Chapter 1: Cat Burglar

       He held his head under the water for far too long and his breath had expelled, his lungs in a panic response, but he needed a few seconds longer. There wasn’t much air left now, but he pressed his lips together and held on…               3…2…1…

       Reylon threw his head back and gasped frantically, big greedy swallows of air, his shoulders heaving with the effort.  He knelt beside the lazy riverbed and smiled with satisfaction.

       Five minutes.  A new record.

       Felisfolk had a natural predisposition towards hating water, but Reylon had learned how to swim and now he worked on holding his breath.  He couldn’t hold his breath nearly as long when he was swimming of course—the exertion cut it down to about 2/3 of what he could do just wading, but five minutes without a breath was better than anyone else he knew could do and he always strived to do better.  Every couple days he would try to add another second, curious as to how far he could go.  He had already learned some little tricks like where to hold the pressure, releasing short bursts of air when the pressure built too much…

       He slowed his breathing and saw Meleka was watching him, a look of disapproval on her face and he grinned lopsidedly.

       Meleka was Pantera tribe like he was—the tribes tended to keep to their own, it was just how Felisfolk were.  Reylon was a bit of a loner even so.  Pantera were descended from panthers and you need only tell them apart by their generous display of inky black fur.  His tribe had special rules due to their coloring, a rarity even among the Felisfolk.  His ears flicked at a fly buzzing around them.  Like Bryfolk, Felisfolk did not have large ears, but they pointed slightly at the tip and those tips often had a light sprinkling of fur.

       Meleka wore her hair short like most of their tribe.  He was always the rebel though and while he shaved the sides and back very short, he let the rest grow very long and wore it in a ponytail at the back of his head.  Sometimes he would let some of the little girls twist the strands into small braids and he’d wear it back like that.

Meleka started to walk away and Reylon shot to his feet and ran towards her.

       “You never answered my question,” Reylon told her, his sharp canine teeth flashing for a moment when he grinned.

       Meleka always wore more clothes than the average Felisfolk.  Her father was Chief and she was highly prized.  Although Reylon’s family held no high distinction or wealth, he and his father were Hunters and it was worthy of respect.  Still, she sneered at him with distaste.  He loved how her eyes were a brilliant shade of spring green.  His own were amber gold, not as large as most of the Felis and it made him look untrustworthy with such a pronounced slant to them. 

       She kept her gaze on his face and he knew it unnerved her that he always ran around in little more than a loincloth and bone jewelry.

       “I told you I’m seeing Atuman.  You’re just going to start trouble if you don’t stop, Reylon,” Meleka told him with annoyance.

       She left him standing there with a stupid grin on his face and he shrugged and headed back towards his home.  His father was hunting today; Reylon would be joining the Hunters tomorrow but today had been his rest day.  Rest days always made him restless, but having them at all was a sign that the tribe was prosperous and thriving.  In hard times, there were never rest days, even holidays and celebrations were cancelled in favor of surviving.

       Still dripping from his water exercises, he felt like running.  Meleka was always leaving him frustrated and running was always good for that.  He wasn’t so hung up on her that he didn’t distract himself with easier prey; quite the contrary, he was sure his antics weren’t exactly helping her take his feelings seriously.  It was useless to do little but pine for a girl who made every effort not to like him.

       Reylon dove into the river, darted across and broke into a run on the opposite bank. 

       Territories for the Felisfolk tended to be divided by rivers with the whole cats-not-liking-water deal.  That tended to be the case for human settlements too, but to Reylon, the other Folk and humans seemed like tales altogether.  On the other side of Genlon River, it was unclaimed territory though.  If he went too far to the north, it got colder and he would eventually run into the snow leopard variant of the Pantera whom they called themselves the Oonshya.  Their southern brethren were whispered to be assassins but they didn’t associate with them.  The inky black Pantera were, in truth, outcasts of other tribes of leopard and jaguar.  When they interbred, most of their young were also melanistic (all black) but if they bore the markings of the Pardis or Onka tribes, they would go to be initiated into those tribes once they reached six years of age.  There were rogue communities or free cities where families who didn’t wish to live in these groups or be separated from their families would but it wasn’t common.  Felisfolk were rarely emotionally attached and were happy to send their outcasts to the tribe.

