Day six, we hike a mountain pass, and the bark sandals on my feet both split in pieces--the left one shatters on the tiniest pebble jutting from the packed dirt path, and hardly an hour later, the right one's twine cord snaps off.

But we've made it to the mountains, with no forest nearby, only stubby pine trees poking out of rocky clefts, their bark so flaky it could season a cheese dish. So Michael can't make me new ones.

Though, the sandals breaking yesterday while we walked across the bare prairie would've been just as bad. So I'm determined not to complain, since I got a whole other day out of them than I might've.

I walk barefoot on the dirt-packed trail that winds higher into the mountains, away from the brown plains. The path sometimes comes close enough to a river for roaring waterfalls to drown us out, at one point we pass a violet-blue meadow dotted with green flowers, and later we hike through a stand of arrow-straight pine trees as tall as my knees.

We stop for a midday meal and my feet have bled, turned blue by grass stains, been stabbed by pine needles and dry rocks, and dried under a caked layer of dust--except for where the crimson blood stains streak my skin.

"Oof," Michael says, tossing me the pink package of crackers. They land on the dirt by my dusty pants. "Your feet have got it rough."

I cross my legs to hide them. "Why do I get the crackers? What if I want rabbit jerky?"

"Ha," he says, digging through the backpack.

"No, I'm serious," I say, picking up the package. "Crackers are super dry and thin and basically dissolve in my saliva. I want to chew on something."

He raises an eyebrow. "Chew on the package then."

I glare, but stuff the papery opening in my mouth and chew, once. "Happy now?" I rip it out. "You know nutrients are still a thing, right? I've eaten nothing but crackers and water for the past day, and my legs are sore."

"Fine," he sighs. From his bag, he pulls out a strip of rabbit jerky, more brown than red, as long as his hand. He tosses it at me. I barely catch it before the road can. Then I open my mouth to say thank you, but he pulls out a different pink pack of crackers, and a strip of jerky as long as his forearm, setting them on his lap.

"Hey," I say instead.

He digs in the package, then snaps a lumpy, square-ish cracker in half and sandwiches a section of the jerky.

"What," I say.

He shoves half of it into his mouth.

"You have more than me."

"I've been carrying our supplies," he says. "So there."

I glare. "This feels unfair, I could've been eating both but you've only been giving me crackers." But I grab for a cracker and copy Michael, sandwiching the rabbit jerky in cracker halves and tearing off a piece. "Very dry crackers."

"That's unfortunate for you." He waggles the empty water container. "We're nowhere near the river, so, no water."

Annoyed, I stare behind me at the road sloping out of sight behind a wall of gray rock--we are indeed nowhere near any water. "Why does all your food dry my mouth out?"

"Because salt." He shoves another sandwiched bite of jerky into his mouth. "Which you can't taste, so I'm not surprised you didn't know that."

"I knew that." I scowl.

"Right."

"Okay so I rarely eat foods covered in it, of course I wouldn't know."

"Right." He nods. "That makes sense, since these are travel rations, and salt preserves things. And you've never left the castle before now, yeah? So you've never gone on a trip where you have to eat preserved food, yeah?"

I chomp through another cracker. "We preserve stuff through the winter. It's not dry and covered in salt though."

"Probably because it's frozen."

I silently eat another cracker.

"Hey, we can eat and walk at the same time, you know. If you're really in need of water."

I shake my head. "I'm good." My feet are itchy and tingling and I think it's because of some red shrubs camping out under the pine trees. "I can wait."

"Okay." He shrugs, staring off into the distance, chewing slowly. The dirt trail--also acting as our dining table and seating--cuts along the side of the mountain, with a small gray ridge on the outer edge, the perfect height to catch your foot if you stray too close and make you trip headlong down the pine-tree studded mountainside. But beyond that, green valleys and foggy blue mountains paint the landscape, rising into the sky.

From the Obsidian Castle, in daylight, the mountains just look like gray blobs in the distance. Boring hills that no one cared about, what with the wide plains stretching between us and them. Battles of flashing light and threats of Sun Slaves advancing closer occupied our attention much more than some distant hills.

And usually, I saw everything under the cover of night, so the mountains amounted to nothing but blank shapes of starless sky, blurring into the horizon.

