A human head fit comfortably in her hand.

  It was light.

  Familiar to the touch, soft, but stiffening. Not that different from a dead pig. Mia filed that away, unsure what to do with the thought.

  The hair and skin were tacky and wet with blood.

  It smelled like cheap tea and candle wax, a tad sweet and earthy with a metallic note.

  Flies buzzed, pitching in the eyes, nose, and mouth.

  “Pop the jaw open. Sometimes they’re stiff.”

  Mia didn’t move.

  Nessa hadn’t stepped forward, her hand worrying the fabric of her shirt.

  “What? Your morals won’t let you steal from the dead?”

  Mia smiled, something flimsy and broken. She’d be a hypocrite if that were true. The weight of the storage space at her neck was a permanent, comforting presence.

  She forced her thumb into its mouth and pushed down.

  Half the teeth were gold.

  “Not bad for your first find.” Kerrik hovered, humming approvingly. “They’re tricky buggers to get out. Pliers work best. In the field, you don’t want to spend too much time on one body. Collect first, and organize what you find later.”

  He handed her twisted metal pliers. They were old and rusted.

  “Those are my lucky pliers, don’t give them that look. You’ll hurt their feelings.” He held it up with pride. “I was younger than you when I scraped together enough to get them. The first time I took them into the field, I found a tooth that paid off everything I owed.”

  It was almost charming, the deranged nostalgia.

  Mia grabbed the pliers.

  “Brace the head on the ground, pop the teeth out into a pile, scoop them up, then into your bag. It should take a minute or two. We’ve got two hours tops before the blood attracts scavengers, the monster kind, and Duas.”

  She was proficient. Again, her mind compared the experience of doing this to pigs or cows. It was better to remove teeth right after death, before the jaw stiffened. “Duas?” She asked, needing something to focus on.

  “Duaighs. It's hard to pronounce, so we shortened it to Duas.” Kerrik scuffed the ground with his boot. “I can’t really describe them. You’ll have to see them to understand. They’re worms, really. Or maybe leeches.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  Mia’s eyes widened. The hair on her neck made her skin crawl. She brushed at her body, stamping her feet, feeling them wriggling all over her.

  Hair-like. Burrowing. Black pustules left behind.

  “You’ve seen them then.” He nodded. “Mercy killing, taking these guys out before they have to go through that. It takes a day before the eggs hatch, after that it’s a free-for-all, people from every shithole coming to see what’s left.”

  Mia dropped her shoulders, rolling them to release the tension. She opened and closed her fingers. “It didn’t look like it hurt.”

  His laugh was humourless. “They’ve got paralytic. One touch and you’re just lying there. Haven’t experienced it myself, but I’ve heard it’s excruciating.”

  Mia didn’t want to know. She bent down, scooping up the teeth and pliers she’d abandoned.

  “Nessa.”

  She’d focused on what she was doing and didn’t realize Nessa wasn’t beside her.

  Nessa’s body shook, her head rattling as it moved from side to side. “It’s not right.”

  Right?

  What part of her being thrown into the ocean was right?

  Was being forced into labor ‘right’?

  Would dying make it right?

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Mia’s voice was cold. She closed her eyes, softening her tone. “Ness, I won't force you, but I’m staying in Crow’s group. If you can pull your weight, they won’t let you stay. I can’t look out for you, or teach you if you’re not with me.”

  Tears streamed down her face.

  “Leave her. I’ve wasted enough time as it is.” He bent down, tapping the armor the body was wearing. It disappeared. “Having a storage space is best. It makes things quicker. As long as it’s not embedded in the body, all it takes is a touch and a thought to put it away. If you don’t have one, unclip the armor and run your hands down the body. Look for pockets and pouches.”

  Mia hesitated, but knelt beside the headless corpse. She grabbed a sword and cut through the straps holding the armor together. She tossed the breastplate aside.

  Her hands roamed over the body, taking off his necklace and pulling a sachet from his breast pocket. “What about this?” She held up a feather the warrior had clipped to his belt.

  Mia was still on her first body while Kerrik was on his third. “That could be something special or nothing at all. If he’s superstitious, it could be for luck. Or, it’s Imbued. Best to collect anything odd or unusual on a body.”

