On our fourth day of walking, we reach a river. The same river as by the castle, but we walked in a roughly straight course southeast across the plain, while the river meandered south and then east (or technically it flowed west, then north, since we went upstream, but for simplicity's sake, south and east).

I thank Michael for the geometry lesson, then I half-ignore his pointed remark that this is geography, not geometry, instead staring across the water at an open field of black rock. It looks like a bubbling pan of burnt pudding, only frozen in time. "What happened there?" I point. Not even any grass grows.

"That would be geology." Michael crosses his arms. "Those are lava rocks."

My hand drops to my side. "Are we going over there?"

The river here has no rapids; it's just a placid, brown thing, but it stretches twice as far as the river by the castle.

"No." He starts walking, up the riverbank. "We're going to follow it for a while, then angle northeast, then take a passage up into the mountains."

This makes me sigh in relief. His mist bridge stretched across the river by the castle, but I don't know if he can make one across this distance--so I thought he was going to make us swim. Which I can't.

I jog after Michael, my sore legs and pulsing feet protesting. I would have blisters, but when we stopped for midday meal, also known as more rabbit jerky, I healed them. I also thought I healed my leg muscles and sore feet, but hardly any time later, they started hurting again. We haven't stopped for third meal yet, to give me time to figure out why.

"It actually is geometry," I tell Michael, blood-stained sandals crunching through stubby brown grass, "we are walking in triangles to shortcut the squares."

He shakes his head, unkempt hair bouncing. "We're walking it. So it's geography."

"But without geometry, we wouldn't have taken the shortest path, and we would have followed the river in a giant rectangle. Or, three sides of a rectangle."

He huffs. "Then technically, we're not walking in a triangle either, we're walking three-fourths of a trapezoid."

I open my mouth. "But--" I stop. I don't know what to say to that.

"This is a stupid argument." He walks, faster than me, things inside his backpack clunking.

I jog and catch up. "It didn't have to be an argument."

"Whatever." He waves a hand.

I purse my lips. "Why are you annoyed all the time?"

He snorts, not looking at me. "I'm not annoyed. I'm just walking."

"You're not looking at me."

"Does me not looking at you imply I'm annoyed?"

"Yes." I nod. "Yes it does."

"Well, that's stupid." He keeps staring at the flat, grass-covered terrain before us. "I'm not annoyed at you. Happy?"

"I...guess?" I nearly trip over some pebbles, trying to keep up with his pace. "Never mind, no not really."

"Hmm." His hands curl around the backpack straps and he still just keeps walking, pulling ahead of me.

I stick my tongue out at his backside.

"Actually, I thought of a question." He glances back at me, briefly, faster than I can slurp my tongue back up. I wipe my lips. "How did you end up in that castle with a bunch of Night Warriors? With your light powers?"

My brow furrows. "I don't know. I didn't even know I had light powers until..." Well. I was going to say the night of the Empress' birthday party, when I breathed that light, but ever since that mist wraith by the brook told me I was some destroying one, I'd been holding back something. Holding back thinking about something.

"I didn't," I start over, "even consider any of it until..." Until Michael said I could leave with him. Or, until after I refused, then tried faking things with Regalia and that failed miserably. "I cried in a cellar after I met you in the forest."

He doesn't glance back. "You were brought to the Obsidian Castle from the fort--Lost Fortress, yeah?"

"Yep," I say. I cross my arms, nervous heat prickling my neck. Why did I mention the storage cellar? "At least that's what I was always told, and there were a good number of others brought from there too. Unity was barely a toddler, I think. Hundred-fold and some of the guards there got all the children and kids out alive. Wait"--I shiver--"does that mean you guys would've killed some babies when you took over the fort if the guards hadn't run away with us?"

Michael shrugs. "I wasn't born yet, how should I know?"

I stare, and run to catch up with him, hand reaching out to grab his elbow and make him slow, but I catch myself. My hand falls to my side and I pant out, "Shouldn't that answer automatically be no, you wouldn't have killed babies? Everyone says that's the worst thing you can ever do."

Michael glowers at me. "First of all, why did you even ask then, if the answer should be automatic? Second, what were the dark pests doing with babies and little kids in a fort? Did they expect us to not use any magic that might break down walls or collapse any rooms, in case we hurt the babies? Seriously. That's like using infants for shields and calling us monsters if the babies die." He rolls his eyes in a complete circuit of his eyeballs. "How did we get on this topic? New topic."

