“Now!” Noah roared.

Isabel thrust her sword at the monkey hurtling toward her. Its lips were peeled back in a furious snarl and its claws outstretched, reaching to claw her to shreds. Isabel’s sword was longer.

Its tip slid clean into the monster’s head, impaling it like a gristly, overcooked shish kabob. A very smelly one. That particular thought made Noah grimace. Perhaps it was wiser not to relate the disgusting monkeys to food items, especially ones that he liked.

Luckily, the monkey had no such worries. It was busy being dead. Its arms swung by its sides from the momentum of its jump, but no life remained within its eyes. Isabel flicked her sword and the monster slid off, thumping against a tree before sliding to the ground.

“I did it!” Isabel exclaimed, spinning to look back at Noah and mistakenly splattering some of the blood from her sword. Todd lurched back to avoid it and glared at her, but Isabel ignored him.

“So you did,” Noah said, taking care not to let the relief show on his face. The monster had been much closer to Isabel than he would have liked, but there was no real other way he knew to train her. She was a close range fighter, after all. “Brilliant job. And look at that, no running in terror of a monster half your size.”

Isabel nudged the monster’s body with her foot. She let the sword shimmer and fade away. “That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“We all have to start somewhere,” Noah said. “Good job. Much better than having to rely on a shield that barely even works, eh? If you keep this up, by the time you actually get around to buying some real shields instead of making them yourselves, you’ll be in the practice of fighting without them. That will do you a lot of good, especially if everyone else was thinking the same way you were.”

“That’s assuming we don’t die first,” Todd said. It was a joke, but the underlying note of concern was evident in his voice.

“You’re right,” Noah agreed. “That’s assuming you don’t die. Nobody said getting strong would be easy. If I were you, any spare money I had sitting around would go into healing potions.”

“Is that what you spend all the money the Linwicks give you on?” Isabel asked.

Noah frowned.

Do I get a stipend? I actually have no idea, actually. What if they’ve been giving Vermil things? Hell, what if they’re the ones that set him up with the poisoned healing potion? Egh. Too many damn things to think about.

“Yes,” Noah said. “Though they don’t give me as much as you seem to think. Don’t forget, I’m a failure. An embarrassment to the Linwick family. Isn’t that right?”

Isabel and Todd both tore their gazes away from his, looking at the ground in shame.

“You might be a little more competent than we thought you were,” Isabel admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “You really didn’t help your image, though. Why didn’t you just act like this all the time? You’d still have been fairly incompetent at Runes, but people would have respected your combat ability.”

Ah, yes. The whole Rank thing and combining my Runes. I’m working on it, Isabel. And it would be wrong to make you and Todd feel too bad about insulting me. I’m pretty sure a lot of what you knew about Vermil was correct.

“I had a bit of an awakening. We can’t all be lazy sloths forever.” Noah clapped his hands together and his students jerked their eyes back to look at him. “Now isn’t the time for this. We have quite some time left to practice, and I’m not wasting any of it. Our goal for today will be to hunt more small monkeys and build your confidence. If you haven’t each killed five of them by the time we get pulled back to Arbitage, I’m giving you extra homework.”

Isabel and Todd grimaced. Noah smiled to himself and continued into the forest with them close on his heels, each scanning the trees as they passed in search of prey.

For most of that day and through the night, everything passed completely according to Noah’s plans. It took time, but Todd and Isabel were slowly gaining confidence in their abilities. Considering they were, at least in his eyes, more than competent, Noah felt like all he’d really done was reach the starting point they should have been at already.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel pleased with himself and his students. Even though neither of them looked forward to the fights, they weren’t terrified of fighting without their shields anymore.

Todd had the definite advantage between the two. His ranged attacks and the monkey’s penchant for charging to their death in a straight line made the entire exercise one of confidence rather than actual skill, and he performed perfectly.

Isabel was considerably more cautious, and for good reason. Noah watched every fight she took intently, a wind blade waiting to let slip at his fingertips every second the monkeys still drew breath.

She only needed to be saved once, when her foot caught on a root and she tripped over herself. Even then, Isabel had rolled to the side and Noah was fairly certain she would have dodged the monkey’s attack had his spell not taken its head off.

He’d feared the event would impact her willingness to continue, but was elated to find that Isabel just gave him an appreciative nod and fell back in line, waiting for Todd to take his turn on the next monkey so she could try again.

Twice, the group ran into Slashers. Noah dispatched them with brutal efficiency, taking a few moments to demonstrate their attacks to his students. As much as he wanted to rush them on and get them killing Slashers, he knew all too well the danger of the monsters. There were still three weeks before the class exam, and he refused to risk Todd or Isabel’s lives any more than he already was.

“Do you just not fear death?” Todd asked after Noah shot the killing blow of wind into the latest Slasher’s neck. The sun had risen over the trees once more, marking the start of the new day, but none of them were tired. “I can understand challenging weaker monsters without a shield, but even if you know what that thing is going to do, one slip up and you’re gone.”

Noah stepped over the Slasher’s body and wiped his shoes off on the dirt, trying to get the blood off them and failing. He grimaced, then rubbed his chin.

“No, I don’t reckon I do.”

“You’ve got a death wish, then?”

Noah pursed his lips and leaned against a tree. Its scorched bark cracked against his back. “There are times when fear is good. We have it for a reason. It keeps us safe, but it holds us back. If we listened to our fear, we’d never take risks. So, no. I don’t fear death – I respect it.”

