Finally, after days of walking, they reached a town. Never had Rina known a nation to be so spread out. Minisia was always so cramped, at least, the parts she had seen. Many villages surrounded Ziya, all filled to the brim with people. They had always been bustling, the people happy and smiling despite everything. That was in summer anyway. Winter was a whole different story.

Winter for the Ishini didn't seem to be much of a bother. More snow had fallen during the night, but the people of the town had already shovelled it away by the time the little group arrived. From the treeline, the smiles on the faces of the townsfolk were still visible as they wandered the streets, chatting to their neighbours. It was as though they didn't even know there was a war happening.

"Finally!" Nerin gasped next to her and planted his hands against a tree. She nodded in agreement; finally. It had only taken them days of walking to reach the first village, far longer than it had to make it west, but Brenmar stretched further north than it did west. They still had a couple of days before they reached the coast.

Behind her, Emrick groaned. "I would kill for a warm bed," he said, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. She frowned at the strange phrase and shook her head.

She too wanted to sleep somewhere that wasn't an abandoned cabin or a hollowed-out tree, even if it was only for a night. There was only one issue. There was a war on and she was on the enemy side. No one in the town would let her take one step once they saw the colour of her skin.

"But... What about Rina?" Isiah asked. "We can't just leave her out here." At least she wasn't the only to have noticed the issue. She didn't particularly want to spend the night alone in the cold, but if it kept them safe, she would do it. Last time she had gone into a town with them, it had almost gotten Nerin and Isiah killed.

Emrick stared at her thoughtfully and she resisted shying away from his gaze. "How powerful are your illusions?" he asked.

She pulled at the bracelet around her wrist. "With ellinite, I can be quite powerful," she answered.

"Enough to change how you look?"

She hissed in a breath and shook her head. "Not for very long, only a few minutes," she told him. Once, when Jonin had almost caught up to them when they were heading west, she'd made the three of them look like a bush, but it had used up so much of her energy. She'd only been able to make it last for a couple of minutes. It had saved them then, but it might not last a second time around.

"Then we will have to be quick," Emrick said, humming thoughtfully and tapping his foot against the ground. "I'll be right back. I'll find the closest inn so we don't have to run around too much."

He didn't give any of them a chance to respond before he darted out of the trees and towards the little houses. He disappeared into the crowd and she bit down on her lips nervously. A large part of her didn't want to attempt the illusion. There was no set time for how long it would last. They couldn't afford to be caught.

Instead, she turned her thoughts to something else. "Isiah, how are you doing?" she asked, turning to face the older man. She hadn't spoken to him as much on their journey, focusing mostly on training Nerin. Guilt settled like a rock in her stomach at the thought, considering she had asked him to do so much for her back at the laboratory.

He shrugged. "I think I'm doing better. I'm getting used to the stone, but..." He trailed off and she had no idea what he was going to say.

"But what?" she asked.

"But I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he replied and leaned back against the tree, his hands in the pockets of his coat. "The powers I have are designed to hurt people, but I don't want to do that anymore. I'm meant to be the protector of the realm, to fight because my people can't, but I don't think I can."

She should have been talking to him, to help him figure out what he needed to do, but she'd ignored him in favour of training Nerin. "I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes fixed on the ground.

"You have nothing to apologise for," he said. But she did, didn't she? She had promised to help him and so far she hadn't, not that she'd had much of a chance to. If she had known what he was dealing with, she would have been there to listen to him. There wasn't much she could suggest to him though, if it had been her, she would have been ready to wipe the threats to Vishera off the map.

Nerin cleared his throat. "Well, shouldn't there be a peaceful way to fix everything?" he asked. There was a nervous look in his eyes and once again Rina remembered that they were dealing with his brother. The differences between them caused her to forget so often. They were nothing alike; Nerin was a good person, while Harudan was a warmongering murderer.

"I hope so," Isiah replied. His hand fidgeted with something in his pocket, the stone.

Before she got a chance to say anything more, Emrick returned, bursting through the trees and making her jump in surprise. "Sorry," he said and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "I found an inn pretty close by. Hopefully, you'll be able to hide for long enough.

