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My plan was simple: I was going to plant the white brantor into the nearan freeter pit. The idea was that Kal’s Big Book of Poisons wouldn’t highlight them—since they were soul plants—so Kal would be confident of his safety as he walked straight into the jaws of hell.

Here was the problem: Kal was doubtlessly a trained forager, so he would know the growing conditions for white brantor—and would thus know if I planted it somewhere unnatural.

It is natural to think that it wouldn’t be so obvious, but it really is. Let’s take morels for a simple example. Morels are the quintessential alien fungi. They’re famous for their otherworldly appearance, celebrated taste, and the difficulty involved in cultivating them.

Like most rare plants, morels have complex relationships with their environments that are nearly impossible to replicate in a farm setting. Morels are saprobic, meaning that they feed on dead life, in their case, trees. They also have strange, temporary mycorrhizal relationships with deciduous trees, such as elms, ash, sycamore, poplar, and apple trees, connecting to their roots to obtain nutrients. And lastly, they also grow in the spring and require a lot of light and water.

With this information, foragers look for morels during the springtime, on the side of mountains that gain the most sunshine, in patches of deciduous trees, near rivers, and around fallen trees, clearings, or recent burn sites. While they do grow elsewhere, it’s extremely unlikely for most of these factors not to be met.

Now imagine a forager chasing after a serial killer stepping into a clearing that had nothing but dry sand and rocks, exposed to direct sunlight with no water source in sight, but there was a patch of morels popping out. What would happen? They would know it was a trap!

Obviously.

Might as well put a sign that says, "Free Morels" with three arrows pointing down at them.

That’s what was about to happen.

I was going to lead Kal to a location that wasn’t fit for white bantors and pray that he found it anyway. So what I had to do was recreate the scene and that involved creating a small creek in record time—and lead Kal to it.

I rode Sina through a known trail with heavy steps, making her presence clear before veering off course over a patch of ground cover to make it clear where I left off.

We then wove between plants carefully until we found a beast we could sacrifice for our cause. It was a reptile twice the size of a komono dragon, with the same general features aside from the black scales. The minute we spotted it, I said, "Use your flames," and jumped off.

Sina flew forward, biting the poor lizard’s neck and then blasting it with blue flames.

The unique thing about lurvine flames was that they could burn flesh, muscle, and bone but never touch the forest vegetation. It was perfect for proving we were there—but not if it was obvious.

I pulled out my machete and chopped it up and threw it into a bush, even going so far as to bury it slightly.

We rode on.

I was about a mile out when I made my play. I extended my machete’s blade with mana sharpening and thrust it into the ground. Then I created a water sphere on its tip to create a pressure washer and had Sina sprint for the mountain, zagging left and right to avoid plants as we made our artificial creek two miles up to the mountain. By the time we hiked up to a high point and dug a massive pond to fill the stream, I was drinking my maralune syrup equivalent to heal my mana channels before rushing back down to our original location, filling the river with water spheres and using Pervasive Breeze to destroy our footsteps and blow plant matter into the distance before continuing toward the freeters.

We now had the signs of a hidden creek.

That would have to be enough—

—because the next part was more difficult.

Surviving the freeters myself. It was dangerous to even get a mile downwind from the freakish plants, but I had something that other people didn’t: a diamond-grade soul pact skill specifically designed for the soul plants. If I couldn’t approach a pack of ferns with that skill, I would demand my fucking money back.

Thinking such, I approached the freeters from a distance and sat on the ground, and said, "Lithco. Teach me soul pacts."

Kal lay in his tent with a raging mind. Mira had been keeping him up for days as he waited for an opportunity to send her a message. Now, once he was about to get sleep, she announced that she was leaving for some rare plant and then left hours before necessary. Now, he was just lying in his tent, trying to pretend like he didn’t hear or know where she was going.

His parents sent him to establish permanent trading relationships with Mira and secure as many valuable resources from her as he could. But, instead, every middle family in sight received comically valuable plants from her, and none would sell to the Melhan without a middleman—at least not around Mira.

And Hadrian… that fucker. If things couldn’t get worse, the First Domain’s de facto heir had taken a keen interest in Mira and subtly warned people not to attack her.

The prick even started killing people on Mira’s hit list—or passed the order off to Brexton.

The day after Mira created a public hit list, people on it started getting attacked by animals or getting cut to ribbons—with no witnesses. Everyone thought it was Aiden, but he went off with various families every day, and he was always reported on the opposite end of the forest. Everyone also agreed that Aiden didn’t have the skill, temperament, or strength to pull off something like that.

