Waking up in an unfamiliar place wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Doubly so, when Mithra remembered the events of last night.

  She was outside the Veil, alone. It was her dream the whole life, but actually being here—without a team and any safety nets that came with one—thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. If she wanted to survive, she needed a plan.

  The priests attacked her after failing to manipulate her with an emotion mark. Mithra still couldn’t wrap her head around that. She didn’t know it was possible, but what other explanation was there? Now that she thought about it, she knew surprisingly little about the capabilities of Emotion Shapers. Partially because she’d never paid much attention to that particular mark, but she was also sure that she’d remember if it could be used to manipulate people so thoroughly. For a second, she had believed completely that Zach was her friend. Hell, she was ready to become a priest for him. That wasn’t at all what she was taught emotion magic could do.

  Emotion Shapers could read people’s moods and feelings. They made for amazing merchants for obvious reasons. They could also smooth out emotions in animals, but the human mind was supposed to be too complex to be affected by magic in the same way. Zachary didn’t strike her as particularly powerful, so if he could do it, could any Emotion Mage? The term her father used, a Mind Mage, seemed to fit much better. Did he know the priests could do that?

  Things were starting to fit into place. Priests were healers, not only of the body, but also the mind. They used the magic to diagnose, but healed with more mundane methods. They were trained to detect the flows of divine energy—not only in themselves, but also in others. Was that the key to the use of their power? It also explained why they wanted her so badly. Zachary must’ve seen her energy in turmoil and how it led to the mark on her hand. It still didn’t explain why they instantly attacked, though.

  More importantly, were the priests going to wait for her to cross back into the Veil, or would they assume she had died? If they knew how her mark worked, they’d wait. On the other hand, would they box her against the Veil if they thought she could just cross it and escape that way? Also, was Zachary and his group part of some conspiracy to keep the capabilities of Mind Mages hidden, or were they just a small disconnected group of priests that stumbled upon the power by chance? It seemed impossible for something this big to be suppressed if it was widely known by all the priests.

  Too many questions with no answers. She had to assume the worst and focus on immediate survival. If they waited for her, they’d patrol the edge of the Veil. It’d take too much manpower to search all of it, so they’d probably focus on the approximate area she’d left in, doubly so if they were just a small group.

  The best option, it seemed, was to stay outside the Veil and cross into Veridia. Even if they waited for her in the capital, Duncan was there. He’d help her. That left only the problem of wading through miles of snow, with no supplies, no team, and in constant danger.

  It was reckless. But how often did one get the chance to freely explore outside the Veil? It’d take years of training and aptitude tests before she could join a Guardian team to do that. But if she proved that she could survive by herself? The Guardians would take her in no matter what marks she did or didn’t have.

  This was a chance to gain experience that’d put her ahead of every other trainee. She’d be special, a generational talent.

  Like her mother.

  Besides, the towns close to the Veil were patrolled often by teams of Guardians. It was as safe as one could be outside the Veil. She could do it. She just had to be smart about it. First, she had to take stock. Yesterday she had thrown her backpack haphazardly on the floor, but now she carefully looked through her things.

  The shield was useless. It saved her life from the mage, but the rock had smashed through and left the whole thing in splinters. The pack itself was in slightly better shape, but still shredded by the exploded wood. All her food was gone, having fallen through a hole in the pack. Her clothes were shredded too, but at least they stopped her waterskin from being destroyed. It was mostly intact, if a little leaky, and she did her best to seal it with a tattered shirt from her pack. Her coat was riddled with holes too, some splinters stuck in the fabric here and there. She was so tired last night that she didn’t notice. At least her sword and knife were intact. She had weapons, but if she wanted to survive outside, she needed resources.

  Mithra thought back to her survival lessons. Shelter, water, fire, food, in that order. Shelter was covered for now, but she’d need to find a way to rest on the way. Sleeping in the open was too dangerous.

  Next, water. She had an almost full waterskin, but it wouldn’t last her three days, not to mention the few weeks it’d take to walk to Veridia. Hopefully there’d be a river on the way, but she should be fine even without one. Melted snow was perfectly viable, as long as it wasn’t contaminated. Her mark could probably cleanse it the same way it cleared her lungs, but she’d rather not risk it.

  Fire was taken care of thanks to the steel box she’d found. That left her only real issue, food. Not the most pressing one—it’d take a few days before she had to start seriously worrying about it—but there weren’t easy solutions for it. There wouldn’t be any unspoiled food in the city left, not after the hundreds of years since the war devastated it. That was an issue, but Mithra was confident she’d think of something.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  She’d make this house her base of operations for the next day or two and explore the city. If she didn’t figure out a way to get food in that time, she’d start her trek east and try to find something on the way, taking shelter in any ruins she could find. Worst case scenario, she’d go hungry. She’d heard a human could survive a month without food, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It’d just be extremely uncomfortable.

