"Aww you're letting us go? How sweet."
"I just don't want to spend any more time in your presence than I have to." Rhyss rolled her eyes. "So, what exactly is this? It looked like a person, but when I hit it with a restraint, well…"
Bel frowned, crouching next to the pile and poking at it. "You said it looked like a person?"
"I did say that, just a second ago, you were standing right there."
"Don't get smart with me."
"Someone should probably get smart here," Heln pointed out. He doubted it was going to be either of them, since they seemed to lose their heads entirely in each other's presence. They both glared at him and he held up his hands and took a step back, nearly tripping himself up on an exposed root.
Bel sifted through the dirt, a frown creasing the spot between her eyebrows. Finally she seemed to be taking this seriously. "I would say this has all of the makings of a clay construct—"
"Dirt construct?" Heln interjected, because of course she'd used the wrong term.
"They're the same thing." Bel didn't even look at him. "The problem is there's no power core."
"So what?" Rhyss crossed her arms.
"So, you've taken Scripted Items so I shouldn't have to spell it out for you." Bel stood up and brushed off her hands. "But it's impossible for a construct to be created or controlled without a power core. It's where the script animating it originates. Heln, you must have sensed it, right?"
"It felt wrong," Heln explained. Rhyss was regarding him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable, like he was only half trained and she expected him to fail at his only trick. All of a sudden, he didn't really feel like sticking around to see if it came back. "Look, it's gone now, we should go, too. It was probably a prank or something."
It hadn't felt like a prank. The light show ended with a brilliant blaze of color above them.
Color that reflected off of eyes all around them.
Rhyss saw it, too, drawing the dagger at her side. It was curved like a talon. "You two. Get behind me. Heln, do they feel the same as… That thing?"
A twig snapped to Heln's left. "I don't know, I have mental shields up, I can't—"
"Take them down, then!"
He let them slip, just a little, and the scratchy, empty wrongness of dead magic assaulted his senses. It tasted like copper and the smell of dead flowers.
The next thing he knew he was being dragged through the forest by Bel while Rhyss ran ahead of them.
"Why aren't we going to the road?" His tongue felt heavy.
"Because we would be leading them straight to a bunch of defenseless civilians!" Rhyss snapped at him.
"I'm a defenseless civilian."
"Shut up, trespasser!"
Heln supposed he couldn't argue with that, the cottony feeling in his head didn't want to, either.
A clay construct loomed in front of them. It was roughly shaped like an Ihalin, if an Ihalin was roughly eight feet tall. It had sunken holes for features, roots clambering over its open mouth. Deep in the sockets it had for eyes was a green glimmer, like fireflies. One hand was larger than the other and it swung at Rhyss, who ducked underneath it and slashed her knife in the air in front of it. A scythe of magic cut the thing in half and it crumpled into another pile of dirt.
"Over here!" She grabbed Bel's sleeve and yanked them both in the direction that she wanted to go. They tumbled into the mouth of a cave that had been hidden by an overhang and she slammed her dagger into the dirt, magic script around the opening flaring to life and forming a barrier much stronger than the one in Heln's pendant.
They all lay there just breathing for a moment.
"Okay." Rhyss sat up and adjusted her long, teal braid. "What in Eleti's name was that?"
Chapter Two
Heln sat down, leaning against the cave wall. The floor was smooth and so cold it felt wet, the walls and ceiling were rough, like someone had carved them out as an afterthought. The only light was Rhyss's barrier, its harsh glow creating strange, deep shadows. He stared at one and swore he saw eyes staring back at him, but he blinked and they were gone.
"Did you hear me?" Rhyss was standing near the entrance, facing them both. Heln couldn't see her expression in the darkness, but he assumed it was murderous.
"I heard you, but it was so completely obvious that I don't know the answer to that I decided it was probably entirely rhetorical." Bel sat up and began fussing with her own hair. "I already told you, there was no power core so it was some sort of fluke. If you're going to interrogate me, do it intelligently. Honestly, I'm an innocent bystander in all of this."
"Really? How do you figure that?" Heln's voice was rough like he'd been trying to scream.
"I'm completely innocent and a bystander, obviously."
He rolled his eyes.
"But Heln might know the answer to your question," Bel finished unrepentantly.
"Thanks, Bel, I appreciate that." Heln wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to stay warm. "I don't know anything, really. The magic felt wrong."
"Right." Rhyss sat down, her hand close enough to her dagger that she could snatch it if the occasion arose. Heln wasn't sure he wanted to know what counted as an occasion for her. "You mentioned that before. What does 'wrong' mean, exactly?"
Heln shrugged. Not all low Ihalins were born with magic, though most of them had secondary traits like his pointed ears and eyes that were a little too blue. Rhyss's tone indicated he should be grateful he could be useful. He would feel more grateful if they weren't trapped in an ice-cold cave in the middle of the night. "It felt dead, and there was no magical signature."
"So you can't tell who cast it."
"That's generally what not having a magical signature means, yes." Heln knew he shouldn't
