The carriage wasn't ornate or draped in wealth. It was modest but comfortable, its interior humming with the steady rhythm of wheels on cobblestone. Cassian sat on one side, his posture composed but weary, while Hadrian occupied the other, a silent sentinel cloaked in shadow.
Cassian watched the capital pass by through the small window. Streets bustled with life—children laughing, merchants trading—but beneath it all was a tension that pulsed like an undercurrent. He pressed his head to the cool glass, shutting his eyes for a moment. Memories threatened to surface, bitter and violent. He pushed them down.
He wouldn't lose himself now.
---
They arrived at the ruins of Old Virelynn just as the sun began its slow descent. The air was dry and brittle, laced with ash and something colder still. Remnants of walls jutted from the cracked earth, like bones from a long-dead beast.
High Marshal Orven stepped down from his horse, surveying the landscape with narrowed eyes.
"We split into four pairs," he announced. "Serdan and Brynne—take the north perimeter. Veyron and Ilyas, scout the underground remains. Valon, you're with me—we'll investigate the high watch and possible command posts. Cassian, you and No. 1 are heading toward the heart of the ruin. That's where the Moribrae were last sighted."
Cassian said nothing, only nodded. Hadrian fell in step beside him.
---
At the edge of the ruined northern towers, Brynne caught the faint glint of metal. Movement. Two figures emerged, shrouded and silent, their steps too fluid to be untrained. When challenged, they drew blades—slim, curved, and inscribed with dark glyphs.
A quick, brutal clash. When Serdan managed to pin one down, the assassin whispered a phrase in a harsh, unknown tongue and slit his own throat. The body dissolved into soot, leaving behind a blackened sigil etched into the stones: the mark of the Ashen Coil.
---
In the remains of what had once been a holy sanctum, Veyron uncovered a half-buried staircase leading to a subterranean vault. The air was stale and heavy, thick with remnants of power twisted and rotted.
Burned bodies. Ritual chains. Glyphs drawn in dried blood and ash. One corpse, still faintly imbued with magic, twitched. A breathless whisper escaped its skeletal lips before crumbling into dust.
"Dark magic," Ilyas murmured. "Fused with the human body. This is no longer research. This is desecration."
---
Climbing the high watch ruins, Valon discovered a heat-reactive sigil etched into a crumbling wall. When brushed with warmth, the stone revealed a hidden diagram—a migration map.
"Outposts," Orven muttered. "Old supply lines, twisted into new sanctuaries. They've retreated west—past the border."
"They're hiding," Valon said. "Or planning."
---
Their section of the ruins was quiet. Too quiet. The ground had been scorched black, unnatural in its pattern, like a brand pressed into the earth. Bones lay scattered in heaps, brittle and clean. Hollowed-out husks—the remnants of Moribrae.
They crept carefully, Cassian's hand on his blade, Hadrian a step ahead, silent and alert. A low sound caught their attention—wet, animalistic. A malformed creature emerged from the hollow, limbs twitching and fused, mouth stretching too wide.
The two moved in tandem. Cassian slashed low, Hadrian struck high. It fell, but with its last breath it let out a psychic scream, and something lashed through the air. Cassian staggered, dizzy, and Hadrian caught him.
In that brief contact, Cassian saw the mark burned into Hadrian's palm. A glyph not unlike those used in Enigma seals.
"That mark," Cassian whispered.
Hadrian's gaze was calm, unreadable. "A truth for a truth, Lord Caerwyn."
Cassian pulled out the document he had kept hidden—the one that bore the name of House Aestis alongside Ashen Coil. He offered it without a word.
Their truths lingered between them like unspoken vows.
---
By sunset, all pairs had regrouped. The air felt heavier, the silence between them louder. Findings were exchanged in clipped tones, some spoken, others passed in folded notes.
They began the journey back to the capital.
But none of them—not even Cassian or Hadrian—spoke of what they had truly seen in the heart of the ruins.
And far in the west, in lands unmarked by any map, something stirred.