       Reylon wasn’t entirely paying attention to how long he was running but knew he had gone too far when he could smell the snow and feel the chill of the north.  It wasn’t upon him yet—you couldn’t accidentally run half a day into the start of the territory, but he could still feel the change in the air.  He went into high alert when he heard a rustling to his left and spun to see two of the Oonshya, young men maybe a little older than himself, with hunting spears.  Reylon hadn’t come armed but he was a Hunter and could put up a hell of a fight with his bare hands if needed.

       “What a strange looking Pantera,” one of the men purred menacingly.

       “So far from home…” purred the other.

       Reylon resisted the urge to remind these two of the treaties between their tribes—it would only show how afraid he was.

       They were looking at his skin.  Felisfolk usually had human skin tones, but Reylon’s was a dark silvery grey.  It lent more to his sinister appearance.  The boys showed bravado, maybe stupidity, some false confidence in the strength of numbers perhaps.  Usually his appearance alone made strangers steer clear. He could take on ten of their ilk.

       “As are you,” he shot back softly, warning them with his eyes not to play games.  They weren’t as far from home as he was, but unless more of their kind were trailing, they wouldn’t alert anyone with their screams here either.  These weren’t hunting grounds and that was an easy enough thing to tell.  There weren’t animal tracks here showing herds had passed through.  There were no sources of water to draw prey and there wasn’t a whole lot of cover either.  Given, the Felis could outrun many small animals, it was wasted energy and the north was less plentiful for food anyway.

       “I’m just passing through,” Reylon said and meant to turn away.

       “There’s a toll,” one shot out as the other laughed.

       Reylon tensed. It was clear he wasn’t a traveler and he had nothing on him save the loincloth and they damn well knew it.  If they intended to exact a body price, he had news for them—he wasn’t parting with any of his body parts and he wasn’t gay.  Well, he was bisexual but he had standards.

       After Meleka had shot him down (again), he really wasn’t in a mood to play at all.

       Reylon scoffed, laughing bitterly and turned away.  They acted as recklessly as he had hoped they would.

       He could hear them rushing behind him and swung his foot up and around, a satisfying crack as his heel connected with one man’s jawbone.  An enraged big cat snarl came from his friend and that friend had collided into his midsection, taking him from his feet to the ground.  Reylon growled in anger as that one bit into his shoulder, drawing blood.

       The other had recovered from the kick to the face and grabbed his arm and tore off Reylon’s loincloth, leaving him naked.  He hated fighting naked.  They had dropped their spears before charging which confirmed his worst fears that they didn’t just want their pound of flesh, but also utter humiliation.  He planted his elbow into the face of the one that held him and it stunned him enough to pull away as he threw dirt in the face of the other.  He used that momentum to roll away, diving for a spear and swinging it blindly behind him, knowing they would be on him again in an instant if he didn’t take the chance.

       He sliced completely through the right leg of the one that had torn his loincloth away, the stump gushing blood instantly as he crumpled to the ground, screeching.  The other had drawn a dagger and lunged ahead, but Reylon sidestepped it and swung the spear around, taking off the guy’s arm at the elbow.  Reylon’s nostrils flared at the cloying scent of their blood and finished the guy off by driving the spear into his neck.  The other was whimpering, dragging himself and leaving a blood trail.  Reylon spun the spear and took his head.

       Reylon hated every bit of this.  Not that he had killed them—they intended to leave him broken and they deserved what they got.  Standing here naked, covered in their blood, no place to hide the bodies and nowhere to clean himself off.  He had been careless and there would be no way to stage that they had inflicted such injuries on each other.  No one would be convinced that one could have a severed spinal cord while beheading someone at the same time or vice versa.  He grabbed up his torn loincloth.  There was still enough of it left to fashion it into a covering so he did that.  He dropped the spear.  He wasn’t taking anything with him to incriminate him later.  He knew that regardless, this might very well cause a tribal war.  Other tribes always seemed to be itching to start conflict with the rebel Pantera Tribe and he was loath to give them ammunition.

       Felis were good at tracking so running straight back to the river he crossed by his tribe’s land was out of the question.  In order to throw off suspicion, he would need to cover his tracks from the south then head northwest of here, towards the ocean itself and swim it until he reached the tributary that led into the river that would take him back home.  He didn’t relish doing so—it would take all night and he would be home late.  Hunters were never late.  He would get no sleep but that was pale beside what punishment he would get for the delay.  Still, they wouldn’t welcome the Oonshya coming for blood either so the choice was clear.

