I panicked when Jaylin panicked, confused why she was screaming about me being Mira. “What’s wrong?” I cried.

  “Y-You’re Mira?” Jaylin’s entire body drained of color, and her body swayed. You would’ve thought a half-starved vampire sunk its fangs in her neck. I thought she would faint! So did Kai, so he grabbed hold of her. But Jaylin jumped and fell forward on Ryn, almost squishing her cat Rikki.

  Rikki panicked and jumped off Ryn by reflex, flying straight toward a patch of poisonous ground cover. I couldn’t make it in time—but Kline was on it. He teleported under her, expanded in size, and caught her on the nape of the neck, holding her like a grocery bag. Ryn laid down, and Kline delivered Rikki to the now crying Jaylin. The whole ordeal was far worse than reintroducing myself to the Wraithwood villagers. It was mortifying.

  Kai sighed. “Sorry about that… I was scared that would happen…”

  “No, it’s my fault,” I said. “I was so interested in you guys that I must’ve forgotten to introduce myself.” I studied Jaylin. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes!” Jaylin cried. “Everything’s fine!”

  Everything was not fine.

  Kai grimaced. “While Jaylin will hate me for mentioning this…”

  “No…” Jaylin whined, hugging Rikki.

  “I think it’s only right given the scene,” Kai said sternly. Jaylin shrank away, and he turned back. “Jaylin’s a huge fan. Like, asked for a cat for her birthday type fan.”

  Jaylin blushed and buried her face in the now-wiggling and yowling Rikki.

  “I tried to ask your name at the start, to get it over with, but you two started talking about Felio and plants and by the time you finished, I figured she’d panic if she found out. I was hoping to do it when we took a break, but I probably should’ve mentioned it sooner.”

  “So that’s why you were steering the conversation…” I muttered.

  “Yeah…” Kai said.

  “So you knew it was me?” I asked. “I look a bit different…”

  “Right!” Jaylin cried, interrupting. “You look so…” She fell silent and hugged Rikki again.

  “You’re right,” Kai said. “You’re nothing like the descriptions, but…” He tapped his temple beside his eye. “First technique my Dad made me learn was Divine Sight. Said, anyone can become the strongest—it’s just a matter of time. And time’s earned by knowing how strong your opponents are. And that soul core on you…” He pointed at my chest with only a glance. “There’s no one in the families with a core like that. Even Kalas doesn’t have a core like that.”

  “Wait… Kalas? You mean Tyler’s teacher?”

  “I… don’t know?” Kai looked at his sister for confirmation, but she was lost in her own little bubble of shame and anxiety. Poor girl.

  Kai looked up. “If his teacher was a stern guy that wears spirit paint… yeah. But I wouldn’t really call him a teacher. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person he’s ever taught, at least till recently, and that was only because Dad trained him when he was younger.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Younger? Isn’t Kalas from Khrysus?”

  Khrysus was an island in the Fourth Domain. Kalas had escaped the island when he was still at the second evolution and traveled to the first domain.

  Kai smiled mysteriously. “He is indeed…” He looked back into the forest. “My father wasn’t from this domain. Like so many, he wanted a kid but he couldn’t bear to leave my mom. So they hired a Khryisian, trained ‘em up, and cursed their way to Lysanwood.” He laughed bitterly. “Fuck the domain system.”

  “You don’t like it?” I asked. “I mean, if it didn’t exist…”

  “Then what?” Kai asked. “The strong would rule the weak? I don’t see how that’s much different then what’s happening right now. But I can tell you what would be different…” He stopped himself and said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be unloading on someone I just met, let alone my leader.”

  The shift in which Kai shifted from open passion to putting up a wall was so intense that I felt I’d need to take a sledgehammer to the wall to revisit the conversation. So, after an awkward pause, I switched it again.

  “Speaking of Kalas…” I said. “How was his training? I spent a lot on his training, but Tyler bitched about him nonstop. I can’t tell if he’s a bad teacher, or he’s just not teaching Tyler what he wants.”

