I felt a familiar shaking.

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt as heavy as lead. So did my head.

The rhythmic shaking continued. I forced my hazy mind to remember that feeling. It was Sabre. I was riding on her back.

But how was that possible if I was barely conscious?

There was something soft on my chest. I still couldn’t open my eyes, but I managed to get a whiff of whatever was in front of me. A faintly sour scent, probably from sweat, mixed with something metallic rose up my nostrils.

I tried moving my body, but I couldn’t. It felt even heavier than my head, and there was something wrapped around me, preventing me from moving. It seemed I was tied to someone’s back. As to who that someone was, I could only hope it was her.

Having used up my energy, I fell back to sleep.

***

I slowly opened my eyes as a terrible chill overcame my body. It was dark. I could see a flickering flame a good distance from me. I could barely feel any heat from where I was. I patted the ground. Sand. Cold sand.

I heard Sabre’s annoyed neigh. I couldn’t sense her emotions. My mana stores had barely recovered, making it impossible for me to extend the range of my anima. I forced my neck to turn instead.

The silver-haired girl was trying to mount Sabre, trying being the operative word.

She fell off the saddle. “Guh!”

She tried to climb up again.

And fell again.

She stood up and dusted away the sand on her body. Shivering slightly, she scratched her head while staring at Sabre’s eyes. Sabre swung her head to the other side, snubbing the annoyed prisoner.

She cracked her knuckles and tried mounting again, but Sabre easily shook her off. After falling to the ground, she hit the sand with her right fist with a frustrated frown.

Irresistibly cute.

I realized she was probably trying to leave me behind and steal my ecus, but I couldn’t help but feel giddy from seeing her pout.

“Sabre... won’t let anyone but me... ride her,” I said in a raspy voice, making me realize how thirsty I was.

The girl glanced at me but quickly turned away. She tried to get a hold of Sabre’s reins, but this time, my trusty ecus didn’t even give her a chance to hop on. Sabre trotted away, forcing the girl to let go of the leather strap.

After regaining most of my senses, my thirst became unbearable.

I raised my hand to get the girl’s attention. “Water…”

She walked over to a cloth sack near the fire and took out a small waterskin. The pouch had an Arthas emblem stitched on its side, probably stolen from one of the guards she killed at my home.

Home. No, there was no longer a place for me there. Annie’s worried face flashed through my mind. Guilt and sadness clawed at my heart. I was fine leaving everything else behind, except her. But I had made my choice.

I had chosen the silver-haired girl in front of me, who was gulping down water without giving me a drop.

Annie, your brother might have made a terrible mistake.

“If I die… Sabre won’t take you anywhere…”

We were in the middle of the desert. Unlike Arthas, which was protected by a magical barrier, this place was exposed to the harsh elements. Even a Valmaz warrior wouldn’t survive without a steed.

She stopped drinking and looked at me. After a few moments, she began drinking again.

Okay, I was gonna die.

Sabre rammed the girl from behind with her head.

“Oww!!!” The girl kept her balance and drew her dagger. Raising the blade in front of her face, she eyed the blond ecus.

It was a rather manly shout considering her looks, but that was adorable in a way.

Sabre jerked her nose towards me a few times. The girl seemed to have gotten the message and reluctantly headed to me, waterskin in hand.

“Can you drink?” she asked.

She had a funny accent, but her slightly low-pitched voice had a calming timbre to it.

I tried to lift my back but failed. Next, I tried my head with the same result. I gave up and shook my head.

The girl sighed and began drinking from the pouch again. The waterskin looked like it was almost empty. This might be the end of the road for me.

Then she crouched down and slammed, yes, it wasn’t gentle in the least, her lips on mine. I reflexively closed my mouth, but she forced it open with her tongue and funneled water down my throat. Our lips were locked tight, as if she was making sure I didn’t spill a drop of the precious liquid. Her hair fell on and around my face, some coiling on the sand, but she didn’t seem to care. I was so confused by what happened I barely felt any satisfaction from the water I desperately needed just seconds ago.

After I gulped down the last mouthful, she briskly broke our contact and wiped her lips on her forearm. With no change in her stoic expression, she ran her fingers through her scalp, roughly combing her disheveled and sandy silver locks.

...So cool.

