By the time the sun came up, the city was behind us.

I was sore, hungry, and still alive. That'd have to do.

The road wasn't really a road, more like forgotten path barely wide enough for a cart, with weeds choking the edges and mud in all the wrong places.

It was fairly quiet. Just the wind through dead branches and the occasional snap of something moving in the brush.

I kept checking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see black cloaks or red banners, maybe that augmentor again, somehow still smoldering and pissed.

Nothing.

Veyne didn't say a word. She hadn't since we left.

I was half a step behind, trying not to limp.

My ribs ached every time I breathed too deep, and my stomach had started chewing on itself around sunrise.

Still no talking.

Eventually I broke. "You always this friendly, or is it just me?"

She glanced back, one brow raised. "You're alive, aren't you?"

"That your idea of warm welcome?"

"Depends. You want a hug, or a head start?"

I grunted. "Food."

"Workin' on it." She turned back around, brushing a low branch aside.

"We hit a stream in another hour or so. If we're lucky, nobody's pissed in it recently."

"Luxury."

She huffed a laugh but continued walking.

Eventually, she slowed. "There."

I followed her gaze.

The stream was barely more than a trickle, but it was moving. Good enough.

I dropped on my knees, ready to drink straight from it. She stopped me, handing over a flask instead.

I wiped my mouth and leaned back against the rock. Cold water sat heavy in my gut. Better than nothing.

Veyne stayed crouched, watching the treeline like she expected it to move.

Without a word, she stood and vanished into the brush. A few minutes passed. Then the undergrowth rustled, and she reappeared with a limp hare in hare in hand, blood still fresh.

"Figured we'd need it." she said, already pulling a knife from her belt.

I tried not to look too thankful as she got to work.

Once we'd eaten, I finally asked the thing gnawing the back of my head.

"So...why'd you come for me?"

She didn't look over. "You'd rather I hadn't?"

"Not what I asked."

She stood, capped the flask, and finally looked down at me.

"Murderers get a trial, traitors get a cell."

She hooked the flask onto her belt and gave the treeline another sweep.

"Made me curious."

I raised an eyebrow. "Curious enough to risk getting killed?"

She gave a slight nod. "I wanted to see what type of person they burn without even asking questions."

When I told her I couldn't remember anything before the cell, she didn't blink.

Just nodded like that made sense.

We didn't speak for a while after that. Just the stream gurgling, the wind pushing at the trees, and a few distant crows.

Eventually, she said, "You remember nothing?"

"Bits. Smoke. Pain. Some bastard yelling at my face. Then the cell."

She didn't comment. Just picked up a flat rock and flicked it into the water.

"convenient," she muttered.

I shrugged. "Not like I forgot everything. Just nothing useful. Nothing about me."

When I asked if she thought I was lying, she added,

"If you were, you'd have come up with something better than 'I don't know'"

"Yeah," I said. "Something with a tragic backstory and a dramatic name."

"Either you pissed off the wrong person," she said, offering me a hand, "or it's something they didn't want on record."

As I got to my feet, she added, "Curiosity’s a bad habit. I’m working on it."

Before long, we were on the move again.

The stream twisted beside us, cutting through the roots and rock. The forest wasn't thick, just tangled. The kind of place that scraped at your nerves more than your boots.

Veyne walked ahead silent as ever.

"So," I said, "we're walking because...?"

She didn't look back. "No point of jumping when we don't know where we're going."

A moment later, she added. "Besides, I'm spent."

I looked at her. No blood, no limping. But she wasn't steady either. Her movements had a weight to them now. Slower. Tighter.

"Mana?"

"Used too much. Five jumps in a row will drain anyone."

She made it sound like everyone could do that.

I frowned. "I didn't think you had a limit"

Veyne glanced over her shoulder, just once. "Of course I have a limit. Everyone does."

I fell silent, letting that settle. Even now, It was easy to forget that magic was still new.

Magic hadn't been around long. Five years, give or take. Before that, it was just stories and old world nonsense.

Then something broke. Or opened. Hard to say.

Ask ten mages and you'll get eleven theories, all equally smug. Point is, one day the world was normal. Next day, people were setting their kitchens on fire by stubbing a toe.

Fire was the easiest. It was loud, angry, and impossible to ignore. So, naturally, every second asshole with a spark thought they were a prodigy. Cities were torched, forests were burned.

The smart ones learnt control. The rest flailed until something exploded.

Usually themselves.

Air came next. Not as flashy. By the time people noticed it, everyone knew someone who could throw wind around.

Only after the smoke cleared did people start to learn anything.

A trick that didn't kill you twice became a technique.

There weren't schools. No mentors. Just scorched ground and guesswork. If you had the talent, you might just live long enough to figure out what not to do.

If you didn't, you made a decent cautionary tale.

Every now and then, someone managed something new.

Water, Ice, Earth. The kind of stuff that actually made people stop and pay attention. But half the time, they couldn't explain how they did it. And if they could, no one else could repeat it.

Most who figured something out didn't want to share it anyway. It was theirs.

So even when someone cracked a real trick, it didn't really go anywhere.

Augmenters started showing up next.

People who realized they could shove mana into their own bodies to boost reflexes, harden skin, sprint for hours.

Useful, if you didn't mind bleeding out your eyes the first few tries.

Conjurers came later. Smarter, more patient.

Instead of burning from the inside out, they used the mana around them. Drew it in like breath. Subtle, precise.

Problem was, the more you relied on the world, the less your body stayed tuned for the fight.

Most of them couldn't reinforce even if they wanted to.

Still, better than bursting into flames if you sneezed too hard.

I held up my hand and stared as I tried to spark something on my fingertips.

When I was met with no response, I sighed.

Figures.

"You're forcing it." Veyne said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Stop thinking like a mage."

I dropped my hand. "What should I think like, then?"

He shrugged. "Someone who doesn't need to try that hard."

The trail wound on for hours.

Trees gave way to open scrub, sky bleeding orange across the horizon. We stopped when the light started to die and decided to camp there. Veyne got the fire going without asking.

The cold was settling deep into my bones, sharper now the sun was setting.

Veyne paused and dug into her pack. She pulled out a coarse woolen cloak, frayed at the edges but thick and heavy.

She held it out, the fabric rough and smelling faintly of smoke and earth. I hesitated, but she just looked at me, and let it drop into my hands.

"Better than what you've got," she said simply.

I wrapped it around me, the weight settling comforting,even if it felt awkward. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

"Thank you."

She nodded in response, and passed me a strip of roasted meat without a word. It was dry on the edges, still steaming in the middle, and exactly what I needed.

As I ate, I stared into the fire, trying to coax a spark onto my fingertips. Nothing happened.

"Try again once you're well rested." she said. I nodded.

Before long, I was on my back, fatigue caught up fast, and I drifted off to sleep.