Life is pregnant with loss. One could say loss defines life as much as, if not more than what one gains. I lost a mother, but gained a teacher. Lost a home only to gain a new one, and lost it again to an impossible inferno. I had a cohort of siblings, then lost them. I've lost love before I barely realized I found it. What does one ever really keep, in life?

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  Dragos stayed at the little abandoned farm until he finished healing.

  When he went to the bonfire after the ashes were cold, he found no sign of Chinhua. No bones, no fragments, nothing. Even the silver emblem he'd given her was gone. It was as it was written. When the dead die a second time by fire, there is nothing left behind. With a hollow heart, Dragos recorded what he knew of her in his journal, from the moment he met her until the moment she left the shadow of death and entered it fully.

  The zmeu went back to its habit of disappearing regularly and appearing unannounced, occasionally with gifts. Dragos's lost boot was replaced first; a new pair was discovered outside the door when he went to fetch water. The bronze sigils shone in the morning sun as he picked them up.

  With the creature off on its own mysterious interests, Dragos went about exploring the area.

  He had little pressure to forage. Zgavra had gathered enough stolen goods to keep him fed and his quill busy. Restlessness drove him to his feet day after day. At night, he soaked them in a salt bath, a luxury also snatched by the monster he’d named.

  In his slow rambles, he found a variant of vetch he’d never seen, and a daffodil with a yellow and red disc where its reproductive quality sat, framed by snowy oval petals. He drew them in his journal and left them untitled. He spoke with the birds frequently, and found an owl that would keep him company for a while, its massive eyes half-hidden when he scratched its pinions.

  Small pleasures were found, again.

  When despair was less, he meditated. He chased the spark within, the one that was not of shadow or light; the lifespark. It was the tension within the liminal, cold and hot, up and down. He found he could find it in all living things, in his mind’s eye. Not just its presence and aura. That had been simple enough to recognize, but he saw it and knew it could be manipulated.

  The Solomonari’s secrets were still unbroken, but it felt closer.

  Intrusive thoughts always broke his meditations before he got further. A flash of a memory, and his concentration was stolen…whether it was Chinhua’s fiery end, the revenants of the well, or a bird’s call that reminded him of Pallula’s mimicry.

  His lost family danced in the periphery, promising a slip back into the darkness if he looked their way. Johan. Adrian. ‘lula. Emil. Mirel.

  Fall tickled the air. The sun’s rays lay as liquid gold over the land. Moments of peace pushed through his ruminations, but only stayed as long as the sunset lasted.

  One warm morning, he practiced snake summoning.

  With a prick of his palm, he called a grass snake. It came to him and coiled in his lap, absorbing his warmth and the morning sun. Dragos found it oddly comforting, its calm spirit easing his own.

  He sat on the log beside the ashpile in the yard and stared toward the Spineback, with the hollow ache in his chest growing. One day, Zgavra appeared. Seemingly out of nowhere, its dark shadow was cast over him. Dragos looked up.

  It floated a few feet above him, its orange eyes regarding him flatly.

  With a soft inhale and a last look around, Dragos did not greet the beast but instead said, “Let’s go.”

  The dragon flowed to the ground as it solidified, its long toes compressing the grass beneath it. “Oh? Where?”

  “Where should we?” Dragos responded with a listless question. He felt carved from stone, a boulder gathering moss in a field, though it had only been perhaps a month since he’d watched a dead girl throw herself into fire. He felt no urge to go, yet knew it had to be done.

  “You’re still daft in the head,” Zgavra snapped. Its form turned into smoke once more.

  “Wait!” Dragos barked, a panic lighting a hot white fire in his belly.

  Ribbons of darkness formed. Orange eyes blazed at him, waiting.

  Dragos spit out the words before he could think or resist again. He tugged unconsciously at his hair as he spoke. “We go to the school.”

  The zmeu’s body solidified once again, claws digging into the ground only briefly, before it transformed into a young man. It reminded Dragos vaguely of Coman, the gangly awkwardness of one stuck between childhood and adulthood.

  “I’ll get my things,” Dragos murmured, pushing himself into a stand.