"You asked if I was brought to the Obsidian Castle from the fort."

"Oh yeah. Hey"--he snaps his fingers--"you were probably baby-switched. Someone mistook you for one of their babies. Like that Hundred-folds person you mentioned probably got you confused with some other baby."

I smirk, I can't imagine it was Hundred-fold who carried me from the Lost Fortress, fleeing down the mountain. Something about her in full battle armor with a tiny baby bundled in her arms doesn't add up--though, I can't picture any of the guards like that. Not Sixscore or Thressa or anyone else; none of them make sense carrying a baby in full armor. But some of them must have.

"I thought you said new topic?" I ask, speed-walking.

"This is a new topic." He kicks a gray stone, sends it flying. "We're talking about the mystery of you, not about dying babies."

I kick a rock too, but it just skids sideways, all pathetic-like. "My whole life, I thought the only mystery was who my parents were. And who carried me to the castle, but no one would ever answer that. I never wondered if I got"--I kick another rock, and it hardly tumbles a footstep--"switched with a different baby."

Why would I ever wonder that?

"Hmm." Michael's eyebrows puzzle together. "If you did get switched with a different baby, that begs the question, what Waiter on the Dawn was there sieging the fort, with a baby? Much less one that got mixed up with some Night Warrior baby? And where's the baby you got switched with?"

"Dead?" I shrug.

He scoffs. "You're morbid."

"No I'm not." Stubby grass crumples under my bloodstained sandals. "Everyone knows not all the kids made it out of the Fortress alive. Most of the adults didn't."

"Everyone knows that?" He raises an eyebrow. "I didn't get the letter."

"Maybe I wasn't even mixed up with a different baby." I avoid his gaze. "It's not like all the survivors were required to go to the Obsidian Castle. When I was really little, I remember a group of searchers leaving to look for other survivors, in some towns somewhere, and all we got back was a letter that they did find a group of survivors, and were staying with them."

"Wow, okay, lots to unpack there." Michael grabs the straps of his backpack, whether consciously or not, at the word unpack. "Sounds like this group that left really didn't like the castle, to only send a letter that they were never coming back. And they didn't mention in the letter how many people they found? Or where? Wasn't anyone bothered enough to want to know who all survived?"

"I don't--"

"And the Lost Fortress had no pre-arranged evacuation place?" He shakes his head. "Wow."

"--I don't know any of that, I was a baby! And that letter came when I was maybe six years old, I don't remember any details. Maybe it did give numbers or a list of who the searchers found, I don't know.

"I just meant, no one really knows who specifically died, unless they saw them die in the attack. So maybe someone just grabbed baby-me and escaped, and no parents ever showed up to claim me, so they just assumed." A blister's forming on the sole of my left foot. But I keep speed-walking alongside Michael.

"Is that why your name's One?" He turns to me, unblinking. "Nobody knew your name, so you got One?"

My eyebrows knit. "What?"

"Hundred-fold...Perseverance...Brevity...everyone you mention has fancy names." He pokes a finger into my chest. "Then you're just One."

I swat his hand away, and rub the spot where he poked me, at the center of my ribs. "I just thought..." One. Destroying One. That similarity lingered in my mind for years, and maybe I started to think my parents secretly named me that.

But that's because I assumed that whoever saved me and brought me to the Obsidian Castle, knew my parents and knew they named their child One, and were able to save me after my parents perished.

Like, maybe my parents knew something about my future, and named me One to hint to my destiny (and therefore, if my parents named me that, it was a good destiny waiting for me).

But my parents weren't actually Night Warriors, so that whole thing couldn't have happened.

So I must've been mistaken for someone else's baby or just a nameless orphan picked up and saved in the chaos--but then how I ended up with this name makes no sense. Because if I was mistaken for a Night Warrior's baby, I would have their baby's name--Thousandstrong or something--who wasn't named for my destiny.

And if I was just a nameless orphan... well, the castle wouldn't name me short for Destroying One. They wouldn't let a "destroying one" live as old as I am right now, as evidenced by how they tried to kill me as soon as Regalia saw the light breath.

So did whoever named me "One" know anything about the mist that would one day call me a Destroying One? They couldn't have. But then how did that coincidence happen?

"You just thought what?" Michael asks.