Or maybe he did.

There was Mira… fuck.

There he went, thinking about her again. He kept telling himself not to, but thinking about one little thing, like wondering how hard it would be to learn soul cooking, would send him on yet another rampage that ruined every second of the next hour.

But he also had to. Somehow he had to make amends with her, and he could tell the bitch wasn’t the type to forgive and forget. That meant that he had to force her, somehow, and he still didn’t know how he would do that, yet. He would start with a simple apology and offering her the trades he brought her as recompense, but he knew damn well that it was only a temporary strategy.

It sucked.

Twenty minutes later, Kal heard people undoing the flaps of their tents, so he joined them, walking out of the tent to get whatever stimulant he could find first to fend off the scratchy eyes and morning chills.

He just had to keep awake and sound apathetic and… gods… fuck Brexton.

The man walked up to him first and foremost, like an omission of guilt—a sign that anything that Kal did ever could have been the result of information that he gave him.

"Halko?" Brexton asked, offering him his flask.

"Are you trying to get me in trouble, too?" Kal asked.

"On the contrary," Brexton said. "I just wanted to tell you that Mira went… that way." He pointed to the west under the watchful gaze of everyone present.

Hatred boiled in Kal’s chest. "You are protecting her."

"No. For the right price, I’ll say that I pointed out some information on another thing that just so happens to be in that direction."

"I fucking hate you."

"Everyone does. But unlike Mira, I don’t care if you do."

Kal raised an eyebrow. "You… what? Why?"

"Because she’s a woman, naturally," Brexton said. "I care what all women think about me." He shrugged. "Doesn’t change how I act, but I do care."

"You’re disgusting."

"But I rarely sleep alone."

"What’s your price?"

"Fifty bricks."

Kal’s lip curled.

Brexton smirked. "You want an alibi, or not?"

"You really gonna sell her out?" Kal asked.

"Oh, I’m not selling her out. I’m preying upon your stupidity. Now…"

Kal’s face twisted and contorted. "Talk to Jas."

"Right away, half-sci." Brexton walked off with brisk steps, disappearing into his tent that he didn’t know what the man really wanted. In any given scenario, Brexton stood to lose. If he told people where Mira was and Kal died, he would be in serious trouble. If he sent Kal out and Kal killed Mira, then Brexton would lose Mira, the most lucrative source of information selling.

That left one thing.

I’m preying upon your stupidity.

Was Mira really that strong that she could leave with one—and only one╫of the lurvines, and Brexton would think that Kal and five members of the Melhan family couldn’t handle her? What the fuck was going on? Was it a trap? Whatever it was, he needed to be careful.

An hour later, Kal loaded up his pack and then hit the road, pushing west, painfully aware of the footprints left on the trail. And as he studied the large yet soft prints, his voice turned into an echo chamber.

She’s luring you in. She’s obviously luring you in.

And he’d say, Let her. I refuse to think she’s that strong.

But his voice would snap back immediately, stating things like, Neither did the others.

There were so many coincidences—but Brexton didn’t have any information. That wasn’t like Brexton. Sure, he openly bartered for information on the attacks, but his heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t until that morning that Brexton showed initiative.

Suddenly, his guard Hallard said, "Kal," stopped them, and pointed off the path. The paw prints shifted off the path, disappearing into the woods. "Are we still following her? Or have you changed your mind?"

Kal swallowed. "What do you think? You think it’s a trap?"

Hallard thought of it but shook his head. "I don’t think it’s a trap. But I do think she’s expecting us. And I think she’ll be ready."

Kal nodded. "You think we can take her?"

Hallard nodded. "No matter how strong that core is, four months is still four months. No one can learn that fast. Maybe if she had all the lurvine, but… she doesn’t."

Kal nodded and turned to Layan. She was usually on the conservative end of things, hesitant to do things unless necessary. "You?"

She winced. "I usually wouldn’t, but we’re in a bad place and I think it’s safe as long as we take precautions and avoid traps."

Kal established eye contact with each of his guards. "No one thinks she’s strong enough? She’s riding third evolution beasts."

"That Aiden trained," Hallard said. "A soul pact is a soul pact."

"And beasts aren’t legacies," Layan said. "Unless we’re missing something, Mira’s never fought a human. She’s fought beasts, and while that’s impressive, a lot of that’s due to her aura. But aura can’t hit people. Aura can’t block magic… it can’t use magic or tactics or strategies. She’s strong… she has to be. But strong enough to take on a team of legacies? I doubt it. Just… try to work it out, okay? Forcing it’s only going to bring us problems."