"Did you find out where we are?" Nerin asked, already moving towards the town.

Emrick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "We're in a town called Reed. I'll find it on the map once we've got a room. Do you still have the gold on you, Isiah?"

Isiah nodded and pulled the little coin purse from his bag. Hopefully, the inns in the town wouldn't be too overpriced, but they were quite far from Ishmar, people would be poorer further out, meaning they would charge more.

The only thing left to do was cast her illusion. She focused on Isiah as she cast it, trying to copy his features as best she could. As far as she was aware, no one had ever tried to hide as an Ishini before. The only ones who might have were the assassins sent during the ten years after the Frost.

She copied his dark hair and pale orange skin as if she were painting it over her original skin. She made her eyes red like Nerin's and gave her ears the second point the Ishini always had. "How do I look?" she asked when she was done, casting one extra illusion to change her accent.

"Disturbingly like an Ishini, but you sound like an Askari" Emrick answered. "Are we ready to go."

She nodded. "We had best move quickly, this is already tiring me out." So much power went into a complex illusion and even with ellinite, it took a strain on her almost instantly. With tired legs, she stepped from the treeline, waiting for someone to point her own, even at such a distance.

But as the group walked closer and closer to the little town of Reed, no one gave them a second glance. Still, she pulled her hood over her head, just in case her hair started to turn white again as they walked. It was strange, feeling it end at her neck, even though Emrick had cut it days ago.

She was glad he had done it but nervous about what her family would think when she eventually returned home. The only person who was meant to get it cut was her little brother, which would probably happen sooner rather than later, with the war. She would miss his ceremony too but finding the stones was far more important.

The fact that Emrick had kept what they'd talked about a secret had surprised her, but she was grateful for it. There had been times when she was younger where she had to explain herself, but with Emrick, it hadn't been necessary, he'd accepted it and moved on. She'd had the discs in her back for so long that she constantly forgot about them, but she'd never forgotten her parents sacrifice.

The other two didn't need to know. No one needed to know anymore because she no longer looked anything like the boy she had once been. She'd wanted to run when Emrick brought it up, but it had been nowhere near as bad as she had expected it to be. The people she travelled with continued to surprise her and for that, she was grateful.

As they walked down the dirty streets of Reed, Rina kept all of her focus on maintaining the illusion, no matter how tiring it got. For the first time since she'd arrived in Brenmar, no one gave her a second glance. She looked just like the rest of them, her skin the colour of the sky at sunrise, not the dark blue it always was. Instead, people gave Emrick strange glances, but it was easy to assume that he was used to it.

It tired her out and by the time they'd turned a few corners, she could feel her grasp on the illusion slipping. Smaller illusions were easy, removing a mole or changing eye colours, she could hold those for hours. But something as complex as the entire body, that was something only the ellinite in her back could do for longer than a few minutes.

"Emrick," she grunted, keeping her voice quiet so no one would hear her accent.

He winced when he looked at her, meaning that she was already starting to look like herself again. "Just do the front of your hair, I can't see the rest of it. Same with your body" he told her. "We're not far, just a little longer." As he spoke, Nerin and Isiah moved to walk in front of her, as if to shield her from view.

She dropped the illusion on the parts of her body that were hidden, making it easier for her to maintain the one on her face. Her ears were hidden by the hood, meaning she could remove the second point. There was less effort on her part to look the way she needed, which meant that she could make it to the inn and a room, hopefully.

With hurried footsteps, Emrick led them into a small double-storey building. The sign above the door waved in the wind and the door creaked loudly as they entered. The small room beyond was dimly lit and mostly empty, the only people a couple at a table against the wall and the bored-looking innkeeper.

"Hello, how can I help you?" they asked when the four of them marched up to the counter.

"We'd like a room, please," Emrick said, ignoring the narrowed eyes of the innkeeper.

Rina tapped her foot impatiently. It would be much longer before the illusion slipped entirely. "They only have two beds," the innkeeper said.

Emrick waved them away. "Doesn't matter to us," he said and gestured for Isiah to hand over the coin purse. "How much?"

