“So, you think you know where the bear might be lairing?” Lieutenant Silver asked, keeping his voice pitched low so that only those in the small gathering could hear. Kai and Tom stood together to one side, while Silver spoke with Callum and his daughter, Clara. Silver had also brought in his impromptu second-in-command, Jenkins, for the conversation. Kai might have seen a happier guard at some time in his travels, but he wasn’t sure when.

“Yes, I saw it myself, as well as quite a few fresh tracks only a few days ago when I found Blane,” Clara said, her voice still little more than a projected whisper.

At the mention of Blane, Kai glanced over to where the odd man was helping some of the villagers hoist a new log into position at the palisade. He still wasn’t sure what to make of Blane, and the fact that he’d been near the elemental bear just made that even more prevalent in Kai’s mind.

“….should we head out to find it?” Callum was asking as Kai brought his attention back to the conversation.

“I’m not sure. This isn’t something to rush into,” Silver said, a thoughtful expression on his face as he looked at the position of the sun in the sky.

“The place I saw it is an hour or two from here; we’d have time to go after it today if you want,” Clara said, a mixture of longing and bloodlust in her voice. For her to want the creature dead that badly, it must have killed someone she knew.

“Or, we can scout the same area, just the two of us,” Callum interjected with a glower at his daughter. “Lieutenant Silver and the others can settle in and rest. We’ll all be better coming at this hunt fresh and rested.”

“I agree,” Kai offered, sharing a nod with the older hunter. Callum had the look of a man who’d fought some of the nastier things out there, which was experience they sorely needed. “We don’t want to be fighting this creature tired; that’s a good way to get people killed.”

Clara gave Kai a fulminating look, but her displeasure didn’t faze him at all; he’d had worse glares in his time. Kai was more concerned with keeping everyone alive and killing the bear than he was about making friends.

“Very well, tomorrow it is. Jenkins, take that patrol we mentioned earlier and make sure that the area is secure. Callum, if you could scout the area Clara has in mind and report back this evening, that would be ideal. With some luck, you’ll be able to confirm if it’s there or not, so we can start with purpose tomorrow. If not, well, we’ll deal with that in the morning.”

“Aye, that works for me,” Callum said, giving the barest hint of a nod as he spoke.

With an initial plan to follow, the group broke up as they all went their own way. Callum must have made another attempt to convince Clara to leave it to him as Kai heard her scoff and all but storm out through the village gates, head held high.

Kai wasn’t the only one watching the spectacle; he could see Blane watching from off to one side. From the way Blane’s eyes followed the young huntress, Kai could guess his intentions. Looking back at the departing figure, Kai could see what Blane admired. Clara had an attractive figure, and Kai had a thing for fierce women as well.

Thinking about fierce women brought a certain blue-eyed witch to mind, and Kai smiled fondly. He would never have dreamed of looking upon a witch with anything less than suspicion even a year ago, but he wasn’t the kind to lie to himself. At first, Kai had been able to ignore her beauty and her captivating gaze, but that had all changed the night of the storm.

Kai had awoken when she’d raced upstairs to disrobe, and he’d seen firsthand how she faced down the fury of the storm to master her power. She had been in no danger, but he’d seen the determination in the way she held herself, the ironclad will to succeed.

Kai’s smile turned bittersweet as he dreamt of what may be, what he knew he could never have. Kai’s road was one of death and ruin; he deserved nothing less and would be damned before hurting anyone else.

Dragging his mind out of the familiar spiral of darkness, Kai focused on the here and now. There was a job to be done.

“The hunters help you on your mission,” Blane said, the odd man walking over to stand near Kai, his dark brown eyes hooded in shadow as he caught Kai’s gaze.

“That they are,” Kai said, pausing for a moment as he considered the fighting prowess Blane had shown. Another fighter, especially one who had tangled with monsters before, would be welcome on the hunt. Considering his words, Kai looked away and spoke in a casual tone. “Both today and tomorrow when we seek the beast itself.”

“They’ll be fighting?” Blane asked with concern, a worried expression playing across his face.

“You think her father can stop her?” Kai retorted, looking back at Blane to catch the man’s grimace. “It’s life or death for everyone here.”

“What would you have me do? I can’t abandon Tara,” Blane said in frustration, glaring at Kai.

“How long have you been looking? Will a few days make a difference?” Kai asked, gesturing to the village around them. “A few days here will make a big difference.”

Blane grunted non-committally, but Kai could tell his words had hit home. He just needed a little more to bring him round.

“My employer has many contacts within the city. If you help us with the bear, I will do everything I can to help you search the city for your sister,” Kai said, facing Blane directly now.

“Your oath on it, a proper oath, not one to be twisted by words,” Blane said, his voice intent as he squared off to Kai. “I will help you track and kill the beast, and you will help me find Tara.” A blade was in Blane’s hand, hilt toward Kai. Blane's gaze was intent as he stared at Kai, his jaw set in a stubborn manner.

Realising what the other man wanted, Kai took the blade and cut the top of his wrist. “I swear by my Essence; I will keep to the Oath.” Kai’s words were heavy as they left his mouth, his heart beating unnaturally loud in his ears as his blood trickled down his hand.

“I too swear, by the blood of my people, that I shall keep to the Oath,” Blane spoke, his words carrying a matching weight to them as he kept his eyes on Kai.