       Reylon set about first covering his scent in the direction he came from.  Messing too much with covering tracks sometimes made it more obvious.  He was also aware if those men had been part of a larger group, time was of the essence in not being seen with their bodies.  The scent of blood was making his mouth hang open a bit, dragging the strength of it more fully into his lungs.  He didn’t want to eat them—he wasn’t mad or feral, but it was an irresistible pull. 

       There was no point in disguising his tracks away from here; he hoped they be more fixated on where he went than where he came from if he were to be pursued at all.

       While the run to this point had been leisurely, he now ran for his life towards the mountains where it would be easier to hide, easier to draw their trail while making it harder to be caught.  He wasn’t particularly bad at climbing either.  He was anxious to get to the ocean but he had to be careful not to get careless.  It was always possible that he would run into one of the Oonshya on the way and even if they didn’t suspect him now, they would have no problem identifying him later.  Avoiding them at all costs was the safer bet.

 

       Reylon’s lungs were burning by the time he reached the shoreline.  He was so tempted to crash into the wet sand.  He had drunk some icy cold water from a source at the foot of the mountain and munched on some root plants he found but for all the energy he expended, he was ravenous with hunger.  Still so much longer to go.

       He stumbled into the tide and fell into the water once it lapped at his waist.  He wanted to wade there, catch his breath, but he rolled onto his back and started to backstroke.  One thing he learned was that even if you were wounded, even if your muscles were tired, backstroke was the best way to relax your muscles and keep buoyant while still moving.  He moved as far out from the shore as he could, remembering that if he could see them, there was a chance they could see him.  Once night fell, it would be harder.  He wouldn’t leave a trail in the already restless waves and his dark coloring would make him look like any other large fish in the water.

       The bite on his shoulder was already scabbed over and he wasn’t bleeding elsewhere so he wasn’t worried about drawing larger marine predators either.  If they were hungry enough to try, he had claws of his own.

       Reylon concentrated so fully on swimming south now, already seeing stars peeking through the dusky sky, that he hadn’t noticed he had been pulled into a riptide and was being drawn far out to sea.  When he switched to a wading stroke he looked back for the shore and started to panic.  No tree line, no mountains, just the flat horizon of water everywhere he looked.  He knew which clusters of stars would lead him back east, but there was no telling which direction the riptide had actually pulled him in and it could have pulled him way further south than the river he was looking for.  He had never swam in an ocean before, never knew just how unpredictable its currents could be.  He was tired and the water was cold, his muscles flagging from hours of running and swimming.  He rolled into a lazy backstroke and said a silent mantra for strength.

       Ten minutes of swimming, still no land…  Fifteen… Twenty… 

       A sudden violent tug pulled his entire body in the opposite direction then up.  He was cast in a giant net, steel cabled so there was no clawing or chewing free, sharing captivity with hundreds of large flopping fish.  Reylon snapped one up and started munching it down, swallowing it in the mouthfuls he tore away.  His eyes darted around wildly and he saw the ship that he hadn’t heard.

       It was made of steel, shiny in the moonlight, a whirring motor starting up now as they kicked into motion.  If it had been on before, he might have heard it coming.  Reylon had never seen anything like it before; there were no machines or anything of its like on his homeland.  Like the other Folk and humans, it always sounded more of a myth or a legend when he would hear mention of it.

       The men on the deck were wearing some sort of rubber overalls and Reylon eyed them with suspicion and awe.  They were humans, large men with round bellies but muscled arms.  The one that was operating the crane arm holding the net he was caught in noticed him and stopped hauling the net in.

       “Hey, boss, we got one of those cat people in the net!” he called out.  He was younger than Reylon, with a freckled and pocked face and ordinary brown hair.  He wasn’t round bellied like the older men on deck, but he was also not as muscled.  He looked as scared and confused as Reylon did.

       The big bald guy on deck squinted his eyes and sauntered over to look closer into the net.

       “Mean looking son of a bitch, that’s for sure,” the bald guy said and spat.  “You speak the common tongue, boy?  What the hell are you doing swimming in the middle of the damn ocean?”

       Reylon did speak the common language— if this guy knew anything about Folk, he’d know they all came from Vieres.  The Felisfolk hadn’t just broke off and started their own language and writing systems.  True, they had migrated to an uninhabited continent and stayed off to themselves, but they didn’t lose their history, however terrible it was.

