A column of riders covered the road to Aethel with the cadence of hoofbeats. Far more than he expected. He patted Nightfire’s flank gently to ease her nerves, just like him, she’d never seen this many people or horses in her life. Nervous excitement bubbled through him. So many of those competing to become a horsePage had steel weapons, and finely cut clothes. Many even had some semblance of armor. Gambesons or doublets that must’ve cost a fortune of green chips.

Not to mention the horses.

Theo tightened his grip on the reins at the realization that Nightfire wasn’t as special as him or his family had thought. Every other horse was just as good as she was or even better. It wouldn’t have been a stretch to assume that many of the Lordship spawn even had known talents that they’d honed all throughout their lives.

Thank Aleyr they didn’t have to worry about skills or archetypes yet. That’d be for the competitions or promotions to horseBaron, but he didn’t care about that. A Pageship badge would go a long way to secure passage to the other Chalices or getting work in the wastes. A single trip could pay enough to buy out Fremr, a town that barely traded above blue chips.

He only needed to win so he could bring back some prestige and to help pay his and Modran’s way if they wanted to leave the Chalice. Plus, it’d be nice to be able to be closer to an equal if Alanna accepted his proposal.

If he won and was even able to ask.

“Are you sure I should be riding with you? I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be on a wagon or something.” Modran asked with her arms tight around his waist, she still jostled at nearly every step. If it weren’t for her talent and a surprising number of inconspicuous ash mounds every time they took a break, she’d probably be covered in sores and aches.

“I offered to ride with the caravan, so technically you’re still within your bounds. Besides, it’s safer than galloping ahead and getting attacked. That’d be a bloodbath.”

Modran didn’t say anything.

He frowned at the thought of what they’d have to face. If the horsePageship was going to be this bad, not including the actual race, then what was Modran going to have to deal with?

“Say, what are you going to sell? I thought that for the tradePageship you had to… well, trade?”

“I’m not sure,” she sighed. “It’s not as clear cut. Trading doesn’t matter, but rather who has the most money by the end of the Games. They take everything we have and send someone to supervise us to make sure we don’t cheat with our own money, by hiding it or getting it from a friend or relative, but it seems like anything goes.”

“Too bad we can’t create skills or archetypes yet, you’d probably have something special then.” Theo pointed out then winced at his condescension. He sounded like he’d already written her off as losing. “But I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“I’m trying to.” She sounded glum and morose.

“If you can’t think of anything, you might be able to try out for something else?” Theo raised the question hesitantly. A part of him was considering it himself. All of these people seemed so far above him. Isidora was right, he was nothing but a simple farm boy in comparison. They had steel weapons, they even had armor.

He basically only had sticks and a knife that was not meant for any actual fighting. Sure, his sticks were his bow, arrows, and a staff, but a stick was still a stick.

It’s not like it helped him when he was ambushed.

“Worst case scenario, I’ve thought about declaring myself a logicPage and make an argument about ghosts, death, and all of that.” Modran snorted with an overzealous wave of her hand.

“Wait, ghosts are real?”

“...Yes.” She tensed so hard she nearly caved in his ribs, then relaxed. “I have to really look for them, but sometimes specific ghosts linger around people.”

“Have you seen mom?” Theo asked, unsure about what would hurt worse. If she had and Modran didn’t say anything, or if she hadn’t at all. Heartbeats began to thunder in his chest, in his throat, all around him as panic mounted. His awareness blended with Nightfire’s. A complex tapestry of nerves, veins, muscle and bone.

“Not in a while, but it’s harder to see those I feel closest to. When I was younger, I almost thought she was alive.” Her hands moved to his arms, her fingers knotted tight against his skin. “Ghosts aren’t really… people anymore, if that makes sense? Whatever made them them moves on to where I can’t go.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“What’s the point? Dad has barely moved on, Theo. It’s been nearly twenty years and he still hasn’t found someone else. Ghosts aren’t the business of the living.”

“Yet they’re yours, I see.” Theo had to bite his tongue, literally, to keep himself from saying anything truly vile. He didn’t blame her for mom’s death. He really didn’t. They only even knew about it because they’d all overheard the adults talking one night after Blue the dog died.

“I’m pretty sure that dying as many times as I have makes that a bit of an…” She trailed off as she stiffened behind him, then she whispered, “Theo? What if… what if my talent can do more?”

