A sputter of light flickered rapidly until it exhausted into nothing. It was little more than a tired glow in the Carpathian's hand. If what Emery had said was true; however, Silas had every reason to doubt him; Emery was incapable of controlling magic. 

Or the young man was confronted with fatigue, another possibility that Silas logged in his mind. Whether the Carpathian's display of unbearable inadequacy was genuine or a tactic to lower his guard, he wouldn't allow himself to commit to one conclusion. Not even as he bore witness to perhaps one of the best performances he'd ever seen. 

Silas shifted among the leaves, desperate to ignore the sharp, dull pain eating into his flesh. A plop of thick liquid fell onto the vamp of his black boots, his skin glittering beneath the stained metal. He clenched his hands together, nails digging into his palms to bypass the pain. It failed, and yet still did it bring him comfort. 

"Why would the Carpathian military send an inept soldier on a quest like this?" Silas asked.

Emery curled his fingers and leaned against a tree, his pistol still in Silas's view. It served as a warning and a threat. "I'm the Archiver. Carpathia knows little about the stones. My job is to record our findings."

"Monroe took the ice stone," Silas recalled. It only stood to reason that the Carpathians had a few more of Litis's stones in their collection of war trophies.

"We can't use them. The stones can not be shattered if the Litisan Mage is still alive. It's as if the stones are bound to their souls. We've never been able to figure out how."

"Take one alive."

Emery chuckled as if it was the world's most absurd suggestion. "The Litisan Mages are loyal to a fault. They will not speak when interrogated, and most commit suicide the minute they know the battle is lost."

"What is your hope with an Ezterrian?" Silas wondered. "Do you think she'll be more talkative than a Litisan Mage?"

Silas knew very little about Pyra. Apart from her history as one of the indentured servants of General Marx Duke, a man who pursued the pleasure of tormenting and raping the young Ezterrian girls in his possession. 

Pyra had no reason to help Carpathia. Not that she would be brave enough to knock at Death's door, she would sooner cut her tongue out before she surrendered anything to the nation that traumatized her. 

Then again, that was never his problem. The coin would be his as long as he found Pyra alive.

"Carpathia is running out of options." Emery's hold tensed around the pistol's grip. "I'm sure the King would give her anything she desired in exchange for what she knows."

"Well, if it were me, I would demand all the coin in the King's vault." 

Emery huffed, unamused. "You can only think of money. Can't you, thief?"

Silas smirked. "Is there anything more alluring in this world?"

"And what if you betray everyone to get it?"

"Anything for a bit of coin."

"A lonely man you will be until the end of your days."

"Buried in an enormous pile of money," Silas added. 

He observed the Carpathian closely, how overdressed he was, donning an aristocratic tailored suit. His long, amber hair was tied back perfectly by a silver ribbon. His beloved pistol was elaborately adorned in shining gold. 

Life in the Outer Ring was home to scum. It was a filthy place plagued by dying and the dead. Disease and malnutrition were the pandemics of the slums. Piles of humans remain fermented to a soupy black that poured through the alleyways. It was a horrible place where every day was a struggle to survive, but it was all Silas had known. 

On top of a mountain of corpses, his cold skin burned under the scorching rays of a relenting sun. The air was so foul, saturated in old and decay, he thought he might choke. And his clothing was soaked, but by sweat or by blood, he did not know. He lay there, shaking, gasping short and sharp as salty tears escaped the corners of his stinging eyes. That was his first memory of The Outer Ring. His first memory of anything.

Emery gave a sideways glance. "Do you truly feel nothing for anyone? There is no one that you love?"

He had, when he was a child. It was a kind of closeness he had never felt for another. One that terrified him to feel again. If he closed his eyes, he could smell fresh rain, see the woman’s smile as bright as the glistening sea, and hear her voice as sweet as honey. He remembered her silhouette the day she found him. She was a shadow before the sun, and her warm hands pulled him from the mouth of death, the pile of the dead. She had raised him and taught him how to live in Ezterra’s slums, to take what they needed to survive. 

His chest tightened; his mother was only a memory now.

Silas chaffed with a chuckle, "A romantic as well, are you?" 

Emery turned away, his cheeks burning. "Then I pity the man who will never know the warmth of a woman."

Laughing, the thief replied, "It would have never been the warmth of a woman." He jumped to his feet, scooping up the pile of sticks in his arms. "We'd best return before Monroe kills that poor Healer boy." 

It took a moment, but once Emery had finally registered what he'd heard, he sat up to add to Silas's words. But the thief was swift on his feet, leaving Emery alone in the woods.