They passed by what was left of the first guard by morning.
There wasn't much left of him, just his boots, a ruined scrap of uniform, and the sword Lyra took.
Kaal barely spoke either, moving stiffly, like he still hadn't recovered from the night before.
The royal aide was gone.
No sign of struggle. No trail. Just vanished.
They waited an hour after sunrise, scanning the tree line.
Nothing.
Lyra knew what that meant. She didn't bother saying it.
When they finally started walking again, neither of them looked back.
The path narrowed into jagged rock and frost-bitten dirt. Wind howled through cracks in the cliffs.
They moved slowly, Kaal riding one of the last horses they hadn't lost.
Lyra walked ahead, steps silent despite the terrain, every muscle tight beneath her coat.
She wasn't afraid. Not exactly.
The ground didn't feel steady. The silence was too complete.
The air had weight, like it had opinions. And the further they went, the more the land seemed to bend around them.
She kept her hand near her blade the whole way.
The fog finally began to lift, revealing the edge of a ravine ahead.
Lyra squinted into the distance. "That's the Nael Path."
Kaal dismounted and followed her gaze. "The pass that leads to Myrrel?"
She nodded. "If the map's right.
He didn't respond. But he shifted closer to her as the trail narrowed.
That surprised her.
So did the way his shoulder brushed hers, just for a moment, as they passed the edge.
He was taller than her. She noticed that now, properly. Not towering. Just enough to make his quiet presence feel heavier than it looked.
And again, that skin. Almost too light under the sun. Not pale from weakness, but from something else, like his blood had forgotten how to be warm.
She didn't say it out loud.
Didn't need to.
They reached a shallow cave just past dusk, little more than a divot in the cliff, but it gave them cover from the wind and the sky.
The air was thinner here. The trees shorter, twisted by wind and altitude.
Lyra checked the perimeter with makeshift markers, stones stacked in odd formations and broken branches lined up.
Traps wouldn't work here, but she could at least create noise.
Kaal sat by the cave wall, arms crossed over his knees, his breath clouding faintly in the cold.
She didn't talk to him.
Didn't mention the pale veins that had glowed in his skin again during the climb.
Whatever was happening to him, he clearly didn't want to talk about it.
Kaal sat by the fire, legs folded, reading again.
Lyra threw a pinecone into the flames. "Does that book ever end?"
"It's not the ending I care about."
She waited.
He didn't elaborate.
She rolled her eyes. "You always like this?"
"Yes."
"Well," she said, lying back on her bedroll, "at least you're consistent."
For a while, the fire was the only sound.
Then Kaal said, very quietly, "You fought hard. Back in the mist."
She opened one eye. "Noticed, did you?"
"You were injured."
"It's not deep."
He hesitated. Then reached into his pack. A small bottle. He tossed it to her.
She caught it without looking. "Royal salve?"
He didn't answer.
She sat up, opened it and sniffed. "Not poisoned. Good sign."
She dabbed it on her arm, the sting immediate.
She sat across the cave from him and continued cleaning her blade. The blood from last night had dried in thin black lines. It smelled like rot and metal.
She hated it.
She'd killed men before. Plenty. Bandits, targets, Aristocrats, traitors, soldiers who got in the way.
But those things in the fog weren't men. They hadn't bled right. They hadn't moved right. And the way they vanished afterward…
She gritted her teeth and scraped the steel clean.
"Do you think the aide's alive?" Kaal asked.
"No."
"You answered that quickly."
"Because I've seen what happens to people who panic in the wrong place."
Kaal leaned his head back against the wall. "You didn't panic."
"I don't have the luxury."
That shut him up again.
She wiped the blade dry and slid it back into its sheath.
Outside, the wind howled louder. Somewhere high above, snow fell in whispering sheets. The world was sharpening itself.
Tightening.
Lyra closed her eyes for a moment. Just long enough to think.
The image came back fast and uninvited: her guardian's face, bloody and breathless in the dirt.
The sound of running feet, her feet, leaving the scene. Too afraid. Too slow to fix it.
She hadn't run since.
Wouldn't run again.
Not even from this cursed prince or whatever was happening to his veins.
Kaal's voice came again, quieter this time. "What do you think those things were?"
Lyra didn't open her eyes. "I don't know."
"They weren't natural."
"No."
" They are undocumented."
"I don't think anyone else who came to face them would have lived to document."
He kept quiet . She liked that.
When she finally lay down, her back to the cave wall, she kept one hand under her head and the other on her dagger.
The trees were silent.
Kaal didn't sleep either. She could tell by the way he shifted.
His body was still recovering. She'd seen it, how he'd collapsed after the last hill, how he'd gritted his teeth and tried to hide it. The boy was stubborn..
But She wasn't here to fix him. She was here to get him to Eternity and walk away with her pardon and her life.
Still…
As she drifted into light sleep, she murmured into the dark, more to herself than to him: "Try not to die before morning."
Kaal didn't answer.