The next day, Hunter got an early start. Biggs and Wedge reported in as Hunter fed Fyodor breakfast—the last of the leftovers from Onatah’s cooking. He’d been a little worried about the direwolf, both for leaving him alone and for feeding him scraps, but it turned out there was no cause for concern. Things had been quiet, just as usual, and the two ravens had even been helping him decimate the local wild rabbit population.

  Snuggly temperament aside, Fyodor wasn’t some cute, helpless pet, and Hunter should remind himself of that fact more often. His kind were among the apex predators of the Weald, and he could take care of himself just fine.

  With his Essence reserves nearly fully recovered overnight, Hunter was eager to test the limits of Mystic Eye. Now that he didn’t have to worry about boiling his brain, it was time he got it some actual mileage out of it. In the single day he had a Mystic Lens to protect him from the recoil of new knowledge being implanted straight into his brain, he’d already used the ability enough for it to climb to 16.

  Looking for new things to point it at, he scanned the inside of the cabin, and his gaze settled on the glaive, propped against the wall along the rest of his gear. He realized he’d never actually taken a closer look at it. The glaive had been one of the first things he’d stumbled across when he arrived on Aernor, before he even had access to Mystic Eye. And to be fair, it didn’t look like much: it was well-made, sure, but at the end of the day it was little more than a sharp blade on the end of a sturdy stick.

  Or, at least, so Hunter had thought.

  That was the danger of familiarity: once something became part of the background, you stopped really paying attention to it.

  Already channeling his Essence, Hunter he picked up the weapon, focused his will, and activated Mystic Eye to take a closer look.

  

  A long-handled polearm of unknown make, recovered from the briar-entombed remains of a huntsman and his final quarry.

  The weapon bears no maker’s mark and no obvious enchantment, yet it has resisted wear and decay, as if untouched by the passage of time.

  Some have theorized it was one of the few weapons crafted by Elder Ahakalan as a parting gift for his White Cloud disciples, though that is difficult to prove or disprove.

  Heirloom.

  “He who carved the air with this blade stood tall against the beasts of the Old Ways, and fell with the Ancestors’ names on his lips. The glaive remembers.”

  If Hunter had expected to uncover some hidden trait he’d missed all this time, he was a little disappointed. The description offered little more than he already knew; there were no flashy enchantments revealed, no secret abilities waiting to be unlocked.

  Still, one detail stood out: Heirloom.

  He’d seen that descriptor twice before: once when inspecting the Sage’s Ivory Owl Pendant of Far-Sight, and again when he examined the Arsenal Bracer of the Lodge. Interestingly, both of those items had carried the artifact descriptor as well, something the Huntsman’s Glaive notably lacked.

  Hunter began channeling his Essence again, this time changing his focus. He directed Mystic Eye not at an object, but at the terms themselves—heirloom and artifact—hoping the results would offer some kind of clarity.

  

  An item shaped by deliberate craft and bound with magic, often requiring attunement. Artifacts are vessels of intention, designed, enchanted, and refined to serve specific functions or wield power with precision.

  

  An item steeped in Mneme, the lingering weight of memory, emotion, and significance. Though lacking formal enchantment, heirlooms bear the imprint of memories and powerful emotions, and may in some cases awaken strange qualities through time and resonance alone.

  Hunter mulled over the definitions, turning them over in his mind like stones in his palm. Along with the descriptions, he felt he’d gained a degree of intuitive understanding of the two terms he’d lacked just a moment ago.

  Artifacts were easier to make sense of; they were tools, weapons, items deliberately created by an artisan with clear intention and a specific purpose in mind. Both the Owl Pendant and the Arsenal Bracer were like that.

  Heirlooms, on the other hand, were more of a nebulous concept. If he was reading the description right, they weren’t shaped by intent, but by significance. Given enough time, enough presence in the right moments, an object could accumulate Mneme, could become significant in its own right. Significance, memory, emotion—those could settle into an object slowly, building up like sediment.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  His glaive, for example, hadn’t been forged to be anything special; just a glaive, plain and simple. It was likely what the eponymous Huntsman, whoever they’d been, had done with it that left a mark deep enough to give it a kind of conceptual weight. It didn’t matter whether anyone else remembered. The heirloom itself remembered, and that, apparently, was enough.

  As pondered over the two concepts, Hunter couldn’t shake the sense that there was something deeper at play, a thread of meaning just beyond his reach. Some quiet truth nested in the distinction between made and remembered, between crafted intent and earned significance.

