Worlds' Strongest

by Simon Archer

  Without her, I was as good as alone.

  22

  “You’re not even going to think about it?” Solem frowned, “Elle, if you want to go with--”

  “I can’t,” Elle shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. Especially now.”

  “Bullshit!” He tried and failed to stand. “We--”

  “Dad, we killed a soldier!” She shouted. “If I go with him, you could be punished for that! Kaia, Maylon, who knows what they would do?”

  “She’s right,” Kaia shook her head. “He’s not worth risking all of our lives!”

  “I didn’t say that,” Elle glared at her sister. “Ren is--”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I sighed, crossing away from the shouting family. “Elle doesn’t want to put you in danger, neither do I. As it stands, your family turned me in, and one of the soldiers released you when the fire started to return to your family. I escaped and killed three of them on my own. You’re safe, and I have a head start.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment as acceptance of our situation sunk into everyone’s minds. Once it did, Solem was the first to speak, a determined resolve in his voice.

  “You’re not leaving empty-handed.”

  Maylon returned as Solem finally managed to get up on his feet. Kaia looked as though she was about to explode with rage, but if I was honest, it was getting easier to dismiss her.

  “Elle,” her father began, “go get that bag you brought with you. It’s still packed, right?”

  Elle nodded before going to the corner of the room to grab the bag they’d lent me. She took her belt, containing her dagger and its sheath, and strapped it to the bag before bringing it over to me.

  “You’ve got some clothes, a bit of food, and a pretty good blade,” she said. “That’ll get you far. You should head--”

  “Stop,” I shook my head. “I’ll find somewhere on my own. If you don’t know where I’m going, they won’t have any reason to question you.”

  Solem paused before giving me a solemn nod. He limped over to me, and for a second, I almost thought he was going to give me a hug. I wasn’t so sure I deserved it. He seemed to hold me in high regard considering all I’d done was fall out of the sky, take his daughter away, and nearly get him killed. But he did hold out his arm and grab mine tightly before patting me on the shoulder. He looked me in the eye and nodded at me. I got the feeling that meant goodbye.

  Kaia came over, and at first, I thought she was going to yell at me, but her expression seemed to have softened. I suppose once she realized I was about to leave her family alone, that set her at ease.

  I slipped my hand into the bag and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. “Kaia, will you take this?”

  Her expression grew wary again. “What is it?”

  “If the soldiers come to question you guys, tell them I left you this.”

  I’d written the note that morning before Elle had woken up. On the off chance that our plan worked to completion, and I left safely, I was worried they would still be questioned regarding my whereabouts. This made for a perfect answer on their part. The letter would tell Elle that I was going to travel to the Silk Swamp in the west and hone my abilities until I could reach a higher class. Once I achieved that, I would continue west to find a mentor.

  That’s what it said, at least.

  “It’ll get the soldiers to leave you alone,” I nodded. Kaia’s main concern was her family, so she was the only one I could trust not to cover for me. Solem and Elle would tell the soldiers whatever they believed would help me. Kaia would do whatever she needed to keep her family safe.

  For the first time in the past few days, Kaia looked at me the same way she had the day we met. “You… You really did all this to protect us?”

  “I owe your family everything,” I said with a small smile. “This is the least I can do.”

  Without another word, she wrapped me in a hug.

  I pulled away when I felt Elle’s hand on my shoulder. “You need to get going.”

  “Elle,” I turned to her. There were so many things I felt like I should say, but I didn’t know where to begin with any of them. “I… Thank you.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears, but she simply nodded. “Thank you.”

  I stepped into her, closing the gap between us as I pulled her into a kiss. One of her tears rolled down my cheek. My own eyes began to sting as it began to hit me that in a few moments, I’d be gone.

  “I’ll come to see you again,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against hers. “Once I figure out how to get home, when you’re safe, I’ll find you again.”

  Elle smiled as tears rushed down her cheeks. “Fare far and well, Ren.”

  I leaned up to kiss her forehead. “Goodbye, Elle.”

  “Ren?” August’s voice said behind me. “It’s time to go.”

  I pulled away from Elle and nodded. With one last goodbye to the family and August, I shut the door behind me, accompanied by Aviri, who seemed anxious to leave the house. I couldn’t explain why, but I got the feeling that she wasn’t very fond of being indoors.

  I walked down the road until I could see down to the square. The fire was out. It looked as though people were still recovering, trying to salvage belongings caught in the blaze. A knot formed in my stomach as I watched them.

  “You can’t feel guilty,” Aviri said beside me. “It’s only going to make things harder. You have a goal to reach, a job to do, and someone gets in your way? That’s their fault. Sacrifices need to be made.”

  I wasn’t so sure I completely understood that quite yet, but I knew I needed to make peace with myself somehow. I could hope that there’d be no need in the future to harm someone, but it would be naïve to assume that was even possible.

  Past the smoke, I was just able to see the road from the square that led to the jail. I watched as four soldiers ran out into the open area, shouting something at the other soldiers. Some of them pulled out their swords and ran back down the road, while others began to look around.