Realizing that my life was no longer in danger thanks to Sabre, I felt an irresistible urge to sleep again. Keeping her face in my sight, I slowly closed my eyes and gave into the temptation.

***

The familiar shaking was back.

I opened my eyes. It was a lot easier this time. My mana had recovered enough for me to move around, but I was still strapped to the girl with a cloth rope.

My cheek rested on her back. She didn’t look particularly tall when I saw her fighting, but sitting together like this, I found out I was a few inches smaller. That was a little annoying.

I felt a stinging sensation on my back, but it didn’t belong to me. It was feedback from the girl. I was leaning on the unhealed gashes on her back. She seemed used to pain, but that wasn’t a good excuse to let this go on.

“Cura.”

I used just enough mana to scab over the cuts. Fainting again from mana overuse was putting the cart before the workhorse.

Her shoulders jerked. She turned her head to the side and examined me from the corner of her eye.

“Can you ride?” she asked.

I blinked a couple of times. “Yeah.”

She pulled on a knot near her left breast, loosening my restraints. Surprised, I started falling backward. My hands fumbled for anything to hold onto. I grabbed a piece of cloth and yanked it to keep myself upright, but it tore from my weight. I fell flat on my back. Luckily, sand didn’t hurt as much as stone.

I shook my head and looked up. Sabre was in the process of shaking the girl off her back. The girl willingly hopped off before Sabre got serious. She was naked.

Wait.

What?

She was naked.

Something rough was in my right hand. It was her tattered dress. I looked back and forth between the cloth and its owner. She approached me without changing expression.

“Can you stand?”

Instead of answering, I got up, my eyes still glued on her, more specifically, her body. I caught myself and frantically offered her the cloth in my hand. She took it, gave it a look, and tossed it away.

I really should’ve figured this out from the start, but this girl had no sense of being one. She was manlier than most knights I knew.

I figured out another thing.

She had been riding for days in that saddle wearing only a flimsy cloth that barely covered her body. Naturally, she had no undergarments on.

I was tempted to never clean that saddle again.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We have to find water before nightfall.”

“I’m Karius. You can call me Kari. Can you tell me your name?”

She turned and stared at my face. Placing a hand on her chin, she looked up, as if contemplating something.

Thinking she was hesitant to introduce herself to a stranger, I tried to explain. “It’s going to be hard traveling together if I don’t know your name. Do you want me to call you ‘hey’ or ‘you’ each time?”

Her amethyst eyes darted around. “...Sel- no, Li-, no, let’s go with Hilde.” She nodded twice. “I’m Hilde.”

“You made that up just now, didn’t you?”

She ignored me, picked up her cloth sack, and headed for Sabre.

“Hilde, wait up. Hilde!” I jogged to her and took her hand.

“Huh? You were calling me?”

“Don’t forget the identity you made up just a second ago!”

She tried to pull her hand free, but I held onto it.

“Wait a bit, okay?” Leaving my white undershirt on, I took off my long-sleeved shirt and handed it to her. “Please wear this.”

“No need.”

“Yes there is! Wear it for my sanity!”

She blinked once and took it. I was small for a guy, so it fit her unexpectedly well. The hem of the shirt reached her upper thigh, covering what needed to be covered. I grabbed her torn dress from the sand and shook it clean. Folding it up to make it thicker, I placed it on the rear part of the saddle for Hilde to sit on. I was about to mount Sabre when Hilde called out to me.

“I’ll ride in front.”

I shook my head. “Leave it to me. I’m a great rider.”

“I don’t trust you. You might try to push me off after grabbing the reins.”

That hurt a little.

“I saved you, you know? Why would I do that now?”

The distrust I sensed from her didn’t waver a bit. That hurt even more than her words.

“Mages can’t be trusted.”

Sorrow.

I felt guilty for peeking into her heart so I quickly proposed a compromise.

“Okay, I’ll ride in front, but you get up first and take the reins. I’ll make sure Sabre doesn’t go wild while you get on. How’s that?”

She narrowed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to sit in front so badly?”

The question I had been avoiding.

But I didn’t want to lie to her. Doing something like that at this point risked ruining any trust I’d gained, as little as that was.

I scratched the side of my head. “It was okay when I was asleep and drained of mana, but now, you know. You’re hardly wearing anything…”

“What? Explain yourself clearly.”

