The three of them set out at dawn, the forest air still thick with dew. Logan only gave sharp glares that made his disapproval clear.
The Wanderer paused, looking at the stationary wagons. "You’re leaving the caravan?"
"Draemir is a short walk from here," Myre explained, adjusting his pack. "The guards will break camp and bring the heavy loads in later."
They marched until black towers pierced the horizon.
Where Lythra had been a song of harmony and spirit, Draemir was a scream of conquest and steel.
Massive obsidian towers, loud sounds of metal clangs, the stench of oil, and old blood.
Soldiers in blackened plate armor patrolled the battlements, their faces as hard as the stone they guarded.
He stopped near the gatehouse, watching a grim spectacle.
Two men, chained and broken, were dragged before the locals.
Their crimes weren't even spoken aloud.
One was executed with a swift stroke of a giant axe.
The other was kicked toward a line of recruits, pressed into the legion.
The surrounding crowd moved around the blood as if it were a puddle of rain.
"That is the law here," Myre said softly, his voice devoid of its usual cheer. "Strength is the only currency Draemir recognizes. But honestly? I think you’ll fit in better here than you did in the gardens of Lythra."
He watched the guards carry the body away. "At least they don't hide what they are."
They reached the checkpoint, and a guard stepped forward, his armor clanking. He looked the Wanderer up and down with a sneer. "Here for the tournament? You don't look like a merchant," he barked.
The Wanderer waited for Myre or Logan to intervene, but they remained strangely silent.
He stepped forward, his voice low. "They are the merchants. I am here for an apothecary. Or a healer of magic."
The guard’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then dropped to the Wanderer’s exposed arms. The moment he saw the black patches creeping across the skin, his face went pale, a mix of fear and rage.
He kicked his chair back and roared to the barracks behind him, "Anti-magic chains! Now! We have a carrier!"
The Wanderer stepped back on instincts.
He flared his magic, intending to vanish or strike, but the black patches on his skin suddenly felt like needles driven into his nerves.
He gasped, his knees buckling as his own power turned against him. His skin began to hiss and fracture, tiny involuntary bursts of energy erupting from the marks.
Before he could recover, three guards surged forward. They threw heavy, blue chains made of stone. It was unnervingly warm at first, then it began to boil.
The Wanderer screamed as the links seared into his wrists.
It violently siphoned the magic from his veins. The agony was total, leaving his muscles limp and his vision dark.
He was dragged across the dirt and thrown into a cramped iron cage, the heavy lock clicking into place before he could even draw a breath.
The Wanderer’s consciousness returned in fragments, anchored by Logan’s harsh voice.
"I told you this man was a curse," the shadow of the cook hissed. "Look where we ended up because of him."
"The guards had to react," Myre’s calm, reasonable tone followed. "I’m sure things will clear up once we explain."
He tried to focus, but his vision was a blurred mess of iron bars and gray stone. The anti-magic chains still hummed against his skin, an ache that kept his strength pinned to the floor of the cage.
Footsteps echoed against the cobbles. A young man in a black robe approached, flanked by a guard.
"Stick your arms through the bars," the guard barked. "Don't try anything, or the chains will take more than just your breath."
The young man ignored the hostility, reaching out to inspect the dark patches on the Wanderer’s arms. He traced the edges of the rot with a gloved finger. "The sentries acted correctly," the scholar said to the guard. "This man was a walking catastrophe. If he’d lost control, he’d have leveled the front gate."
The robed man pulled a small pouch from his belt and produced a single white pill. He held it out to the Wanderer. "Take this. You’ll be stable in a few hours. Mana poisoning is dangerous in many ways, but easily fixed. Whoever taught you magic should have done a better job."
The Wanderer took the pill, his fingers trembling. He ignored the insult, his thoughts only on the two men were locked in the cell behind him. "Let my friends go," he rasped, his voice cracking. "I’m the problem. They didn't do anything. They just helped a traveler."
The young man stopped. He looked past the Wanderer, staring at the empty cage behind him. Then he looked back, his expression shifting from clinical to pity.
"There is no one there…"
The scholar said softly. "That is the poisoning speaking. You arrived at the gates alone."
The Wanderer’s heart stopped. He turned, his neck popping with the sudden movement, and stared at the empty cage. It was silent. There was no Myre. There was no Logan.
The memories of the past weeks rushed back. He didn't follow the caravan to protect them. He saw the images clearly now, the crimson sprays against the leaves.
He remembered the weight of his sword as it took Myre’s head, then Logan’s. He remembered the smell of burnt air as he channeled magic lighting into the guards' armor, turning their protection into a conductor for their deaths.
He saw himself kneeling in the dirt of a silent camp, searching through the bloody wreckage of a wagon until he found a trade manifest. *Myre. Logan.* He had stolen their names from a piece of parchment.
He shook his head, refusing to believe his realization.
The "weeks" of friendship were a hallucination born of rot and guilt. He saw himself sitting in the dark woods, the severed heads of the merchants sitting on stones, their dead eyes staring at nothing while he talked to them about Lythra.
He thought * but the food…*
He had used the spices from their ruined cargo to season the meat of the horses he had slaughtered, pretending he was eating a friend’s cooking.
He had been alone the entire time.
He collapsed pulling his knees to his chest. The iron of the cage felt like ice against his back as he wept, the sound muffled by his hands over his mouth, mourning the comrades he had murdered, the comrades that never existed.