  “Shit,” I whispered. “Shit, shit, I have to get out of here!”

  “Come on!” I looked behind me to see Aviri sitting on her horse. With one last look at the smoldering, soldier-infested square behind me, I hopped onto the back of the animal, which I liked to think I was getting better at. “Hold on tight.”

  I did as she said, wrapping my arms around her waist. She kicked the horse with her heels, and in a second, we were off.

  It was definitely different riding a horse at full speed as a passenger rather than a navigator. I had to lean into her to keep from losing my balance and almost felt like a pervert holding onto her so tight. It didn’t seem to phase her, though. She had the horse flying through the woods as though it wasn’t carrying any extra weight.

  I realized after a few minutes that she could have simply conjured a second horse, or whatever it was she did to create these beasts, but I was actually thankful she didn’t. I wasn’t sure I could control the horse going this fast on my own. Maybe I could learn, but it would take quite a few practice sessions. That was assuming I was ever going to ride one again.

  We quickly got through Eon’s trees to the open land that surrounded it. As soon as we were on open land, I started to get nervous. If we were being followed, we’d be spotted in an instant with nowhere to hide. Still, Aviri brought the horse to a stop.

  As soon as she slowed down, despite the alarm bells in my head worried about being spotted, I let go of her. The last thing I wanted was to overstay my welcome on another person, so I jumped off the horse.

  She followed suit but kept one hand on the animal, to keep it from disappearing, I assumed.

  “So, where do you plan to go from here?” she asked.

  “Well,” I sighed, looking back at the tree line nervously, “do you have any ideas?”

  She laughed. “Don’t worry. None of them had horses. If they knew which way to go, it would still take them a while to get here.”

  That was comf
orting to hear. She seemed pretty sure, and she’d saved my life on more than one occasion, so I assumed she was trustworthy.

  “I’m going north,” she nodded, “if you want to tag along.”

  I looked at her with a slightly shocked expression. “I… You know I have a horde of soldiers after me, right?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “I’m not scared of those soldiers. The choice is yours. I’m perfectly happy traveling on my own if you—”

  “No!” I shook my head quickly. “No, I don’t actually know where I’m going. If you really don’t mind, I’d be grateful to travel with you.”

  “Very well.” Aviri gave me a smile and nodded. “I’m heading north. There’s a mountain town up there that owes me a hefty fee.”

  “A… fee? For what?”

  “I don’t hunt for fun,” she laughed. “Well, I do, but not kiregare.”

  “Oh.” The creature she’d been hunting in Fetter. “You were hunting it for someone?”

  “Yeah. Hold on.” She turned to the side, keeping one hand on the horse behind her. Every other time I’d seen her mount, it seemed to appear while I wasn’t looking. This was the first time I saw one appear.

  In the air next to us, a horse identical to the one she already had faded into existence. It was like a tan-and-black cloud just appeared and took the shape of the horse before it solidified and began moving its head.

  “Once you touch him, if you let go, it disappears,” she warned.

  “Why does that happen?” I asked, walking over to the horse and putting my hand on its back.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” she tilted her head. “Before you touched him, he was a manifestation of elan. Once you connect with him, he can anchor to your energy. That’s what keeps him here. His connection to the world is nonexistent. He only has you, so once you let go, he’ll disappear.”

  I looked over the horse as she explained, feeling an immense fascination.

  “If you have any more questions,” she interrupted my thoughts, “I suggest we begin riding before you ask them.”

  I nodded and mounted the horse while she did the same. This time I could get him to move on my own.

  “So,” I began as the horse started trotting, “is there a chance the connection could break while I’m riding him? And he could disappear?”

  “No.” Aviri shook her head as she rode. We were at a more casual pace, about as fast as a human jog, so it was much easier to talk than when I’d been pressed against her back at who knows how many miles an hour. “A physical connection is not so weak. Elan is the most powerful force in the universe, and it runs through everything. For that reason, a physical connection, no matter how small, is vital to most kinds of channeling.”

  That was a lot of words I hadn’t heard before.

  “I’m sorry, Aviri, I don’t understand,” I tried to explain. “I’ve spoken to a few different people since I got to Solivann, and none of them have used those words. Elle didn’t even know what you meant when you said elan?” I looked at her with a confused expression. She glanced at me from the side of her eye before smiling.

  “Solivann makes the very fatal mistake of thinking it knows everything,” Aviri said simply. “There’s a lot of knowledge kept out of its borders.”

  “Whoa, wait.” I frowned. “Every time anyone spoke about the land or the country or cities, they’d made it seem as though Solivann was the entire world, and I’d begun to imagine it as its own small planet with one continuous continent. Now, you’re saying there’s more?”

  “Yes,” she laughed, “there are borders to Solivann. Most of its citizens think it really is the entire world. They don’t know any better. Why would they? They’ll never leave their little village.”

  “So… what else is there?”

  “Oh,” she looked over at me with what I’d almost call a gleam in her eye. “There’s a lot. The town we’re going to is on the edge of Solivann. I can’t remember if it’s over the border or not, it’s a mountain town called Cherissey. Past Cherissey is a lake that opens out to the ocean. It’s surrounded by Gold, Layland, Sachre, and that’s just to the north.”