I looked down. She followed my sight down to my crotch, or more accurately, my raging erection.

She tilted her head. “Is that bothering you?”

“Yeah, of course. It’ll, uh, hit your back.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should! And even if you don’t, I do!”

In a speed I couldn’t follow, she pulled out a dagger from her bag and pointed it towards my better half. “Should I cut it off?”

“No!!!!!!!!”

“Then ride at the back.” She approached Saber and moved the cloth I folded up to the front of the saddle. “Get on.”

She let me get on first. Rather than trusting me, she was probably underestimating me. I didn’t mind. It was convenient.

I secured myself on the saddle and grabbed the reins. That was when I noticed the tip of her dagger touching my member through my pants.

Okay, so she wasn’t underestimating me at all.

“Seemed valuable to you,” she said.

I felt a hint of enjoyment from her as she mounted. Nah, my anima was probably still in bad condition.

***

After a few hours of riding, we came upon a poctus field. The sun was almost gone from the horizon, so Hilde decided to set camp near the spiny plants.

Pocti varied in shape, and the ones around us resembled a person doing a handstand with legs spread open. These hardy plants grew even in the barren wasteland of the surface. Despite being only two to three feet high, their roots extended far underground, reaching water deposits and ancient soil. The core of a poctus was hollow and used to store the water it absorbed. They were covered by paralyzing spines to keep animals from eating them. Of course, those did nothing to deter Hilde.

She expertly slashed away the spines and cut a small hole from the poctus’s “foot.” The plant struggled from her grasp, quivering as she uprooted it and drank the water inside. It looked like a live animal being drained of blood, but since I couldn’t feel any emotions from it, it didn’t have consciousness. Probably.

Of course, she didn’t offer me a drink. I had to make do on my own. I couldn’t use aqua without anyone to channel the right emotion from, so I was forced to use my boot to knock away the annoying spines. I didn’t even try borrowing the dagger from Hilde because I knew what she’d say.

“Dammit, stay still!”

I wrestled with the lively poctus in my hands and sucked water from its “crotch.” That was the only part thin enough to smash open with my shoe without breaking the entire plant.

Sabre lapped up water from a poctus she smashed with her hoof. A few needles stuck out from her lower leg, but ecus were very resistant to poisons. She wouldn’t feel a thing from something like that.

After quenching my thirst, I heard my stomach rumble, reminding me that I haven’t eaten in days. I’d read that poctus flesh was edible, so I took a bite. Bitter. Extremely bitter. It made me think I was drinking venom, not that I had ever tried that. And to top it off, it was mostly water and hardly satiated my hunger. To survive this place, I needed something that’d give me more energy.

Though it had gotten dark already, I decided to walk around the area to find something to eat. I didn’t reach very far before noticing something scurrying on the sand. The moon was out, but it wasn’t bright enough for me to see objects on the ground clearly.

“Lux.”

A small orb of light floated on my palm. Basic spells like these didn’t need emotional affinity. Any mage could do them.

I searched the ground for whatever was moving earlier. I noticed something brown slither near the base of a small poctus. Tossing the light orb in the air, I dashed after the strange creature and grabbed it with both hands. The animal could’ve been dangerous, but I was too hungry to care.

A brown scaly lizard, about a foot long, squirmed in my hands. It had no eyes. A tri-forked tongue poked out of its mouth. Its claws were really short and blunt. Though I wasn’t sure if it had sharp teeth, I grabbed it by the nape to avoid being bitten.

I crushed its neck by gripping it hard and twisting. The feedback made my knees wobble, but since it was a quick death, the pain lasted less than a second, nothing I couldn’t endure to stave off hunger. With the dead creature in my hand, I went to Sabre and placed it in front of her. She gave it a whiff and eagerly bit into the carcass, crunching through the bones with her teeth.

“Looks like it’s safe to eat.”

Ecus were resistant to poisons, but that didn’t mean they randomly ate anything. Along with their resistance came the ability to detect toxins by smell. Sabre understood my intent and ate the lizard to show me it was edible.

Hilde was lying down on the sand near Sabre. She appeared to be asleep, but the irritation I could sense from her told me she was just resting. Poctus bark, scraped of the pale green bitter flesh, was scattered around her. Eating that crap would make anyone feel annoyed. It was time to show her how dependable I was.

