Val went to go get everyone.

  Of the two of us, she was the leader. People obeyed a Bokor. With someone like me who was wearing tinted goggles so that people couldn’t see my purple eyes, they shuffled until I showed them my magic. If we wanted people to move, then she was the one who needed to give the order.

  I was also the better fighter. Val had been a Wrangler before, but she didn’t have the daily training like I did. Master Bran had wanted me to be able to handle myself with a blade, so my training had been intense. If one of us was going to guard our new base, it needed to be me. The ship might respond better to a Bokor, but if they attacked, I had the higher chance of surviving.

  There was also the question of Theo. I didn’t know what had become of the blonde Touched, but having someone who could use magic and make Zombies running around the island was dangerous to all the people here.

  I found the place where Fyga had frozen Theo to the tree. There were gouges in the bark where the ice had bit into the tree to secure the entitled man. But other than that, there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been there.

  I sighed as I sat down. The sun was almost all the way overhead and it felt like I’d done nothing productive so far. I found myself wishing that Fyga was with me. She was a lot better at tracking and probably would have been able to spot Theo’s trail.

  I wasn’t getting anywhere by staring at the trees, so I got up and started walking back. I hadn’t gone far when I saw something floating out in the water. It was a light brown and was getting washed onto shore, then pulled back to sea, then washed back onto shore.

  I ran over to the object and pulled it out of the ankle deep water. It was a ripped shirt. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the sailors, but it looked like a fairly common shirt. I scanned the shore for more objects, but there weren’t any that weren’t sticks or dried seaweed.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  It was a common practice to throw bodies overboard on a ship. Bodies given to the sea didn’t turn into Zombies, at least that’s what Master Bran had said. Since lighting a fire hot enough to burn a body on a ship was dangerous, it was convenient that bodies could be just thrown overboard instead of having to be stored until the ship saw land.

  The shirt itself didn’t look burnt. None of the sailors I’d thrown flames at had been directly hit, so I doubted it was from someone who succumbed to wounds from our fight. I didn’t see any blood on it and given Fyga’s knack for slitting throats, I would have expected it to be stained if it was off one of the men she killed. I wondered if the sea water could have washed out the blood.

  Whatever it was, whoever it belonged to wasn’t around anymore. I wrung out the wet cloth, then wadded it up so I could bring it back to the camp. Right now cloth was going to get precious since we didn’t have any way to get it from the mainland. The shirt might be too torn to wear, but it would work as patches for other clothes.

  I congratulated myself for thinking ahead. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.

  I made it back to the burned out patch without seeing anything else interesting. It was going to be another few hours, so I leaned up against one of the trees. The pine bark gave way and broke off behind me, sliding me off. I was able to recover without falling, but I noticed something. Something that I realized was going to cause some problems.

  The entire back of my left arm was black.

  The whole area was covered with soot and ash. I didn’t have to wonder if the children were going to find a way to play in it, I knew they would. Ziggy alone was going to have a grand time. The seven-year-old had been taking every opportunity to get into everything and there were a handful more.

  I stared at the problem in front of me. The only way to get all of the soot off was going to be to scrape all the trees and that would kill them. The trees were probably dead anyway, due to the fire. I pulled out my sword and fed a little magic into the blade, making the purple metal glow. It was going to take a while, but I might be able to cut down all the trees in the cone before the group got here.

  I took a deep breath and swung, burying the blade far enough into the tree so that the whole blade was covered. I pulled it out and swung again, this time at an angle so I cut out a wedge. I looked at how many trees were in my way. Maybe this was going to take longer than I’d originally thought.

  I squared my stance and swung again.

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  Immersive Ink

  RR Writer's Guild