Chapter 49
Here Comes the Boom
"Fish, stop."
My heel hovered an inch above the frost-packed earth, and the worms under my skin twitched towards a thicket off the trail.
"What?"
"...Something's off."
I set my foot down slowly. The trail we found had been good, hard-packed dirt cutting through the forest, wide enough for a cart. Cedric's memories told me this was an old supply route connecting the outer Hearthland settlements to the southern waystations.
Zo had her axe out already, the blade resting against her shoulder, her head cocked to the side.
I raised my hand and let my worms fall free. They moved through the soil, spreading a net of white, fleshy threads that rushed through the frozen earth. They’d found a cleared space between the pines, where a campfire had been.
“There is an abandoned campsite not far from here… let’s check it out.”
“Could be interesting… I’ll lead Worm-boy.”
We moved off the trail together. The forest was quiet. Too quiet… The dire wolf packs that should've been in these woods were gone, driven away by the Elder wyrm activity or killed outright.
We found the campsite exactly where my worms had told me it would be.
The fire ring was crude. Stones were pulled from the frozen ground and arranged in a rough circle, the earth inside blackened and cracked. One set of boot prints in the frost, moving around the camp. Whoever this was had been alone.
I crouched next to it and held my hand over the ash. The worms in my palm pressed outward, tasting the black soot. They could taste the fragmented bits of human bones. They'd been arranged in rings around the center of the fire where it had burned hottest.
Some kind of ritual fire…
"It’s just one person, Fish," Zo said. She was studying the boot prints, following them with her eyes around the perimeter. "They’re alone and traveling light from the looks of it.”
I looked at the bone pattern in the ash one more time.
"This isn't a normal Sacred," I said.
Zo came to stand beside me. She looked down at the fire ring, and her upper lip curled back, revealing her teeth.
"No, it's not…"
"What do you think?" I asked.
"Has to be some kind of deserter, outlaw, or maybe even something worse... no sane Sacred would choose to travel alone through this hellhole." She kicked a stone from the fire ring, sending it skittering into the forest.
"The ritual—"
"Yeah, I saw it; they must be using sacrificial offerings to empower their Origin." She looked at me. "You do the same thing when you feed on corpses, Fish. Don't make that face."
I wasn’t making a face… Was I?
A Sacred who fed their Origin through ritual sacrifice, traveling alone through wyrm-infested territory, moving in the same direction as we were. This definitely didn't make our lives any easier.
"We could go another way, and avoid them entirely."
She snorted. "Another way, where? If they're heading for Horn's Rest too, we'll run into them eventually. Rather do it on our terms."
"Well, at least let's find them… before they find us."
"Now you're talking… It's been too damn quiet out here anyway."
We left the campsite and picked up the trail. The boot prints were clear in the frost, a single set. Whoever this was didn't drag their feet or favor a side. They knew where they were going.
And so did we.
◆◆◆
The boot prints led straight to a cave mouth halfway up the cliff, accessible via a natural stone ramp. Wide enough for a single person at a time.
"Nice hideout," Zo said.
The position was good: it was elevated and had a single point of entry, with a clear view of anyone approaching.
I crouched behind a set of trees and sent the worms out again, threading them through the rocky soil toward the base of the cliff. They moved more slowly here; the ground was harder and had more stones. But they spread out across the open strip between the trees and the ramp.
Three of them died at the same time. It felt like I was hit by a stun gun, a sharp burst of pain and pressure, and the crack of a discharge. My worms had touched something buried in the ground. Something that had responded by detonating.
The open strip between the tree line and the cliff wasn't open at all. It was a killing field. Whoever was in that cave had buried charged Regalia fragments in the soil—the same principle as the cracked ring in my gut, but weaponized. Step on one, and the stored energy exploded in a focused blast.
"...It’s a fucking minefield, Zo."
Zo's eyes narrowed. She studied the open ground, the ramp, the dark mouth of the cave above. Her left hand flexed—opening and closing—the nerve-damaged one, working through the stiffness.
"Can you clear them?"
"Not without setting them off one at a time. And that tells whoever's up there exactly where we are and what we're doing."
Zo bit her lower lip. Then she smiled.
I knew that smile. It was the same smile she'd given the horned beast in the valley right before she'd split its skull with her axe.
"...Zo, no."
"I can take it."
"Zo, don't—"
She was already running at full tilt, her Origin surging. The first trap detonated under her foot, and the blast caught her, a column of white-hot energy that punched upward through the frozen earth and hit her in the legs.
The concussion threw her backward. She flew into the air, then slammed into the ground, rolled, and came up on one knee with her axe in her hand and a wicked grin plastered on her face.
The veins across her body were blazing now—her Origin drinking the blast's kinetic force—her cyan hair whipped around her face, loose and wild.
From inside the cave, I could hear a woman laughing.
The sound carried down the cliff face, bright and sharp, and she sounded genuinely amused. It bounced off the stone walls and reached us with perfect clarity.
"Oh, what a shame. That was my absolute favorite trap. Do you have any idea how hard it is to bury those without blowing your own hands off?"
Zo's eyes went black. Magenta bled out of her irises. Her Origin was running hot, the absorbed blast cycling through her.
"I'm going to rip her goddamn throat out."
I grabbed her arm. The skin under my fingers was hot, her veins filled with stored force, and touching her was like gripping a live wire… my worms flinched back from the contact, repelled by the kinetic charge running through her body.
"...Hold on."
"Fish, she just—"
"I know… just wait a damn second."
Zo's jaw clenched. The muscles in her arm were rigid under my grip, ready to launch her up that ramp and into the cave with enough stored force to crack stone.
The blast had given her more than enough fuel.
But if there were more traps buried in the attack, she'd be eating detonations the whole way up.
Her Origin could absorb kinetic force, but it had limits.
Push it too far, and the burnout would drop her, and then we'd have a bigger fucking problem.
"I have a better idea."