A small speck of cold paused Ellio’s busy hands. He looked up from Ghost’s saddlebag, catching sight of a small white speck fluttering down and landing on a glove. The overcast sky hid the white well, but as it continued to fall, the snow made its presence known.

  “Well, Taiga won’t be able to travel until spring now.” Jules stood beside him, her glasses decorated by a couple melting flakes.

  White breath puffed from her, and she rubbed her gloves over her cheeks. Ellio pulled cloth from the saddlebag and wrapped the dark green fabric around Jules’ neck. She accepted it without a glance, pulling her messy braid out of it. Then, Ellio secured the flap of the bag, gave Ghost a pat, and they resumed their escort of a small merchant family.

  “It must be tough, losing several months of the year to the cold.” Ellio waved to the merchant’s young daughter when she turned and waved at them, making sure they still followed. He’d make some soup for Taiga when they returned. Surely, that would help warm his core.

  “And when we’re in such a rush like this? Suuuuuper bad timing.” Jules huffed a bit, pursing her lips.

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “I knowwwwww but,” she sighed, “we just got a breakthrough.”

  He assumed she referred to figuring out the Guardians were succumbing to purity and not corruption. While Jules was ready to plow forward with the new information, Ellio hesitated. Was there something else they didn’t know? Something overlooked or missed?

  And what led Taiga to misunderstand the magics in such ways?

  But he had no theories or evidence to question anything further, so he stayed silent. He would watch and wait. He would keep an eye open and make sure they missed nothing else. While Taiga rested this winter, Ellio would focus solely on what could cause such affliction of those ancient beings.

  “Hey, mercenaries?” the mission issuer called for them from ahead.

  Ellio glanced back at them, realizing the five member merchant family had stopped in the road.The merchant’s linlao, a shy old finch, huddled behind their wagon of goods. Ellio rushed forward, trying to see around to where the merchants looked.

  “What’s wrong?” Jules walked up behind them.

  “Them.” The wife pointed out ahead. Ellio stepped to the side of the wagon.

  Ahead, three horse riders strode towards them from over the hill. Jules stepped ahead of him, pulling a scope from her bag and lifting it to her face.

  “Ma’ams and sir, gather the children onto your wagon and stay behind your linlao.” Jules lowered it, eyes sharpened, and glanced at Ellio. “Get ready to fight. Bandits.”

  Ellio nodded to her, pulling his sword from its sheath on his hip. He weighed the heaviness in his hands, hoping it wouldn’t be stained in the reds of humans today. Then, he looked to the scurrying merchants. “The moment their focus is on us, hurry your wagon ahead until you meet a bushel of trees. Wait for us there.”

  The father nodded, hoisting a child through the cloth flap of the wagon. When Ellio turned back towards the field, the three riders were close enough for him to see the silver of their blades and eyes focused on them. He stepped forward, steadying his boots and taking one last glance at Jules, who readied waxed balls of powers and a vial of liquid.

  “You’ve got the front?” She asked, knowing the answer.

  Ellio took several steps forward. “Don’t miss.”

  “Okay, it was one time!”

  He laughed, “it took months to grow back all my hair.”

  “Details.”

  As the front rider approached, he unsheathed his weapon and never slowed. When their focus rested solely on Ellio, The front rider drew his weapon back and readied to swing. Ellio held his sword firmly to his side. When the rider came within three meters of Ellio, a ball flew past and exploded as it hit the rider.

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  Green powder plumed from the ball, sticking to the rider as he yelled out. The horse panicked, neighing and kicking. The rider, already off balance, bounced off the seat of his horse and tumbled to the ground. Green dust settled as another rider rushed through it.

  Another ball bounced off the rider, exploding into a similar powder. But the third rider drew his horse around, swinging around Ellio towards the source of those balls; Jules. Ellio swung around, jumping up and knocking the rider off their horse with his arm. The man, early twenties, perhaps, thudded to the ground with a groan.

  “Easier than expected.” Jules breathed, smiling, and putting her hands on her hips. “I’m liking the adjustment in the recipe I used.”