I jump. "I mean..." I nibble my lip. "From the Lost Fortress, most people's names are related to numbers. Thressa. Tenivast. Unity. I thought One was a lot like Unity's name."

Maybe...my Night Warrior parents were secretly traitors and gave me a name that was a secret clue to--wait, I couldn't have had Night Warrior parents. Why am I forgetting that?

"Sorry, but Unity and One aren't that similar." Michael squints at me.

I wipe my palms on my thighs. "They kind of are. Unity makes things into one. Anyway, when are we stopping to eat? I think I'm getting a blister."

He glances at my wooden sandals. "Oof. Sorry about those shoes, wood is not great for long distance walking. At least they've lasted this long though, yeah?"

"Yeah." I nod.

I glance out across the placid river, muddy brown water reflecting sunlight. Is it just coincidence; my name being One and that mist calling me the Destroying One?

Maybe the mist was lying, making things up. But...it wasn't lying about me not having regular Night Warrior healing magic. And it said it knew my parents. How do I talk to it again?

"Michael?" I ask.

"Hmm?"

"What are mist wraiths?"

His head slowly turns to stare at me. "You've heard of mist wraiths? Wow. You're not totally uneducated."

I glare back. "What are they? How do they work?"

"Mist wraiths are created by mist lancers who sink into a deep trance, and place their consciousness inside a vessel of mist--a body, if you will. They can see and hear through the vapor, and fly around, and weakly interact with matter."

I open my mouth.

"No, I can't make one right here, we're walking."

"That's not what I was going to ask."

"Oh."

"I was going to ask how many mist lancers you know of that could do that eight years ago."

He slows. "That's an oddly specific question."

I nibble my lip. "I know."

"Sounds like a topic to discuss over supper." He slides his backpack down one arm, pulls out the clear water container, and veers in front of my path toward the river.

I stumble to a halt, staring after him. I swallow. "In a bad way, or--"

***

"Rabbit jerky, or I've got some crackers. Or would you like brown river water first?" Michael shakes the container of--clear, mist-filtered--water.

I unknot the wilted, plant-stem twine from my sandal, and cross my bare foot over my other knee. "I don't care."

"Crackers it is then." He hands me a package, crinkly and pale pink, the size of his palm. "Since I would like rabbit jerky, and you can't have a preference."

A pale blister has formed on the outside of my big toe. I shut my eyes, and dig under the skin with my magic.

"One." The package shakes, interrupting me. "My arm's getting tired."

"Fine." I stick out a hand, and the package drops into it, something inside breaking into pieces. I set it on my knee, near my shin, and quest into my foot with magic. Magic fixes up the skin under the blister, toughening the new, baby--

"So what's got you wondering about mist lancers eight years ago? And is this a 'precisely eight years ago' thing, or just approximately eight years ago?"

I sigh, opening my eyes. "I'm busy," I say, wiggling my foot, "trying to heal a blister."

"That's why you've got your eyes shut?" He leans forward, teeth tearing a chunk of jerky from a long strip. "Can I watch?"

I sneer at him, then shut my eyes again. His knees plow closer through the dirt, and he breathes loudly.

My magic digs into the skin of my foot, toughening the baby skin buried beneath the raised blister, strengthening it so it won't bleed. Then I prod around the sore soles of my feet, up into my walked-weary calves.

There's nothing...wrong with my leg muscles. They've barely had much exercise since midday, when I last fixed up the soreness. They're just...not any more used to being exercised than they were days ago, because I keep healing them back exactly how they were.

What a stupid mistake. This time, I build them back slightly stronger, then poke about my sore feet. The tissue across the soles prickles with hot discomfort, so I sweep through them with magic, soothing down the inflammation and rebuilding the damaged tissue.

I open my eyes. Michael's hair is practically in my face; dark, tight coils bobbing to a breeze. "Hey, scoot back," I say, and he jumps, pulling away, rocking onto his heels.

"Your blister didn't change." He points at my foot propped on my leg.

"I know." I grab the discarded sandal and--with the jagged back corner of the bark--I jab the pale blister.

"Whoa--" Michael says. My blister pops, liquid seeping out.

"Whoa," Michael says again, "don't do that! You'll get it infected, I thought you were healing that."

"I did." I set the sandal at my side, stick my leg forward, and prop my other foot on my knee. I undo this second sandal, running my fingers down the skin, but find no blisters.

