Chapter 94

“Where’s Vel?” I asked.

We’d all gathered for dinner, but Ashlara’s daughter was missing.

The others looked around the table, then at each other.

“I’ll find her,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

The ferals had only been around a few days, but I’d already learned to recognize their beacons in my Faith-scape. They weren’t bright stars like the others but they were brighter than most things.

All of them burned red.

But each one burned differently.

Vel’s beacon was red shot through with thin threads of purple. Thae’s glowed deep crimson, flashing white like distant lightning. Tansy smoldered red and orange, like coals stirred in a forge. Moss pulsed red with creeping tendrils of green. Clo sparked red and yellow, restless as summer fireflies. And Nim’s carried quiet silver threads running through the red like veins of ore.

Just like their personalities - similar, but wildly different.

I found Vel’s beacon and stepped to it.

And stopped dead.

Vel was running through the field outside the keep, laughing. But not alone.

A pack of wargs ran with her.

For a moment I couldn’t decide what unsettled me more - that she was playing with the massive wolf-things, that a pack of them were just outside the gate, or that she was laughing.

I had never heard her laugh before. None of the ferals laughed. They growled, shouted, bit, sure. But laughter?

Yet there she was, chasing the ugly beasts through the grass. Nine of them circled her, three hundred pounds of muscle and teeth apiece. She would dart forward, tag one, then skid to a halt and spin as they chased her back the other way.

And she laughed.

The sound was bright and pure, so utterly innocent that for a moment she looked like an ordinary girl playing.

She didn’t have a single scratch on her.

I stood there watching, dumbstruck, for several minutes before she noticed me.

Vel froze. The wargs did too.

Hackles rose along their spines, coarse fur bristling as their yellow eyes fixed on me. Low growls rolled through the pack.

Vel lowered her head and walked toward me slowly, shoulders hunched like a child expecting a scolding.

The wargs gathered behind her, pacing nervously. Watching. Waiting.

She stopped a few feet away, eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug. “It’s time for dinner,” I said gently. “Tell your friends to head home. You can play later.”

She looked up at me, confusion written all over her face. Like she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t in trouble.

“Go on,” I said with a small smile. “Send them home. You’re not in trouble.”

She studied me for a long moment before slipping free of my arms. She walked halfway back toward the pack and lifted her head. She let out a long, mournful howl that echoed across the field.

The wargs answered quietly, then turned and melted back into the trees one by one.

I watched until the last shadow vanished into the forest. “Alright,” I said, resting a hand on Vel’s shoulder as we turned toward the keep. “Let’s wash up for dinner.”

* * *

“She fuckin’ what?” Mirri shouted.

I’d waited until after dinner - until the plates were cleared and the kids had scattered throughout the keep to play - before telling her, Ashlara, and Serah what I’d seen.

“We can’t have a fuckin’ pack of wargs just outside the walls,” she continued, pacing like a caged animal. “What happens if they catch Lilae or Tib? What happens when Grams comes to visit? What if they head down to the village and start snatching people?”

She spun on me and jabbed a finger toward the door.

“You and Ashie are going out tomorrow and getting rid of them,” she said, her voice sharp.

“Mirri,” I sighed. “I agree with you. One hundred percent. They’re dangerous. They can’t stay here. Or anywhere near here.” I paused, searching for the words. “But if you’d heard her…”

Mirri folded her arms, unimpressed.

“She was laughing,” I said quietly. “Mirri, she was happy. They didn’t hurt her. Hell, they looked almost tame.”

“Tame fuckin’ wargs?” she snapped. “That’s not a thing, cunt-for-brains.”

“If we kill them, what does that teach her?” I asked. “That you should kill anything different than you?”

Mirri opened her mouth to argue, but I pressed on.

“How do you think she’ll feel if we kill her friends?” I said. “I don’t understand what’s going on either, but they listened to her. She told them to leave and they did. I’m pretty sure they came because of her in the first place.”

I crouched down so we were eye level.

“You’re right,” I said gently. “We can’t trust them. But we can’t just slaughter them either. She’d be devastated. And that’s not the lesson we want to teach these kids.”

I put my hands on her shoulders.

“Ashie and I will figure something out,” I promised. “But we have to think about what we’re teaching them while we do it.”

Mirri growled low in her throat. “Grrrrh… fine!” she snapped. “But if anyone gets hurt, I’ll never forgive you. I mean it.”

Her eyes flicked toward the door where the children had run outside. “I can’t lose one of the kids,” she said, quieter now. “Or anyone from Reedwatch. Or Pinefall. Or Twinfurrow. Or anywhere.”

