Their first stop was a farming village twenty miles south of the academy. A girl named Mira, fifteen years old, who had accidentally set fire to her family's barn when her fragment awakened.
[Order Fragment 04 ā Fire affinity.]
Mira was hesitant at first. She had been hiding for a year, terrified of hurting anyone else.
"You can help us," Varyan told her. "We're going to destroy the Harvesters. They're the ones who hunt people like us."
"I don't want to fight."
"Then don't fight. But we need a place to stay, supplies, information. Can you help with that?"
Mira thought about it. Then she nodded.
The second recruit was a boy named Dorian, seventeen, who had been living as a hermit in the mountains. His Chaos fragment gave him the ability to speak with animalsānot useful in a fight, but invaluable for reconnaissance.
"Birds see everything," he said, stroking a raven perched on his shoulder. "I can ask them where the Harvesters are. What they're doing."
"Can the birds spy on the Forbidden Peak?"
"They're afraid of that place. But I can convince them."
The third recruit was a pair of twins, Kai and Lena, both bearing fragmentsāOrder and Chaos, respectively. They had been on the run for two years, moving from town to town, never staying long.
"We work best together," Kai said. "Our fragments resonate. When we fight side by side, we're stronger."
"Then fight with us," Seris said. "We need all the strength we can get."
By the end of the first week, they had seven fragment-bearers in their group. Varyan, Seris, Tobin, Elara, Mira, Dorian, Kai, and Lena.
Eight against the Lord Harvest's army.
The odds improved slightly.
[Alliance size: 8 bearers. Success probability recalculating... 38%.]