The crowd had thinned, though the tavern still swelled with song and smoke. Another band had taken the stage — less refined, more raucous — and their rhythm had turned the dancing into stomping. At the edge of it all, tucked near a wooden beam draped in faded flags, Ashem found his objective.
The bard sat, back to the wall, hat tossed on the table beside a half-full mug. The shirt clung with sweat, cheeks flushed from the stage and the drink. Ashem's approach caught with a side glance.
"Come to tip me in riddles, or are you just following the scroll's orders now?"
Ashem pulled the pamphlet from his coat and placed it gently between them. "Kharan sent me."
The grin vanished.
The bard leaned forward slowly, eyes narrowing. "What does that hag want?"
"They said you owe them something. And I'm supposed to go get it with you," Ashem said, before realizing he had no idea how he knew that. When attempting to recall, Kharan's hand was the only thing that came to mind.
A pause, a bitter laugh.
"Of course," the bard muttered, eyes rolling. "I sing one damn song and the past crawls in through the floorboards."
Ashem studied his interlocutor closely now. The sharp lines of their face didn't match the swagger on stage. This was not a small man. He glanced at her forearm — the mark he had glimpsed during her performance. A symbol etched in dark ink, sharp curves nested within one another, like a bridge over a mirror.
"I saw that on the scroll," he said. "What does it mean?"
She followed his gaze. For a second, she looked like she might lie. Then she leaned back and let out a long, tired sigh.
"It means I was stupid enough to think I could be someone else."
Ashem waited.
"It's a mark from the Ways," she admitted. "Shayari-Shaiven. I was trained in it. 'Harmony through Connection,' or whatever nonsense they used to preach. Back when I was Tameru's little prodigy."
He blinked. "You trained with Tameru?"
"Oh, don't look so surprised. I left before the real stuff set in. Took my songs, my strings, and hit the road." She grabbed her mug and downed the rest. "Turns out taverns pay better than monasteries."
"Ishari?" Ashem said quietly.
She looked up, one brow raised.
"That's what Tameru called you. Ishari."
Her jaw worked for a moment. Then she looked away.
"It's what they called me when I still thought I belonged. But I haven't heard that name in years." She reached for her hat, fingers drumming along the brim. "You can stick to Sahira. That one's mine."
He nodded. The pamphlet fluttered in a draft, catching her eye again.
"So what exactly does Kharan want me to get?" she asked.
"I don't know," Ashem admitted. "They didn't say."
Sahira snorted. "That sounds about right. That old stitched-up menace only speaks in favors and debts. And I guess this one's mine."
She stood slowly, rolling her shoulder with a wince.
"Well, looks like I can't outrun it forever. Might as well face it with company."
The forest thinned as they reached the final rise. Dawn was a smear of rose gold against the eastern canopy, dew clinging to their cloaks and lashes. Ashem stepped carefully over moss-laced roots, trailing behind Sahira, who navigated the slope with one hand on the strap of her satchel, and the other tracing circles in the air as she spoke.
"…You know, they used to make us meditate on that phrase for hours before we could even touch the real books," she said.
Ashem looked up from the path, brow furrowed. "What phrase?"
She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Tanen Vel Shaar. Everything is here and now. First lesson of the Scroll of Lareth."
"Scroll of what?" Ashem was as focused on not tripping on rocks as he was on her impromptu lesson.
"Lareth. It teaches you to unlearn the illusion of sequence — of past and future. Time's not a river we're floating down. It's a flowing landscape. An ever-changing map." she recited while looking up at the canopy, surprising herself as she found new meaning in that old piece of knowledge.
Ashem made his best attempt at understanding. "I wouldn't know… Does any of this have anything to do with Tameru's… intervention? He didn't want to say much when I asked."
"Well," she said, slowing her pace as the trail opened onto a wide stone plateau, "it's always better to show than to tell."
They crested the hill.
The words fell away.
At the summit, the trees bowed back, revealing a circular plateau of ancient stone — weathered and immense. At its heart stood an archway of obsidian stone and golden veins, tall enough to swallow three men. Around it, three concentric rings of monolithic stones encircled the platform, each etched with a precisely carved logographic script.
Sahira's voice returned in a whisper. "The first Gate I ever saw… and still gives me chills."
Ashem stepped forward, slowly. The air around the structure hummed, like the pressure before a storm. "How is this still standing?"
"It's outside time. Built by hands not bound by the flow of the Stream." She turned to him, serious now. "This isn't just a spatial portal. It's a gate trough the cardinal points of time."
Ashem exhaled slowly, eyes on the arch. "So I guess this is our ride."