Page 8 of On Burning Paths

I drag my attention back to the trees, my face warm despite the cool air, and become suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the leathers sticking to my skin after days without bathing. I would give a great deal right now for the chance to stop, wash my hair, and re-braid it properly. But Thorian has been pushing us to keep moving, and I'm not going to be the one who asks to stop.

With Fenric feeding us constantly, we haven’t needed to hunt or build a fire, and so we just keep plodding along, pausing when Thorian tells us to pause, and moving when he gives us the all-clear again. His sight and hearing are stronger than both mine and Fenric’s, even as ours are more attuned than that of a human's.

“I’ll bet the other teams took the day to recover,” Fenric says, sucking the berry juice from each of his fingers as we round a bend in the forest, the gentle twinkling of a stream filtering in through the rustling of leaves. “After what happened with the swamp, I’ll bet they all needed rest. Especially the knights. That’s why we haven’t come across them today.”

Thorian lets out a low bark of laughter, “No. Not likely. The gods don’t like inaction. During my second competition, they sent a swarm of tri-stinger wasps onto a team that slept through the day, wariness leading them to exhaustion. Do you know how wasps lay their eggs?”

Fenric and I share a look, and I shake my head. Thorian shudders, “Well, be glad for that. Let’s just say these tri-stinger wasps had a preference for living hosts.”

Fenric grimaces, and Thorian goes on, “Once, they sent a group of sloth bears, their poisoned claws dragging along the ground and trees, leaving behind a sticky green goop in all their wounds. Even those who got away from the attack still died after being slashed at with the stuff.”

“Ugh.” Fenric makes a noise of disgust, clearly imagining the poisonous goop.

Thorian stares at the ground, pausing for a moment, his expression hardening from disgust into something closer to loathing. “I imagine the divines sitting around together, drinking and laughing and dreaming up whatever they can imagine to send at us, to amuse themselves with the torment. To take pleasure in the suffering of others is the definition of evil, and yet people excuse the divines simply because they're powerful. It's sickening.”

“Gods,” I mutter, then realize the irony and laugh, which makes the corner of Thorian’s mouth quirk, some of that hatred etched onto his face slipping away as he begins to walk again. In the distance, we can hear the trickling of water, and I itch at the chance to fill my canteen.

After what happened with Fenric, I’m taking more care to keep it full. If he has to go into his berserker form again, I want to make sure I can take care of him after the shift back.

“Sleeping and resting for too long isn’t the only risk,” Thorian says as he comes to a stop, his boot sinking into the fine silt along the stream's edge. He kneels down, dipping his canteen into the clear water, and Fenric and I copy him, conversation pausing for a moment and leaving nothing but silence.

In moments like these, I forget where we are. Being with Fenric and Thorian has a way of confusing me, creating a false sense of calm and ease that I know I should fight. It’s almost like being with them is strangely similar to being courted. Every interaction lets us get to know each other. Every day that passes, I feel closer to them. Yet, at the end of this there isn’t a proposal. There’s an Obsidian Spire that we may or may not live long enough to see.

So keep those silly ideas out of your head.

With my canteen full, after drinking my share, I put it back in the bag on Thorian’s back. We’re at a crossing, a small log providing dry passage from one side of the water to the other. The men finish filling their canteens, then Thorian crosses the log with ease, not even holding his hands out for balance.

When he reaches the other side, he turns and holds his hand out to me, a hand that I focus on across the distance, willing myself just to reach it. I step up onto the log, the water glittering just under my feet as I begin to cross. About halfway across, I lose my footing.

Fenric is there in a second, behind me on the log, his hand on my waist to steady me. Thorian leans forward, taking my hand. Neither of them releases me until I’m firmly on the other side of the creek.

When I step out of their reach, face red, Fenric clears his voice and asks, “What’s the other risk?”

I give him a funny look.

Fenric grins. “Thorian said there’s more than just the risk of sleeping or resting too long.”

Right.

“Going the wrong way,” Thorian says, and I look up, realizing we’re in a more dense section of the forest, and can no longer see the spire in the distance. It’s as though crossing the stream spat us out from one world, landing us in another.

“How do we know we’re going the right way?” I ask as Thorian turns, gesturing for us to follow him through the woods.

Thorian strides along, not stopping as he takes a drink from his canteen, and admits, “I can tell. It’s like…a sense. That spire is my true north.”

Fenric says, off-handedly, “Suppose it’s from the connection to your father?”

“I have no connection to my father,” Thorian snaps, but Fenric doesn’t seem to notice the change in the demi-god’s tone, because he’s too busy having procured another rock, lining himself up to kick it further along with us.

“Thorian?”

“My father and I are very different people,” he says curtly, then works his jaw.

I decide not to push it further.

"That's something else I've been wondering," Fenric says, his head tipped down, his focus on the rock. I try to catch his eye, to communicate the obvious here. That Thorian does not, and has never wanted to, talk about his father. But Fenric isn't paying attention, so he goes on, "If you're a demi-god, why is it that you have no special ability? Or magic? I thought every demi-god had a special ability."

He's not wrong. Every demi-god I've ever heard of carries a part of their divine parent with them. Serafine, daughter of Aqualis, is the goddess of the waves. They say she can pummel the land with vicious waves, or let them crash gently against the shore, all with little more than a thought. Draven, son of Terranis, is god of trees. He grows forests from bare earth and speaks to the roots beneath our feet like old friends. Cassia, Soryn's daughter, who sees by starlight in absolute darkness and brightens or darkens the stars on a whim, with nothing but an outstretched hand, is goddess of starlight. Even the minor demi-gods, the ones born of lesser divines, carry some thread of the power that made them.