Chapter 17: Akton
It would have been easier to feel numb, but Akton buzzed. With anger, with the need to move. He tore off into the trees in the direction of the glowing smudge against the sky, mind splintering memories from when he’d seen Eizyn burn into the mountainside around him. Distant screams were right next to him, whiffs of smoke threatened to choke him, but still he pushed on.
“Akton,” said Talfryn, somehow keeping up beside him. “You can’t just—I have a bad feeling.”
Akton didn’t want to hear this.
“A town’s burning and you have a bad feeling,” he said. Talfryn sped up and tried to get in front of him, appearing through a daze of imagined fire. The forest wasn’t burning, yet—but Talfryn wasn’t going to stop him. Akton turned slightly, shouldered him, and kept going.
He hear
