“Do you mind if I join you?” The priest sat on the ground, a friendly smile plastered on his face. It looked artificial.

  Mithra was wary. Did he follow her from town? Did the priest from the infirmary send him?

  “I was just leaving.” She stood up and slung the backpack on her shoulder.

  “A shame. I was hoping for a quick conversation.” The man got up as well. “I’m Zachary, nice to meet you. Would you mind if we sat back down? My knees are killing me.”

  Mithra remained standing. Nonplussed, the priest continued, “I came here with an offer for you.”

  She had an idea of what the offer could’ve been, and she wasn’t interested. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Oh, I think you’d like to hear it. It’s not the usual one we extend to all fresh Emotion Mages.”

  The moldy smell coming from the man grew stronger. Mithra was half-listening, more focused on his movements and the surroundings. Something felt off.

  "And you tracked me all the way into the forest to tell me that?" she asked.

  “Well, I seem to have missed you at the hospital,” he answered with a smile. “We're quite intent on recruiting you, considering the circumstances of your marking."

  She had spent almost the whole day bedridden. If he wanted to approach her there, he could’ve done so earlier.

  "Circumstances of my marking?" She held up her right hand. "You mean this?"

  "Exactly, yes. Your marking was special.” The smell was overpowering now. “I was alerted to the unusual way your divine energy flowed, as well as that… unusual mark."

  Was he the head priest that was supposed to examine her? He didn’t wear the robes of one.

  “I wanted to extend you an offer to join, skipping some of the usual protocols. You would become an acolyte right away, skipping the servant stage. Quite the honor, believe me.”

  Mithra considered the offer, fairly and without prejudice. Priesthood was a coveted occupation, and skipping a few years of cleaning the temple in favor of training mind magic immediately was perfect. Her future would be set. She could become a low ranking priest in a few years, maybe even lead a congregation in a few more.

  Besides, she liked Zachary. She didn’t want to disappoint him.

  “I—” The smell hit her so hard she almost vomited. She didn’t know Zachary, why was she afraid of disappointing him? She was about to agree to becoming a priest, but she didn’t want that. Not now, not ever. The priests couldn’t even leave the Veil, they had nothing to offer her. “Not interested, sorry.”

  She turned to leave, but stopped. The mildew smell coming from Zachary masked it before, but she felt it now. There were more sources of the awful smell inside the forest, hiding between the trees. She was surrounded.

  “I implore you to reconsider. I’m sure we can come to an agreement,” the priest kept pushing. Was he implanting a suggestion in her with his emotion shaping? Was that even possible? It shouldn’t be, but how else to explain the mind trick?

  “Why don’t you come back to the church with me, and we can talk there?”

  Whoever was hiding in the forest wasn’t making their move yet. Mithra didn’t question how she knew the smell meant more priests, she trusted her instincts. Her budding Emotion Mark must’ve been warning her, she’d heard of weirder sensory interpretations than smell. Time for plan B.

  “Okay, but can I finish eating first?” She moved as if to take off her backpack. “You can tell me more about the priesthood in the meantime.”

  “Certainly. You see—”

  Mithra rushed Zachary. Even caught off guard the priest recovered well enough to sweep at her feet with the staff. She jumped over it and closed the distance to give him less space to swing with the weapon. The man, clearly not used to fighting, dropped the staff and tried to grab her, but she veered to the side and took off running through the trees. She made it all of ten steps before tripping on some roots and falling. She could’ve sworn they weren’t there a second ago.

  A rock whizzed through where her head had been a moment ago.

  “Now, kid. That was a warning shot.” Another priest walked into the clearing, levitating a rock over his hand. “Next one will be for real.”

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  Warning shot?! If she didn’t trip, Mithra’s brain would’ve been decorating more than one tree.

  She got up slowly, hands in the air.

  “Smart kid.” The man looked to the side, at the other priest. The moment he did, Mithra dashed to the side, hiding behind a tree. The priest cursed and hastily propelled a rock towards her, but missed entirely. She got low on the ground, ready to dash to the next tree to use as cover when another stone smashed into the tree, leaving a gaping hole over her head.

  Mithra ran, weaving through the trees, praying to the Gods for the Earth Shaper to miss. A possible tactical mistake considering who was trying to kill her; if anything, the Gods would’ve been on their side.

  A rock smashed into her back. The impact made her stumble despite the shield and the backpack taking the brunt of it. She staggered forward, but caught herself and turned the added momentum into fueling her run. Mithra weaved between the trees expecting the next projectile to smash her ribs to paste, but no more rocks came. The Mage must’ve lost sight of her.

