Felicity watched the shadows dance, cast by a campfire that swayed lazily from side to side.

  They had been traveling for a week toward the Green Emerald domain, and the more miles they covered, the more signs of life they came across. An abandoned homestead, a farm with part of its wall gone, a carriage left to rot in the middle of the path. None of them had said anything, but she knew they were all thinking it.

  Destruction. Fear. Murder.

  Everything they came across had signs of a fight or battle. The only thing they didn’t come across was a body; that changed a few hours later.

  Felicity saw it first. A pale hand poking out of the undergrowth. The silver ring on an index finger caught the sun, winking at her. Bow appearing in her hand in the blink of an eye, she locked an arrow on it as she moved forward.

  As she got closer, the smell of death, weeks old, assaulted her senses.

  The hand stuck in the air like The Thing from The Addams Family. Moving a clump of grass away with her foot, she saw the horror for what it was. A severed arm with rotting flesh greeted her.

  The arm had been hacked away at the elbow joint. No sleeve covered it, but a tattoo along the forearm of an emerald gemstone set in the roots of a tree was visible. She moved her foot around the undergrowth to see if she could find the body it belonged to, but she came up short.

  “What have you found?” asked Isaac, coming to stand next to her. She pointed. “Ah.”

  Francisco joined the party and nudged it with his foot.

  “Have some respect for the dead,” snapped Felicity.

  “Why should I? For all you know, this guy could be into sniffing dirty underwear or, worse, slurping when he drinks something.”

  Felicity made a face. “He deserved what he got if he slurped while he drank. Fuckers should learn how to drink properly. Anyway, this is the first sign of anything dead we’ve seen since we’ve been out here. If he only lost his arm and kept on fleeing through the woods, then it would only be a matter of time before something ate him.”

  Isaac nodded. “In any case, we can’t help, so let’s just keep a watchful eye out and keep moving.”

  That had been hours ago, and during that time, they had seen more signs of trouble. A hacked-off foot suspended in the branches of a tree—a torso missing arms and legs impaled on the trunk of a tree. She thought she had seen the worst of it, but one image stood head and shoulders above the rest.

  They came across a rundown farm. Weeds choked the land. The front door was missing, the white fence broken in multiple places. A weathervane snapped in half and lying on the front of the yard.

  That wasn’t the worst of it.

  In front of the farm stood a family.

  Stakes through their mouths kept them upright.

  Felicity couldn’t look away. Their open eyes felt like they were staring into her soul. Human, they had been a family of four.

  Father. Mother. Son. Daughter.

  They had been dead for a while as animals and rot had set in. The trio looked at the image in a still bubble of silence.

  Felicity felt the corner of her eyes prickle, but she refused to allow tears to come. She would not cry here, not in front of those two. She needed to be strong—needed to—

  “You are allowed to cry,” whispered Isaac. “Do so while you still can. Do so while you are still human. Do so while sights like this are still horrific to you—traumatic—because there will come a time when they are not. There will come a time when you look upon death like a gardener looking at a mowed lawn. Simply a task that needed to be done. So keep that innocence you have for as long as you can. Take it from a man who has none left.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Her head snapped to Isaac as tears ran down her cheeks. She searched his face for something more, but his gaze was on the family in front of him.

  “I’ll help you take them down,” said Francisco, moving forward.

  They dug four graves in silence, finding shovels in the farmhouse. After the deed was said and done, all three simply walked away and continued with their journey. She had wanted to just keep on walking, head down, thoughts a million miles away, but Isaac called a halt to their traveling. About to protest, he said that he was tired, but the look he gave both her and Francisco, she knew he was doing it for their benefit.

  The fires had been lit, the meal cooked, and now they did nothing but sit in silence.

  Francisco had tried to start a conversation a few times, making some half attempt at a joke, but his heart wasn’t in it. None of them were. So they ate and sat in silence until the other two made their excuses for bed while she stayed up.