Except here, actually in the mountains, the scenery's pretty. Colorful. Weirdly alive, despite the quiet.

I scoot up the road, sitting beside Michael, brushing our knees. "I've never seen mountains up close before."

He startles, head spinning toward me. "Yeah. Obviously."

I glare.

He tilts his head. "What?"

"Thanks for this." I chew my last bite of rabbit jerky, then I hold out my hand. "Can I please have more?"

"Sure." He roots around the backpack in his lap. I lick my dried lips, and he drops a piece of meat--barely as long as my pinky--into my palm. He goes back to staring across the valley, apparently done eating, despite the open package of crackers by his knee.

So I stuff the meat in my mouth, and shut my eyes, prodding around my injured feet. I fix up the burst blisters, the cuts, the sore tissue, the scratching rashes on my ankles from the red plants. Then I open my eyes, and Michael's still staring across the valley.

"Hey," I say.

He jolts.

"What are you doing?"

"Thinking." He eyes me, from my wild curly hair, to my stained feet. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yep." I climb to my feet.

He points at my blood-stained toes. "Those okay?"

"Yep." I nod. "I healed them already."

"Oh. Alright." He crawls the few steps down the road to fetch my crackers, then shoves both packages into his bag. Swinging the flap over the top, he knots it to two straps sewed along the bottom. Then he stands, sliding the bag up his shoulders. "We should make it to the fort before nightfall. You ready for it?"

I frown. "Is there a reason I shouldn't be?"

He shrugs, trekking up the road. "Better question, is there a reason you would?"

I tiptoe after him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've never been in a Night Warrior castle or army or whatever, but I'm willing to bet our remaining food that it's nothing like living in the fort."

"I sure hope it isn't," I mutter, bare feet kicking up tiny clouds of dirt.

Michael just grimaces.

***

Before third meal--supper--we come across a mountain stream; not the giant, raging river that winds along the plains, though Michael suspects this little thing flows down and ends up joining that river.

It's the first water we've come across since midday, so we're both panting with thirst. Michael did find some chubby, oval flower petals maybe three hours after noon to suck on, but they did little to sate my thirst. And I got chunky fibers stuck between my teeth.

We don't hear the water over the wind carving through a stand of pines, so we stumble into it blindly; I walk around the curve of a giant, gray tree and nearly drop face first into the babbling stream. I gulp, tongue gummy with dryness, but Michael grabs my shoulder and drags me back, "it's not filtered," he says, and grunts. Mist rises from the water, in that familiar funnel shape. I pull my shoulder away, licking my lips.

"Fine," I say, but stalk to the water.

"One--" he says, backpack sliding down his arm.

"I'm not going to drink it." I splash into the stream, feet sinking through mud, heels knocking a half-buried tree root. I mean what I'm saying, but a luring part of my brain wants me to belly flop on the surface and drink until I'm glutted.

I kick a foot through the water, splashing a wave at the opposite shore, where a gray dirt trail winds through a meadow to a rocky outcropping, then winds out of sight. But I squint, past those gray rocks. "Is that the fort?"

A building of brown stone in the distance seemingly floats over the rocks. Unless I lean sideways, then half the fort disappears behind the mountainside.

"Yeah," Michael grunts, still staring at his mist funnel, and the mist slide, and the clear water dribbling down it toward the water container at his feet. "Down the valley, then up that hill."

I lower my arm and stare, the brook lapping around my ankles. It... "It doesn't feel like anything."

Michael crouches, still staring at the dribbling, dripping water plopping into the water cylinder. "That statement made zero sense."

"It..." I bend over and dunk my hands in the water; they waver above a pale root, lost between mud and glimmering stream surface. "I was born there, I spent my whole life trying to take it back and now we're practically here, I just walked up to it. I thought I'd feel something."

"Ah. Well. Sorry? They have shoes there. And you can finally change into something new and give me my clothes back."

It didn't bother me before, but now my forearms by my knees go hypersensitive to the beige weave of the pants I've been wearing for days, and my chest prickles with the white fabric of my shirt--both borrowed from Michael. "Oh." Heat rises up my neck at the idea of Michael now wearing these things that I've worn for days, the shirt creased under my armpits, the pants folded at the back of my knees, covered in my sweat and body scent.

