Magic shone everywhere Emilie looked as they made their way down into the valley. The elder tree was, of course, the most magical thing in sight but even the otherwise normal looking plants glowed with magic. It was as though just being in the presence of the elder tree made them magical. That would explain the higher concentration of dangerous animals in this valley. It was a well known phenomenon that magical environments bred magical flora and fauna. The more magical, the more dangerous.

Most of the trees around them here at the rim of the valley were elms, but there were tiny flowers growing in place of some of their leaves. They were pale white with violet stripes running down their petals and into the stem. A faint fragrance wafted in the air from them and it made Emilie lightheaded. It was a sensation she’d felt many times before when brewing a potion had gone wrong.

“There’s poison in the air,” she said dully, her mouth moving far more slowly than she would have expected. “The flowers.”

The other three were already beginning to sag and drag their feet. The trees themselves seemed to bend over them, as if to enclose them all.

Emilie flicked her fingers and sparks of fire leapt up towards the boughs. The pollen in the air caught and a plume of fire rose up high, singeing the trees which immediately pulled back and away.

“We have to get away from the elms,” Emilie slurred but kept her feet moving. “Come on.”

The other three had stopped walking but the fire roused them somewhat. None of them spoke but they obeyed Emilie and left the elm grove before any of them could fully succumb.

“Here,” she said as she pulled a vial from her belt pouch, “take just a sip.”

She took a sip first and then passed it around to the others. The sharp, acrid liquid burned and the smell of it made her sinus’s ache. In response, her nose began to run and flushed out not only the offending stench but also the rest of the pollen from the elm flowers. The next several minutes were spent with the four of them blowing their noses and coughing to clear their sinuses.

“What was that?” Kasyn asked as he handed the vial back to Emilie. “An antidote to the poison?”

“Not hardly,” she laughed. “It’s a concentrated cleaner for washing clothes. I figured it was the best thing I had to purge our noses.”

“What do you think the chances are that those are the only trees like that that we’ll be running into?” Zeter asked Damarys.

“Not sure, but I know how to deal with them. There’s mushrooms in some parts of the woods that have a similar effect.”

Damarys pulled out a strip of cloth reserved for making bandages and soaked it in water before tying it around her mouth and nose.

“It makes breathing a little harder,” she said, muffled beneath the wrap, “but it’ll filter out a lot of air born threats.”

Emilie and the other two followed suit and were once again making their way down into the valley. Damarys was obviously avoiding anything that resembled a game trail to lessen their chances of running into any of the animals here, but that also meant trail blazing their own way through the heavy brush.

As the elder tree drew closer and closer, Emilie’s eyes began to hurt from the strain of seeing so much intense magic. It got so bad that she had to turn her gaze away and stare at the ground while shading her eyes.

“You okay?” Kasyn asked but Damarys instantly signaled for them to remain silent.

Damarys pointed up and Emilie chanced a glance.

Up in the canopy of the elder tree high above them, loomed the wyvern. Perched among forked boughs, she was scanning the ground beneath her, not far from where Emilie and the others were currently standing.

Damarys pantomimed the wyvern swooping down, like an eagle over a lake, and scooping them up.

Emilie’s eye burned and she had to shut them once again. Even through her eyelids she could see the glow of the elder tree. Someone patted her on the shoulder and she held out her hand. They took it and led her onward at an even slower pace. Had she known how magical the elder tree would be, she would have brought her goggles to filter it out. Most Sages could tune their vision to see magic or not, but Emilie couldn’t stop seeing it. Even as far back as she could remember she could see magic and when it was so concentrated like this it could actually damage her eyes like staring at the sun.

The entire time, though, she was forced to wonder why the Sages didn’t seem to know about this elder tree. With how obviously magical it was, she would have expected to have heard of it before, especially with how close to Yomichi it was. Perhaps it was known, but kept secret for some reason. The hunters certainly knew about it and Damarys didn’t act as though this was supposed to be kept secret.

“What’s wrong?” Damarys whispered very faintly into her ear. “You’re crying blood.”

“The magic’s too intense here,” she whispered back, wiping at her eyes and noting the thickness of the blood, rather than tears, that were streaming down her face.

There was a heavy silence between them now. Emilie knew she was becoming a liability on this mission and she hoped the damage to her eyes wouldn’t be permanent.

“Wait here,” Damarys finally whispered and helped Emilie into a sitting position on a fallen log.

Through the glow of the elder tree, filtering through her eyelids, Emilie could make out the forms of the other three moving onward towards the trunk. They were little more than vague shapes but they were the only things really moving around. While she waited, she counted along her belt where she had various potions strapped into their own little holsters. She pulled one of the healing potions out and sipped it slowly. It helped to ease the pain in her eyes and, hopefully, would stave off the worst of the long term effects.

