When it came to screams, everyone had heard them before.
Maybe they remembered screaming as a baby to get a parent's attention. Maybe they had overheard someone shout in pain, anger, or fear. Screams were loud. Attention-grabbing. Hard to ignore.
But those were normal screams.
Most people would say that was the only kind.
They would be wrong.
There was another kind of scream only a few people ever heard.
The guttural, desperate cry that came from the soul. The kind reserved for the dying, or those wishing they were. It was a scream that stuck to a person like tar, ringing in their ears long after the sound itself had faded.
Aiden sat bolt upright on the makeshift bed they had been given.
Cold sweat clung to his back.
He looked down at his shaking hands.
For a moment, he was not in the room anymore.
He was holding Kaelen down again.
He was hearing the towel-muffled screams.
He was sawing.
Aiden sucked in a sharp breath and tried to force his breathing under control.
Ms. Oxhouse had been kind enough to give them a room to stay in after everything that had happened. It was warm, quiet, and safe.
Safe did not seem to matter much.
Aiden turned to where Kaelen lay sleeping.
After the cut, Aiden had used almost all of his Cofrail to make a healing poultice and apply it to the stump. The wound was closed, but the pain was clearly still clinging to Kaelen.
Even earlier that afternoon, while praying, Kaelen had tried to use his now-missing arm to stand.
He had fallen onto the stump.
The sound he made afterward had been small, but somehow worse than a scream.
Aiden got up from where he was lying and looked over the group.
Selene seemed to be trying to sleep, but from the way her chest rose and fell, she was failing.
Thalia was there as well, lying still, though not still enough to convince Aiden she was asleep.
Liora and Jax, however, were nowhere to be seen.
Aiden made his way to the door and stepped outside.
Their vehicle was parked near a large red barn. In the fields beyond, the grass stirred gently in the night wind. The animals had all been brought inside for the night, leaving the ranch oddly quiet.
Aiden glanced around to see if anyone was watching.
Then he turned toward the path that led around the barn.
It was a simple path, about half a mile long, circling a field before looping back toward the front of the house. He had walked it earlier that day while trying to gather his thoughts after they buried the bodies of Sirius and William Oxhouse.
As he began walking, a yawn echoed inside his head.
"Why exactly are we moving?" the voice asked. "Isn't it the middle of the night?"
"I couldn't sleep," Aiden said matter-of-factly.
"Why? You made it. You even got one over on the bloodsucker. So what's the problem?"
The voice said it so casually that Aiden wanted to grab it and shake it.
"The problem is I had to saw my friend's arm off while knowing exactly how much pain he was in. The problem is that we have tried exactly three things as adventurers, and two of them ended with us almost dying. The problem is that I can't figure out what to do to help because all I can do is make potions, and there are no herbs to gather, no special recipes I can make, and nothing I can do right now to fix any of this."
His voice rose.
"I AM BASICALLY DEAD FUCKING WEIGHT!"
The words echoed into the night.
For a moment, the voice in his head was silent.
Then it asked,
"That's what went wrong. What went right?"
Aiden practically wheeled around.
What went right?
Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.
"Nothing went right," Aiden snapped. "Everything went to shit!"
The voice did not respond.
Aiden waited.
Five seconds.
Ten.
His anger flared hotter.
"What, did you decide to go back to bed?"
"No," the voice said calmly. "I'm waiting for you to give me a real answer."
The calmness made Aiden move before he knew what he was doing.
His fist struck the nearby fence.
Pain shot through his hand, and a bit of blood ran down his knuckles as he hissed through his teeth.
"Nothing has gone right. Nothing!"
"Quit feeling sorry for yourself, you overgrown child."
The voice hit him like a slap.
"If you think you have done nothing right, then why did the Ash Spirits thank you? Why did you return those bodies to their family? Why did you save those three adventurers?"
The words seemed to shake through Aiden's skull.
He stood there in stunned silence.
His gaze drifted toward the house, where Aflmaril, Straun, and Sena were all sleeping after Kaelen had healed them. People who had stood against them. People who had followed Ymer.
People who were still alive because Aiden's party had chosen not to let them die.
Aiden slid down to sit with his back against the fence post.
His voice came out as a whisper, quiet enough that only he could hear.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
Tears rolled down his face.
"Your biggest problem right now is that you can't fight," the voice said. "So practice. Punch a tree. Run laps. Do something."
"I don't have combat skills. I don't have any way to attack or defend. I can make things, and I can't even do that enough."
"Oh, for the love of—"
The voice sounded genuinely annoyed now.
"If you really want to think about what would have happened without you, then fine. Let's run through it. Jax would have died to the Ash Spirit during his first encounter. But let's say he somehow lived for the sake of argument."
Aiden stayed quiet.
"The group would have been caught by the Blood Trent before they even knew what the real threat was. But let's say they got lucky again. Without you, Selene wouldn't have joined, and Jax couldn't tank alone."
The voice pressed on.
"Hell, let's skip the whole Blood Trent thing and look at today. Kaelen and Liora would have died from those arrows in the dungeon because nobody else had a way to cure the poison."
Aiden's throat tightened.
"You do not get to have a pity party right now," the voice said. "Jax does, because he got stabbed through the back and passed out from blood loss while hoping everyone lived. Kaelen does, because he got his arm cut off. Liora does, because she tried to contribute to the fight and her attempt failed."
The voice paused.
"You are basically their last wheel still standing right now. So if you want to pity yourself and mope, then let me control the body and you can go find a dark corner."
The speech landed like a punch to the face.
Aiden hated that it was right.
Without him, the party would have had more problems than solutions.
Still, another thought caught in his mind.
"Little me in my head," Aiden said slowly, "what exactly are you?"
There was a moment of silence.
Then came a sound that felt painfully similar to a facepalm.
"I'm a living train of thought. I was born from the thought you had when you obtained the skill."
Aiden thought back to when he had faced the double of himself inside his mind.
Then a weird thought crossed his own mind.
"Wait. You're what happens when a train of thought gains consciousness? Does that mean you have a thought you originated from?"
"Yep."
The voice sounded almost proud.
"I was born from your thought of, There must be a way out of this. I just need to think."
Both of them were silent for a moment.
Then Aiden said,
"Okay. We need to give you a shorter name."
"Yes, please."