...what do I smell like?

"Oh," I say again. Do I smell...good? No, I haven't bathed in a week, I probably stink. Michael probably stinks.

"I'll be nice and you can have the water first," Michael says. His boots splash into the brook, and I stand, limbs jerky, and twist around without looking so I knock into a bunch of hanging tree branches.

"Whoa." Michael's eyes widen. "You okay? Your face is red. Like a cooked rabbit."

"Yeah." I rub my wet hands down the front of my shirt. "I just..."

He offers me the brimming water container.

"I've been wearing your clothes for six days and neither of us have bathed."

He blinks. Twice. "Yes."

"I'm sorry if I smell gross."

His lips split and he snorts. "Just take the water, One. Destroying One."

So I do. And drain half of it. I hand it back. "Thanks, Michael."

"Yeah. My boots are soaked, I didn't think about this." He trudges across the brook to the gray path.

"Hey, wait." I slosh after him, feet curling over round stones, slicked with algae. "If you get to call me Destroying One, you need a fancy name too. Just Michael does not compare to Destroying One."

"You are not calling me Mike. I hate that, there's like two generals named Mike and they both have squished up faces, all wrinkled around their noses. It looks like they're squinting all the time."

"Okay"--I clamber up the river bank behind him--"but I didn't ask to be some Destroying One. I still don't really know what that means. What am I supposed to destroy? Expectations?"

He walks a few steps, sits in the middle of the narrow path and tips the water up, drinking slowly. I stop behind him, fingers trailing tall brown flowers lining the path, petaled in three pairs.

"What about boy I kissed twice?" I ask. Once on the fourth day, then last night when we pushed our grass mats together in the shelter of a very short hill of dirt on the mountain pass, the only thing available to block the whistling wind coming down the slopes.

He thumps the container to the path. "You'd have to change that number approximately every day." Then he starts untying his boots.

I crouch, staring around his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking off my wet boots and socks, so I don't get blisters. I'm going to walk barefoot with you. And yes, I know walking barefoot will give me injuries too, but this way I won't get blood on my socks and you'll be right there to heal me." He glances over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

I stare at his eyes. "Yeah."

"Great." He strips off his boots and socks. "I'm going to fill this again, then we can go."

He grabs the water container, then scoots backward on his bottom toward the brook, bumping into me--I almost tip over so I stand quickly, stepping back and squeezing against the side of the path.

He scoots by, grinning on his way past, and I widen my eyes like a bug at his face.

Then I crouch by his boots, soles of my feet caked in gray dirt. My fingers wiggle, tantalized by the idea of his soaked socks and boots slipping warm onto my skin and calves. But he's mere steps away, staring at me, stopping by the water to fill the container again, so I curl my hands between my knees and try to figure out how his mist funnel filters water and pulls it up to the slide, then trickles it down the spigot into the near-empty water container.

"Also, there should be guards stationed around here somewhere," Michael says. "So hopefully they'll recognize me and not try to attack us, but who really knows."

"What?" I say. I gulp. "But the last castle, the meadow--"

"If things go bad, just show the guards you can make some mist or light stuff, and we should be fine."

I nibble my lip. "What if I'm not sure how to consciously do that?"

He waves a hand. "Just figure out what you were thinking when you did it all the other times, and put yourself in that headspace again. Easy."

I frown, but I try, crouched on the path with brown flowers swaying against my arms, Michael half a dozen steps away with a mist chute dripping water into his clear container.

In the dark kitchen. When Michael knocked me to the ground. That breath Regalia saw, and charging Michael with sunlight.

Half those times, I was trapped and/or in imminent danger. In the kitchen...I don't remember. I was slightly annoyed I'd walked all that way, to find an empty cauldron? Then with Regalia, I told her I was crying in that room, and light came out at the same time.

I scrunch my eyebrows. I think that time, I got fed up with...lying? And hiding and making up fake reasons to keep people from asking questions...

"I have to tear down barriers in my brain," I whisper, flower petals thumping my arms.

"Yeah, basically."

"No, that's not what you said."

"That's basically what I said." He flicks the container. The water's more than half filled it.

