I collapsed, my vision fading black as my body impacted with the wall behind me. When I reopened my eyes once more, Viktor was standing over me, Sage and Thyme on the other side of the room, talking with one another. I couldn’t make the signs out at this moment, but I could also barely see yet. My vision was extremely blurred. Never before had I seen that far and with that much clarity in to someone else’s past. On top of that, the emotions I’d felt from the two of them were immense.

The second I had woken up from that vision, it was like a wave of grief and sadness crashed over my mind and imparted everything they’d felt in that moment on to me. It was just like what had happened with the memorials of Lilith’s mother and Julian’s parents.

“Hey, Avien, are you feeling okay?” Viktor asked, fumbling with his hands. Either he didn’t know what to do or was too uncomfortable to touch me for some reason.

I sat myself up against the wall and looked up at him, my vision beginning to clear up a bit. “Yeah… I just…” I gave an awkward look past him at the two children across the room before lowering my voice a bit. “I saw their parent’s deaths or at least I saw what they saw.”

Viktor nodded thoughtfully. “So like what happened with Lilith and Julian then?”

“Yeah, but it was a whole lot more in depth this time. I actually connected with their minds. Jester and Sylak were both there as well. And we each had these weird bodies of light or something… It was totally bizarre.”

Viktor flopped down, kicking up a bit of dust and loose dirt. “I see… Your abilities seem to be developing unintentionally…”

I shook my head, looking down at the ground. “I don’t want them to. All I ever see is tragedy and loss. It’s awful…”

I felt Viktor’s hand on my shoulder and I looked up at him. “I know you don’t, but unfortunately, I don’t think you have a choice in the matter. The best you can do is learn to control your abilities better so that they can help you in the future rather than hurt you as they seem to be now.”

He was right, but I couldn’t do that right now. I wasn’t in the position to be training something that wasn’t immediately essential to survival. I’d only had time to train with life energy because of Damien’s strange but generally predictable activity patterns.

Now that I had fully recovered from my earlier blackout, I finally made my way to my feet and over to the duo across the room, Viktor following closely behind. I sat down in front of them, causing them to stop their signing and turn their attention to me.

I raised my hand and waved hello. Always a good way to start things. After all, we hadn’t exactly introduced ourselves to each other. “Hello, my name is Avien Ventilius. It is nice to meet the two of you,” I signed to them.

Sage pointed to herself. “It’s nice to meet you too. My name is Sage Peyster and this is my brother Thyme.”

I nodded, laughing nervously. “Uh… Yeah. I sort of already know your names,” I signed.

They both corrected their posture, sitting up a little more on guard than before.

“How do you know?” Thyme signed back.

I turned to Sage. “Could you translate what I’m about to explain? I can interpret and sign, but I can’t do it very well or very fast and I have a feeling there are going to be more questions coming.”

Sage nodded and gave me a little smile.

“The short version is that, when I shook your hand, I accidentally accessed the minds of one or both of you and ended up seeing in to your memories,” I began to explain.

“How are you able to access our memories?” Thyme asked, having pulled back a little from us, understandably a bit apprehensive.

I shook my head. “While, I’m not entirely sure how I did it, I’m assuming it is connected to my observer’s eye.” I pointed to my left eye. “It grants me the ability to see a lot more than I should and that can mean that I see people’s memories or the past. My mind is structured a little differently than anyone else’s and I think that may allow me to access other people’s minds.”

Thyme just sat there for a little bit, thinking. Before he could ask anything, Sage brought up her own question. “You said it was an accident, but why didn’t you stop it from happening.”

I just sighed. “I really wish I could have stopped it from happening, but I’m still very new to using and even understanding my eye, so it wasn’t really something I could stop from happening.”

Thyme finally had a question. “What did you see? Was it just random memories or even fragments or was it something specific,” he signed.

I swallowed hard, shaking my head. “No, it wasn’t just random things. It was a specific memory that I was in…”

They both leaned forward. “What was it?” Sage asked.