  Kai laughed, eyes brightening. “Bitching is half the ritual with that guy…” He looked into the canopies in reverie. “I once… beat up these Dante kids. Dad was pissed, so he took me out of school and sent me to Kalas to learn discipline. And I learned it… oh… I learned it. That man made me throw punches and kicks for six months straight. I kept thinking that he would teach me magic, but he never did. Ever. Dad was so cursed he couldn’t even use magic, and so I prayed Kalas would teach me something, but nope. Twenty four years old and all that man’s ever taught me was martial arts, but…” He developed a wide, almost mischievous grin.

  “What?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, but that grin was so contagious I grinned and said, “What?” again.

  Kai laughed and turned to me. “That’s all he knows.”

  I blinked six times in rapid succession. “What?”

  “Well, that’s not quite fair,” Kai said. “Khrysians have this famous technique called Labyrinth. It’s a form of telekinesis that creates walls of raw mana around their opponents. You’d try to throw a spell, but your hand would hit a wall. You’d try to jump back and dodge a strike, but your back would hit a wall, too. And you couldn’t block the shit or freeze it out. So you’d be forced to fight this man in rapid hand-to-hand combat, and he’d fold you like braid bread. And it didn’t matter who, either. Remember when I said I beat up that Dante kid? Well, Dantes showed up to kill me, obviously. And I thought it was over because they sent some heavies. Couldn’t even breathe around these guys. But Kalas? Kalas folded six of ‘em like they were fresh students. Never lifted a sword. Never used a spell. Just barriers, walls, and hand to hand. After that, I took him seriously.”

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  My eyes were wide as saucers, and he laughed uncontrollably.

  “You’re messing with me!” I said, aghast.

  “No, I’m serious.” He laughed. “You just had the face I had.”

  I blushed and looked away. “Well… good to know that I got my money’s worth. Just wish Tyler would’ve seen that. He’s been getting really good training. Best training. But he’s so focused on learning magic that it’s making him miserable.”

  “Can’t say that’s not relatable,” Kai said. “But it’s misguided. Give me a second ev core and I’ll trounce anyone but Hadrian… Brexton. Okay… well, things aren’t so simple. But square up flat and I’ll kill any of ‘em. Except Hadrian… I fucking hate Hadrian.”

  I giggled as he went down a self-deprecating spiral, and then looked back into the forest.

  “Well, I don’t know if you can fight any of ‘em, but we’ll get you a second ev,” I said. “If…”

  “Oh, here comes the if,” he said sassily.

  “If you tell this all to Tyler,” I said. “I’ll give you any number of cores and meat to get him focused.”

  Kai’s smile slowly faded, and he took a deep breath. “Mira. I am your sword and shield. And this little thing…” He poked Jaylin, who made herself small as she listened intently, and she jolted. “Is your water and sunshine? If you ask anything of us, we’ll do it. But… the last thing your brother needs is words. What he needs is to fight some middle-rank soldier. Once he realizes how sloppy and useless normal people are… it’ll change his perspective… On everything.”

  I thought about Kai’s words and then smiled strangely. “Yeah… I think we’ll do that.”

  It’s fair to say that I hit it off with Kai immediately. He was confident, but his background made him humble. As for Jaylin, she was too afraid to actually speak at first, but she did listen to my every word. And when she did talk about plants, I took a liking to her immediately. As for Kline… well, he liked Rikki. Layla and Tiny, Aiden’s cats, never got out of their housecat stage because he never let them out of the house, and I think they made Kline feel a bit feral. But Rikki was a stray in a world of beasts and magic, and she was born with a core. This lady could rip apart a pitbull, and Kline found that hot. Probably. Who knows. All I know is that he showed off his ethereal body and let her ride on him, and she seemed content to do so. It was weird and feral and cute. I loved it.

  We made it to camp and I decided to hole the siblings up in their own tree house near me, ‘cause I was the boss and decided to, and we spent about a full day alone.