       “I’ve never swum in the ocean before.  It carried me too far from land,” Reylon slowly explained, thinking it was painfully obvious.

       “You have a name?” the bald guy asked.

       Reylon fought the urge to sigh at the stupid questions.  Of course he had a name.  He had a feeling the actual question was what was his name.

       “Reylon.  I am from Pantera Tribe,” he said, not bothering to get too descriptive.  He doubted this man knew anything about Felisfolk so it seemed useless to elaborate.

       “Sure, kid.  Reylon,” he corrected himself.  “I’m Rogar, this is Shenk—“ he pointed to the heavy guy with the thinning salt and pepper hair.  “—and the kid is Gripp.  Seems you owe us for the stolen fish so sit tight and we’ll see about you paying off your debt.”

       Reylon grabbed the net frantically.

       “Bring me back to my homeland.  I am a Hunter, they will pay you well for my return,” Reylon said hopefully.

       “Sorry, kid, you’re worth your weight in gold in Vieres.  They don’t see many Felisfolk around those parts.”

       Reylon panicked and shook the net ineffectually, snarling in fear and anger.  Seems he had bigger problems than missing the Hunt in the morning.

​

Chapter 2: One in the Hand

       Calyra knew that slipping away on her own probably wasn’t the safest course, even in a sleepy place like this.  She was always aware of how much she stuck out everywhere she went.  Her father’s genetic coloring combined with her mother’s look made her a striking picture, standing out even in Reishefolk populated cities.  The wings certainly didn’t help.  In a small town like this, there simply was no getting around unnoticed.

       She liked the simple fences, just rough split trunks fitted into other split stumps.  The trees here did not have leaves, most of them surviving in this area due to their long thin needle-like fingers that required little water or sunlight to thrive.  She had seen them before, of course, but somehow she was just noticing things more keenly.  Moving about on her own often had that effect on her.  It heightened not only her sense of adventure, but also her senses altogether.  She wanted to be more aware when she didn’t feel watched.  Unless you counted the fact that Arred was shadowing her, but he was skilled enough not to make noise or follow too close.

       In truth, all of Arred’s talk about love had left her feeling troubled.  It wasn’t something she could pinpoint.  It just didn’t make sense to her how the horrible way she treated him could ever cultivate affection.  Maybe he always saw it as her defense against her true feelings, but even so, how could anyone be that charitable or tolerant?  She was glad she didn’t have to keep being unkind, but in a weird way, she wanted to be cruel and believe he was stupid again.  Maybe not for what it was at face value, but because she was now associating it with feeling safer, in simpler times.  She really didn’t want to think about that amazing kiss and how his words danced across her spine when he hinted at what would happen if she kept tempting him.

       Sneaking out of a window to be alone really wasn’t ensuring her safety though.

       Calyra kept checking behind her, not sure where Arred was but not sure she should just blindly trust he would have her back.  Still, her wings made her very self-conscious; they were flags on her back signaling who she was, what she was.  Be careful what you wish for, she thought.  You just might get it.  How badly she had wanted to fit in, to have the wings of her father’s people.  Now that she did, her life certainly wasn’t easier.  She thought of her mother, confined to her chairs, and wished she could give these wings to her.  Her legs might be useless but she would still have some independence with wings to carry her about.

       She didn’t dare follow the dirt roads though; it would be far too easy to be spotted.  It wouldn’t do any good to just completely go off the beaten path either so she moved alongside the path but hugged along the sparse tree line.  A little too closely sometimes since she would smack a wing against a trunk at times.  Her frustration increased as her wings rustled in the high grass and weeds as well.  She was about as stealthy as a lumbering drunk.

       The road went down towards a village common, a small market, the heart of the small town.  She could see mountains off in the distance and the wintery chill in the air was evident.  Calyra had wanted to go straight north, but there had been an avalanche on the main road and Arred decided they should detour.  Not just moving a bit more east; he wanted to go far to the east of Vieres, to pass the Merchant Roads and head into the valley that had once been abandoned by living humans and inhabited by wraiths.  The area had been dotted by ghost towns then and her father had told her about it, how on one of his foolish childhood adventures, he had ended up in the deserted port town, ending up on a ghost ship and very nearly dying.  As terrifying as that sounded, if it hadn’t happen, he wouldn’t have met her mother or helped his friends save the world.  It was a lot to take in.