“What?” Theo blinked at the sudden change of topic. Irritation bristled at him as he longed to continue the conversation about their mom being a ghost. What was she like? What did she look like? Was she proud? Why the fuck would he want to hear—

“Maybe… maybe I could turn into a ghost? I can… well I can do stuff. I’m sort of between like them, after all. Does that sound stupid?”

“What do you mean? You aren’t making sense.” Theo fought the urge to spur Nightfire forward to keep up with the rest of the horsePages who began to greatly outstrip the slow winding wagon train. That and to flee this conversation.

“Well, I can make myself stronger, faster, better. More alive, I mean. So who’s to say I couldn’t make myself… well, more dead and ghostly? The opposite, really.”

“That sounds pretty fucking idiotic to me.” Theo turned to look at her incredulously. “Are you sure that won’t, I don’t know, kill you instead? For real this time?”

“I’ll come back.”

“You don’t know that, Modran. Just because you always have doesn’t mean that’ll continue to happen! Fuck!” He spurred the horse forward, ignoring the hard glances and stares as Nightfire galloped closer to the front of the wagon train. Anger pulsed through him. “We’ve spent years, years, trying to keep you alive and you want to experiment again?”

“I’ve never failed to come back before!”

“So fucking what? You’re still dying. What does it matter? By Aleyr, what are you going to do next? Let lowlife criminals pay to kill you so you can become a fucking official tradePage?”

“Actually, that’s not—”

“Don’t you dare.” Theo snapped as he flicked the reins again, drawing out even more speed from Nightfire until she raced like flames off the road and to the barely tamed undergrowth. He pulled Nightfire to a stop so he could hop off and give his insolent sister the glare she deserved. “Why do you treat your life with so little respect?”

“Oh, so I’m the one without respect?” Modran narrowed her eyes at him as she struggled to free herself from the stirrups for a few moments. “You’re the one that’s so eager to turn his back on our family’s very way of life for the chance to sleep with a girl whose dad would gladly destroy us.”

“I want to marry her, not take advantage of her. Besides, you left too!”

“Oh? You wouldn’t do anything if she were willing? If she extended an invitation? You’ve only been able to steal moments of time with her. How exactly does that justify marriage?”

“How is that any of your business? You knew this was my plan from the beginning, and you’re trying to change the subject! No! I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but don’t kill yourself just because you can! What is wrong with you?”

“It’s only dying, it’s not death. That’s too permanent.” She rolled her eyes as if he were being silly. Oh, that Theodran is such a clueless nilly! As if.

“You will not kill yourself just to prove a point to try out Logic, or to sell your life so cheaply for chips and trade.” Theo stepped forward as he poked his finger towards her with each statement.

“But it’s okay for you to risk your life in a race through the races? Or for your precious Alanna to risk her life dueling? Everyone else only has one. I have countless, maybe even infinite. It’s not like talents run out.” She shrugged as if she were talking about the reliability of rain.

“I can’t even talk to you.” Theo shook his head as he climbed back into his saddle and nudged Nightfire forward before Modran could join him. “If I can't convince you to not throw your life away, then fine. So be it. Let lechers and creeps kill you or try and find out if you can become a ghost or whatever else you think of. I’d think that having more lives would make you more grateful, but I guess not.”

“Theo!”

He ignored her shout as he rode farther ahead up the road. The rest of the wagon train would catch up eventually. He needed to be alone. Fear, anger, sadness and disappointment spiked through his heart with every hoofbeat.

Doubt wriggled in his mind as her question prodded his thoughts again and again like a poker fresh from the fireplace. What could she do with her talent? Could she actually use it like that?

Could she afford not to, if she could? But regardless, that was wrong, wasn’t it?

From his conversations with Sevra and Alanna, he knew that talents were sort of a passive affinity that could be used actively. He’d been thinking about his own talent and what it must be. He had some thoughts, but his heart lurched every time he thought about it too hard or dived too deep into the meditative state they had taught him. It was rather intense feeling every cell of your being with such exact precision.

There had been a few instances where he felt as if he could move his muscles, his blood, his bone, any part of him except his nails and hair with a thought.

However, what would Modran be able to do?

She came back from the dead, yes, but what if her talent was death itself? Why else would she die again and again, but be almost immortal? She could drain the life from anything living… but what if that was secondary?

Theo shivered at the thought of what his sister could do and what would truly happen if it was discovered. He wondered if he’d made some sort of grave mistake bringing her with him. No wonder his family had been so scared of the Order coming for her.

