My death was described by Death herself as me losing a cosmic roll of the dice. Bad luck in its most complete and definitive form.

  As the massive stone gates opened ahead of us, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was another time I was rolling the dice. Beyond their threshold, the cave walls were jagged rock that looked completely indistinguishable from the jagged rock on the other side and there was no sky for me to even pretend that I could navigate by. If I got separated from the group there was no hope of even attempting to find my way to somewhere safer. Worse, I noticed as I looked around, everyone in the group was armored in some way. Most of them were in thick and heavy sheets of metal that seemed to encase them entirely, but even the quartermaster had a solid metal chest piece.

  I wasn’t sure why they felt the need for that much protection, but I was very worried what it meant when we ran into something that they needed that much protection for and I was there without.

  All of these factors combined made me feel like I had absolutely no control over the situation. That I was completely at the whims of fate. And if I was unhappy with the situation, Patrol Leader Mah-tok, seemed downright angry about the entire affair.

  It started when he tried to start a conversation with me before us heading into the tunnels only to run into a language barrier. He didn’t speak Runna, or any of the languages I spoke, and I didn’t speak the lyrical language of the Dusk Elves which left us at a bit of an impasse.

  Thankfully, the Quartermaster could translate.

  “Effectively,” they said, “you are to stay by my side at all times and stay as quiet as possible. When combat starts, we are to fall back to the defensive lines.”

  “When combat starts?” I asked. “And why silent?” I spared the armored elves around us and how they clanked and made slightly grinding noises with each step. They were making far more noise by just stepping than my words had any chance to.

  The Quartermaster didn’t translate that to Mah-tok, instead choosing to give me the disapproving glare themselves.

  “When combat starts,” the Quartermaster said, “Your primary job will be to stay out of the lines and let the soldiers do their work. Fighting in the Darkways is already dangerous enough without worrying about tripping over a civilian.”

  Mah-tok gave a grunt, the harshest noise I had heard from one of the Elves thus far and then they said a brief sentence to the Quartermaster.

  “Do you know how to work a crossbow?” the quartermaster asked on Mah-tok’s behalf.

  I shook my head, which seemed to be an universally understood motion. The quartermaster and Mah-tok exchanged a series of small comments that went untranslated, ending with a chastising question about why hadn’t I put my goggles on yet. And then, without any other discussion, we set out.

  Which led to me in pitch black tunnels without another word.

  I had been stubborn and left my goggles off, which meant that once the doors closed, I couldn’t see a single thing. I could feel a primal panic welling within me, begging to let my foxfire loose. However, I was better than my primal fears and was maybe a little worried at the dusk elves being angry with me. So, with a deep breath, I pushed aside my annoyance with both the dusk elf soldiers and myself, and went about putting goggles on my head while trying to keep a constant pace. There were some stumbles and jitters, but eventually the goggles slid into place and I could see again.

  It wasn’t true sight, or at least what I thought sight should be. The colors I knew that should be there were missing and my peripheral vision was almost non-existent given how much the goggles had to jut out to support the lenses. But, I could see. Shapes mostly, with shades of gray.

  For the first several bells, or at least what felt like them, I was paranoid and worried about every sharp contour or corner. But that was exhausting. So, then I tried to start paying attention to the gestures the dusk elves used to communicate without talking. It was fascinating how much effort they put into not using their voices to talk given how loud the armor was. It seemed completely pointless, but I didn’t have a way to ask about the apparent contradiction. The curiosity burned, but the question went unasked for now.

  Watching the hand signs did help, with the boredom that is. The language seemed surprisingly robust for twitches of the fingers. At least a hundred different signs I could recognize and likely more if there were some subtle differences I had missed under the grey-scale of the lenses or in my lacking context. Further, placement with reference to the body clearly had some meaning with the deliberateness of motion.

  I wanted to learn, if only to have something to do, but I couldn’t ask how to do motions without speaking, so instead I settled for replicating the motions themselves. They weren’t hard, especially with my enhanced Starborn flexibility, but it was difficult remembering them without some context to ascribe them too. So, instead, I attached them to Energy flow patterns, making a bit of a game of it. Hand mostly straight it a vertical line with the first finger and thumb making a small circle caused a completely unique mana flow pattern that none of the existing spellforms I knew made. I had no idea what I could use that particular Energy flow for, but it was still something useful to note.

  However, after a day and a half of observation, replication, and experimentation I was bored once again. And tired. And I was still expected to move in silence.

  It was absurd, the metal constantly made noises, but not once did the Elves speak. The closest I got to a natural sound was when one of the elves snapped at me for attention during the meal on the first day.

  We marched in silence. The breaks, which were far too few and short for my untrained legs, were silent. All the conversation was with their hands. An absurd attempt to stay silent but only from speaking.

  I might have been a bit more testy about the entire affair than I probably should have been. At this point I had run out of distractions and things to focus on that weren’t… what had happened. But absurdly, despite there being forty people within easy reach of me, I was alone with my thoughts.

  Not even Rin was talking to me. Though, given that… after… After … after Eninald and her encouraging what had happened with him, I wasn’t ready to talk to her. And while I liked to think that her not talking was in some way an acknowledgement of the anger I felt, it was just as likely that she wasn’t talking to me because I hadn’t accepted the ‘advice’ she had given leading into my trip here.

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

  It was stupid and frustrating that I missed the voice in my head, that being alone with my thoughts made me feel alone instead of normal. But there it was. And I hated it. I hated the silence. I hate the loneliness. I hated Rin and that she had encouraged me. I hated what had happened to Eninald. I hated that I had done it. I hated that when I slept, it was his face I saw. Not the happy or healthy or comedic one. But the rapidly decaying withered husk that I had made. And I hated myself because I had done that. And I had to live with those memories.

  I hated, hated, hated it.

