The road east of Larkstem thinned into gravel and dust before giving way to grass-smothered stone. Long-dead trade routes once connected these winding paths to the border mills and the distant mountain forges, but now even the birds seemed reluctant to pass overhead.
Corwin moved in silence, the map pressed to his chest beneath the folds of his coat. Liran led the way with a lantern hooded in copper mesh, its flickering light tinted green by an alchemical wick. Ashra walked at the rear, muttering half-formed protective chants under her breath—not the kind that worked, necessarily, but the kind that made you feel like they might.
They'd left the workshop at dawn and reached the outskirts of the Norrish Border by nightfall. The fields here were barren, stitched with the broken skeletons of windmills and rusting plows. In the distance, the black frame of the old watermill they sought rose like a ruin swallowing itself. A wheel hung useless over the dried creekbed, its paddles cracked and worn from years of neglect.
"This place reeks of death," Ashra muttered, her eyes scanning the fog-streaked field. "And not the useful kind."
Corwin said nothing. The letter's fragment—the Fourth Thread—spoke of "initiation through ash." The watermill stood at the center of what had once been a refinery town, the kind of place where the guilds might have stored volatile matter too dangerous to keep within city bounds.
Liran slowed as they reached the base of the hill. "How sure are we this is the right place?"
Corwin took the map from his coat. The glyphs had changed again. Now, faint alchemical lines reached from the edges of the parchment inward—converging not on the mill itself, but on something beneath it.
"I'm not," he replied quietly. "But the seal burns hotter the closer we get. That's new."
They circled the watermill's decaying frame. The door hung open, swinging softly in the breeze. Inside, old machinery groaned under its own weight, cogs twisted and bent like ribs crushed inward.
Ashra tested the floorboards with her boot, listening for hollow space beneath. "This place has rot in its bones," she said, then paused. Her eyes narrowed.
A single, narrow hatch beneath one of the fallen grinders.
Corwin knelt beside it. "Help me."
Together, the three lifted the hatch. Beneath lay a staircase of blackened stone, winding down into shadow. The air that rose to greet them carried a sharp, metallic sting—like copper ground with bone.
They descended slowly. Each step brought colder air, the lantern light struggling to penetrate more than a few feet ahead. Glyphs—older than any Corwin had studied—were carved into the walls, etched with something that gleamed faintly blue.
"Are these… recent?" Liran whispered.
"No," Corwin replied. "But they're responding to us."
The stairs ended at a rusted gate. Beyond it, a circular chamber opened—wide and domed, like a buried temple. Runes spiraled across the floor, some faint, others glowing weakly with the heat of old power.
At the center stood an altar. Upon it, a cage of twisted metal held what looked like a sphere of dense glass—fractured, as though it had been cracked from within. Silver motes floated lazily inside, like stars held in syrup.
Corwin approached slowly.
Ashra let out a soft breath. "Is that… a core?"
Liran's hand went to his blade. "Something's wrong. Look."
Shadows moved along the far edge of the chamber—not cast by their lantern, but reaching toward it.
Then, from the far side of the wall, something shifted. A long, scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged in a circle. The glow of the runes flickered.
"We're not alone," Corwin whispered.
As if in answer, a low chime echoed through the chamber.
It did not come from the altar.
It came from behind the walls.
Ashra backed toward them. "We need to decide now—take the fragment or leave it."
Corwin stared at the fractured sphere. The map pulsed against his chest like a second heartbeat. Whatever this was, it wasn't inert. It was waiting.
He reached forward—and the moment his fingers brushed the cage, a light flared behind his eyes.
He was standing in a field of ash, the sky boiling red above him. A tower rose in the distance—impossible in shape, curved like a serpent swallowing its tail. Around him, cloaked figures chanted in a language that made his ears bleed. And then—
A mark appeared on the back of his hand. A brand. The same sigil as the letter's seal.
He gasped, stumbling back.
The sphere was gone.
The altar, empty.
Ashra and Liran both stared at him.
"You vanished for a second," Liran said. "You were here… but you weren't."
"I saw something," Corwin whispered. "A memory. Or a vision. It showed me…"
He trailed off.
The wall behind them creaked open—slowly, reluctantly.
And from the gap emerged a figure.
Cloaked in black. Face veiled. On their chest: the sigil of the Carrion Order, etched in bone.
They did not speak.
They raised a hand.
Behind them, more shadows moved.