  Mithra secured the sword and the knife to her belt on one side and the waterskin on the other. Leaving the ruined backpack behind, she finally checked out the other rooms in the house.

  On the ground floor, next to the stairs, were two doors. One led her to a spacious bedroom, while the other must have been a bathroom. There was a lot more glass and metal than she was used to. Even the shower was separated from the rest of the bathroom by a curtain of glass, though she didn’t see any mechanism for heating up the water. How’d they do it, without a Fire Mage?

  The people living in this house must have been fairly wealthy. They even used glass as decoration in the bedroom—a massive sheet in a metal frame hung on the wall there. Mithra didn’t linger long. There wasn’t anything particular she was looking for and it felt weird being in someone’s house like that. She felt as if she was invading someone’s privacy, even though the people who lived here were long dead.

  Upstairs there were two more rooms, as well as the children's room she had already seen. It struck her how much this house felt like a lived in place. People expected to return here. They left everything neat, tidy and in its place. They even locked the doors, not knowing they’ll never return here.

  Back in the child’s room there was a pile of snow gathered under the shattered window. Pensive, Mithra climbed outside. Now that she wasn’t freezing to death, she appreciated the view of the outskirts. An endless sea of white, as stunning as it was deadly. It was still snowing. Before, she’d seen snow once inside the Veil on a trip to the mountains with her father, but it wasn’t comparable. Not in the least.

  The world outside the Veil was beautiful.

  But it was dangerous too. With caution, Mithra began her trek to the city proper. The architecture changed the closer to the city center she got, the devastation more pronounced there. Glass behemoths stood tall, their steel frames glistening in the sun. In places, the glass panes were broken, wind howling through empty floors. There were smaller buildings as well, but not a lot of them. The giant towers dominated the landscape, looking ready to collapse under their own weight.

  The wind let up as she walked through the dead city. It was eerie. There was less snow there than on the outskirts. Instead, debris covered the ground. Toppled buildings blocked off whole streets. Giant tipped over structures rested on one another, threatening to lose their delicate balance and crash down to earth in a final act of vengeance. Some of them did fall, leaving jagged stumps and ruined city blocks behind.

  Everywhere she looked, there were signs of previous inhabitants, leftover after the Final War. Toys behind glass displays, chewed on and spit out by time; metal chairs covered in snow and dust, laying haphazardly on the streets; cutlery laid out on tables of restaurants, in the same position as they were when people fled the city.

  But most of all, bones. So many bones.

  She walked, almost in a trance. Such devastation, brought on not by monsters and abominations, but by other humans. She couldn’t believe it. Was this what humanity was fated for, before the Gods saved it?

  A fallen building blocked the main street forward, so she entered a side-alley. She knew one of the final tests for a group of trainees was leaving the Veil as a team and coming back alive. Expeditions like these must have scavenged most of the city, but she still checked the doors in the alley, hoping to find something they missed. Most were closed but some opened to warehouses or shops and Mithra explored each of them briefly.

  In one of the warehouses a deeply unpleasant smell caught her attention, coming from behind a door. Slowly—sword in one hand, the other clenching her nose shut—she opened it and peered through, only to shut it as quickly as she could. A shriek pierced the air, followed by banging on the metal door.

  She recognized the animal on the other side from her lessons. It was big, its head reaching almost to her shoulder. Its long tail was covered in muted white feathers, and its vicious claws and a reptile snout were unmistakable. The books called them raptors, and cautioned against engaging for one simple reason. They never hunted alone.

  Mithra focused. One or two animals she could handle, if she was careful. But any more than that would be trouble. She had to get out of here before the shrieks brought the rest of the flock here. On the other hand, her food problem just resolved itself. Duncan always remarked that the raptors tasted just like chicken.

  The creature was still trying to tear through the door. In one move Mithra opened it and jumped out of the way. Without the expected resistance the raptor tumbled outside, losing its balance and sliding forward on the smooth floor. She slashed with her sword, scoring a long gash along the side of the animal.

  It shrieked even louder and turned towards her, keeping its distance. Mithra and the raptor slowly circled each other; the raptor baring its needle-like teeth; Mithra in a low stance, ready to spring into action.

  She had to end the fight quickly and get out of here. She lunged at the animal but in the same moment it pounced and smashed into her, its claws sinking into her chest. Mithra fell backwards, desperately holding the creature at bay with her forearm, as it snapped at her throat. Her sword laid on the ground, useless. She reached for her knife instead and stabbed.

  It took three stabs to the neck for the creature to stop struggling.

  Breathing hard, Mithra threw the fresh carcass off of her. She counted herself lucky—the coat shielded her from most of the damage, but it was even more tattered than before and covered in raptor’s blood. She found her sword and sheathed it, before dragging the dead reptile towards the main street. Her hideout was a mile or so away. She could cook it in the fireplace, but she had to get it there first.

  She was halfway towards the outskirts, when the stench hit her again, this time coming from all around her.

  She was surrounded.