The Gravecaller Who Levels While Sleeping

Chapter 9: The Arrow Between Them

Nolan Pike's fireburst lit the forest behind Adrian like a small sunrise.

He ran low and fast through the trees, using his Agility to clear roots and fallen branches without slowing. The Boneguards bought him seconds at a time. He could feel each one being destroyed, not as pain but as a cold gap in his awareness. Then he called it again, and the gap filled.

For a moment, the chase became almost absurd. Nolan destroyed skeleton after skeleton. Adrian replaced them. Lucas yelled angry instructions that nobody followed. Tessa screamed whenever a Boneguard got too close.

But the amusement could not last.

Nolan was beginning to understand the pattern. He stopped wasting spells on every target and focused on forcing paths through the forest. His fire spells burned hot enough to turn wet leaves into steam. If he got a clear line of sight on Adrian, a single direct hit could end the fight.

Adrian reached a large boulder and climbed it in two steps. From there, he could see the clearing below. Lucas stood beside Nolan, breathing hard but still more offended than frightened. Tessa had hidden behind a tree, gripping the front of Lucas's coat.

The sight pulled Adrian back to the quarry. Lucas had looked much the same there, safe behind someone else's power, convinced the world existed to protect him from consequences.

Adrian drew the bow.

He had planned to leave. That would be the smart choice. Nolan was stronger, the academy instructors were not far away, and an open attack on Lucas could bring the Voss family down on him before he had enough power to survive it.

Then Lucas laughed.

"I knew it was you," he called into the trees. "Who else would hide behind a pile of junk bones? You are still pathetic, Vale."

Adrian released the arrow.

The shaft cut through the dark with a dry hiss.

Nolan saw it at the last possible second. He shoved Lucas aside. The arrow pierced Nolan's upper arm instead of Lucas's throat.

Nolan swore and spun toward the boulder.

Lucas hit the ground hard. For one stunned moment, he did not understand what had happened. Then he saw the blood on Nolan's sleeve and began shouting.

"You almost hit me! Kill him!"

Adrian fired again.

Nolan raised a quick shield of flame. The second arrow blackened and broke against it. Adrian fired a third and fourth in rapid succession. One struck the shield. The other clipped Lucas's shoulder as Nolan shifted to block it.

Lucas screamed. His hand flew to the wound. Blood darkened his academy jacket.

That sound was worth more than Adrian wanted to admit.

"Get down!" Nolan shouted.

His next spell was stronger than the others. He drove the end of his staff into the ground and spoke a word that made the air tremble.

"Cinder Wave."

Flame rushed outward in a broad wall.

Adrian jumped backward from the boulder as heat tore through the stone where he had stood. The blast shattered three Boneguards in the nearby brush and scorched the lower branches of an oak. Even at a distance, the heat slapped across Adrian's face.

Nolan fell to one knee after casting it. His injured arm shook. The spell had cost him.

Lucas did not notice. He was too busy cursing at his bleeding shoulder.

"Use it again," Lucas demanded. "Do it again and burn him out."

"That was not a request," Nolan snapped. "You are alive because I was here. Stop moving."

Adrian crouched behind a fallen log, breathing hard. This was the last opening he would get. Nolan was exhausted. Lucas was injured. His Boneguards could overwhelm them if he kept the pressure high enough.

Then a new presence entered the forest.

Adrian felt it before he saw it. The air grew dense, as though a storm had settled between the trees. Someone moved through the darkness with long, measured steps.

Nolan sensed it too. Relief flashed over his face.

"Mr. Voss," he called.

A tall man in a navy field coat walked into the clearing. He carried a narrow spear with a steel head that reflected the firelight. Gray hair lined his temples. His expression was controlled, but his eyes held the hard patience of someone used to violence.

Gareth Voss. Lucas's uncle and the family's head of security.

Adrian remembered that face from the first timeline. Gareth had been a level twenty-five lancer then. He was probably the same now.

The fight was over.

Gareth looked at Lucas's wound, then at the scattered skeleton bones around the clearing. "Explain."

"Adrian Vale attacked me," Lucas said. His voice sharpened with sudden confidence. "He brought monsters after me. He tried to murder me."

Adrian's hand tightened around the bow.

Nolan opened his mouth, perhaps to offer a more honest version. Gareth raised one hand, and Nolan went quiet.

"Vale," Gareth said into the forest. "I know you can hear me. Whatever your grievance is, leave now. If I see you again tonight, you will not be treated as a student."

It was not an empty threat. Adrian could not beat him. Not with twenty-six level-one skeletons, not with a training bow, not with all the rage in the world.

He dismissed the remaining Boneguards and ran.

The black circles swallowed his dead. Gareth's spear struck through a tree trunk behind Adrian with enough force to burst bark across his back. Adrian did not slow. He zigzagged through the trees, crossed a shallow creek, and climbed a steep ridge where the underbrush hid him from view.

Only when the sounds of pursuit faded did he stop.

His chest burned. His fingers shook around the bow.

He had failed to kill Lucas.

The thought was bitter. He had been one arrow away. One unguarded second away. Instead, Lucas would leave Briarwood wounded but alive, protected by the same money and family power that had always sheltered him.

Adrian punched a tree trunk hard enough to scrape his knuckles.

"Not enough," he said.

The words vanished into the night.

Then he looked deeper into the forest, toward the old stone ruins where Briarwood's Rift Lord was said to lair. The goblin king was only level two, but its body would be stronger than anything Adrian had recorded so far. Its Ether Core would be worth more. Its Echo might become the first real weapon in his collection.

Lucas had escaped.

Fine.

Adrian would become strong enough that no Voss guard could stand between them next time.

He nocked a fresh arrow and started toward the ruins.