"Never mind." I rip out a flower stem that keeps bumping the same spot on my elbow, and throw it behind me. "I have to, like..." I stare at the ground. "Like, I've been hiding it forever, so the light only came when I got so annoyed or scared that it overrode my need to hide it. Or"--I twist my face up--"uncaring enough?"

"Huh." His lips pull into a frown. "You sound very self-aware."

My cheeks warm. "Thank you?"

"I'm sure if a guard is trying to kill you, you'll be scared or whatever, and probably we won't have a problem." The mist funnel over the water disappears, then the chute guiding the water to the container slowly dissolves, and the trickling water halts, and the last tendrils of mist wisp from the clear rim. "But probably not having a problem stresses me out." He twists the lid on the water, then tucks it under his arm. "So." He scoots toward me, heels then bottom then heels scraping across the dirt.

"So what?" I bat away flower stems bumping my arms but accidentally elbow his boots so I blush all over again. His scoots pull him up against my shins, his toes poking the skin below the hem of my pants, his knees brushing just beneath mine. He's not blinking. I swallow.

"So we're going to practice not hiding."

"Oh." I swallow. "Okay."

Then he stands up so fast I tip over. "Come along, One, your lessons begin now!"

***

We walk, stepping off the mountain pass and down into the valley, cutting directly toward the fort atop the next hill over. Imposing gray mountains surround us and the fort, the green valley rising into gray rock and blue spires. We've walked into a giant's palm, the mountains its uplifted fingers, the fort's hill like a hyperextended knuckle on the fourth finger.

Or maybe that hill is like a quaint footstool, pressed against a mountain chair.

We don't walk far; Michael tries talking at me about how to "quit hiding" and how to "unblock my mind" to consciously use my powers, but the slope is covered in sharp rocks that constantly have him yelping in pain, interrupting his speech. So we stop beside the first fallen tree on the slope, its white bark flaking in tiny chips, branches and roots mostly ripped away. Michael straddles the middle of it, inspecting his feet (which aren't even bleeding), then tells me to sit across from him and demonstrate my healing powers on his injuries.

So I straddle the lopsided, lonely tree trunk on the mountainside, facing Michael, slightly higher than him. He plops his wet boots on the ground, and takes his backpack off, hugging it to his chest. Then he sticks one foot on the log between us, practically kicking me.

"When you heal yourself, you don't make any light," he says, picking at the bark with his fingernails. "Is it different when you heal other people?"

"No." I put my hand around his hairless ankle and shut my eyes. And quest into his feet with my skin magic, hesitant, because I've kissed this boy twice and realized I'm wearing his clothes so my brain might forget what it's doing.

But fixing the slightly-bruised tissue in the sole of his foot doesn't make me blush or feel weirdly intimate. It's just a bruise, just my skin magic that has healed deeper things in countless soldiers.

I fix the bruise. Open my eyes. Michael's got his eyebrows scrunched together, his lips pressed up to his nostrils, chips of bark disintegrating in his fingers. That he's staring at.

"Your foot's better." I let go of his ankle.

"Yeah, I know." His eyes squint, and I don't tell him he probably looks like one of the Mike generals he says have squished up faces. Speaking of...

"If I can't call you boy I've kissed twice, what do I call you? You have to have a nickname."

"I have a question." He lowers his foot to the ground, then props his other one in front of me. "When you heal a night warrior, does it feel different from healing yourself, or me?"

"No." I grab his ankle. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"I've always kind of liked Kael." He glances away, staring at the jagged gray and black rocks covering the slope, above the green valley floor. "But that's hardly any different from Michael, if you're thinking epic titles on par with Destroyer. I guess mist lancer is sort of epic sounding, but there's tons of mist lancers."

I purse my lips. "You could go by Kael. And...you could call me Troy. It's part of the word Destroyer. Like, code for when other people are around. I don't want everyone knowing I'm...that."

He frowns at me, eyes darting side to side. "Why don't I just call you One, then? That's short for Destroying One. One and Michael. One and Kael." His lip twitches. "Yeah, I think I like Kael," he flicks his toes, brushing my wrist. "But it's not dramatic like Destroyer."

"Kael," I say. "Kael and Troy."