  Staring at the fire, her thoughts slowly drifted toward the Ink she had in her pocket domain ring. The Ink from the Shadow Tree she had taken from Noobcity weighed heavily on her mind. She had battled Shalim or Night Sun, as he liked to be called, for the right to possess it, but even now, the familiar plagued her dreams and nightmares. He taunted her. Questioned her on why she had not gotten the Ink tattooed yet. Questioned her resolve on wanting the power he offered. Questioned her heart. Mixed in with the insults and taunts were general asshole cat-like behavior, which resulted in her not having a restful night’s sleep since she got the damn Ink.

  She had read up about familiars in the manual she got when she first arrived and in the training manuals she had stolen, back in Noobcity.

  Both heavily warned against using familiars or becoming involved with them in any way.

  The general gist was that they were entities that needed to be taught, mentored, and grown much like a child. Too much leeway and you would have a wayward familiar on your hands, too much discipline, and they would rebel. The time and effort it took to properly train one until it listened to you wasn’t worth the effort for most people. But if you could mold your familiar until it was your partner in crime, then you would have a truly unstoppable force on your hands.

  The list of Ink users who had familiars was rare. But the ones who did and used them effectively were people of legend.

  Images of her going into battle with Shalim took over her thoughts, but she banished them as fast as they came. One step at a step. One step at a time.

  Allowing the fire’s warmth to wash over her, she took in the darkness. It was foolish, she knew, but she no longer feared the shadows as she once had. She saw the shadows as a part of her, as a tool to be used and harnessed. As a tool to gain everything she wanted, so her sister would be safe forever. No longer would she cower away from the things that went bump in the— Something caught her attention to her far left.

  Bow pulled from her pocket domain ring in one swift motion, she was up to her feet, focus unwavering.

  Scanning the trees and brushes in front of her, she tried to locate what she had seen. Was the darkness playing tricks on her? She didn’t want to alarm the others and appear to be a woman who jumped at every little sound in the— She let off an arrow at the same time as she kicked the two idiots awake.

  “Fuck! The bitch got me in the shoulder!” The shout of anger came from the shadows, but another arrow sent its way had the speaker screaming even louder. “She got me in the other shoulder. Kill them. Kill them all.”

  Forms separated from the shadows and launched in their direction.

  Their attackers were dressed in gray cloaks and combat trousers that flowed and broke up the outline of their forms. Felicity tried to count how many came toward her but lost count. They banished long, curved blades in the shape of sabers. Each blade painted a dull gray.

  Felicity took the information presented to her in but didn’t allow it to distract her from the task at hand. Two arrows found kneecaps, dropping their owners to the ground before she swapped her bow for daggers.

  A sword swung for her neck, but a katana made of the night blocked its trajectory.

  She couldn’t see the attackers’ faces as they all wore masks in the images of demons, but it didn’t hide his surprise. The attacker expected the sound of two swords clanging, but when none came, Isaac used the attacker’s hesitancy to drive his katana through his opponent’s stomach.

  It still surprised her that something made of wood could be so deadly.

  Another blade swept for her legs, but she backflipped out of the way and embedded a throwing knife into the top of her attacker’s foot, pinning it to the ground. The attacker bent down to pull the blade out of his foot, but Isaac used the opening to cleave his head from his shoulders.

  Felicity kept on backing up, throwing knives at opponents who got too close until she had enough space to breathe.

  Isaac kept the majority at bay by swinging his katana in wide arcs.

  They tried to get past him to get to her, but he held the line. Bow back in hand, she fired arrow after arrow, whittling down their numbers until a shout came from within their ranks to retreat. They disappeared as fast as they came, and she fired three more arrows that found ass cheeks before she no longer had a target.

  She didn’t realize her breathing was coming in short, irregular spurts until Isaac looked at her with concern.

  “You all right?”

  Felicity opened her mouth to answer, but the words were hard to come by. She felt like she had just sprinted up a hill flat out. She nodded. It was all she could do.

  “Well done in spotting them. If it wasn’t for you, shit could have been a lot worse.”

  “Sorry.” She took a calming breath and tried again. “Sorry, I didn’t kill anyone. I—I—”

  “Nonsense. You did more than most,” said Isaac, looking at a still-snoring Francisco.

  “Should we wake him?”

  Isaac smiled. “No. I have a better idea.”