Morning had risen without a sun.
Just that pale, weightless light pressed flat against the sky, like a frozen mist, unable to choose between dawn and delay. The convoy had broken camp early—no fanfare, no urgency. The tarps had been folded, the beasts harnessed, the wheels nudged back into motion. Soon, they resumed their march east, skirting dead cliffs and jagged stone hollows.
The terrain had changed.
No grass. No insects. Nothing but long, flat stones stacked like scales, forming tilted terraces sloping toward a vanishing horizon. The rock was the color of bone—gray with white veins, occasionally striated with darker threads that pulsed with a dull glow the closer they came to the Grey Zone.
Lihuen walked behind the second cart, Sen steady at his side. No one spoke to him. And that suited him just fine.
Since returning in silence, no one had asked where he'd been. He hadn't offered lies. Hadn't offered anything, really. The others—perhaps without realizing—let that silence stand. Maybe they sensed it. That he wasn't quite the same. Nothing visible. No mark. But something in the way he moved. Watched. Breathed.
As if the rhythm of the world had shifted around him, just slightly.
Footsteps matched his stride.
An unfamiliar warmth of presence—not threatening, not invasive. Just… there.
It was the tall one: square-shouldered, lean, wrapped in a tunic split clean down the middle—black on one side, white on the other. His gaze was narrow but clear, the kind of eyes that scanned before they judged.
"Keeping pace," he said. Calm. Direct.
"I'm walking. That's enough for now," Lihuen replied.
They moved in silence for a moment, boots sliding quietly over layered stone.
"The chief didn't ask for answers," the man continued. "That's not like him. So he saw something. Even if he won't say it."
Lihuen didn't respond.
The man nodded faintly, as if expecting that.
"I saw something, too. Last night—your shadow. It wasn't following you."
A pause.
"It was half a step ahead."
He didn't explain. He didn't need to. His name was Sqayr. Not a nickname—an actual name, caught once when someone else had muttered it. No one knew where he came from. He wore no insignia, had no telling accent. Everything about him was balance. Precision. Intent.
He drifted forward, back into the rhythm of the group. Lihuen let him go, thoughtful.
Ahead, the terraces grew steeper, occasionally broken by fissures so deep they swallowed the air. The convoy threaded between them like a single creature—slow, steady, undeterred. They didn't walk fast. But they walked with purpose, as if the ground itself demanded it.
Here, the ground felt different.
Not the surface. Beneath it. A muted pulse, deep in the stone. Lihuen felt it in his heels, his ribs, his skull. Not pain. Not vibration. Just… awareness. Like something ancient still waited down there, half-dreaming.
And it wasn't dead.
Once, rounding a bend in the path, they passed a figure carved into the cliff. A massive torso, shoulder-deep in rock, headless, one enormous arm raised in what could have been a guard's stance—or a farewell. The stone of the statue was darker than the rest, veined with something that almost looked like veins.
The cart creaked.
Lihuen turned his head just in time to catch a faint shimmer from between the slats. The Fragment pulsed faintly—light bleeding through as if echoing recognition.
A cough broke the quiet.
The veteran with the scar—short-tempered, rough-voiced—muttered, "Another damned marker. They're not dead, these things. Just waiting."
The chief didn't turn around. He didn't need to. The silence behind him said everything.
By midday, they paused in a rock basin. No fires were lit. No voices raised. Just the dry, ritual gestures of seasoned hands. They pitched low shelters, watered the animals. The sky remained blank, heavy, oppressive without warmth.
Lihuen climbed a ledge nearby and sat, overlooking the slow-moving line of stone.
And then—he felt it.
A fracture.
Not physical. Perceptual. Like a thread snapping in his head.
He had seen this landscape before. Or at least, its echo. A dusty map in a village long since buried, tucked away in an archive few remembered. The cartographer's ink had described this region as ruined. Lifeless. Swallowed by dust and age. An eastern frontier, long past its prime.
But here… it was alive.
Desolate, yes. Empty. But not forgotten. Not yet ruined.
And that meant something. Something impossible.
A chill passed through him.
What if this wasn't his world?
Or—not his time?
The Domain hadn't just tested him. Hadn't just shaped him. It might have… moved him. Slipped him sideways through time itself. This could be Qin. But an older Qin. One where the tribes of Skar'Ael were still gathering. Where the Veilers still watched. Where the giants hadn't fully fallen.
The thought pressed down on him like weight.
Sen joined him quietly, her body warm against his side. He placed a hand on her neck, thoughtful.
"You feel it too," he murmured. "This is the right place… but the wrong time."
Another presence drew near. Sqayr again. He crouched beside him without a word, arms resting loosely over his knees.
"You're thinking loud," he said softly.
Lihuen looked sideways.
"I'm not the only one."
Sqayr gave the hint of a smile.
"Here, thinking loud is like shouting. And shouting draws… attention."
A moment passed between them.
"You ever been somewhere that looked like your world," Lihuen asked, "but wasn't?"
Sqayr tilted his head slightly. "Once. Walked five days under a sky that didn't turn. Shadows stayed exactly where they were cast. Found a river flowing backward. Came out alone."
"What was it?"
He shrugged.
"A crack. A memory. A mistake. Doesn't matter. You walk through, or you die in it. That's the only thing that's real."
He rose and left again, fluid as ever.
Lihuen stayed on the ledge, eyes distant. The world beneath him held a stillness that wasn't peace. The rune in his palm didn't glow. Didn't pulse. But he felt it all the same. Not like a tool. More like a center of gravity. Not pulling him forward—but anchoring him.
Later, the convoy moved again.
They passed through a narrow throat of stone, walls damp with some unseen mist. The air grew heavy. Stagnant. Sound vanished—boots fell silently, ropes made no creak, even the carts seemed to glide.
It felt like walking through someone else's breath.
When they emerged, it was into a vast plain riddled with gashes. Each crack yawned wide enough to swallow beasts whole. The light shifted overhead—copper one moment, lead-gray the next. The sky was no longer white. It was… dense. Not a color. A pressure.
The chief gave a sharp signal. Halt. Rest.
Camp was minimal. Just the carts aligned in a defensive wedge, the tarps low and tense, ready to be dropped at the first sign.
Lihuen sat with his back to a tall stone and watched the others.
He was learning their rhythms.
The scarred veteran never let his weapon stray more than a palm's width. The boy with the yellow scarf chewed constantly, even when nothing was in his mouth. The woman with stained fingertips sketched symbols every night into a leather-bound journal. And Sqayr—he lay like a statue, eyes closed, breathing even.
But he didn't sleep. Not really.
They weren't soldiers. Not merchants. Not mercenaries in the usual sense. They were… carriers. Runners of unknown burdens. Couriers who might never ask what they were carrying. Because they understood something deeper:
What you deliver isn't always a package.
Sometimes, it's a change.
A ripple.
A fuse.
And Lihuen?
He was beginning to feel like more than just a passenger. Not a leader. Not yet. But a point of tension. A presence that bent the shape of things. Subtly. Invisibly. Like a stone placed just slightly off-center on a scale.
And maybe… maybe that was his Voie.
Not blazing a trail.
But making the hidden trails appear.
He closed his eyes, breathing slow.
Tomorrow, they would walk through the territory of the Veilers. Three days without voice or fire. Carrying a fragment of something ancient and angry.
And he would carry something else. Something heavier than stone. A memory. A shift.
This wasn't a mission.
It was his first true trial.
Not a duel. Not a riddle.
A journey through pressure.
A silence full of eyes.
And in that silence… he would walk.
Not because someone had ordered it.
But because the world itself had opened.
To see what he would do next.