  He didn’t fully grasp it yet, but his instincts told him it was something important, something worth paying attention to. Something to keep in mind.

  And also, something convoluted and complicated enough to give him a migraine. He almost caught himself missing the elegant simplicity of sparring — just two people trying to whack each other over the head with big pointy sticks. No philosophy, no metaphysics just the satisfying bonk of a clean hit

  “How about we go touch some grass instead, eh, boy?” he said to Fyodor, giving the direwolf a pat before heading for the door.

  In just a couple of days, Aumir would come striding back to drag him off on some grand hunt for a godling — and possibly get him killed in the process. Until then, he figured he might as well make the most of the time he had left to enjoy some well-earned peace

  ***

  It wasn’t before the early evening of the second day that Hunter finally sat himself down to do something he’d been dreading; write his answer to Fawkes’s letter. He made himself as comfortable as he could near the cabin’s hearth, grabbed the notebook through which they were supposed to correspond from now on, and started writing.

  

Dear Fawkes,

  I hope that you’re doing well. As you can see, I figured out how to use the bracer. Thanks for the detailed instructions, and, well, for everything else. It really means a lot.

  You’ll probably be glad to hear I’ve already left the village. Hallara invited me to her tent and told me I was never meant to ascend to the Iron Rung with the help of the White Cloud Sage, but I should continue working toward ascending all the same. She was a bit vague about it, but I believe she wanted to nudge me toward Lormenheere and the Great Spirit there.

  Yuma, on the other hand, wanted me stripped of my possessions and driven out by force. As you can imagine, things didn’t really work out the way he had in mind.

  No need to say more on that front; all’s well that ends well.

  I figured I sould take a few days off to get my shit together, so I headed for that cabin where you first found me. Here, I met one of Herne’s hunstmen. A bit of an oddball, if you ask me, but apparently Biggs and Wedge are old acquaintances of his, and they insist he’s alright. He agreed to teach me more about the hunt and help me amend my accord with our OTHER common acquaintance.

  Which is to say, he means to take me along to hunt a friggin’ godling.

  I know, I know—don’t worry. If things go sideways, I’ll get out of Dodge before you can say ‘skedaddle’.

  How’s things on your end? Are you still with Wroth and his crew? Tell me all about it when you can. And give the old grump my best, too.

  I’m looking forward to your next letter and I hope you find whatever it is that you’re looking for.

  Take care,

  Hunter

  P.S. Fyodor sends his love too, he’s been missing you 24/7

  Writing the letter took Hunter the better part of two hours, and, by the end, he still felt he’d messed it up. It still felt raw, talking to Fawkes, even through letters. Or perhaps especially through letters. Correspondence and expressing his thought and feelings in a clear, coherent way had never been among his areas of expertise.

  Shrugging her absence off, however, wouldn’t do him any good. He had to be honest with himself: he was probably never going to meet Fawkes again. It was for the better, at least in the short term—of that, he had no doubt. Still, he’d lost a dear friend. That loss would be eating at him for some time, and that was perfectly normal.

  But he still had to come to terms with it.

  How had Aumir put it?

  Baheep. So it goes.

  Hunter waited for the ink to dry and put the book away into the Arsenal Bracer’s storage space. Storing and retrieving items that way still took him a bit of time and effort, but with practice, he was sure it would become second nature to him.

  Determined to make the most of this last evening of quiet, he stayed by the hearthfire until the moon was high in the night sky, Fyodor’s head resting on his lap. Biggs and Wedge were taking turns throwing dry twigs in the fire, cawing their enthusiasm as they crackled and burst into flame. Watching them, Hunter couldn’t help but smile. The childlike sense of wonder the two feathered buffoons had for even the tiniest thing was infectious. Sometimes, literally so: Hunter could feel it creeping in through the mental link they shared. He didn’t mind it one bit. He could use some of it himself, too.

  Hours passed. In any other case, Hunter would be worried about not keeping watch. The sense of safety and welcome that had encompassed him since he’d communed with the small shrine, however, filled him with a sense of ease. Aumir had said so himself; this was the house of Ronnom, protector of travellers and expatriates, and they were his guests. No ill should befall them here.

  Content, Hunter basked in that sense of safety and ease for as long as he could.

  Come next morning, this wilderness vacation of his would be over—and so would be his brief respite from all the craziness Elderpyre kept throwing his way.

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