asked. “No. I’m here to tell you to turn back. Things have changed. Trigan’s running finances and war’s coming. The Melhans aren't going to touch you—but everyone else will. You’re going to be dead by next year if you don’t turn back. That’s a fact.”

  Kai grinned and turned to Jaylin. “Stay here.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked nervously.

  “To earn our place.” Kai didn’t wait for confirmation. He pushed through the crowd, releasing magical pressure to move people along. When he got to the scene, the Loklan man said, “Who the hell are you?”

  Kai ignored him and turned to Everan. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kai Dairook, and I would be honored to become your bodyguard, and smear this annoying Middle across this roadway, in exchange for your goodwill and a quick introduction with Trigan Lore, Aiden Roe, or Mira Hill.”

  Wraithwood Botanist - Kindle Edition