173 - Pass

With Speck and its senses guiding her, Alexandra ran through the stone fields at night. By now, she couldn’t remember how many times she had slipped or tripped on a loose rock sticking out of the ground. Even skills and supernatural senses couldn’t entirely make up for the lack of light.

At some point, she tried running with Rays Of The Sun active beside her. The bright light turned into a beacon broadcasting her position to any predator that felt hungry. It wasn’t that Alexandra was too weak to fight them off, but she was in a hurry.

She still had no idea if Zeynep had gone to the pass, or why she would have in the first place.

It was her only lead. A tenuous one.

I don’t have any better idea.

She tried reassuring herself. It would be fine. She was fine. In fact, besides the occasional slip and trip, she hadn’t even fallen yet.

Just as she thought that, her left foot landed on a rock. The rock was smooth. She felt it immediately. It was also slippery. That, she realized when her foot slid out from under her as she pushed off.

Her back foot flung behind her. She raised her hands to catch her fall, scraping her palms on a pile of rocks. Pointy ones.

“Careful,” Speck advised.

I just had to jinx it, did I?

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

“I. Didn’t.”

She didn’t say anything and pushed herself back up.

“I. Knew. You. Were. Fine,” Speck added. “Strong. Bones.”

“Thank you, I guess.”

Alexandra swiped the area with her senses. The ground was mostly flat, covered with rocks. In the distance, beneath the low light of a crescent moon, she could see the jagged peaks marking the northern border of the basin.

“Any idea where the pass is?” she asked.

“No.”

That was another issue. One she had only realized when it was too late to turn back. Oren gave the location of the pass: somewhere between Izrum and the solar elemental’s territory.

Well, that wasn’t enough.

“How am I supposed to find that damned pass? There are like hundreds of peaks in this mountain range.”

One would think there would be a road leading to it, but she would have seen it when she traveled to Izrum.

“Am I even going in the right direction? I’m not going to stumble upon that solar elemental, right?”

She tried using Tracking to locate the elemental, but nothing came up. She didn’t know if it was because the solar elemental was too far or because it could escape her detection.

“It’s. Night.”

“You’re right. I’m worrying for nothing.”

Much like darkness elementals were very limited by daylight, solar elementals were bound to be less active at night. A bit like her, if she didn’t have Speck.

As she thought, her feet started moving by themselves. There was no point in running if she didn’t know where she was going, but walking should be fine. She had the general direction down, at least.

North.

Walking wasn’t something Alexandra did a lot. In the darkness, it had the unfortunate side effect of waking cogs in her mind she would rather leave quiet. Now that they were churning, it was hard to turn them off.

She’d been rushing non-stop for two nights, chasing after Zeynep. The ghost of Zeynep. Who knew if she was on the right track, or if she was traveling to the pass for nothing. Perhaps Zeynep was already home in Balrum after crossing the mud wastes some other way. There had to be other crossings than the Oldwater route.

Perhaps she was dead, buried under the tons of rocks she had made a living out of hunting.

As much as she didn’t want it to be true, Alexandra couldn’t deny that it was a possibility. Elementals were dangerous, especially when they could manipulate the ground itself.

Besides, elementals weren’t the only threats in those parts of the world. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d killed the cultist of desire. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d drunk poison crafted by a cultist of diseases. It wasn’t that long ago that she stood in a city ruined by cultists of blood.

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Then there were the heroes. She was confident neither Raymond nor Jenna was coming after her. It wouldn’t make much sense after the trouble they went through to send her here in the first place.

But they warned her about Lila. She’d killed Louis. Probably not because of his ties with her, but Alexandra wasn’t sure.

This barely made sense either. How could Lila know about Zeynep? Alexandra and Zeynep weren’t close enough that targeting her would seem like a good move. They’d go after Willow and Kam. Easier targets. Real friends.

Her heart tightened at the realization.

Were they in danger?

She stopped. Looked back. Darkness.

“What?” Speck asked.

“What?” she answered, startled.

“I. Feel. Your. Heart. Different. Fast. Short.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You. Should,” Speck said. “It’s. Your. Body.”