After quite a significant amount of time had passed, the others returned and they silently began leading Emilie back out of the valley. It was anticlimactic, but she wasn’t going to complain about that. No wyvern attack, no other strange beasts or carnivorous plants, and with each step moving her farther away from the elder tree her eyes began to calm down.

The temperature dropped suddenly and Emilie realized it was because the sun had just set. Shortly afterward, the ground leveled out and then began to slope downward. Another half hour or so passed before they stopped for the night.

“”How’re you feeling?” Damarys was the first to break the silence.

“Besides feeling like my eyes have been wrenched out of their sockets, I have a splitting headache.”

“Care to explain what happened?”

Someone handed Emilie a wet cloth and she began to clean what must be a terribly bloody mess all down her face and chest.

“I can’t help but see magic,” Emilie said. “The elder tree was so bright I think it was burning my eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” Damarys patted her on the shoulder.

“How’d it go with the tree itself?” Emilie asked. “Were you able to get the wood?”

“We did,” Zeter replied. “We’ve stored it all in the bag of holding.”

“And Zeter got some of the elder tree’s sap,” Kasyn added.

“You what?” Damarys demanded.

Apparently, she hadn’t been aware of that fact.

“I just thought it might be interesting to study,” Zeter said a bit too nonchalantly. “It’s just a few small vials of it. Why?”

“I would be careful carrying anything that magical around,” Damarys warned. “There’s beasts out here that feed on sap from magical plants and they might be drawn to it.”

“I’m being careful,” Zeter replied. “I’ve stored them in a metal box so even Emilie’s eyes wouldn’t be able to sense them.”

That seemed to be enough for Damarys and the three of them let Emilie rest while they set up camp. While they were working, Emilie finished wiping off her face. In doing so, she patted her eyes gently to test how they were feeling. To her horror all she felt were empty sockets. She blinked and saw nothing. She poked a bit further into her sockets, hoping her eyes had just deflated somewhat, but again found nothing. Eventually she brushed against the raw backside of her eye sockets and knew she’d never see again. The realization shook her and she began to weep tearlessly.

“What’s wrong?” Kasyn hurried over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m blind,” she told him, opening her eyelids for him to see the issue.

At once he recoiled, pulling his hand away and stumbling backwards.

“It’ looks the same as those who were looking at Akumu’s castle when the explosion hit.”

“I’m so sorry,” Zeter said and he placed a hand on her back.

“Is there anything we can do for you right now?” Damarys asked.

“No, I’ll be fine,” Emilie assured them even though she didn’t believe it herself. “I just need to cry it out, I think.”

The others were quiet after that, though Emilie did catch snippets of Zeter explaining to the others why losing her sight was such a significant blow.

“It’s all but impossible to study magic without sight, and most spells require you to be able to see where you’re casting your spells,” he muttered, probably trying not to be overheard by Emilie but failing. “She also needs to be able to see what her potions are doing while she brews them, watching for color shifts or other things like that. Without her sight, she can’t do anything.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration in Emilie’s opinion, but the basics were correct. She couldn’t study a spell book without her sight. She couldn’t gauge the amount of magic in a potion without her sight. Sure, she could learn to organize her things and memorize a sort of mental map of where everything was, but blindness was still a huge hurtle.

With a hollow grin, she cast a spell that didn’t require her eyes at all.

“Ketty,” she said under her breath.

“I’m here, what is it?” Ketty replied at once.

“I’m blind,” she said. “I won’t be making any more Sages Brew. “I’m not sharing the recipe either. Tell everyone they’ll just have to get through the withdrawals.”

“That’s unacceptable. Armand is still addicted.”

“Then help him through it,” Emilie replied. “Basic potions for nausea should help, as well as a few for the headache and hallucinations.”

“Some of them are too addicted to just quit like that. They’ll die!”

“Then put them into stasis and let them work through it more slowly. Either way, we’re going to be moving far more slowly on our way back to Yomichi since I need to be helped along so it’s going to be a few days before we’re back.”

“You don’t know what this is going to do to our efforts here,” Ketty’s voice was stark. “The Sages here will kill each other just to get the remaining Brew.”

“Then it’s your job to prevent that. Maybe don’t tell them anything and just let them run out and deal with it then.”

“I may have to do just that. Fine. Well, I’m sorry about your eyesight. Is that all you have to report?”

Ketty didn’t sound at all empathetic but at least she said the words. It was an improvement, in Emilie’s experience with the woman.

“We got what we came for, so at least the mission was successful.”

“Good. Well, I’ll see you when you get back. Travel safe.”

The connection ended and Emilie felt strangely light, as though the burden of making the Sages Brew were finally and truly off her shoulders. She hadn’t realized before how heavy it had been. She smiled, an honest and joyful smile, at the realization that her one huge mistake would, at last, be rectified. It was on Ketty, now, to deal with the consequences.