The Howling Cradle lay still behind them, its echoing screams swallowed by Mortain's retreat. For the first time in days, the sky above was clear—no whispering clouds, no flicker of green lightning. Only a vast, uneasy calm.
Nimbus nestled in the crook of Rose's neck. "He's not gone, is he?"
"No," Rose said. "He just... pulled back."
Basil sheathed his blade. "He's waiting. Planning."
Rose nodded. "And thinking."
They made camp near the rim of a dried lakebed, its cracked surface shimmering faintly with residual magic. Rose sat cross-legged, drawing sigils into the dirt with a fingertip while her thoughts spun in a storm of their own.
Mortain hadn't tried to kill her.
Not really.
He'd tested her. Pushed. Probed. And when she'd offered him understanding instead of violence... he'd hesitated.
That moment was everything.
"Could he be turned?" Basil asked eventually, breaking the silence.
Rose looked up at him. "I don't know. But I saw something in him. A sliver of the boy he used to be. It's still there. Buried."
Basil sat beside her, gaze steady. "If you try to reach that part of him, he might tear you apart."
She smiled faintly. "That's the risk with powerful men and fragile truths."
Basil gave her a long look. "You're not afraid."
"I am," she admitted. "But not of him. Not anymore. I'm afraid of what I might have to become to stop him if he won't change."
The firelight danced between them.
Nimbus let out a soft snore, curled in her lap like a cat-shaped cloud. Rose stroked his head absently, watching the sparks rise into the stars.
"I think I know what comes next," she said after a moment.
Basil tilted his head. "Another vision?"
"No. Just instinct." She glanced toward the horizon. "He's gathering power. Building something. Not just for destruction—this feels... ritualistic."
Basil frowned. "A god doesn't need ceremony to end the world."
"No," Rose agreed. "But a man might. Especially one trying to rewrite his own fate."
She pulled the final sigil through the dirt, and it flared softly, revealing a path none of them had seen before—a thin trail of silver light winding through the lakebed and vanishing into the mountains beyond.
"He left us a door," she murmured. "Or a challenge."
Basil stood. "Either way, we follow."
They packed in silence, the mood subdued but certain.
As they walked, Rose found herself drifting closer to Basil's side. The warmth of him. The way he didn't flinch from her power, or her choices.
He caught her glance and, unexpectedly, smiled. "You're thinking too loud again."
"I was wondering..." she said, her voice low, "...how someone like you ended up chasing storms with someone like me."
Basil looked ahead. "Maybe I've always belonged in the eye of one."
Her heart stuttered. Just once.
The wind rose behind them.
And the path ahead gleamed with the promise of answers—and the threat of the god who had once been a boy.