The road out of the village was long and flat and the trees on either side stood close enough together that the light came through in broken pieces rather than whole.
Liz rode ahead at an easy pace and spoke without looking back, the way people spoke when they'd been carrying something long enough that it had stopped feeling heavy.
"In the world of Veldrath there are kingdoms that have spent centuries fighting things that shouldn't exist. Mythical creatures, corrupted beasts, abominations that don't follow the rules of anything natural. Some kingdoms found ways to hold them back." She paused. "But holding back is not the same as solving."
Marcus nudged Dusk forward until he was riding level with her.
"Over those same centuries, people with power similar to yours appeared at different points in time. Each one rising when things got bad enough. Each one eventually fading without a trace, without record, without anyone knowing what became of them."
"So there are others like me," Marcus said.
"Were. Possibly are." She glanced at him.
"Summoners aren't rare by themselves. There are plenty who conjure beasts and creatures from their own imagination, things they've seen or read about. But the kind you are is different. You don't invent what you summon. You call from somewhere that actually exists, somewhere unknown, and the things you pull from it feel like they were already connected to you before you ever called them."
Marcus thought's pictures the knight he summoned. The way it hadn't felt like a stranger arriving.
"From a knight to a summoner," he muttered.
"Quite the way to start a new life."
Liz almost smiled. "We're heading to a friend of mine first. He runs a black market out of a village about an hour east. He keeps an informant nearby who knows the roads, the factions, the locations that don't appear on official maps." She adjusted her reins. "He should still be there."
"Should."
"He has a habit of getting into situations."
"And the informant?"
"Jack. He travels more than anyone I've met and talks less than he knows, which makes what he does say worth hearing." She was quiet for a moment. "We need gear before anything else. You can't keep walking into fights dressed like that."
Marcus looked down at what he was wearing and said nothing because she wasn't wrong.
"Where are you from," he asked.
The question sat in the air between them for a moment.
"Ashveil," she said finally. Her voice didn't change but something behind it did. "I lived there until last year. The Hayates came through the city without warning. Killed a large portion of the population before anyone understood what was happening." She kept her eyes on the road. "My mother put me in a transport carrier and told me to find someone she called "The One". Those were the last words she said before I watched something tear her apart."
Marcus didn't offer condolences. He didn't think she wanted them and he wasn't good at giving them anyway. He just let the information settle and stored it next to everything else he was carrying.
"After that I fled to the outskirts. Started having the visions. And eventually ended up in that village waiting for something I couldn't fully explain." She glanced at him sideways. "And then you walked out of the treeline."
"You're not a player," Marcus said.
"A what?"
"Nothing. Something I say sometimes."
She looked at him like she was deciding whether to push on that. She decided not to.
They rode the rest of the way in comfortable silence.
The village was small and unhurried, wooden huts spread out with enough space between them to breathe, inhabitants moving through the dirt paths with the easy pace of people who didn't expect anything dramatic to happen today.
A short man with a round face and a small mallet tucked under his arm spotted them before they'd fully dismounted and came across the path with his arms open and his smile firmly in place.
"Liz." He gripped her arm in greeting. "Long time."
"Poco." She nodded. "I need gear. And I know you still owe me."
"Two favors at least." He waved them toward a large tent near the back of the nearest hut. "Come. I'm happy to pay them back."
Inside the tent was considerably more interesting than the outside suggested. Racks of clothing lined one wall, weapons of varying sizes hung across another, and shelves stacked with accessories and small glowing objects filled the remaining space with the organized chaos of someone who collected everything and discarded nothing.
"You look like you've been wearing that since before you got here," Poco said, looking Marcus over . "Pick something that fits."
Marcus moved along the clothing rack without hurrying. His hand stopped on a long coat, black, with a faint weight to the fabric that suggested it was more than it appeared. He pulled it on and felt it immediately, a low hum moving through the material against his skin, subtle and constant, like something quietly awake.
"Good eye," Poco said approvingly. "One of our spellcasters enchanted that herself. Took her three days. You'd have to work to destroy it."
Across the tent Liz had lifted a sword with a handle carved to resemble a tiger mid-stride. She turned it once in her hand and seated it at her hip with the satisfaction of someone finding a thing that fit exactly right.
"I forged that one myself," Poco said. "Stone from a cave called Mrellie, rune etched at the source. It won't break on you."
Marcus turned at the name. "A cave."
"Half a day east of here. I went looking for materials about two years back and found more than I bargained for." He shrugged like it was a fond memory. "Strange place. Powerful. Things living in it that don't exist anywhere else."
Marcus looked at Liz. She was already looking at him.
"After the informant," she said.
They found Jack exactly where Poco said he'd be, sitting at the edge of the village near a low ridge of packed earth, throwing small stones into the dirt one at a time with the focused energy of someone thinking hard about something they hadn't solved yet.
He looked up when Liz approached and a slow grin spread across his face. "You brought a man. That's new."
"We need information. Summoners and the location of cave Mrellie."
Jack looked at Marcus for a moment with the assessing eyes of someone who had met many people and categorized them quickly. Then he looked back at Liz. "What do I get."
"A favor." Liz replied reluctantly.
He considered that. "Fine." He set down his stone.
"I've crossed paths with summoners in my travels, more than most people have. Every one of them, without exception, mentioned a word at some point.
Said it the way you'd say something you heard in your sleep and couldn't shake." He paused. "System. Never explained what it meant. Could be a chant, could be something else entirely." He picked up another stone. "The ones that stood apart from the rest had abilities beyond summoning.
Things that came out sideways when they weren't expecting it. Didn't seem to fully understand what they were capable of." He stood and pointed east down the main road. "Cave Mrellie, follow that road until the trees thin out and the ground turns dark.
You'll know it when the air changes." He looked at Marcus directly. "Something's moved in recently. Something that wasn't there before. Keep that in mind."
Marcus kept it in mind.
They walked back to the horses without rushing and Liz swung up onto her white mare and looked east down the road Jack had pointed to.
"Ready?" she said.
Marcus pulled his new coat straight and climbed onto Dusk.
"Let's go boy," he said.