  The boy-thing had a grin that was almost too wide for its face. It clapped its hands together and rubbed them. “Finally! We’ll make you Solomonari… or you’ll die trying.”

  “You won’t?” Dragos asked, his smile snagged on fatalistic images flashing through his head.

  The zmeu’s laughter rang through the hills. A small flock of birds startled from a bush at the edge of the yard. The boy ran for the burdei, leaving Dragos to trail behind.

  When all traces of himself were erased and his belongings gathered, the two stood in front of the dugout house. Dragos shrugged his peddler’s box on his back once again, and looked around one last time.

  Zgavra asked, “Should I burn it?”

  The beast’s question startled him. “No! Why would you do that?”

  “I dunno.” A thin shoulder shrugged, the wide, expressive mouth twisting thoughtfully. “Just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  A hint of a real smile was Dragos's only response. He walked towards the mountains, putting the farm and all the rest at his back. The gangling zmeu strode along beside him, thumbs tucked in the rope that served as its belt.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You know what you look like?” Zgavra began.

  Dragos expected it to be an insult. A game they played, from time to time. “What?”

  “A man with a purpose.”

  That broke the cadence in Dragos's step. He resumed walking and replied, “You look like a nag’s arse.”

  Zgavra scrunched its freckled nose and snapped back, “You look like an inbred sack of maggots.”

  Back in familiar territory, they bantered back and forth through the forest. The wind had a crispness to it, hints of the weather that would overtake the foothills in a month’s time. Zgavra carried a pack with food and ale on its shoulder, spare to the one Dragos carried.

  “I’ve got no rope for climbing,” Dragos mentioned, after they’d run out of new insults to sling.

  Zgavra’s now hazel eyes shifted his way. It grabbed a tree limb and tugged its way up a slope. It turned and offered Dragos a hand up, then shrugged. “You got down the mountain, didn’t you?”

  “I can’t tell if you want me to succeed or not,” Dragos said, slapping the zmeu’s hand away and grabbed the same limb it had to climb up the slope.

  The monster’s wide mouth opened as if to reply, then snapped shut again. It wagged a finger at him and grinned. “You’ve got a point.”

  It didn’t clarify beyond that.

  With a soft growl, Dragos hauled himself up and onwards, past the monster wearing a boy’s form. It fell in behind him. When the sun hung low, they made camp, taking the time to build a fire and a bower of fallen boughs. Dragos only had a vague idea of where he was, but he knew where the school was.

  It pulled like a lodestone, now that he stopped resisting it.

  For better or worse, he walked towards whatever destiny awaited. He fell asleep watching Zgavra watch the flames of the campfire. Did it go with him to see him succeed? Or fail?

  Birdsong woke him before dawn. A fine mist seeped through the gaped ceiling of the rough lean-to. Outside the eave, the boy crouched, still staring at the fire, as if it had never once moved. Zgavra was thoroughly soaked, brown hair plastered to his tanned face, and when Dragos crawled out of his shelter, it glanced his way.

  With a twist of its body, it thrust a hand into the sack beside it and tossed some dried venison at him, which he caught. It stood smoothly and hefted its sack on its shoulder while Dragos dug a knuckle into his eye to wipe sleep away.

  They found a road, which Dragos guessed to be the southern part of the Aluta Pass, based on the roar of the river nearby and the steepening of the slopes they climbed. He guessed they had another three days before they got to where they had to leave it behind for the slower going of the mountain passes that few save animals ever used.

  The trail veered close to the rapids, for, as they climbed, the Aluta rushed past ever faster. Only the center of the river seemed to flow placidly, and that was an illusion. The path beside was well worn, where stone kedge obelisks thrust out like giant fingers from the earth, waiting for the next boat to tie rope and haul itself along against the current.

  Dragos paused in the shadow of one, looking up at it. He glanced down the river and spotted a dark shape. Zgavra, who’d paused, turned and put a hand up to shield its boyish gaze. It elbowed Dragos and exclaimed, “Let’s catch a ride!”