I caught and killed two more of the eyeless lizards. Since I didn’t have a knife, I couldn’t properly clean the innards like I did for my usual quarry.

“Should be okay if we just bite into the fleshy parts.” I pinched its thick, muscular tail.

I took a bunch of empty poctus shells to a nice flat area and gathered them in one pile.

“Ignis.”

I couldn’t create a large flame because I didn’t have any anger to channel. The downside of my anima was I didn’t have a base affinity. Unlike normal mages who honed magic linked to their affinity to the maximum, I couldn’t use powerful spells without the proper catalyst. In a desert like this, my options were severely limited.

After about half an hour, the shells had thoroughly dried and began catching fire. Once the flame was stable, I tossed the lizards directly into the fire.

The roasting meat had a gamey and pungent smell, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Any kind of edible food was enough to make me drool at this point. I fished the cooked lizards from the flame using long poctus “arms” and let it cool.

I peeled a patch of charred skin from the base of the smaller lizard’s tail and took a bite. “Not bad, even without salt.”

A sudden urge to vomit rose up. I covered my mouth with my left hand and swallowed it back down. I couldn’t afford to waste any water or food in this place. The taste wasn’t the problem. I had recalled the stink of burning flesh while chewing on the charred meat. Yes, the human flesh I incinerated back in that forest.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I had made my choice, and this wasn’t the time for petty sentimentality.

With my cooked quarry in my hands, I jogged to Hilde. She sat up even before I got close.

“Hilde, I cooked some dinner.” I presented my offering with a proud grin.

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. It seemed she didn’t realize I was cooking something because she was upwind from the fire.

She stared long and hard at the animal. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I know it looks grotesque, but it’s good! You just have to peel the skin.” I rotated the smaller lizard to show her my bite mark. “I’ve tried some already. You must be starving too, right?”

“Not that. Do you know what that is?”

“Huh? It’s some kind of sand lizard right? Sabre confirmed it’s safe to eat.”

“To eat, yeah. The killing and cooking part is the problem.” She pinched her temples.

“...What do you mean?”

Without answering, she stood up and drew her dagger and shortsword.

The ground shook.

“An earthquake?”

Hilde shook her head. “Get ready to fight.”

I sensed a mass of hate and anger rapidly approaching us from behind, so I turned to face it. Hilde noticed my movement and focused in the same direction.

A geyser of sand erupted before our eyes. An enormous brown lizard the size of a small castle appeared from behind the curtain of sand. A pink tri-forked tongue slithered in and out of its craggy lips.

“Uh, shit,” I said.

Sabre quickly ran to my side.

I mounted as fast as I could and called out to Hilde. “Get on!”

“We can’t outrun it. We have to fight and drive it away.”

In that case, it was better for Hilde to stay on foot to maximize her agility and speed. I decided to distract the giant eyeless lizard.

Channel.

Sabre’s instinctive fear of the creature.

“Glacies!”

Ice crystals materialized on the lizard’s moist tongue. It was easier to do phenomenon alteration if the base element already existed on the target.

The lizard withdrew its tongue, breaking off the ice with ease. My spell didn’t do any damage, but it succeeded in grabbing the creature’s attention.

I tapped Sabre’s side with my heel. She galloped away from Hilde and the beast. The creature’s ridiculously thick tail, like the trunk of an ancient tree, whipped around as the lizard chased after us. The end of the tail hurtled towards Hilde, but I wasn’t worried.

She had single-handedly wiped out the Corvider estate guards, after all.

Hilde flipped in the air and landed on the lizard’s tail. She stabbed her blades into the gaps between the scales. Despite that, the lizard remained focused on me and Sabre. The shortsword probably felt like a needle to a creature that size.

Sabre kept running in a wide circle, avoiding steep sand dunes to avoid losing speed. I guided her towards a patch of poctus. The maze of thorns would’ve been hard to traverse for a normal rider, but we were an exception. We zipped past the plants, narrowly avoiding the obstacles while keeping our course as straight as possible.

Unfortunately, the lizard didn’t even slow down upon reaching the poctus field. It plowed over everything as it barreled towards us.