I really didn’t want to say it, but I knew that I had to tell them the truth. “It was when you were younger. When something happened to your village and your parents…” I stopped myself. I could tell by looking in to their eyes that they knew exactly what I was talking about and I doubted they wanted me to go any further with my explanation.

We all just sat there in silence for a bit. While Viktor didn’t know what it was like as much as the three of us, he clearly understood it was best to keep from talking. Though, we were going to need to break the silence at some point as there were a few important things that needed to be discussed.

“Viktor, do you know what time it is?” I asked, finally breaking the silence.

He blinked a few times before shrugging. “It hasn’t been all that long since we got here and you were only passed out for a few minutes, so it’s probably nearing the middle of the night at this point.”

I nodded. “That’s good. Damien shouldn’t be active now,” I said, standing up and beginning to pace around the room.

Viktor looked up at me. “What are you thinking, Avien?”

I stopped my pacing for a moment, giving him a serious look and gesturing to Sage and Thyme. “They can’t stay here and they certainly can’t come with us on this mission. They need a decent meal, some solid rest, and a change of clothes, for starters.”

The two were currently dressed in what barely passed for clothing. Their eyes were sunken and while they weren’t skin and bones, they were getting fairly close to it. Even without the suppressing chains, their auras were very week and it was clear they had gone a good while without eating or sleeping.

Viktor turned back to me. “Okay, that’s all well and good to say, but how are we going to get out of here? It would be nice to just take out Damien and get them out of here, but taking them with us isn’t an option. Damien would just use them as his puppets like he did with us at the library and if they stay here, they’ll be found by those two crazy darkness apprentices.”

I gave him a confused look. “Why would they be able to find them down here? I thought this place was designed to be inaccessible. Plus, how would they even find them down here?”

“This place was designed to be inaccessible by Damien. All of the stone that I shifted around down here is still residually being altered by earth essence, they could dismantle it fairly quick section by section. Or, if they decided that their lives were no longer important to them, they could just crush them by restoring the rock to its original properties. As to how they could find them, the crazy lady had an observer’s eye and you should very well know how easy it is to find people with it.”

He was correct. If they could do all of that, they would honestly be safer with us above ground. Though, that posed the risk of Damien. “Damien isn’t going to be active right now though. He’s never active at night, especially midnight.”

“While that may be true, I’m not really sure if either of us can actually take down those two apprentices on our own and those two aren’t really in a good condition to fight either,” Viktor added, motioning to the siblings sitting beside us.

“I have an idea,” I heard from inside my head. It was Jester and I was a little annoyed he was popping up right now.

“I don’t have time for jokes right now,” I replied.

“But this isn’t a joke. I might actually have an idea on how you can get them out safely,” he said, laughing a bit.

I rolled my eyes and decided that I might as well humor him. “Fine, what is it?”

“Well, that blood wall attacks everyone that tries to cross it, but what if you can get over it faster than it can attack you? They’re both wind apprentices and while they may not be in the best condition, they should be able to get over it quick enough to outpace the blood. If you want, I’ll even volunteer to test it out when we get up there.”

I thought for a moment. He actually had a pretty good point. Plus, Thyme was a lightning apprentice and, even in his current state, he’d still be extremely fast.

“Viktor, we have a plan that we think might be able to work,” I said, hope creeping in to my voice.

“We? What is it?” he asked.

“So, Jester had the idea that Sage and Thyme could potentially just speed through the barrier and then they’d be fine and could get out of here, so we could go take out Damien. Then we could continue on with our mission.”

Viktor sat there thinking for a few minutes. “I really don’t want to risk their lives testing an idea that might fail miserably,” he finally stated.

I shook my head. “Jester already said that he would test the theory himself.”

Viktor seemed shocked by that. To be fair, I was pretty shocked when he offered as well, but it was helpful.

“Alright, well, if they’re on board, then…”

“We are,” Sage said from the other side of the room. “Though I’m not sure who Jester is…”

I just waved my hand dismissively. “That is a story that is far too long to explain right now. Although, we do have one last thing to decide before we head out.”

They all turned to me, not understanding. “Where are the two of you going to go?”

Viktor smiled. “Camp VII, obviously!”