  Except I didn’t. I wanted to hate it. I wanted to be angry. But mostly, I felt scared. I didn’t understand. I knew what had happened, but not how or why. I wanted answers. I needed support.

  And all I had were forty strangers who wouldn’t even spare me a word.

  ********************************************************************************

  After several sets of marching later, we came into a small cavern and Mah-tok called for us to stop. Actually spoke up and called it, breaking the stifling silence for the first time. Immediately, the Dusk Elves broke up into groups and set about making camp. Tents were raised, stones were circled for cook-pits, and barriers were raised at the edges of the tents to provide boundaries to the encampment.

  All the while, the Elves were talking. Most of them were quiet, barely more than a whisper, but many of them were talking. It was almost a song, listening to their lyrical tongue and how different conversations would weave together to almost make a harmony. It never got loud, not the way the kitchen did back home while Mother and I cooked, even with just the two of us, but after what I presumed was a day of silence, it was practically cacophonous. And I relished in the sounds.

  It didn’t quite help with the loneliness, since none of them were talking with me, but it was something. I started to move towards one of the cooking groups, planning on helping when I remembered what my instructions had been. This wasn’t combat, but clearly each of the Elves had a role to play. Everyone in the camp was moving with practice and deliberateness. I would likely only get in the way.

  So, instead of asking, and probably being rejected, I made myself sit out of the way where I could do my best to guarantee I didn’t cause trouble.

  It was almost a relief when Rin spoke up.

  “Perhaps this is for the best. I can’t recall a story where the Starborn wasn’t an outsider. And Kumiho are largely solitary creatures.”

  I was watching a pair of elves stir a pot, playfully bumping each other as they worked and grimaced. She wasn’t wrong about the Starborn. Even when they traveled in groups, which I fairly clearly wasn’t, the Starborn were fairly insular. I couldn’t think of one tale where a Starborn had a friend, or really anything, that wasn’t another Starborn.

  “So it’s just me and the voice in my head for the rest of my life?”

  “Possibly. Though, there is no guarantee I’ll be here. None of the tales speak of Starborn talking to themselves.”

  “None of the tales I’ve read have been in the Starborn’s own hand. Who would know of you besides me?”

  Rin’s silence spoke volumes. I sat and watched for a moment longer before a thought occurred to me.

  “How do you know about the Kumiho? That they’re solitary creatures?”

  “Logic. If Kumiho regularly interacted with the Kitsune at large they couldn’t be a secret. There would have been some documentation.”

  I hummed, thinking the logic through.

  “I suppose. Though they can’t be completely solitary. The only reason I was able to…” I paused, tripping over the words. I sighed and shook my head. “Distinctive corpses are just as likely to be documented.”

  “Maybe there was only a body because you stopped.”

  I shuddered. Thanks Rin, as if I didn’t already have enough fodder for my nightmares. I made a point of not talking—or thinking—back to her. Whatever the proper term for Rin was, given how frustrated she made me. Though, being angry with a voice in my head might just be a new low point for my existence.

  “You should eat,” the Quartermaster said, all but shoving a bowl of food into my hands.

  “Thanks,” I murmured. It was some form of meat and vegetables, though where it had come from I had no idea. I hadn’t thought myself hungry, but the sight of food had my stomach talking and my mouth watering. I didn’t wait for his acknowledgement before I started to eat.

  He grunted and sat down next to me, taking his own food in hand.

  “You did good today,” he said after a few moments. “Most of us expected you to request breaks or collapse before we made it to the first break point.”

  “Most?” I asked between mouthfuls of food.

  “Yep. There was even money on it. You cost me five Crescents.” His words were accusatory, but his voice lacked heat.

  “I’m… sorry?”

  He shrugged, “Win some, lose some. I’m sure I’ll do better in the next betting pool.”

  “Next pool?”

  He shrugged again and had another mouthful of food. As much as I hated to fall back into silence, the need for food proved to be too strong and it wasn’t until I had nearly finished the bowl.

  “Why don’t you talk?” I asked. He blinked, confusedly before gesturing for me to continue. “While marching. It’s not like the armor is quiet too. I’m sure anyone can hear us coming from far away.”

  “About a mile,” he absentmindedly said, “Given how the caves echo. Not that you’d be able to identify it quite as such at that distance.”

  I blinked, uncertain how to respond and waited for him to elaborate.

  “The answer, at its simplest, is pitch.”

  “To throw?”

  He blinked before shaking his head. “No, the tone. Like musical notes.”

  Ah. I nodded in understanding.

  “A lot of predators down here hunt based on sound. For those large enough to hunt elves, or kitsune for that matter, they tend to listen for the most distinct sound we make. Voices.”

  “So sounds that are the same… tone? Tone as speech are risky, but those outside that range aren’t?”

  He shrugged. “Mostly. There are some exceptions, but that’s the general idea.”

  “And here it’s okay to talk because?”

  “It’s a risk,” the Quartermaster corrected, “But less of one. Between relatively open area and the Sagests around the perimeter, it’s exceedingly unlikely that anything is going to try and ambush us here. And even if they did, we’d see them coming unlike some of the blind corners and tunnels we come across in the ways.”

  I wanted to ask more questions, but at that point a rather large Dusk Elf made his way over. The Quartermaster and him exchanged a few words in their tongue.

  “Apologies,” the Quartermaster said, his voice slightly hitching as he talked, “It would seem that I’m uh, needed, elsewhere.”

  “Enjoy?”

  He shook his head and walked away with the other Elf towards one of the smaller clusters. They were all watching the quartermaster come over towards them, with the occasional glance spared my way. I watched curiously about what would be so important to pull the Quartermaster away when I noticed that a few of them were exchanging coins.

  Commerce of some sort? I didn’t know and instead put it out of mind.