  “Hm,” Dragos murmured, not agreeing or disagreeing. It could be faster than walking, somewhat. “It’s risky.”

  “Conserve your energy,” Zgavra said, leaning against the kedge stone, arms crossing over its thin chest. The rough hemp shirt it wore never seemed to get road-stained, unlike Dragos's clothes and the armor he wore beneath his cloak.

  Zmeu magic, he supposed.

  It did have a point. Dragos sat on a flat rock beside the water, sprawling his legs out. He might trade some remedies for useful supplies if the boat occupants were agreeable and he was lucky. In minutes, a figure on a horse appeared, rope thick as his wrist trailing in the water from the horse’s saddle.

  A young child, no more than nine, perhaps, sat on a massive draft beast. A voice piped, “Foc bun ?i paine cald?.”

  “And to you,” Dragos replied, pushing up to a stand, his peddler’s box rattling at the jarring motion. “Do you have room on the boat for a peddler and a companion?”

  “For caverul, there is always room,” the child called out over the rush of water. The massive brown horse drew closer, until its features and those of the child were clearer.

  Dragos smiled at the horse, bobbing his head. The horse responded with a low whuff of breath. Greetings for greeting.

  The zmeu stayed still. Animals were more canny than humans. They often caught what people missed, and Nerostit? nearby could stir it, though it seemed a steady enough beast. Had to be, for a child to do the job.

  Dragos noted how the child’s gaze moved from him to the boy, then back to him and the leather greaves on his shins. The gleam of bronze sigils. The child had a gap-toothed smile when it rode up to the stone anchor.

  Zgavra moved out of the way quickly and positioned itself behind Dragos. Not for fear of the horse or the child, but it was clever. It likely thought ahead to the consequences of being too close to the draft horse. It wanted a ride more than Dragos did. As if it wanted to try something new? Dragos glanced over his shoulder at Zgavra and smirked.

  The child finished winding the fat rope and secured it, then climbed down the saddle like a ladder to the stirrup, then dropped to their feet. Smudgy, dirty, in simple traveling cloak and trousers, Dragos only got the sense that the child had been born working.

  Little rough hands scrubbed together. “I’m Seb. I’m the hawser for my mama’s boat.”

  “Pleasure, Seb.” Dragos nodded to the child solemnly. “Call me Julianos.”

  “We can wait here. I tugged the rope. They’re on the way.” Seb squinted at Zgavra, then back to Dragos's hooded features. His smile faded a notch.

  He went back to the massive draft horse and climbed it just as nimbly as he’d dismounted. A small hand checked the saddle for the sling thrust into a leather strap. The handle of a knife peeked beside it. Whatever the horse couldn’t outrun, the boy had a means to defend himself.

  It was hardly a surprise.

  Dragos turned to watch the boat haul its way steadily along upriver. It moved about as quickly as he walked, which did not mean great speed, but as Zgavra had said, energy would be conserved. To bide the time, Dragos turned to Seb again.

  “How far do you travel the Aluta?”

  “All the way to the Palisades, almost to Fantana Rece,” Seb replied from his safer perch.

  The horse whuffed and stamped. Dragos almost grinned at its wry humor. He imagined the trip was as boring and tiresome as the horse suggested.

  Zgavra tugged at a strap on his box. “Um.”

  The monster in a boy’s guise pointed. The boat had drawn close enough to make out individuals on it. It was a minute from drawing up next to them for the rope exchange.

  Dragos spotted a woman standing by the winches, already winding up to spin an anchor over her head, meant to land nearby for Seb to catch and take. That was not what held his attention.

  A soldier clad in bronze stood beside her woke a spark of panic in him. More bronze than leather, gleaming as brightly as the sun in the misty fall air. Cavaler, and by the amount of bronze on her armor, a high-ranking one.

  “Oh,” Dragos said, shoulders falling.

  Would he be able to fool a real cavaler?

  Foc bun ?i paine cald?.: A blessing: Good fire and warm bread to you.

  Cavaler/Cavalerul: knights of the Luminatori order.

  Hawser: The one taking the rope to the kedge, or the rope itself