Alexandra shook her head. She was overthinking it. Nobody above Gold could enter the region legally. Though, again, Sera had come to Baleria to fetch her, so she couldn’t rely on that protection.

Why am I even running after Zeynep like that? It’s not like we’re that close.

She frowned as the thought flashed inside her mind.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m doing it because I want to.”

“What?”

“Speck, we’re going to find that damn mountain pass if it’s the last thing we do.”

“And. Zeynep.”

“And Zeynep. Of course.”

She didn’t know if it was blind luck or fate, but when the day broke, the path through the mountains became very apparent.

“I guess people do need to be able to find it if they want anyone to travel through it,” she muttered as she gazed at the gash splitting the vegetation of the valley before her in two clean halves, forming, if not a road, a path.

Now that she was getting close, she slowed down, looking at the ground for traces of passage.

Since this was a pass—one of the few leading in and out of the basin—there was, indeed, passage. She had no way to tell if it was Zeynep.

Walking up the path, doubt crept back into her mind. Realistically, she knew the chances of finding Zeynep at the top of the pass were slim. Admitting she did pass through here, she wouldn’t have just hung out in the middle of the road. She would have gone to the other side.

Then what? Alexandra wanted to find her, but she couldn’t abandon everything and leave the region. Even less so when she couldn’t be sure Zeynep was that way.

As she rose in altitude and the vegetation thinned ahead of her, she started feeling self-conscious.

Just a little.

Am I dumb?

“Yes,” Speck said, its voice sending a jolt through her spine.

“Did I say that out loud?” she asked.

“No. I. Feel. Darkness.” It paused. “Food.”

“Food? You mean there are other darkness elementals around here?”

“Yes.” Speck shivered in glee. “Let’s. Hunt.”

“Where are they?”

“Up!”

They continued on their way.

If nothing else, Speck would make some progress. But the thought of her failings hadn’t escaped her mind. When she heard Zeynep was missing, she’d dropped everything and run all the way here without thinking.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. She had been thinking. Thinking wrong, but thinking nonetheless.

I can’t keep doing that.

This wasn’t Earth. She couldn’t just apologize to her boss at the pizzeria for being late ten times in a row because she had daily quests to complete. Every mistake she made could have catastrophic consequences.

Had she waited for the rescue team organized by Torak and Cem in Balrum, she might have been able to help. They knew the region better than she ever would. They knew people in Oldwater who could have directed them better than the slivers of information she’d gathered.

She was almost ready to turn back. Truth be told, there was little point in seeing the pass itself.

“So. Much. Darkness.”

Feeling the sheer anticipation of her familiar, Alexandra couldn’t help but let a small smile paint her lips.

No harm in checking it out, now that we’re here.

She hadn’t been equipped to defeat Speck when they first met. She wanted to see how her new arsenal would fare against its kind.

The path leveled out at the mountain's shoulder, and a camp came into view below.

Alexandra smiled. There was actually a camp up there.

Then she saw the state it was in and her smile froze.

Tents, maybe a dozen, torn and collapsed. Bodies among them, more than she could count. Some still wore armor, plate arranged in what had once been a phalanx. Shields lay scattered where the line had broken. Others wore leather, boiled and cracked, axes and swords still gripped in stiffened hands.

The rest of the battle was impossible to follow. The formations had collapsed. Neither side had won.

Past the tents, the mountainside had been torn open. A hole the size of a house, raw rock and churned earth spilling out. Dust still hung in the air. The damage was fresh.

“There,” Speck said. “Darkness. Inside.”

They walked down to the camp, all her senses going into overdrive as she tried to listen to the faintest sound.

“Hungry,” Speck said, its attention snagging on the hole in the mountain.

“Not yet.”

She scanned the camp. The phalanx had a pyramid symbol engraved on their shields. On the attire belonging to the warriors of the other side, she spotted a bloodied open hand.

“I don’t like that,” she said. “Those are…”

She stopped. Her ears picked up something.

A sound. Battle. Her eyes darted to the cavern.

There’s no way Zeynep is here. Fucking hell, Alex, get your shit together.

She gritted her teeth. “I guess we’re going in.”

Inside her, she could have sworn she felt Speck grin.