"Kael and his Destroying One. See, those are not equal names."

"I mean." I tighten my grip on his soft ankle. "Won't people recognize One as a Night Warrior name?"

He tilts his head. "No? It is a kind of weird name, but I am showing up with you out of nowhere, so." He shrugs.

I bite my lip. Shut my eyes to hurry and heal his slightly bruised foot--maybe he should put his boots back on for the rest of the slope--

"Yeah, I don't need a fancy nickname--"

My magic speeds through his injured foot, repairing the broken tissue and capillaries too fast. He gasps out.

"Sorry." I open my eyes, letting go, and he yanks his foot back. "I did that too fast."

He grimaces, rubbing the toes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, now I am. I got a wicked hot flash in my foot. I was almost hoping you'd summon some mist or light, but alas..."

I sigh, hands falling to my sides.

"Actually I'm leaning toward mist, since you say it feels no different than with a night warrior. What if you have a special Destroying One power that lets you make super tiny bits of mist that stitch things up inside someone? Although that's a weird one to go with for someone who's supposed to destroy things--tiny bits of mist that can heal people.

"Or maybe you just got really good at hiding mist in that night pest castle, so your powers worked inward instead of outward. Did you start out being able to heal people? Or do you remember using mist when you were really little? Like, was healing just you concealing what you could do deep inside people's skin?"

"Michael."

He glances up. "We're back to full names?"

"Can you please not call me One anymore? That's what everyone in the castle called me, and...and I think Perseverance's voice saying his name will be stuck in my head forever."

His mouth slowly forms an "o," and he lowers his foot from the log. "So you really want to go by Troy, not One?"

I nod. "I don't want to be reminded of...there. Not when you say my name."

"What about Destroying One, can I call you that still?"

"Yeah, that's fine." I hesitate. "Or do you think Troy sounds too much like a boy's name?"

He scoots closer, the backpack hugged to his chest. "I don't know any boys named Troy. Why?"

I kick pebbles, send them skidding mere footsteps. "I think I don't want to be one. But," I rush, "if you're only into boys--"

"No, I think I just like you." His hand reaches out, grabbing my wrist. "But if you get to try the not-quite-a-boy thing, I'm doing it too." His eyes widen. "Troy and Kael, not quite boys, Destroyer and rescuer. That is our couple name now. You can't change my mind."

I smirk. "Okay, Kael."

"Okay, Troy--" Then his eyes go round and he points at my lips. "You did the thing."

I pull away, staring. "I did wha--" Mist leaks from my mouth. By reflex, I clap a hand over my face.

Kael gently tugs my wrist. "We're stopping the hiding, remember?"

"Oh." I exhale mist. "Right."

"Though you also don't want to waste all your magic doing that." He lets go of me, hugging his backpack. "So...stop doing that."

I exhale mist. "I don't know how to stop wasting it. Well..."

Maybe? I place a hand on the flaking log and push, willing the light to exit my body that way.

"Not like that." He swats my hand away, and mist trails from my fingers. "That's just dumping the energy into the wood. Stop letting it leak out of you."

I tuck my arm to my chest, lungs constricting. "Isn't that the same thing as hiding?"

"No. Totally different," he says, and my breath eases. "You're saving it, not hiding it. You're putting some shade over it, not burying it. So...stop. Plain breath."

"That's so helpful," I snort. Yet there's no mist.

"Brilliant." He smiles. "I knew you could do it."

I exhale again. No mist. "But I don't know what I did."

"It's literally super easy." He swings his leg over the log. "Breathe mist."

I hold my breath for a drawn out beat. Then let it go. There's mist.

"Plain breath."

I glare at him, not moving, only exhaling when my lungs force me too. It's just air.

"The hard part"--Michael swings his backpack on and picks up his boots, tying the laces to the bag's side--"is doing it when you think it, and not when someone else makes you think it."

My arms cross. "Hmph." There's no mist. "Maybe you should put on those boots so your feet don't bruise."

He smiles. "But then I'd get blisters."

"Because that's so much worse than--"

"Oh yes, way worse--let's go show the guards how well you can breathe mist now!"

***

Author note: next chapter we meet Nomsa. You might like her. Or you might not. Either way, she completes this trio of main characters...