She jabbed a finger toward me again. “So deal with it. And make sure everyone stays safe.”

Then she pulled away from my hands and stormed out of the common room.

I sighed and pushed myself back to my feet.

“Well,” I said, glancing between Ashlara and Serah. “Either of you have a suggestion for dealing with a pack of wargs?”

* * *

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ashlara asked.

“No,” I said.

Ashlara didn’t question my decisions often. When she did, it was usually because she’d already thought through the risks and found them too great. She was smart, cautious, and used to surviving in dangerous situations. She understood people’s limits.

Which meant this was probably a bad plan.

“I don’t know what else to do,” I admitted. “If you’ve got a better suggestion, I’m listening.”

She shook her head. We both knew the truth of it. Our choices were limited. And all of them were bad.

So we wandered through my demesne together.

I hadn’t had much time to explore the place. The last couple of months had been spent surviving, not sightseeing. Still, the more I saw of it, the more I realized how vast it was. I wasn’t sure if that was because it was naturally large or because I needed it to be. Another question for Yveth, whenever she decided to reappear.

Whatever the reason, the place was wildly varied.

Snowcapped mountains rose in one direction. In another sprawled a swamp that stank like rotting leaves and stagnant water. There were forests locked in eternal autumn, deserts of cracked red sand, rocky hills, thick jungles, and what might have been an ocean - or at least a lake large enough that I couldn’t see the other side.

Eventually we found what we were looking for.

A valley ringed by jagged mountains.

Dark conifer forests blanketed the basin below, thick and shadowed. Distance was hard to judge inside the demesne - the space bent and shifted with thought - but I knew the keep lay far enough away that it couldn’t be seen from here.

I used my Will to narrow the mountain passes and raised stone ridges where the land seemed weak. A river curled through the valley as well, another natural barrier between this place and the rest of my domain.

When we were done, we stepped home.

We’d recently started integrating the ferals into lessons with the other children. It hadn’t been easy. Both groups kept their distance, eyeing each other like rival packs.

But there hadn’t been any real trouble yet. That was something.

I spoke quietly with Mirri, then Ashlara and I took Vel outside the keep.

She wasn’t the small ruddy girl with red eyes and sharp teeth she’d been yesterday. The ferals were still growing quickly. She was a young woman now - maybe thirteen or fourteen - blossoming into adulthood. Old enough to carry herself with confidence. Young enough that her emotions still ran close to the surface.

“Your friends are dangerous,” I told her gently as we walked. “I know they wouldn’t hurt you. But they might hurt other people.”

She listened, her brow furrowing as she thought.

“You wouldn’t want Grams to get hurt, would you?”

Vel stopped walking for a moment, genuinely considering the question. After a few seconds, she slowly shook her head.

“Right,” I said with a small nod. “So we’re going to take your friends somewhere they can live without hurting anyone. A place where they can hunt and run and do whatever wargs do.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, wary.

“You’ll still be able to visit them whenever you want,” I added. “Does that sound alright?”

She hesitated, then gave a cautious nod.

“Good,” I said. I smiled down at her. “Then it’s time to learn a new trick.”

And I began teaching her how to step.

* * *

It took the better part of the day to relocate the wargs to my demesne.

Ashlara and I had scattered several deer carcasses around the valley to give them something to start with. With any luck they’d figure out how to survive on whatever had already made the place home - moths, bats, the occasional stray dog, or anything else foolish enough to wander into their territory. I planned to drop off more meat every few days until they settled in.

Vel picked up the concept of stepping surprisingly quickly. The act itself came easier than I expected, though she didn’t carry as much of my Faith as the children who had been with us longer. That meant she tired out fast. Every time she faltered, frustration crept in.

Still, we worked through it. Eventually she managed to step freely.

Moving the wargs themselves proved far more difficult.

Vel called them first. They appeared not long after, slipping from the tree line one by one. Still nine of them. No more, no less. That was good news to me.

Then came the real work.

The wargs didn’t trust Ashlara or me - not even a little - so Vel had to handle most of the stepping herself. Ashlara and I stayed close, keeping them from wandering off, watching the pack’s body language, and making sure Vel didn’t push herself too far.

It was exhausting. But by the end of the day we’d done it.

Vel wandered through the valley afterward, the pack trailing behind her as they explored their new territory. Watching her move among them, confident and unafraid, I felt a cautious sense of relief.

I still didn’t like having wargs anywhere near my domain. But at least here she could visit them safely. And hopefully she’d learned something from the whole ordeal.

We stepped back home in time for dinner and washed the warg stink off ourselves. It wasn’t quite as foul as the putrid rot that clung to Mother Hunger, but the musky predator smell was anything but pleasant.