  Aiden came back and found us together in my house, and I figured he’d be jealous, but Railain started yelling at him, and he raised his eyebrows and said, “If you’ll excuse me. My princess doth call,” and ran off to do… whatever he was doing with her.

  Railain was good for him—in a charmingly toxic sort of way.

  Aiden was still figuring himself out, and anyone who wanted to date him needed to accept that they were commissioning a half-finished sleeper car from an underground tuning shop and praying it would come out street-legal. But at least with Railain, he could lay into the Claustra training at full tilt and end up with someone who appreciated him.

  By contrast, I would snort with laughter and get carried away with Aiden’s charming ways, but I would still end up worrying about who he was becoming.

  I think he knew that, and since Railain gave him a challenge, he let himself get carried away.

  And thank God. The last thing I wanted was for a jealous friend to be breathing down my neck. I just wanted things to stay the same—at least as much as they could.

  They didn’t. Relationships aside, everything changed—aggressively.

  We just imported twelve hundred people, and you suddenly didn’t know everyone. And things were moving too fast to meet them. People needed food and housing and shelter and it was all so overwhelming.

  But the nice thing about having people like Trigan and Ferna running everything is that you don’t need to be involved. Even if there were ten thousand, Trigan could manage everyone. He just established sub-leaders from the new pool of elites and set them loose. And just like that, I woke up a week later, and thirteen hundred people were building buildings and hollowing out trees and establishing water channels and I didn’t have to do a damn thing.

  It was amazing—but the magical intimacy of Wraithwood Village was gone. We created three public baths for each gender, and people used them, but it felt like a public pool. The dining halls were military mess halls, and when nighttime fires sprang up across Wraithwood, everyone had their groups of ten.

  It wasn’t bad, it was just different.

  There were so many moving pieces, and once housing was established, people started to do what they did best. Chefs started Wraithwood Cafe and cooked for people in exchange for extra food and supplies. Merchants traded the luxury goods they brought. Villagers sold their soul meat.

  It was an instant rise to communal capitalism, if that’s even a word.

  Everyone got the same, but people weren’t the same. The Peacefuls were glad to sell their soul meat for an extra pillow or longer baths or whatever. Some soldiers, especially the soul-shaven third evs, would sleep on the ground for more cores and soul meat. It was a matter of exchange.

  Resources weren’t scarce, but we were cautious about how we used them.

  With twelve hundred people, overhunting could cause problems. So we ripped out trees and sowed crop fields fit for twelve hundred people, and planned to live primarily off vegetables and the meat created by breeding the beasts Railain brought from the First Domain.

  That wasn’t to say we weren’t hunting. The beasts in Areswood were the size of buffalo and could feed a few hundred people a piece, and even a bit of second evolution cleansed soul meat was more than most people ever got in their lifetime. So we mixed it with the metric tons of dried grain and vegetables and canned food we bought to feed everyone, and people got stronger with every meal. Everyone loved this system except the soldiers, who felt like they should get more because they were fighters, but the system didn’t change. If they wanted to get more, they had to do extra work or trade.

  For trading, we established a currency system. The names for copper, silver, and gold coins were crows, doves, and hawks. We kept those names, albeit with the English names instead of the local language translations, and that was that.

  Using our own currency protected our economy from the overwhelming wealth that family members and merchants had in the outside world. If you wanted to be paid in Wraithwood, you needed to provide goods and services for Wraithwood. Simple as that.

  Otherwise, trade was encouraged.

  I didn’t care how rich people got as long as they were productive, uncorrupt, and did not fall into decadence. Competition and wealth drove people to work harder—and we needed hard work.

  All that was left was to ensure that my and Tyler’s culture was the foundation of Wraithwood.

  Our values. Or beliefs. Even some of our customs.

  This was Wraithwood—the village I was making for my family. To coax ‘em in, we needed to make it a taste of home. And judging by the way things were going, we would do just that.

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