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previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/05/28/with-the-water-moon/

all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/

***

I built a house of burnt logs

in the remnants of the town

and every night

I went to the lake

to try to make up runes

for chasing

and hurting,

and I tried to talk to the sea deity

but they never replied

then after each dawn

I went back to town

to sleep.

I didn’t know when

they’d attack again

but

under shroudless day

seemed safest to sleep.

I counted the week cycles

by the appearance of the moon

every eighth night

and started to figure out the trick of the water

where I slipped between places

like I had that first time

only without the sea deity’s aid,

but I didn’t go all the way

since I didn’t know what waited

on the other end

or if I could get

all of me through.

Then when the raiders returned

they found

just a ramshackle house

and the ground

bursting into flames

wherever they stepped

and I,

far off

in the water,

wasn’t even aware

they’d come

until I rose from the lake

and the thunder hit my ears

from their lightning tails

(shooting enemies they thought

fought them?),

then the fire spreading through falling crystals

caught my gaze

so I ran barefoot to the edge of the trees

growing wild with no dracans to tend them

to see,

but

the raiders

walked through fire

like they felt nothing,

spinning,

teeth bared,

and burning.

And I

knew

with no dracans to attack

they’d leave

and never come back

so I

took handfuls of bark

from the trees

and scrawled runes I’d need

to follow them:

invisibility, masking my scent, speed,

flare runes to blind them since fire wouldn’t work,

then I crept from the trees

to stalk them to their lair

and find out their weakness

to destroy them.

***

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