It didn't take them long to sort out the price and grab the key, but still, Rina shuffled impatiently. Nerin looked at her, a frown on his face and worry in his eyes. She wanted to say something to him, wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, but didn't want her Askari accent to give her away.

"Was there anything else you needed?" the innkeeper asked when they finally handed over the key.

Emrick was silent for a second and Rina wanted to push him along. "Actually, yes," he said and she groaned internally, vowing to stab him if they didn't get a move on. She wasn't the only one agitated, Isiah hopped from foot to foot, staring at the innkeeper with wide eyes. "Can I get one of those?" He pointed to a box of cigars at the end of the bench.

"Sure," the innkeeper grumbled and grabbed one for him. "Thank Sol and Lune for the King's arrival, I haven't had any business in a while."

Everything froze in that instant and Rina was sure her illusion would drop from shock. "What?" Nerin asked in a high-pitched voice. "The- The King is here?"

The innkeeper gave them a strange look. "He arrived yesterday," they said and looked at each and every one of them. "That's not why you're here?"

"No," Emrick said, sounding more cheerful than he had any right to be. "We're just travellers, heading west. We had no idea the King was here."

The innkeeper shrugged. "Probably something to do with the war. Our army isn't even ready," they said. "You'd think they'd be more than ready to fight those damned Askari, huh? Anyway, that's another gold piece, kid."

Another quick exchange and the group was rushing up the stairs, feet pounding against the thin wood. Emrick looked the door behind them and she dropped her illusion a second later. She sat on the rickety bed with a sigh and dropped her hood, remembering a time where her hair would have fallen down her shoulders.

Isiah paced the room, hands running through his hair and down his beard. "The King is here," he said, panicked. "We need to leave."

"And we will," Emrick said, moving forward to plant his hands on Isiah's shoulders. "In the morning."

"But then Harudan will know we're here!" Nerin cried, arms flailing about wildly.

"He won't. No one recognised us. We will leave in the morning, but we need to get a good rest and get some supplies. We'll run low on food soon if we don't buy more here," Emrick explained and Rina hated that she agreed with him. Harudan was so close to them, one wrong move and he would know that they were there. But if they kept quiet, they could be on their way without him knowing any different.

She nodded and sighed. "We'll have to keep hidden for the night and we'll have to leave early in the morning, but I think we'll be okay," she said and ran a hand down her face.

"What?" Isiah said, pulling himself away from Emrick. "You can't be serious! We have to get away from here now!"

"Isiah!" Emrick yelled, drawing the other man's attention back to him. "We'll be fine! You don't need to worry. What you can do is light my cigar."

Rina scowled at the words, feeling as confused as Isiah looked. "What?" he asked. "Do you even smoke?"

"Sometimes," he answered with a shrug. "Now, light it."

She didn't see much point in him doing so, Emrick could have easily gotten a match and done it himself. "Emrick, there are more important things," she said. Like the King. While they were going to be staying the night, it did make her nervous to have the enemy so close. If it had been a week or two ago, she would have run off and tried to kill him during the night. But she had more sense than that.

"But what if I hurt you?" Isiah asked in a quiet voice.

"You won't. You're getting a lot better at using the stone. You're not going to hurt anyone unless you want to," he said. Emrick stuck the cigar in his mouth, smiling when Isiah pulled out the stone. It only took a few seconds for the smoke to rise from the tip of it. "See, what did I tell you?"

Isiah stared down at the cigar in wonder. Lighting it was a precise movement and even Rina was surprised he'd been able to do it without much effort. "Was that really necessary?" she asked Emrick.

He shrugged. "He needed a distraction," he answered and glanced around at each of them. "I'm going to get supplies. I should only be a couple of hours. We're going to be fine. Harudan will never know we were here."

Part of her didn't believe it, but she wanted to trust him anyway. They were on the outskirts of town, no one had known she was an Askari and they were so far from Ishmar that no one would recognise Nerin. Emrick left the room before she could say anything and Nerin sat down next to her.

"We're going to be fine," she said to him as Isiah started pacing again, but her mind itched to jump ship and run from the town as fast as her legs could take her. She wouldn't be caught by Jonin and Harudan, not until she was ready to kill them both.