Embedding her blades for stability, Hilde gradually made her way up creature’s back. She was probably heading for the head to attack the eyes, the only parts not covered in plate-like scales. I concentrated on keeping the distance between us and the lizard. The more its attention was on us, the easier it would be for Hilde to launch her attack.

“Slow down!” shouted Hilde. “I need to jump on its nose!”

“Easy for you to say! It’ll get me if I go any slower!”

“That’s okay! Just make sure Sabre isn’t hurt!”

“No that’s not okay!!!”

To add insult on top of injury, she called Sabre’s name before she had ever mentioned mine.

The lizard suddenly stopped, tossing Hilde forward. She flew in front of its nose and used the shortsword to stab into its scales, preventing her fall. It had noticed Hilde because of our shouting. The creature was blind, but it seemed it could hear just fine.

The lizard’s jaws began to open. Despite her precarious position, I couldn’t feel any fear from Hilde. She was either courageous or stupid, but then I realized both were the same thing.

I pulled on Sabre’s reins, forcing her to stop.

Channel.

The lizard’s hatred.

It was pure and dense, requiring no amplification. Even if it did, I wouldn’t have tried. Unlike anger, hatred didn’t disappear with release. I avoided using this emotion at all costs. It was near impossible to control with my level of skill, and the backlash was terrible. But Hilde was in danger. I couldn’t afford to be picky.

I began despising the enemy, myself, Sabre, everything. My emotions began to go berserk. I quickly spat out a chant to wrangle them into order.

Weave.

“To sin is eternal, mercy ephemeral. Temptation of darkness, may thou be my mistress.”

More complex and powerful spells required longer weaves, but I didn’t have time. I cut it short, chanting just enough to prevent the spell, or me, from going totally out of control.

The space around the lizard’s torso began to warp.

Hilde turned her head to me, still hanging in front of the beast’s jaw. “Stop!!!”

But her plea was too late.

“Vacuum.”

A marble sized black ball appeared on top of the creature’s back. It expanded a thousandfold in a second and disappeared in the next, leaving behind a bloody, spherical cavity where the lizard’s torso was.

Losing its vitality, the creature’s head began falling to the ground. Before it crashed, Hilde ran down its neck and hopped off the shoulder.

I fell from Sabre’s back and rolled down a sand dune. Sand got into my mouth, causing me to choke as I shed countless tears from the harrowing pain in my chest.

I hated.

I hated. I hated. I hated.

I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated. I hated.

There was no target. There was only a boundless hole growing inside me, the backlash of using such a powerful and dangerous emotion as a weapon.

After a short while of squirming on the ground, I managed to open my eyes. I saw Hilde standing over me. My mana was also drained, though less severely than when I used infernus. I tried my best to control my breathing and sat up, my shoulders still heaving.

“Seems you’re okay,” said Hilde.

Though hard to see with only the moonlight, her expression was as blank as always.

I took a few more breaths to calm down. “Y-Yeah.”

She pulled me up by my collar and punched me in the jaw. I tumbled to the ground again, my limbs digging into the sand.

Sympathy.

It radiated from Hilde. And it wasn’t directed at me.

“Why did you kill it!?”

Still affected by the channeling feedback, I sat up and raised my voice. “What else do you want me to do!? It was about to eat you!”

“Are you deaf!? I told you to stop! That was my chance! With it’s jaws open, I could stab the roof of its mouth! That would’ve been enough to drive it away!”

This girl cared more for some random monster than her life, the life I threw away my life for. That pissed me off.

“Who cares about that thing!? It attacked us! We’re the victims here!”

Disgust.

I held my tongue as soon as I felt that from her. It drove away the traces of hate swirling inside me.

She showed me her first real expression. “You killed and ate its children!!!”

My breath caught within my throat.

“I…”

Lost my words.

“You mages are heartless demons. I was a fool to think you might be different.”

And then my heart.

The look in her amethyst eyes burned me like acid. Being spat on might have been a better fate.

She turned on her heels and stomped away.

Devoid of energy, I lay on the sand. The ground grew colder and colder by the moment, but I didn’t care. My core felt colder than it could ever be.

That night, I learned a lesson my arrogance kept away from me my entire life.

Despite knowing emotions more than anyone, I realized I knew nothing about the heart.