Squeezing his way through the narrow, natural tunnel and up the incline, Det found the first wisps of mist after five minutes. After ten, tendrils of the stuff swirled around his feet with every step. After fifteen, it was like walking through a thick soup of the stuff, his visibility reduced to only a few feet in front of him within the cave. As he finally exited the one secret place he’d found on the small pillar, he could see nearly twenty feet in front of him.

  Huh, pretty clear day.

  Having lived a number of years by the ocean in his past life, foggy mornings or days were nothing new to him. Then again, normal fog didn’t have quite the same physiological effects on people the mist did. He hadn’t met many of the Tainted, as they were called, but he’d read enough to be glad he was immune to the condition as a ReSouled.

  It’d take a special kind of dark humor to have people reborn in another world, only for their blood to turn to green poison in their veins. Or, if they’re lucky, they only have cancerous growths across their body. Maybe the bone density of cotton candy.

  Those were only the most common symptoms of the Tainted too, with the books Det had read outlining at least two dozen more ailments. After the failure of his magic to get him home, he let thoughts of the Tainted occupy his mind while he marched the three-mile hike back to Radiant. Anything was better than dwelling on the fact he wouldn’t be seeing his wife or daughter any time soon.

  No, it was better to mull over the mist, and how it affected those born inside or outside it differently. People from Radiant, those born on the pillar, didn’t have to worry about the mist unless they left it. On the other hand, anybody born above the Mistline would have to worry about becoming Tainted as soon as they entered the mist if they weren’t wearing sealed suits.

  For them, it was almost like an allergic reaction, with symptoms possibly starting any time within seconds of entering the mist, to months after. Stranger still, not everybody suffered from becoming Tainted, though that was likely because most people entered the mist unprotected as little as possible.

  Which is exactly why we only see traders once or twice a year, and getting ink is so damn difficult.

  Grumbling to himself about getting his hands on that necessity for his magic, Det continued working his way through the thick woods. Trees that reminded him of pines from his home—oddly without any branches until about six feet up the trunk—took up most of the top of the pillar, where they hadn’t been clear-cut from one side to make room for livestock.

  Only twelve miles, if that, from one side of the pillar to the other, Det had explored it all. Dangers or not, as a ReSouled, he didn’t have much to worry about. Especially not after he’d come into his magic and created scrolls he could use for protection. The people of Radiant had lived on this pillar for generations, but for whatever reason, they hadn’t been able to completely secure the space. Wild animals still roamed, things like boars, and even the occasional wolf or bear.

  Why there were the same animals as on Earth was one question Det had never found an answer to. The other question was, of course, how the animals kept showing up. Every time one of the more dangerous animals made its presence known, the town would organize a hunt to make sure it got taken care of. Det had even gone on a few of them. Not that it stopped another one from popping up a few months later.

  Det had thought the animals were somehow coming through a portal from his world—one he could take to get back—but he’d found no evidence of it. Nothing. If it was portals, they were appearing and disappearing without a trace, kind of like creations through his own magic. On the other hand, he couldn’t find a natural explanation for it either. The next nearest pillar to Radiant’s was supposed to be almost fifty miles away, and well above the Mistline. Unless bears could fly on this world—Elestar—there was no way they were crossing a gap like that.

  Flying bears would be kind of…

  “ReSouled, is that you?” a voice called through the mist. Considering Det was one of only two ReSouled born in Radiant in the last century—at least—there was a very good chance he was the target of the question.

  Which he ignored, continuing his march toward the town. He couldn’t be far if somebody else was…

  “ReSouled. Hey, I’m talking to you!” the voice called again, a little louder like he was growing confident in who he was addressing.

  Det kept walking.

  “ReSouled!” the man—it had to be Bivac from the tone—practically shouted. “I know you can hear me.”

  “Half the pillar can hear you,” Det said, finally stopping to turn in Bivac’s direction. “What do you want?”

  “That’s no way to talk to your elder,” Bivac said, stomping in Det’s direction, mist swirling around him. With his rusty old spear in one hand, heavy boots on his feet, and even his thickest overalls cinched up, something was obviously up. “Been looking for you.”

  “I was busy,” Det said. “Still am. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Not so fast, ReSouled,” Bivac said.

  “I have a name,” Det said.

  “The one you stole from Jezz and Huck’s baby. Same as you stole its body.”

  Det forced himself not to sigh. He’d had this conversation a hundred times since he was old enough to talk in full sentences, somewhere around turning one. They’d figured out he was ReSouled pretty quickly at that point. More than a few people in Radiant resented him for it. For—like Bivac said—taking the body of the baby in Jezz’s womb, and kicking its soul to the curb so his own could fill the space.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Don’t know how they could love you after you did that,” Bivac continued. “They should’ve…”

  “Locked me in a room?” Det interrupted. “Taken lessons on parenting from you? That’s a laugh.”

  “You got a problem with how I’m raising my daughter?”

  “A dozen of them,” Det said. “Kels isn’t a pet. She’s a six-year-old girl. Your six-year-old daughter. You treat her more like a thing than a person, and that’s if you remember she’s there. Did you even feed her today? Or are you too busy bothering me to do that? Again.”

  “I’m out here because of her, you little shit,” Bivac said.

  “You’re out here with your little, dull spear… for her?”

  “You want to find out just how dull this is?” Bivac threatened.

  “Bivac,” Det said slowly. “Even on your best day—which today isn’t, by the booze on your breath—we both know you couldn’t hurt me with that. Don’t embarrass yourself. Or, you know what, do embarrass yourself. Should be good for a laugh.” Watching the man’s face go beet red, and his eyes practically bulge out of his head almost made Det actually laugh, but simply being in the man’s presence got his blood up.