It had been a long time since Kai had taken a blood oath, but it was just as uncomfortable now as it had been then. Swearing on your Essence was an extreme measure, one viewed as archaic and barbaric by most sects. Kai was bound now to the words and spirit of the Oath.

If Kai ever knowingly broke the Oath, his Essence would turn on him, wounding him and severely weakening his power as a sorcerer. He wouldn’t die, but it would be incredibly painful.

“Perhaps some sorcerers are still worth a damn,” Blane said, looking at Kai with a touch of respect in his eyes. An absent wipe of his hand removed the blood from his wrist, revealing a freshly healed cut. “Call on me when the time comes to leave. I will do my part.”

Kai stood mute as Blane inclined his head and walked away. He’d known that he could sense foreign energy in Blane, but that was a long way from watching him heal a cut in a matter of seconds. Just what was he dealing with?

“Was that a blood oath?” Tom whispered, giving Kai a wide-eyed look from where he stood a few feet away. Tom had stayed quiet enough that Kai had forgotten he was there, leaving him in an uncomfortable position.

“It was, but I would urge you to forget about such things. A blood oath can do damage beyond anything you could imagine. I’ve seen it,” Kai said, thinking back to some of the darkest days in his old sect.

“I believe you; I’ve heard the stories,” Tom said fervently, eyeing the cut on Kai’s wrist warily.

“Good. Now, we’ve gained another ally for our hunt, but I want to know more about the attacks here. There must be a reason why the bear didn’t do more damage.” Kai gestured to the intact village around them as he spoke.

“You make it sound like destroying the palisade should have been easy for it,” Tom said, looking at Kai with a curious expression.

“Because it should, elemental bears are shrouded in their element but can also conjure it and fight with it. We know that the one we are hunting is an earth-based creature, so it could have undermined the wall and toppled it in only a short space of time. Not to mention that a creature like that could rip chunks of ground out and throw them, but I see no evidence of that here.” Kai explained, looking around as he spoke for any impact marks on the village's interior. As far as he could tell, the damage had only been done to the exterior of the village, which was odd.

Looking for a way to help, Tom went to assist a logging team going to the nearby wood to gather the large logs needed for the palisade. With the ash wolves driven off, they would likely have a short window of opportunity where the nearby area was devoid of any potential threats.

While Tom worked, Kai spent some time speaking with the villagers about the attack on Willowbrook. From what he gathered, this was indeed an elemental bear attack; their descriptions were too apt for it to be anything else.

The bear had been causing a number of problems for the area as a whole, but it had only struck the village itself once, causing the damage he could see at the gate. When Kai questioned how they drove it off, he was told that the rocky exterior of the bear was damaged on its front left shoulder, giving them an area to target.

Exactly what kind of damage they were talking about, or how severe it was, Kai didn’t know, but it did potentially explain how they drove it off. Kai wasn’t completely convinced, but there was no conflicting information to make him think that anyone was lying or misleading him.

Perhaps the bear had already been wounded, and the villagers managed to reopen the wound, causing it to retreat?

It still didn’t explain the lack of damage to the area, but Kai didn’t know what else to do. This wasn’t his strength.

There were still a few hours of light left when Kai gave up on his investigation, so he decided to take the time to work on his cultivation. On the way back from the fight with the darjee, Verdan had demonstrated that Kai might be linked to air as well as fire. Since then, there had always been more pressing things to do, more urgent matters to take care of. Right now, however, he had hours to himself and no responsibility until tomorrow.

Kai left messages with a few villagers of Tom and Lieutenant Silver, letting them know where he was going, before heading out of the village and back up the hill, Oaktop.

Settling himself on the highest point he could, Kai closed his eyes and started to cycle his breaths, breathing deep and filling himself with what he now knew was Aether.

Considering the element of air, Kai immediately thought of the wind. The flowing freedom it represented. When he was younger, Kai had often sat atop buildings, enjoying the wind playing across his face as he struggled with his cultivation exercises.

Thinking back to that time, Kai gripped onto everything he loved about the wind and used it as a focus through which he fed the Aether he was drawing in from around him.

There was nothing, no sense of Essence filling his soul, no sense of fresh energy flowing through him. A whisper of disappointment raced through him as Kai realised it wasn’t working. Still, he had nothing else to do this evening; he may as well stick with it.

Time passed steadily as Kai maintained his focus, despite the lack of any immediate result. He remembered the guided meditation that he’d had to perform to first unlock his fire Essence when he was still a candidate for the sect; this wasn’t too dissimilar.

Of course, the majority of the time Kai had spent as a candidate had been used up learning how to meditate and the most basic breathing techniques of the sect. Those that were able to awaken their Essence within the timeframe of the training course were taken on, the rest were sworn to secrecy and either discarded or hired as servants.

Kai finished his meditation when the sun began to dip below the horizon, feeling a strange sense of pressure in his chest for a moment as he stood to head back. The sensation swiftly faded, however, so Kai put it down to a twinged muscle. He would ensure his morning routine carried more stretches than usual to compensate.

Reminiscing about his time as a candidate had put Kai in a melancholy mood. It was only one step from remembering those times to remembering his sister, and that was a wound that was far from healed.

Steeling his mind and focusing on the task at hand, Kai started back to the village. They would be hunting the bear on the morrow, and he needed his rest.