"You..." Michael leans forward. "Wow, you grew new skin under it."

I slip the sandal back on.

"Neato."

My fingers tie the twine across the top of my foot, then I plant my leg in front of me, kicking the side of Michael's boot, where his heel is slightly raised because of his crouch. "What was your question?" I glance up, meeting his gaze. Against the cloudless, cyan sky, his eyes glow like flames. "About eight years ago?"

"Ah yes." He takes another tearing bite of the jerky. "Why do you want to know about mist wraithers exactly eight years ago?"

Inhaling, I clench my anxious fingers into fists. I nearly grab the sandal at my side, to distract myself from his face.

"And...why do you want to meet whoever could've made one eight years ago?"

My arms cross, half hugging my beating ribs. Why does this not want to come out of my mouth? If I didn't want him to know, I shouldn't have mentioned it at all. I inhale again, "Eight years ago, I snuck out to the forest behind the castle, and met a mist wraith. They told me...some stuff. So I was wondering if I could find the real person who was there."

Michael squints at me, lips smooshing up. I swallow, and hope the sound isn't loud. "What?" I accuse. My hands reach for the pink package of crackers, instead of the sandal.

"This sounds made up." he jabs the half-eaten rabbit jerky at me. "No, it's too random to be made up. But it also sounds too random to be real. You met a mist wraith when you were like, ten? And it didn't maliciously blind you or lure you to the river to drown? What'd it say?"

My fingers open the package, and pull out a thin, square sheet of bread, baked hard as glass and dusted with salt.

"What'd it say?"

"That's kind of." I stare at the cracker in my hand. "It's complicated."

He sits back on his heels. He motions with the rabbit jerky, to the open plain of dead grass, and the river steps behind me. "Does it look like I'm busy?"

I bite the cracker. The crusty bread crunches in my ears. "How about you tell me something about you first? Why's your name Michael? Where are your parents? What do you do in the fort all day?"

He waggles a finger, shoving more jerky into his mouth. "Uh uh. I saved your life, I get to ask you all sorts of things."

"Okay, fine. But I basically saved yours too. Remember when I charged you full of light when you could barely move?"

"Then you fell unconscious like a dummy and I had to haul you out of there."

"You..." I shove a cracker into my mouth and reach for another. "You could've charged me back, then I could've healed myself and carried you out of there."

"I didn't know you could heal yourself." He rips off a chunk of meat. "So I thought charging you with sunlight would've left me unconscious and you bleeding out."

I glare. "I've already answered a bunch of your questions."

"So?"

I glare back.

"Alright, fine." He tilts his head, lip twitching, eyes staring flat ahead. "Hi, I'm Michael, I have no idea why my parents named me that, because like most of the upper echelon of generals, they can't be bothered with offspring beyond producing them to bolster their lower ranks. Every day that I'm in the fort, I'm wandering the library, since I have no interest in the war meetings or taking care of the babies or making more babies. But I'm usually not in the fort, I'm on the battlefront, or off scouting." He shoves a wad of meat into his mouth, puffing his cheeks. He hasn't blinked.

"Oh." I stare at the package in my hands.

"Now what did the mist wraith say?"

"He called me a Destroyer." I pluck out a cracker from the crinkling package.

"Pkhtchh."

I snap the cracker in half with my teeth.

"You're not serious."

"I literally dreamt about it for eight years afterward." I stare at my crumb-dusted hands, prickling with shame. "I'm not making it up."

He jumps to his feet. "You're not serious. What did the mist sound like? Do you remember? You were in the forest? It told you you were the Destroyer? When you were ten? And you went back to the castle? One. You are crazy."

"I didn't know what it meant. I didn't even believe it." I twist up the mouth of the cylindrical package. "I still don't know what it meant really." But maybe? All his talk about prophecies of the Dawn...

"One." Hands grab my biceps and shake me, making me look up at him. "Was it lying?" A strange heat glitters in his eyes, too close to my face. "Was it lying."

"How would I know?" I swat his arms away, lean back. "What's a Destroyer?"

He stares, bent over me, mouth opening, then closing, then his throat swallows. "The Destroyer is the Dawn's herald, One. Literally the Dawn's herald. Are you the Dawn's herald?"

***
author note: dun-dun-dun...where do you think One got his name from?