  “Imbued?” Mia stuffed it in her bag.

  “Yeah, ever wonder why Mox’s book gives a ton of points for random objects?”

  “All the time.” It was one of the many mysteries surrounding him. She rolled the body, checking the back before taking off the shoes. He’d stuffed something in his shoe, sandwiched between strips of leather. She began unfolding it, but stopped, stuffing it in her bag.

  “Good.”

  She looked up to see Kerrik watching her.

  “If you’re desperate, you can search inside the body.”

  Inside?

  She turned the word over, imagined gutting the corpse or sticking her fingers in the anus. “No. I’m good.”

  “After the Duas leave, other teams will come through.” Kerrik’s axe came down with a sharp squelch.

  “Why don’t we wait until then?” Mia asked.

  “Questions like that make it clear you’re new.”

  “Please, I’ve got a family.” A hand reached out, grabbing Kerrik’s pants.

  “Don’t we all?” His axe went up and down with no shift in his expression. “Battles are scheduled and regulated. Participants agree on what they’re fighting for, conditions for victory, the date, start time, and duration of the battle. With that information, mages cast a barrier around the battlefield to keep intruders and monsters out. The winner takes the spoils.”

  “That’s…”

  “Well organized? Reasonable? Civil?”

  Kerrik didn’t instruct her to loot another body. He just motioned for her to follow, guarding his loot like a rabid dog.

  Mia glanced back at Nessa. She stood over the corpse, tears falling.

  “Mox saw something in her or you. She’ll serve whatever purpose he envisioned. Either way, it’ll be a lesson for both of you. I left a bag and a pair of pliers for her. Not my lucky pair, but she has what she needs.”

  Mia wanted to help her. She wanted to hold Nessa’s hand and tell her she’d be okay, but that would be a lie. It’d be harmful and malicious.

  “We go off track. What does Imbued mean?”

  “It has an excess of mana. That’s the currency here, mana. A point is one drop of mana. That’s equivalent to a drop of water.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “You wouldn’t. It’s a phenomenon that only happens in Cinderwild. The concentration of mana here is more than double that of the rest of the world.”

  “It must be a haven for mages.”

  “Some, especially the black mages, but once you’re in, you can’t leave. There aren’t many who’d willingly come here. Plus, information about Cinderwild is heavily regulated on the other side.”

  Mia’s throat rolled. The longer she stood among the dead, the more ticks appeared, showing she was pretending and not as composed as she appeared.

  “Here.” He waved her over, pointing at a body. The corpse was pristine. She looked like she was sleeping. Except someone had cut her throat from ear to ear. “If you have a storage space, take the whole body. Otherwise, leave it. Don’t touch the flesh with your bare hands. Better yet, get a pair of good leather gloves by tomorrow. Mox’s price is high, but the quality is guaranteed. Next best, find a warrior willing to part with a pair.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s Imbued.” He removed some of the armor he’d collected from his storage space and put the body away.

  “She’s not a mage.” If she were, she wouldn’t be in the heart of a battle. She’d cast from a distance.

  “Several possibilities. She had mana and didn’t know about it; she had mana, but couldn’t use it; or she had an affinity, and when she died, her body became a Vessel, attracting mana.” he straightened up, whistling sharply. “Molly, there's a batch of armor here. It’s mine. Touch it, and I’ll burn your house down.”

  “Okay! Okay. It was one time!”

  “Vessels are objects with the ability to store mana. The living can’t be vessels, but once they die, it sometimes happens.”

  Mia remembered Nessa’s bird skull.

  “What happens to Vessels?”

  He puffed out a heavy breath. “Depends, if the Vessel has a large capacity and can refill, it’s used for storage. If it has a fixed capacity and is not reusable, it’s refined into a single-use artifact, or the mana is removed, and the item is discarded.”

  “That body?” She asked, increasingly horrified.

  “If it’s her skin, they’ll probably skin and tan the leather to make a grimoire or spell scrolls. If it’s the bones, they’re ground down as ingredients in potions or artifact refining.”

  “Nothing wasted,” she said, interrupting, stopping the conversation.

  Nessa vomited.

  They looked over.

  She had teeth in her hand.