We passed by some small villages that were dotted across the landscape and every time we passed by one, we popped in to gather new supplies. The first thing we bought were more blankets for everyone to use. Of course at each village, Oda had to buy a souvenir and every now and then a magic crystal that he swore would help us during our journey now that we had Eurielle with us. During our travels, Eurielle has been helping me control my magic and I’ve been testing it out on enemies. My red talons have been making the fights against monsters easier. They cleaved through enemies like they were nothing.

We were sitting by our campfire and Eurielle has been teaching me about illusion magic. “By enhancing your senses, you can perceive the illusions cast by others while also using it to mask yourself. I think the first thing you should try is to make our eyes appear human”.

“That would make infiltrating towns easier if everyone believed we were fully human,” I agreed.

I closed my eyes and listened to her instructions, “Open the valve that’s holding back your power. Now imagine the way you want your eyes to look. Instead of black eyes, imagine that they’re white. How would they appear to other people looking at you?”

Listening to her, I could feel the mana in my body respond to my will and I opened my eyes. Aldric was on guard duty and Oda was nearby to help Eurielle teach me. Oda walked over and looked at my face, observing my attempt at an illusion.

Oda scrunched his face in concentration and said, “You kinda got it. It’s fading in and out”.

Eurielle reassured me, “It’s okay if you don’t get the hang of it right away. This stuff takes time to master. And once you can cast a stable illusion on yourself, the next big step is a multicast of it on the rest of us”.

I sighed in frustration and Eurielle held my hands. “Practice makes perfect, yes? Let’s try again”.

Again, I focused my mana on creating an illusion of what I wanted people to see. I envisioned having normal eyes. Recalling the past, before my demonic blood was awakened, I used to have normal eyes. The details were fuzzy, but it must have worked because Oda exclaimed happily, “Your eyes look human, Nocturne!”

Eurielle nodded her head, “From your steady mana flow, I think you have the basics of it. You’ll need to constantly practice this, so I suggest that you try to hold the illusion while we travel. The more comfortable and second nature it becomes, the better off you’ll be. Though when we’re in a pinch, it’d be easier to let the illusion fall. No point in wasting your mana holding an illusion when we’re fighting for our lives”.

I smiled briefly, feeling pride in myself. I had noticed over the past few days that the red scales scattered over my arms and legs were slowly disappearing, just like Eurielle said they would. Once I got rid of all the excess mana in my body, they would all be gone. Then the only physical proof of my demonic blood would be my dark eyes which should be easy enough to hide.

Aldric came back from guard duty and informed us that a group of soldiers were heading our way. So, we hastily grabbed our stuff and started to continue on our journey.

We walked through the snow while keeping a paranoid eye out for anyone who would want us dead. Everything around us was quiet and the cold of the air bit at any of our exposed skin.

It was too quiet.

Eurielle felt that something was off as well and she stopped. Her head turned from side to side and from what I knew about her, she was probably concentrating on the flow of mana around us.

She opened her mouth to warn us of something when a huge gust of snow hit us, blinding us and completely silencing out the world.

I shivered and tightly held my cloak around my body trying to conserve my hard won warmth. Even though we were standing close to one another, I couldn’t see anyone and I stood rooted in place. Hopefully everyone else was doing the same. Then again, Oda might be dumb enough to try and walk through this snow flurry and get separated from us.

As suddenly as the snow appeared, it disappeared. I looked over to where Eurielle was standing and I saw a yellow magic circle under her. She must have created her own wind to dissipate the snow. Oda was surprisingly quiet about the whole ordeal and then I saw what had made him silent.

We were completely surrounded by holy knights and mages. Without any prompting, Eurielle started chanting another spell, this one creating a bright blue circle. Once her chant was finished, a bunch of icicle spears appeared and hurled themselves at the enemy.

After recovering from the surprise, I concentrated on creating my talons and leaped into the fray with Aldric and Oda by my side. I remembered when Eurielle was telling us about magic that when she’s chanting, her spells can be interrupted if she loses her concentration. So it was of the utmost importance that we made sure she was protected from harm.

Within minutes, the group of holy knights who had ambushed us were lying on the ground in pools of blood. Heaving with exhaustion, I looked at everyone and saw that they were tired as well. The few mages in the group had made this fight difficult but their spells couldn’t save them from their fate.

“How did they sneak up on us like that?” I asked as I straightened my backpack.

“That’s the power of illusions for you. Normally I’d notice the anomaly, but all the mages in the group were working together in a group cast so I couldn’t detect them right away,” Eurielle said as she clenched her fists by her side in annoyance.

Oda saw her frustration and was quick to reassure her, “It’s not your fault they snuck up on us! Besides, we still wiped the floor with them!”

Aldric agreed with Oda’s statement with a silent nod of his head. Eurielle didn’t seem like she believed in their words of encouragement but she didn’t complain again.

“I wonder how they found us,” I mumbled as we started to walk again as we were eager to increase our body heat.

Aldric piped up his opinion, “It was probably with the help of the Holy Knight General of this region. If I recall correctly, she uses ice magic”.

With a raised eyebrow I asked, “And how would you know that exactly?”

But the only answer I received was silence and the howling of the wind.

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