       Calyra didn’t really have any reason to be so impatient to move north.  Once she thought about it, it might be a good story to bring home to her parents.  As well traveled as they had been, neither of them had traveled back to that area since the wraiths had been pushed out.  Maybe she wouldn’t tell them at all.  It would serve them right for their half-truths.

       There were barbarian tribes dotted across the area and while they would be crossing through a frigid area as they moved northeast, the valley where the port city sat was warm and temperate, the mountains around it seeming to create a bubble of warm air.  The mountains ended several miles before the ocean, however and they could easily move east then north towards the Diviner settlement to the northwest.  It was a huge detour, but Calyra actually welcomed the delay into the snowiest parts of the north.  Her father might be from the north, but she was certainly her mother’s daughter and preferred the warmer climes.

       The people milling around in the lower part of the village proper made her feel a bit homesick.  There were some focused on their tasks, selling wares to feed their family or bargaining for a good price.  Some were carefree and unhurried—young men flirting with the naïve village girls, children chasing each other and nearly knocking over their mothers diving under their skirts to get away.  It was the sort of scene that marked prosperity and that tinge of homesickness mixed with pride for the town her own father had grown from a derelict manor house into a place where people could thrive.

       Calyra wondered if she would have such a legacy to her name.  She almost died once and she doubted even the Felisfolk got so many lives to throw away.  Krose and Dinsch had met one of their kind before and never wanted to share much about it.  As much as those two loved gossip and storytelling, it had to be bad to keep them so tightlipped.    Still, the whole time her father and mother had traveled with those people, none of them had guarantees they would live.  They did lose people, people who had hopes and dreams and people who loved them.  Calyra wanted to see her parents again, but realized why her mother had struggled to see her go.  If she had died, if she does die on this journey, it would be her mother’s worst fears confirmed.  It made her far more resolute to not be so careless.

       Which is a nice sentiment to have when you’re not paying one bit of attention to where you’re going.  She nearly lost her footing tripping over a mound of dirt.  She kicked at it grumpily and was about to keep walking when she noticed the overturned dirt led off like a path into the woods.

       She hadn’t wanted to go into the woods.  Even along the edge of them, she’d had a hell of a time not crashing around like a newborn deer.  Still, the dirt was fresh and her curiosity was firing.  She kept telling herself that she had just promised to be careful.  She should be turning around right this instant and heading back to the inn like a good girl, but her feet were already carrying her further into the woods.  She promised herself that she would at least keep looking around and making sure she wasn’t being followed.

       Her steps quickened as she followed after the strange trail eagerly, feeling much like the kitten after a ball of twine.  It didn’t look like it was made by any animal—too perfect, too deliberate.  It didn’t have purpose like an irrigation track might have and it veered around in strange directions.  It came to the edge of a clearing and just stopped.  Calyra frowned, not ready to give up after anticipating something more.  This was a hilly area and the tree line opposite the clearing was obstructed by the hill.

       Calyra shook out her wings in the opening in the clearing.  She had so carefully maneuvered through the trees to get here that her wings strained with the effort.

       Her breathing had quickened as she made her way over the hill and she stopped from her vantage point atop it, holding her breath anxiously. 

       A man sat there with his back to her.  He was older like Arred, maybe a little older than that even, but still young.  She hadn’t seen his face yet so it was hard to tell—some things you could tell about someone from behind at least.  Age was one if you knew what to look for.  He was covered in dirt, his clothes looking like little more than something fashioned hastily from burlap sacks.  The dirt on his skin had seen trails of sweat across them, which gave the strange appearance of tattoos.  He was leaner than Arred, more like Conor, but of average height from the look of it.  His hair was brown, but not dull like the dirt covering his skin—it was a warm purple red shade, like leaves that had been red when they fell but were close to crumbling apart.

       He stood and she started to lose her resolve and back away.  She balled her fists and stood her ground and he turned.

       The man’s eyes were large as well, round with a slight tilt that made him seem exotic, more like her mother’s people, although that was impossible since her mother was the last of them.  His eyes were brown but strangely ringed shades of it, similar to the rings of the inside of a large old tree. He watched her, no expression on his face, but it wasn’t unkind.  He looked as if he waited.  He looked as if he could wait forever if needed.  How could you so automatically get the feeling that someone was just… patient?

