Chapter 12

She cut his throat and then peered into the dark around her as his deathly gurgles filled the streets. It was dangerous work killing one of the Clemency Consortiums, but he recognized her and was going to return her to Kyrstalis for a trial.

The streets were empty because of the late hour, so the fight had luckily gone unnoticed. She immediately began going through his things. After pocketing what little coins he had on him, she pulled his backpack from beside him and wondered at how light it was. She assumed it had to be empty, so she threw it over her back and then ran off into the night.

Two dimensions away she finally felt comfortable enough to stop and rest. She was covered in sweat, and her mind kept returning to the warm baths she got in Paragoy. Four months ago she decided to find it again. She knew Alric wouldn’t be happy to see her. She’d used magic in his Kingdom. With its food and water plentiful though, she figured she could stay in the mountains and never be seen by those from Valhara.

Her hope was to see him once in a while to make sure he was ok. When she had an established place to sleep, she could stay there indefinitely and live off of the plentiful land.

Kyrin sat down beside a dying bush and pulled her new backpack from her back. She opened it to put her things inside, but found it already full. As she pulled heavy items out of the pack, it didn’t lighten in weight, and she laid each item out on the ground beside her.

Once empty, she looked over the items and realized that the backpack had to be enchanted. She smiled. It was a weightless backpack, and now it was hers. His items were useless, so she left them on the ground and filled the backpack with her few belongings.

When she grabbed the silver chain with the green amulet that she had pulled off of a Qualsax Warrior she’d just killed, she ran her fingers over it. He had been an easy kill, already wounded, but the amulet bore the emblem of the Qualsax, and she studied it. Her mind wandered back to Alric, and she wondered if he’d survived the Minotaur attack, and if he was even still alive.

From the sounds of it, Qualsax was also under Minotaur attack, so there was a chance they were wiped out. She hoped her magic had spared Valhara so Alric could be taken to the temple and healed. Figuring the amulet wasn’t going to whisk her away to Paragoy, she put it in the backpack and then started off across the mostly desert dimension.