  “Which did you use? The smelly one?” Ellio sniffed the air, noting only a slight fishy smell.

  She shook her head. “No, I went with the burning and rash causing one.” She stepped over the rider Ellio knocked down and hovered over the first victim to her small bombs. “How would you rate the burning sensation in your eyes, on a scale of one to ten?”

  The bandit rolled over towards her, eyes watery and squeezed shut. “Fuck you.”

  Jules’ smile widened a little, cocking her head to the side and getting a better look at his face. “I’ll take that as a seven.”

  “Jules,” Ellio pulled her back as the bandit swung out an arm towards her. He missed, and crumpled to the ground, “they’re still dangerous. And…” he glanced towards the merchants who, not needing to flee, watched them from behind their linlao, “you’re making them nervous.”

  “We saved them. What more could they want?”

  “Surveying the bandits is a bit much.” He pulled rope from his bag and wrangled the bandit’s arm into it. “At least wait until they have time to, I don’t know, settle down?”

  Jules huffed. “Fine.”

  Ellio tied the remaining two bandits, and they fitted them into the back of the merchants’ wagon. Any skin exposed when hit with the ball reddened into an itchy rash on the two bandits. The third laughed at his companions for most of the ride to Winolin.

  Once things calmed and just before reaching Winolin’s wall, Jules pulled out her notebook and sat next to the non-itchy bandit. Ellio slid between her and the bandits, deciding then was the best time to give his sword a cleaning. Nevermind that he’d maintained it just before taking the mission.

  “There’s no blindness, right? Just eye itchiness?” She asked, writing down the hesitant answers of the two bandits watching Ellio’s blade.

  He’d found that the metal tended to cool hot tempers when Jules tested them.

  “Would you rate your current state of mind as annoyed, depressed, or happy with life?”

  “Are you fucking with me right now?” One of the bandits growled, which sent the third, non-rashed bandit into another fit of giggles.

  When they arrived at Winolin’s wall, they unloaded the bandits and turned them into the wall’s guards. After, they received the approval of mission completion from the merchant family and cut the line to enter through the checkpoint. Jules stretched her back and sighed once they were free of people and safely inside the wall. When Ellio checked his bag to make sure he left nothing behind on the wagon, Jules wandered away.

  He looked up, seeing her red and green robes swishing and catching large snowflakes on its wool. He followed as she stopped an old man, talking to him and laughing before he came up behind her. The old man shuffled through his small cart with her, and Ellio realized he was a bookseller.

  “What are you looking for?” He asked, bending over to help.

  Jules shrugged, “anything that might help, really. Folklore, books from foreign nations, the usual.”

  “You won’t,” the old man coughed a moment before continuing, “you won’t find much foreign here, lass.”

  “I don’t mean Monx. I know trade with them has been fully barred and all books banned. I mean from across the ocean. Different continents.”

  The old man stared at her a moment before darkening his expression. It was enough to make Ellio put a hand on Jules’ shoulder. “Look here, girl. I’m not looking for trouble like that.”

  “What do you mean?” Ellio asked, diverting his attention from her to himself.

  The old man blinked, lightening up a bit and realizing they weren’t, in fact, trying to fool him. “Where are you from, not knowing this?” He shook his head. “You won’t find foreign books here. Maybe Pall, or some big academic town. But small shops here? Like we’d get the permission.”

  “Why… why not?” Jules pushed forward, eyes widening.

  The old man shrunk back a bit from her, grimacing. “What do you mean, ‘why’? Look, if you’re looking from something written in a distant land… you might have some luck in Pall or Haasundra, the port city.”

  “Haasundra…?” That name again.

  The old man nodded, pulling his cart back up and beginning to push it forward. “It’s the main port in Lanria, and the only place where foreigners are permitted landfall.”

  How odd.

  Lanria was well-known for their vast accumulation of knowledge. Hence, why they traveled there in the first place. For it to be so inaccessible was confounding. What possible reason could there be for such limitations of education?

  He looked around the streets of stalls and peddlers, wondering what else the people here were oblivious to? Ignorant even in what they don’t know? And he wondered, despite the high acclaim of Lanria, what was wrong with this country?