Thornrest wasn't on any map—at least none that Jonas could imagine.
Caldra called it a scratch-village, the kind of place that didn't grow so much as scab over.
Stone huts leaned like drunkards into one another. A wall of scavenged iron surrounded the perimeter, half-melted where old Praxis-fire had once surged through it. Smoke clung low to the rooftops, and even Jonas's untrained nose caught the scent of blood beneath the soot.
They'd barely made it past the gates when a crossbow bolt whistled past his shoulder.
Caldra didn't flinch. "Hold!" she barked. "Knight-captain Vey of Alarshold. Stand down or I start counting bodies."
A moment later, two guards stepped into view—both wild-eyed, gaunt, and clearly terrified.
They recognized her armor.
They let them in.
The healer's hut was barely more than an open room with a soot-smeared roof. Caldra lay on a wooden pallet, armor stripped, bandages wrapped tight around her ribs. Jonas sat nearby, restless, fingers twitching on his knees.
Everything here screamed to his senses.
The scent of boiled roots. The copper of blood. The faint hum of wood swelling in the humidity.
His tongue picked up ash in the air—burnt bone, he realized, though he didn't want to know how he knew.
He tasted fear.
His fingers brushed the stone wall and he felt every scratch, every blow it had ever taken. Like whispers in the grain.
The world was too loud.
And his senses were only getting sharper.
"Your Praxis is blooming."
Caldra's voice was hoarse, but steady. She watched him from her cot, one eye half-swollen.
Jonas nodded. "I can't… shut it off. The taste, the touch, the smells. It's all there."
She didn't respond right away. Then: "You're lucky. Most people train for years to unlock even a fraction of one sense. You're already three-deep, and climbing."
He hesitated. "Why does that make people nervous?"
Caldra looked away.
"It's not supposed to happen," she said. "Senses grow in alignment—one, maybe two. But you? You're raw. Unaligned. No markings. No origin sigil. No kingdom claiming you. That makes you…"
"Suspicious?"
"Dangerous."
Later that evening, the village bell rang—a low, bone-chime tone made from the hollow skull of a beast Jonas didn't recognize.
A stranger had arrived.
Jonas saw him before anyone else.
A man, tall, robed in crimson threads. His boots didn't crunch the gravel. He flowed. His face was half-covered in a thin metal mask, shaped like a nose and jawline—but gleaming, like glass.
Jonas's skin crawled.
He could taste the man's scent: bitter metal, dry stone, and something else—something that hurt to remember.
The man didn't speak. Just stared at Jonas across the square.
And smiled.
That night, Jonas couldn't sleep.
Caldra sat by a fire, cleaning her blade. The wound on her ribs was healing—slowly—but she moved like someone used to pain.
"Who was he?" Jonas asked.
Caldra paused. "A Sensorium. Likely from the House of Nasal. They're diplomats. Assassins. Power-hunters. They can smell relic resonance across leagues."
"Did he know who I was?"
Caldra shrugged. "Maybe. But he won't act here. Thornrest's neutral."
"For now."
She looked up at him. "You're scared."
He didn't deny it.
"I don't belong here," he muttered. "I don't know your customs. Your wars. I don't even know why I'm here."
Caldra's expression softened for the first time. "Sometimes the Praxis chooses. Sometimes it calls out through the senses to find someone…" she hesitated. "Someone empty enough to carry something big."
Jonas glanced at her. "You think I'm empty?"
"I think," she said, standing slowly, "you're exactly what the kingdoms have been fearing."
He didn't know what to say.
She leaned closer. "The relic didn't fall into your hands by accident, Jonas Reeve. And now that it has… nothing in this world will ever let you go quietly again."