  I felt a strange sense of hope. Knowing the world hadn’t been as small as it had seemed, maybe that meant I’d be able to find another way home.

  “But you’re not from Solivann?” Aviri asked. “And still, you didn’t know there was more to the world. How is that?”

  She really didn’t know. It was almost funny. Everyone in Solivann seemed to be familiar with the concept of a stranger from nowhere. I suppose that had to do with Draco. Still, the fact that she didn’t assume that meant she probably wasn’t originally from Solivann either.

  As we rode, I explained to her exactly how I got there, what I thought was the cause, and how I knew that Draco was lying to the entire country about where he came from. She seemed surprised at the new information, but she was hardly shocked.

  Then it was my turn to question her.

  “Aviri, what’s your class? We confused August when we told him what we saw you do in the woods, the horses and using light without a window--”

  “Light?” She raised an eyebrow. “They call it light? No wonder they’re so behind here.”

  I blinked, waiting for a more specific explanation that she didn’t offer. “So what do you call it? Is it elan too?”

  “No. That substance that I created an arrow from is called dua. It’s a physical manifestation of elan. That’s why it can be used as a weapon. It’s powerful. The more powerful you are, the more damage you can do with dua.”

  “Dew-ah?” I repeated the word. Aviri pronounced certain words with an accent I sometimes struggled to understand, like some thick-middle-European dialect. Most of her words just had a casual lilt to them, but words like her own name, and now this just took a little more thought to decipher.

  “Yes. It’s short for dunamis.”

  “Okay… so, if that’s the case, why can’t anyone in Solivann use it without a window?”

  “The diplomatic answer is that no one properly taught these people, because their ancestors didn’t know. I think that’s an excuse. It’s a lack of discipline, nothing more. If they wanted to refine their abilities, they would. They don’t. They believe what they’re told and never work any harder.”

  I nodded slowly. I had no real stake in this symbolic argument she seemed to be having with the nation of Solivann, but it was still a bit odd to hear when the only people I knew fell into the category she was insulting.

  “So… my question?” I queried.

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “Dragon.”

  That wasn’t quite an answer I expected.

  “Um,” I blinked, “I meant, what class are you in?”

  “Dragon,” she repeated. After a moment, she looked over at my confused face before laughing. “Ah. Right. They have fancy names here. I believe it’s called Silver.”

  That was somehow even more confusing. “Wait, that doesn’t make sense. August said you can do things that even Platinum Class people can’t do, so how are you only in Silver?”

  Aviri scoffed. “If they can’t do what I can do, it’s because they were never taught, not because they’re too low a class.”

  Well, that at least cleared some questions I had up, sort of. Mostly I just had new ones.

  “Now I have a question for you,” she said. “Do you have any kind of a plan from here?”

  I sighed as we rode, a headache beginning to come on as I tried to think about an answer. “I need to find a way to get home. Draco is the only person who might know how to do that.”

  “So you want to find him?”

  “Yes, but Elle and August seemed to think it would be suicide to find him unless I could protect myself against his soldiers.”

  Then again, Aviri had killed two soldiers well above her class simply because she knew something they didn’t. On my own, I’d been safe from blades, even shattering some with my bare hands. If that were the case, perhaps I didn’t need
to train as long as they’d thought.

  “Aviri?” I asked. “Could you teach me how to work with dua?”

  “No.” She shook her head. Immediately my heart sank. “But if you do me a favor, I can find you someone who can.”

  “Really?” I blurted out. “Absolutely! Anything! What is it? What do you need?”

  “Well…”

  Epilogue

  “That’s a long story,” I shrugged. “It’s too late to get into that.”

  The faces of the children around the fire fell as though I’d just told them I killed the Easter Bunny. It was impossible not to laugh as they began whining. As soon as I stood from the fire, they all bombarded me with questions, running over to swarm my legs and keep me from leaving. It wasn’t until that moment I realized the number of kids had about doubled since I started telling my story.

  “Where is Elle now?”

  “What did Aviri want you to do?”

  “Did you find Draco?”

  “I didn’t get to hear about the dragon!”

  I smiled at the kids as they shouted question after question and demanded more stories.

  “Can we see your marks?” one of the smaller kids asked. “The tattoos?”

  “It would take me half an hour to get the armor off,” I chuckled, “so no.”

  “But why didn’t the daggers ever cut you?” An older one frowned. “I want to do that too!”

  “Do what?” I smiled. “Be impervious to blades? Well, it can be a useful skill when you do what I do.” I was strategic about not actually answering his question.

  “Where’s Aviri right now?” A little girl was practically jumping up and down to get her question heard.

  “I would tell you if I knew,” I shrugged. “Aviri never stays in one place very long.”

  “So, how do you see her?” She pouted.

  I nodded. “She finds me when she wants to.”

  “What about Elle?” an older boy asked.

  “Yeah!” A girl that looked like his sister cried. “How could you just leave her like that?”