       Calyra swallowed around the lump forming in her throat.  She felt as if she were both frozen to the spot and ready to flee at a moment’s notice.  She flexed and balled her fingers tight over and over to reassure herself of her options.

       She flinched when he simply raised a hand.  The earth shook and she felt the ground leave from underneath her.  She might have flapped her wings if she had anticipated it, but she didn’t so she fell.  The ground seemed to swallow her completely and her world went black.

 

       When Calyra came to, the strange filthy man was sitting beside her with that patient expression on his face again.  His head was tilted now as if he were trying to solve some puzzle.

       She sat up suddenly, the urge to crawl back away from him so strong, but she bit it back.  If he truly meant to cause her harm or kill her, he had ample opportunity to do so already.

       They were in some sort of cavern in the earth and despite there being no obvious source of light, there was an amber glow that illuminated the large area around them.  Calyra’s eyes jumped about wildly, not wanting to lose sight of the man but curious about the strangeness of this place.

       “Where is this place?  Where have you taken me?” Calyra asked, her voice hoarse and dry, high-pitched from fear, unrecognizable to her own ears.

       He stood slowly and offered her a hand.  She looked at it distrustfully, waiting for some sort of trick, but he waited with that easy patience.  She reached up slowly and allowed him to pull her gently to her feet. 

       The young man started to walk away.  Calyra was startled by this.  Was he mute or did he just not know how to talk to people?  He wouldn’t be the first people-shy person she’d ever met.  He didn’t give her that impression exactly but it wasn’t impossible.  She hurried after him when she realized he wasn’t stopping.  The amber light dimmed as he moved away and she was not a fan of the dark. 

       “Can you… can you speak?  Or understand me?” Calyra asked.  Her mother’s people spoke a different tongue so if he was from the southern continent, maybe he did too.  There were other languages on Vieres too, but most people could speak common tongue.  A few tribes here and there that kept themselves isolated might not know common tongue.  It would also explain why he was so detached.  She was running out of ideas, so surely there was a reason for this.  She tried a few other languages but he didn’t react to any of them.  She didn’t just play at being smart; she was quite learned.

       He stopped and turned and she smacked right into him and his hands went to her elbows to steady her.  She took a step back, apologizing and embarrassed, noticing he smelled like fresh earth rather than the sweat and filth she had expected.  She also noticed his skin was cool and damp like soil rather than the gritty, caked texture she expected.  It shocked her and as she looked at his skin, she could see that what she thought was dirt and trails of sweat were the strange texture of his actual skin.  Disbelieving, she reached up and touched his arm then his face, pinching his cheek.  It was skin but he was so much like the earth itself…

       Her embarrassment increased as she realized she was being invasive.  He didn’t seem to mind, didn’t react at all, just watched her.  She wanted to get angry or scared, but his lack of reaction made her unsure and wary.  Did he stop to speak to her, to shut her up, to watch her?  Her eyes begged him to give her something to go on.

       “Those men you are with…” the man started.  His voice was low, soft, rumbling with a strange resonant quality.  Like large bells echoing in a belfry?  She couldn’t quite place the quality but it was a comforting sound.

       She waited for him to finish, but he didn’t, just started walking again.  She stood there for a moment again, only hurrying to catch up once more when the ambient light dimmed around her.  What was with this guy?

“What about the men I was with?   They’re okay, aren’t they?” Calyra asked worriedly.

       He stopped suddenly again, but this time she stopped in time. He turned after a moment and blinked.

       “I didn’t hurt them,” he said and watched her for a minute before walking again.

       For all his patience, hers was spent.  She hurried to catch up and grabbed his arm and tugged, urging him to stop.  He did so.

       “Please, you have to answer my questions.  I… I have so many,” Calyra added weakly.

       He tilted his head again and nodded short after a moment.

       “We’re close to the port city you were headed towards.  They will catch up with us in a few days.  I couldn’t wait.  Need your help now.  They know to keep going.  I don’t have a lot of time, but I am your ally.  Rienna sent me. We’re in an underground tunnel.  I speak 7 languages so I understand you…”

       He looked as if he might say something more but started walking again.

       “You…  didn’t answer all of them,” Calyra reminded, feeling greedy for even asking.

       He stopped and waited but he didn’t turn.

       “Who I am.  No name.  Someone called me Tremble once.  You can call me that if you like.  I will know you are talking to me then.”

