Sonder followed at a distance.
The thing did not hurry. Its pace was steady, but its steps uneven.
That slowness gave her the chance to keep her space, though she never let it drift too far ahead.
The trees thinned as they walked, the undergrowth giving way to an open slope.
At its crest, she saw it: a mound rising from the earth, broad and heavy, its sides tangled with weeds.
Stones ringed its base, half-sunk and moss-covered. A barrow.
The creature reached its side and sank low, slipping through a cleft in the mound's face where soil and stone had collapsed into a crooked doorway.
Sonder crept after, crouching low as she neared the entrance. From within came a scraping sound, dragging, then a dull thud.
She peered inside.
The chamber was larger than she expected, its roof curving close overhead, roots spilling like black ropes from the dirt above. In the center, the creature bent over something.
Something she had not seen it carry.
A chair.
It set the cracked wooden frame down with surprising care, nudging it into place against the wall. Beside it stood a broken cabinet, its doors hanging loose, and what might once have been a carved chest, splintered along one side.
They all seemed to come from the Lustre house.
Piece by piece, it had been taking things from the estate and arranging them here, inside this barrow. A strange kind of mimicry.
Slowly, she edged along the wall, pressing her palms against the packed earth as she shifted further inside. Her eyes scanned for anything, a glint of jewels, a shape that might resemble the Tears of the Goddess.
If they were hidden anywhere, perhaps this strange scavenger had carried them here.
The creature paid her no mind, still bent at its task, dragging a warped length of timber across the floor and propping it against the wall as though it were a treasured beam.
The longer she looked, the clearer it became: it was building a home.
The thought troubled her. She was an invader. But she pushed it aside. Vell needed her help.
She eased further in, her eyes sweeping the dirt floor.
Then she caught a glimmer, faint carvings etched along one side of the chamber wall in the dark.
She frowned. Not runes. Not writing. Shapes. Arches. Spires. Doorways. The outline of the Lustre estate, scratched into the dirt.
The creature moved again. It leaned close to the chair, tilting its head as if considering its placement, then shifted it by the smallest margin.
Sonder ducked behind the broken cabinet.
If she could just see more. Just a few steps further, another angle of the chamber.
She slid sideways, silent as she could manage, eyes fixed on the far corner.
And then her boot nudged something.
A shard of pottery, brittle and sharp, cracked beneath her heel.
The sound split the silence.
The creature froze, its form suddenly rigid.
It lifted its head, slow as the turning of a wheel.
The barrow seemed to close in around her.