Aleyr, Treassi and Muna… no wonder his family wanted to keep her secluded. If it hadn’t been mom and dad’s dream, they probably wouldn’t have raised horses at all. It was only really possible due to mom’s minor talent in the first place that they had a shot of breeding a new lineage of horses.

But…

Images of corpses walking in Modran’s wake flooded his mind. Thoughts of her becoming a ghost at will. Invisible, intangible, and practically invincible. As it was now, a mere unguarded brush of her hand could kill plants or animals with ease. How long until the first person died or even multiple?

Talents only grew.

Theo gasped as his own talent sparked in the center of his mind.

Multiple heartbeats shuddered in his chest and he sighed as he counted out five people waiting up ahead on horseback. He shoved thoughts about talents down, about what it must be if he could sense people’s hearts beating, their lungs breathing, the miniscule twitches of their eyes as they focused on him and raised their hands with something held in their collective hands.

It was another fucking ambush.

He knew it with a stone cold certainty.

Theo snarled as he unslung his bow from his saddle and notched an arrow, and loosed it. Once, twice, thrice, before the bandits flooded from their hiding spots. Blood sprayed from the throats of the three his arrows had unerringly pierced.

Shrieking gasps of deathroes and warcries rang out, but it was like he had dived underwater. Sound stretched as it distorted, the sun’s early light shone off the steel of one’s axe and the other’s hammer.

Theo watched as they rode to confine him, one to his left, and the other to his right.

He could have loosed maybe one more arrow, but then the other would’ve been on him. Instead, he jerked the sharp edge of his arrow across his bowstring, as he turned Nightfire with his knees.

The string broke with a snap as his bow sprang into an impromptu staff, one of the ends smacked straight past the open guard of the man on his left and into his cheek with a crack of splintered bone. Theo felt the one on his right swing his axe out for his head, but he’d already ducked beneath the blow.

Wind ruffled his hair as he flipped the arrow in his hand around and plunged it down into the axeman’s thigh until he hit bone. The shaft broke and split his palm.

He leaned half out of his saddle so he could reach for the man’s dagger on his belt, but the man roared as he twisted and reversed his swing. Cold metal cleaved into his side before it scraped and grinded against his bone. It bounced off one of his ribs.

Theo roared in pain and wrath as he plucked the dagger out of its sheath and twisted to try and cut back, but his ribs wrenched with red agony. He missed even as he drove Nightfire forward past the axeman. He felt the other man with the hammer pull his hands away from his face.

They followed right on Nightfire’s heels.

Nightfire galloped a dozen yards before they caught up to him and something small, hard and cold slammed into the back of his head hard enough his teeth cracked together.

Darkness flashed in uneven time with the light.

The hammer fell again.

Theo drooped as he slid out of his saddle. His head bounced against the road again and again. His foot was caught in the stirrup as Nightfire dragged him for a few paces. Nightfire screamed as they rode abreast of her to try and—

Theo screamed as his foot twisted out as his leg broke.

Hooves crunched against his back as someone rode over and past him.

Everything went dark.

*

*

*

Theodran!

Red light kindled in the deep dark abyss of his mind. Paralysis gripped him, numb and mute, as it burned through strand after strand, burst after burst as it spread from his brain. Crimson soaked into his skull before draining down his spine into the rest of his bones.

Lightning itched through his nerves like a tree of fine threads strung throughout every fiber of his being.

Theo snapped awake alone and tied down to the bed of a wagon. He flopped weakly against the rope that was snug against his shoulders, elbows, and knees. Wood creaked as he screamed against the gag tied into his mouth.

Agony tore through his broken, crushed ribs. It pounded and beat at him in time with the bonfire of red light that blazed in his mind. The red fire surged across the rest of his skull as it fused the cracked plates of bone back together.

A flash of red and it was healed.

Ribbons of light poured down to the absolute mess of his ribs and began the arduous task of putting the puzzle piece of bone back together. Light soothed and massaged the giant slash from the axe, the bruised and torn capillaries, muscles and even his kidney.

Another flash of red and his ribs were healed.

Tendrils of red light continued its trek down his body latching onto anything and everything it found less than ideal to restore to the pinnacle of health. Minor aches from riding and fighting however long ago that was, gone. His leg jerked then popped back into place with a crunch as everything realigned then healed.

As sudden as the storm of red light began, it faded to a dwindled glow that ebbed and flowed at the center of his mind.

“Theo?” Modran whimpered as she stared down at him. He could barely see her through the blurry gauze of tears and the dark of night. “Thank Aleyr… You’re alive. It’s okay mom, he’s alive…”

Theo fell back asleep.