  How many times had Det snuck Kels some food because Bivac didn’t bother? How many times did he find her in the rain standing outside her own house, because the bastard had locked the door? How many times had he very nearly gone to throw the man off the pillar, only to be stopped by his parents, and told—in no uncertain terms—it would be worse for Kels without Bivac. Everybody in Radiant already barely got by.

  If Kels became an orphan, it would be even worse for her. Bivac didn’t hurt the girl, he just tended to forget she existed. At least she had a roof over her head, and food on her plate. Most of the time.

  Bivac’s fingers went white around the haft of his spear, but Det wasn’t worried about anything the man did. His words had been true. That spear wouldn’t even draw blood from him if Bivac struck with all his strength.

  “Goodbye, Bivac,” Det said, turning his back on the man and taking a step in the direction of Radiant.

  “I’m out here looking for her,” Bivac said through clenched teeth.

  That made Det’s foot pause before he took his second step. “What did you say?” he asked without turning.

  “You heard me.”

  Now, Det did turn slowly to look at the older man. “Why are you looking outside the village?”

  “Because we’ve looked everywhere inside it you smart-mouthed little shit,” Bivac said. “She must’ve left sometime. Got a search party spreading out right now. But, it’s going to be dark soon.” He looked up at the bare sunlight filtering through the thick fog above their heads.

  Det had never seen the suns on Elestar—apparently there as more than one—but the others assured him they existed. Even if they hadn’t seen them either. Bivac wasn’t wrong, though. When the suns set, the pillar became almost pitch black. If Kels really was outside the village, she’d never find her way back. It got cold overnight too, and if she didn’t bring her ratty jacket with her…

  “You need to help,” Bivac said, pulling Det out of his own thoughts. “You’re going to help. You owe us all that much. Like you did last year for Yury’s boy.”

  “Yury paid me for my help,” Det said. “For the ink it cost me to find Vestap. Are you going to pay me too?”

  “Pay you?” Bivac said. “You owe me. Owe the whole village for letting you stay after you killed one of ours.”

  “If you think I owe you anything for how you’ve treated me since I was born…” Det said, taking a step in Bivac’s direction. Something about the look on his face had the other man stepping back and gripping his spear in both hands. As much as Det hated the man, though, this wasn’t about him. It was about Kels. Det took a breath. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Bivac blinked. “Huh?”

  “Your daughter, asshat,” Det said. “When was the last time you saw Kels?”

  Bivac blinked again. “Breakfast. Uh, maybe it was dinner last night? We were eating.”

  “She could’ve been missing since last night, and you’re just looking for her now?”

  “Probably breakfast,” Bivac said.

  “Probably,” Det said with a roll of his eyes. “I swear, Bivac, after we find her, I’m going to the mayor—again—and I’m not leaving her office until she does something to make sure you take care of your daughter. After that, I’m going to Mahoney’s to make sure he doesn’t give you another drink until he’s seen a change in your behaviour.

  “And, if you think he wouldn’t do that for me, you should remember how much I’ve done for him over the years. The least of which was helping him make a better beer, which you of all people should be thanking me for too.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Bivac seethed.

  “Watch me,” Det said. “Now, get the hell away from me so I can find Kels. Bloody hell, she deserves so much better than you.”

  “What would you know, baby-killer?”

  Det ripped the spear out of Bivac’s hands so quickly, it took the other man several long blinks to realize he wasn’t holding it anymore. By the time his brain finally processed that, the weapon had been embedded the entire length of the spear tip into the ground between his feet, the haft vibrating a few inches in front of his nose.

  “You’re lucky I’m leaving as soon as the Mistguard arrive,” Det said. Then, without another word, he spun and stalked off, his left hand reaching down to pull out one of the three scrolls on his left hip. He’d wanted to save this for when he got to the academy—a lot of ink had gone into it—but it was also his best chance to find Kels.

  After he got a good fifty feet from Bivac, the man’s shape not even a silhouette in the mist anymore, Det undid the wax seal keeping the scroll closed with a flick of his thumb. A practiced snap of his wrist unfurled the weighted end of the scroll to its full six-foot length, before a surge of magic from his hands held the paper there in the air against the pull of gravity.

  It only took a pair of seconds for the dozens of slashes of black ink across the paper to shimmer and then slither off the page and onto the ground. In front of him, the now-empty scroll vanished from the air in a shower of short-lived embers, and the mass of black snakes looked up at him with ink-sculpted eyes.

  With each movement of their drawn bodies, the ink that made up their outlines seemed to repaint itself in the air over and over and over. Seeing his creations for the first time had a tendency to make people nauseous, but he’d long since gotten used to watching how his paintings moved. They weren’t natural. He got that. When they acted, it was almost like flipping pages with progressively altered images on them to create the illusion of movement.

  These snakes were mostly certainly not illusions, though.

  “We need to find Kels,” he told his army of snakes. “You three,” he pointed at a trio of the smaller serpents at his side, “go check the town. She could be in there, and I don’t trust Bivac. The rest of you, search every inch of the pillar if you need to. Come to me when you find her.”

  With the instructions—the purpose—given, the snakes sped away, vanishing into the mist with hardly a sound. Not that Det would leave the whole search to them. Kels was very fond of a certain red flower found in a grove about a mile outside of town. It wasn’t a place she should ever go on her own, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t.

  He’d start there, and it would be best for everybody if that was where he found her. There was no telling when the mistship would be arriving, and he couldn’t afford to miss it.

  complete ass. It's a big change from a lot of the characters I've worked on in things like Rune Seeker or Spark of War, which generally had younger protagonists.