Kal faced each of his guards, and they nodded. "Okay. Let’s go."

The group walked off the path with him in the lead, weaving through poisonous plants. He could see the highlighting, so it was amusing following the paths. The lurvine often stepped into minorly poisonous plants as it bounded at full speed, but it always avoided the most toxic.

I should buy one of Aiden’s pets… he thought.

"Hey, Kal. Over here." Hallard pointed out an unnatural disturbance on the ground cover, and when they followed it, they found burnt remains of an erron lizard—but no fire.

"It’s a lurvine…" Layan said.

"Yeah…" Kal said hesitantly. There was something so grim about the ease of the beast’s death. But it didn’t matter, so he said, "She’s definitely this way. Let’s go," and they pressed on.

It was about an hour into the hike when Kal’s musings turned to excited terror, mixed emotions that were difficult to process. The lurvine tracks suddenly disappeared with unnatural gusts of wind, and when he got close, he understood why.

There was a drying creek on the path, potential signals for rare plants like laskai mora, raquinst, and white brantors that thrived in dry areas with sudden influxes of water, such as flooding. It was an area that he immediately planned to forage regardless of Mira, filling him with excitement.

The terror was that the creek was both natural and unnatural.

He crouched and pressed the dirt, and water trickled out of it. He looked at the mud on his fingers and looked at the river. There was no rock build-up on the site and the bend seemed to avoid areas too cleanly. At the same time, he was too natural to be man-made. The creek was rounded instead of hatched, lacked uniformity, and there were signs of flooding.

"What is it?" Hallard asked.

"Something doesn’t feel right about this creek. Let’s move upstream."

And so they did, moving higher and higher, and the stream just didn’t end. The thought of a human making a full stream for miles was unthinkable.

And it was even more unbelievable when he got to the summit and saw a trickling waterfall up the mountain pouring water into the stream. It was the most natural thing in the world—water collecting up the hill and then running down with the force of gravity.

"Do you want to investigate?" Layan asked.

He considered it but couldn’t justify it. It would take probably an hour for humans to get up a mountain like that, and for what gain? If Mira or her conspirators had somehow made a pond up the top with water magic, she wouldn’t be up at the top. If she had done it…

"No…" Kal said aloud. "Let’s go back. Mira’s around her. Just stay clear. I bet there are trap plants around the area."

"Okay."

They returned to the original site and pressed over the river, and that’s when there was some sign of a trap. Plant matter that had recently been cut up had blown on the other side. Yet… there were poisonous ground cover or trap plants he could see. He had studied his whole life and there was nothing that pointed out. No alchemic plants or heavy poisons. There were even edible berries.

Even more unsettling, it was open.

It was an area of thick, wide trees with red bark—"slantaeas"—and sprawling green ground cover that served no purpose other than to feed the hella moles that were there most of the year.

They walked slowly but found nothing, and soon, he was starting to feel that it was all a grand conspiracy gone wrong.

But then he saw it—a field of blue ferns in the distance.

They didn’t highlight orange for alchemic ingredients or purple for poisons.

"Have you ever seen those before?" Kal asked.

"No… probably not," Hallard said. "I can’t really see it."

Kal’s heart knocked against his ribs, feeling uneasiness in his heart. But he nodded. "We’ll get a little closer."

With a solemn nod each, they pushed forward until they could see the blue ferns within ten meters. They were so distinctive that he would think that he would know it from the top of his head. This part of the forest had been picked dry for generations but he had never heard of light blue ferns. Evolutionarily speaking, ferns shouldn’t even have that color. It didn’t make sense!

It was as if someone had planted them there, but when would Mira get the time to plant an entire field of these ferns? That didn’t make sense either.

"Are they poisonous?" Layan asked.

"No," Kal said. "Not alchemic…"

He narrowed his eyes and saw orange highlights behind them. "What’s that?"

"What’s what?"

Kal jumped onto a tree, pulling himself up a low branch to look. And sure enough, there was a plant with dozens of white flowers moving up its stem in the distance, highlighted neon orange—the sign of high rarity.

A white brantor.

And that’s when Kal understood for certain—this was a trap or at least a natural warning. Because there was no way in hell Mira would have the foresight to cover her tracks, but turn down a plant of that value. She was either planning an ambush, or those blue plants were something horrific, indeed.