I frowned. While I had no real problem with sending them there, I did have a problem with making that their only option. Viktor seemed to notice my disapproving expression. “What?”

“We need to let them choose,” I stated.

Viktor gave me a confused look. “What other option is there?”

I took a deep breath. “Camp III.”

“You can’t be serious! After everything that happened with Jaynice?! You really want to send them there?”

I nodded. “Jaynice isn’t a bad person and they can certainly learn at Camp I. She’s not the one who will be teaching them anyway. She’s just the one who runs the camp. Even if I’d been given the choice, I would have chosen to go to Camp VII, but they need that choice. Every apprentice can go to one of two places. They are no exception.”

Viktor sighed, sitting down. “Alright. You should be the one to present the options. I’ll definitely have a much stronger bias.”

I turned to the two kids, kneeling down to be a bit more at their level as I talked to them. “Alright, so did you hear what we just said?”

They both nodded. “So, the choice is between Camp III and Camp VII. Both camps are going to provide the two of you with a comprehensive training space for you to better learn your magic. The biggest differences are going to be the population and the size. Camp VII is a lot bigger both in the amount of people there and the actual size of the camp and its facilities. Camp III is a bit smaller physically, but it also has a much smaller population. That’s because Camp III only has wind apprentices like you and I, while Camp VII is home to apprentices of every different kind. I wish I could tell you more about them, but unfortunately, I’m pretty new around, so I don’t have much info.”

They turned to each other and began rapidly signing. I would have used my wind vision to see what they were saying, but I felt it was better for them to discuss privately. Eventually, after a minute or two, they stopped and turned back to us, smiling. “We’ve decided that we would like to go to Camp VII. After all, if we don’t like it there, we can always leave and head to Camp III, right?”

I smiled. “Absolutely. Now, let’s go get ourselves out of here.”

They stood up. I turned to Viktor and he did the same, stretching and heading out through the door. We followed behind. I stayed in the back with Sage and Thyme in between the two of us. We made our way through the maze of tunnels until we reached the surface and stepped out. Viktor collapsed the tunnels below us, causing a mild tremor below us. I was a bit nervous we’d alert the other within range, but that wasn’t something we could worry about right now.

We quickly made our way over to the swirling river of blood behind the cave. It seemed to have grown more turbulent and ferocious. I was growing a bit nervous about this. While Jester would be the one risking his skin here, it was actually mine that he was risking. Anything that happened to him would end up hurting me.

“If you don’t want to do this, we can certainly try and find another way, my green kitten.”

I scowled at the name. “No… We’ll do it.”

I flicked a finger over my eye and watched as my body changed, my vision sliding backwards until I fell in to my chair facing a window of vision.

Jester didn’t waste any time and immediately formed a seal on his hand, leaping in to the air, his vision taking on a pink tint as he flew forwards at top speed above the blood river. He stayed looking downwards the whole time. As he passed over the river, the blood immediately formed underneath him and shot upwards, but it was much slower than Jester’s movement. He cleared the river and landed on the other side, looking at the faces of the other on the other side.

It was short-lived though. The blood struck down across Jester’s arm, causing him to jump back. A rain of blood tendrils were coming from all sides and Jester was doing his best, but there were just too many. He flew back over to the group and landed. The river calmed and returned to its usual aggressive flow.

“Well, the good news is, you can get across without getting skewered and you can definitely outpace those spikes. The bad news is, you can’t stop. That’s all I’ve got. Handing it back over to you, green kitten,” he said as he flicked his finger over his eye. I stepped forward and was quickly pulled in to the window, my vision eventually returning to my body as the last bits of pink disappeared.

Viktor turned to the kids and then to me. “Well, what are we going to do?”

I thought for a moment, turning to Sage and Thyme. “How long do you think the two of you could keep out of range of those blood spikes?” I asked.

They exchanged some rapid signs once more before turning back and holding up one finger and the sign for hours.

I nodded and returned to Viktor. “Well, do you think we could find and take down Damien in just an hour?”

Viktor shrugged. “I have no idea, but we’re sure going to try.”