“What do you mean by that?” Isabel joined Todd, peeling her eyes away from the dead Slasher to watch Noah. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No.” Noah shook his head. “Death is an inevitability of life. I understand this, but I don’t live life waiting for my death. It happens when it happens. I don’t want it to happen earlier than needed, but I won’t let it impact how I live. Thus, I will do my best to ensure I don’t die, but I won’t fear it.”

Neither of them responded. Noah could see their minds working through their eyes, processing his words and trying to match them to the man that Vermil had been. Noah suppressed a chuckle.

It feels a little disingenuous for me to go around talking about death, all things considered.

Isabel opened her mouth to ask a question, but they all froze as something just out of their line of sight crackled. Noah frowned and pushed away from the tree, turning toward the noise. The early morning light broke as it hit the tree branches, illuminating two large, bulbous eyes watching them from the shadows. A cold hand constricted around Noah’s heart.

What the hell is that doing here? We aren’t that deep into the forest!

“Isabel, Todd, you need to leave,” Noah said softly, keeping his tone as even as possible. “Right now.”

“What are you talking about?” Todd took a step toward Noah.

“Now! Go back the way we came and get into a tree. Don’t make noise. Don’t fight. Don’t come back, no matter what you hear.”

Isabel followed Noah’s gaze and her face paled. She grabbed Todd’s hand and pulled him in the opposite direction.

“What about you?” Isabel whispered.

“I’ll deal with this and come meet you when I’m done. I’ll find you.”

Isabel swallowed heavily and continued to back up. Her heel landed on a large twig and it snapped, the crisp sound echoing through the forest like a gunshot. The Chucker screamed. Noah could barely see it at their distance, but he knew all too well how good the bug-eyed monkey’s aim was.

He lunged in front of Isabel. A loud crunch split the air as a rock slammed into his chest, shattering his sternum. Noah felt pieces of bone explode like shrapnel and tear through his body.

“Professor!”

“I told you to run!” Noah roared. Pain tore through his body and the darkness bloomed at the edges of his vision, threatening to usher him into the abyss.

It would have been sweet relief.

It would have meant that his students would be the next to die, and they wouldn’t be coming back.

Noah gritted his teeth and shoved the abyss to the side. He grabbed his gourd and travel bag, and threw both to the side, boosting the toss with all the Wind magic he could muster and sending them hurtling through the trees. Bones ground and popped in his chest at the sharp movement. He hadn’t thought it was even possible for the pain to get worse, but he was proven wrong.

His vision blurred and Noah caught himself on a tree, clutching onto it for dear life. The sound of Isabel and Todd’s panicked retreat faded in his ears, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was losing consciousness or that they were getting farther away.

The Chucker loped closer. Its eyes latched onto Noah. Cracked lips peeled back in a victorious, hungry grin. The Chucker readied a second stone.

If I die now, I won’t have magic to kill this bastard. Isabel and Todd won’t be able to survive it.

Noah matched the hideous monkey’s snarl and reached desperately for his Runes.

The Chucker launched the stone. It blurred through the air, moving so fast that he couldn’t even trace it. The monster was close enough to him that, even if he could have seen the attack, there was no way for him to dodge it in time given his injuries.

Noah’s magic responded to his call, but it wasn’t Wind that came forth. The cracked trees around them groaned as all the scorched, blackened wood was forcibly ripped away. Clouds of swirling ash snapped into solid black spikes in an instant before Noah, erupting before him like a bolt of jagged lightning.

The spell tore through the ground and the stone vanished within it. A flicker of what might have been surprise passed through the Chucker’s enormous eyes before the spikes of ash tore through it.

Ash slammed into the trees behind the monster, tearing through several of them before the magic finally lost its steam and came to a stop. Noah’s chest popped as he drew in a ragged breath, staring at the thick, spiked structure of ash that had ravaged the ground before him.

Then he pitched forward, the last vestiges of strength in his body spent. One of the jagged spikes went clean through his head, killing him instantly.

Noah’s soul ripped free of his body just as the ash structure fell apart, dumping his corpse unceremoniously to the ground. Even dead, Noah could have sworn that adrenaline was still pumping through his veins.

Before he could have too much time to think, Noah felt the siren call of the gourd envelop him. A noose tightened around his neck and a powerful yank sent him hurtling through the trees.

Noah slammed into his body unceremoniously. He groaned, instinctively wincing as he drew breath. Through the violent headache, it took him a moment to remember that his chest wasn’t in half a dozen pieces anymore.

He drew in a ragged gasp of air and forced his eyes open. The blackened dirt stuck to his skin like glue, but he could barely gather the energy to care. Noah gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit upright.

Luckily, his bag and book had fallen close to his gourd. He grabbed it, fishing the spare set of clothes out and throwing them on. Despite his best efforts, it took several minutes of fighting his own body to get outfitted.

Noah pressed his lips together tightly and dragged his rebellious feet back toward the scene of his death.

His throw had been better than he’d expected. It took several more minutes for Noah to trace his steps back, but he eventually spotted the dead Chucker sprawled beside several shattered trees, its body ripped to shreds.

He stepped over the monster, unable to even bring his gaze up, and stumbled over to his body.

To where his body should have been.

Noah blinked. He forced himself to lift his head, then slowly turned in a circle. All that met his eyes were trees. There was no sign of his corpse.