       Calyra stayed silent for a while and followed him as he moved ahead again.

       “I’m… going to assume that you know I’m talking to you while we’re down here.  The idea there might be anyone else down here…” Calyra didn’t finish, just hurried ahead and grabbed his arm when she heard a crumbling further down the tunnel they were walking away from.  Again, he didn’t seem to mind.

       “Tremble?” she asked now.

       He said nothing for a few footsteps.  She was getting used to his luxurious pauses.

       “Yes,” he spoke.  He said it like an answer but it was meant as a question.

       “Why do you think I can help you?” Calyra asked curiously.

       Tremble looked sideways at her then back ahead.

       “I need to move an ocean.”

       She was already shocked enough as it was but then she heard another female voice, strangely familiar.

       “Can we hurry this up?  My friends are going to be really worried that I’m gone…  Calyra?  Is that you?” the familiar voice asked hopefully.

       Calyra peeked around Tremble and saw Tia was there, a lute strapped to her back and a thick but tailored suede suit in the same strange purplish brown of her eyes, her fiery red hair barely tamed in a messy braid.  Calyra ran over to her old friend and hugged her fiercely, relieved that she wasn’t alone with the strange man.

       “Why are you here?” Calyra breathed out with visible relief.

       Tia pushed an errant lock of hair back and put a hand on her jutted hip.

       “Tremble needed me to lead him here.  I… haven’t known him for long but he knows Rienna and she asked him to do her a really big favor, but he’d need to make himself known to myself and the one who commands water, which I’m guessing is you.  Turns out he’s been keeping watch over us for her and he wasn’t planning on being known at all, but it couldn’t be helped,” Tia explained.  Calyra looked at Tremble and he caught her gaze and nodded seriously.

       “You said you were with friends?” Calyra asked hopefully.

       “Yeah, I was staying at Karapace Peaks with Hope, Reese, and Eden. Still, we were staying there, trying to figure out which route to take and Tremble shows up and scares the daylights out of me, says he’s only taking me for a half day but I needed to hurry.  Wouldn’t tell me what he needed me for—“ she shot him an unhappy look. “And because of that it took him a while to realize he had forgotten to look for you. He’ll send me back once I get us there, but he needs you a while longer.  For what, I don’t know—he’s really bad about that.”

       Tia approached Tremble after that, standing nearly nose-to-nose with him.  His eyes widen slightly in shock at her intensity.

       “I don’t know what you’re up to—I want to believe you’re legit, but if anything happens to Calyra because of these mysterious plans of yours, you’ll be sorry,” Tia warned, poking his chest.  His head tilted as he watched her and Calyra felt a little sad by the lost look in his eyes.  She knew that look because she had felt it herself when Conor couldn’t speak to her and she refused to like Arred.  Did he always live in the ground and just observe?

       Tremble touched Tia’s face and she blushed at the unexpected gesture.

       “By my word, I mean her no harm.  Her companions are okay too.  They’ll meet up with her once we are done here, I have told them where to go,” Tremble told her in that resonant calming voice.  He dropped his hand and looked back at Calyra who still seemed nervous.  She wondered why Tremble did not just bring them along too.  Tremble’s head tilted again at Calyra.

       “Please don’t be afraid.  I couldn’t bring those two, your brother and your lover?  They would be in grave danger if I did.  That’s all I can say for now.  Please believe that I can protect you,” Tremble assured her.

       “Do you read minds?” Calyra asked defensively.

       “No, but if you watch people long enough, you start to sense what concerns them most.  Tia… please lead us.”

       Tia didn’t say another word, but called her stars and led them on ahead.  They walked in silence for nearly an hour and Calyra noticed the walls had gotten rockier and damper here, a salty smell permeating the air.  Tremble stopped Calyra and Tia turned around, smiling at Calyra.

       “This is my stop.  We’ll catch up later and you can fill me in on the details.  I’m sure this one is going to make one hell of a song,” Tia said, hugging her friend and shooting a look at Tremble.  He nodded and stepped forward, grabbing Tia’s wrist.

       “I’ll be back in a minute.  My light will stay with you,” Tremble told her soothingly and he and Tia were gone instantly.

       Calyra hugged her arms and every sound made her jump.  It truly was only a minute but it was the longest minute of her life until he reappeared, making her jump.

       Tremble’s eyes looked heavy with determination.

       “Are you ready to move an ocean?”