  Something hit her in the back of her knee and she fell face-first into the dirt. She rolled with the fall and got back up immediately just to see another priest standing over her, this one tall and lanky. She unsheathed her sword. If they were using deadly force, so was she.

  With the range advantage on her side this time, she struck. The priest gracefully dodged and moved back in, unnaturally quickly. She blocked his punch, but he was only getting started, throwing punch after punch and overwhelming her with sheer speed. It was just a matter of time before she let through an attack.

  Fist connected with Mithra’s face. It was weak. She suffered much worse in the training hall every day, the strike not enough to even make her flinch. But even if the strikes were poor, they just kept on coming. The man dodged around her sword whenever she retaliated, keeping up his offensive. All Mithra could do was block the majority of the hits, taking a few here and there.

  One thing was obvious, however. The priest wasn’t a fighter. His punches were not only weak, they were amateurish; if not for his speed Mithra would’ve demolished him already. A kick to her stomach, and she observed. A punch to her face, and she analyzed. The pattern was becoming obvious, the man entirely predictable.

  She knew a high kick from the left was coming next. She grabbed the man’s leg under her armpit and stabbed through his thigh, the sword penetrating all the way through in a spray of blood.

  By the time the priest clutched his wound to slow the bleeding, Mithra was running again.

  Earth Mage and a Speed Brute. What happened to the ‘priests are mind mages’ rule? No way they both had double marks.

  She risked a glance back. No sign of any more priests, even the smell of mold grew distant.

  Mithra had no illusion of how lucky she was, surviving the scuffle. If the Mages attacked at once and not separately, she’d be dead. Her quick thinking saved her, but it wouldn’t be enough if they caught up to her.

  The trees around her grew sparser as she made distance, the sun significantly lower than when she first stopped for a meal. There was no sign of pursuit so far, but she didn’t dare to stop. She’d been fighting, marching or running for most of the day, and her body was feeling the strain however. Now, with the adrenaline slowly wearing off, she was exhausted. Her legs and lungs burned and she’d lost track of the path a long time ago, entirely lost in the woods.

  She had to slow down and get her bearings, at least for a little bit. Hopefully she had gained enough distance and slowing to a jog wouldn’t kill her. As soon as she allowed herself to slow down, she realized something was off. The forest was completely silent. There were no singing birds or skittering critters anywhere. The light getting through the trees was vivid blue, the color much stronger than normal.

  The Veil was close.

  She picked up the pace again. It didn’t take long for the forest to end abruptly, as if someone drew a thick line separating the trees from the Veil. Nothing grew next to it, not even grass, leaving a strip of bare ground a hundred or so feet wide.

  Transfixed by the sight of the dome, she stopped. It stretched higher than she could see, towering over her. Unwittingly, she moved towards it, to touch it. This close, the Veil wasn’t as clear as it appeared from a distance. It looked like milk mixed with blue paint, encased in glass. Slick to the touch, it deformed under pressure.

  The smell of ozone violently dragged her back to reality. A wall of blue flames sprang into existence mere feet from her. Before she could blink, two more walls went up, boxing her in.

  A short man walked unharmed through the fire. The flames parted after, letting other priests through.

  “Good thing you got out of the forest,” he said, bouncing a flame on his hand. “Wouldn’t want to burn it down, would we?”

  Zachary passed him, standing in front of the other priests. Four in total, the one she stabbed nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh, Mithra, child,” he said, in a condescendingly sweet voice. “We can still let bygones be bygones, you know? Just come back with us, it’s not like you have another way out. I promise you, you’ll be treated fairly. We can even forget the horrible thing you did to Mathias. You must’ve been scared to lash out like that.”

  He must’ve meant the Speed Brute. That wasn’t fair though, it was just a little stab wound. Considering how they tried to paint a tree with her brain, she would’ve been justified in stabbing the fucker in the guts.

  Her anger flared up again. They attacked her, tried to kidnap or kill her, only to play the benevolent saints now? No way was she going anywhere with them.

  She reached over her shoulder for a spear, slipping it out of its straps. Gripping it close to the shaft, she found its point of balance.

  “Now, no need for that,” Zachary said. “Please, see reason. You are outnumbered. Do the sensible thing for once.”

  And so Mithra did the only sensible thing she could think of. She threw the spear at Zachary and ran. Not through the flames, but through the Veil.

  There was resistance at first, like tearing through a thick paper wall. She pushed harder, and it gave. Freezing cold hit her, but she ignored it and turned around, half-expecting her pursuers to follow. Her reflection stared back at her, standing in knee-deep snow. The dome looked like a polished mirror from the outside.

  She was safe, the priests forbidden to leave by divine law. Her first breath outside the Veil tasted like ice, ash and victory.

  The second didn’t come.