After dinner the four of us - Ashlara, Mirri, Serah, and I - sat in the common room.

We’d just agreed to try giving the ferals a night without supervision. They hadn’t caused any problems for the past couple of nights, and no obvious biological or puberty related issues loomed on the horizon.

“So,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “any ideas how we stop the Iron Nation and Arvellia from plunging into total war?”

Blank looks met me from every direction.

“Right,” I sighed. “Let’s simplify. If you want to keep your peas from touching your potatoes, how do you do it?”

“Put them on another plate,” Mirri said immediately.

“Good. What else?”

“Put them on opposite sides of the plate,” Serah offered.

“Exactly. Increase the distance. In my world some plates even have ridges built into them to keep food separated. Like little walls.”

Mirri frowned. “There’s no way we could build a wall long enough to separate two nations.”

“But we have magic,” I said. “I built this keep in a week, remember? The walls were up in the first day.”

“That’s a few hundred feet,” she replied flatly. “We’d need thousands. The mana required would be astronomical.”

A thought struck me.

“What if we had more mana?” I said slowly. “What if we could create enough?”

Mirri narrowed her eyes. “How?”

“Be right back.”

I stepped into my demesne.

A few minutes later I returned with our resident void-mage in tow.

“Elise,” I said, turning to her. “You told me you can destroy Faith, right?”

She nodded once.

“And destroying Faith generates mana?”

“The destruction of Faith promotes the generation of mana,” she corrected calmly. “It does not create mana in and of itself.”

“Okay, sure,” I said, waving that aside. “But what’s the conversion rate? If you destroy an ounce of Faith, how much mana do you get?”

She tilted her head slightly.

“I do not understand. Faith does not possess weight.”

I sighed.

“Alright. New question. How do you measure mana?”

“Mana can be measured using thaumic capacitors, mana calorimetry, or roughly through spell depletion tests.”

“Ok. And how much mana does a spell require? Say… shaping a one-foot block of stone.”

“That depends on the caster,” she replied. “Skill level, individual mana capacity, circuit efficiency, school aptitude, and the density of the stone all contribute.”

“Okay,” I muttered. “This is already more complicated than I hoped.”

I rubbed my temples.

“Let’s ignore all that. Is there a standard measurement for mana interacting with the world?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thaums.”

“Perfect. The stone around here is shale. What would it take to pull a cubic foot of shale from the ground and shape it into a block?”

She paused, brow furrowing as she calculated. “To shape one cubic foot of shale would require… approximately thirteen thousand, nine hundred and thirty-five thaums.”

“Wow.” I had no idea what kind of math she’d just done in her head, but the precision impressed me. “Okay,” I continued. “If I can shape about six thousand square feet of stone per hour before running out of mana, that’s… a lot of thaums.”

“Eighty-three million, six hundred and ten thousand,” Elise said immediately.

I blinked. “You’re… really good at math.”

She gave a small smile and dipped her head slightly.

“Is that a lot?” I asked. “Could you do that? Or one of the masters on the Wizard Council?”

“That level of energy exceeds my capacity,” she said. “It may be possible for Master Graveholt. I am uncertain.”

Well, that certainly put things into perspective. “Is there any way to measure Faith?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Little is known about Faith from an academic perspective. Gods rarely permit themselves to be studied.”

Fair. “Do you have one of those mana-measuring devices?” I asked. “A capacitor or mana calorie thingy?”

“Thaumic capacitor or mana calorimeter,” she corrected again. “Master Edevane possessed both.”

“Are they portable?”

“The thaumic capacitor is considered portable. It is light enough to carry, though somewhat unwieldy,” she told us.

“Can we borrow one? I want to measure how much mana gets generated when Faith is destroyed.”

She thought about it briefly, then nodded. “As Master Edevane’s possessions now belong to me, I can grant you access. I will retrieve it.”

She stepped away.

“Do you truly believe she can destroy enough Faith to give you the mana required to build a wall?” Serah asked.

Mirri snorted. “Aren’t we forgettin’ that Seth is made of fuckin’ Faith?” she said. “This could kill him.”

I grinned. “You’re right,” I said. “Which is why we’re not using my Faith. Not directly.”

Mirri frowned.

“We’re using yours,” I continued. “And Ashie’s. And Serah’s. And Elise’s.” That only deepened the confusion. “You’re flesh and blood,” I explained. “But somehow I’ve been infusing all of you with my Faith. If Elise destroys that instead, then I’m safe, you’re safe…”

I leaned back in my chair, grinning wider. “…and maybe we get enough mana to build a wall.”

Depending on the conversion rate, this might actually work.