Smoke curled like thin fingers in the morning air, slow and deliberate, as if savoring its brief freedom before the wind pulled it away.
Ian stood alone on the rise just outside camp, a cigarette burning steadily between his lips.
His shadow stretched long in the brittle dawn light, tapering toward the warped horizon like a wound unraveling.
His eyes, flat and slate-gray, were fixed on the distant tear in the sky — the Black Fall Gate.
Even from here, it beat like a living thing.
It had become a ritual for him, this morning stillness.
A quiet communion with the abyss before he gave himself to it. Every day, he came here and stared at it.
And every day, it stared back.
He took a drag, slow and measured, and let the smoke drift from his nostrils.
The wind caught it, carrying it like incense toward the cursed altar on the horizon. For a moment, nothing moved.
The world was still. Expectant.
Then — footsteps.
He didn't need to look.
