The road to Inam had no name. Or maybe it did, once, but the signs were rusted and half-buried under moss and rot. They walked it anyway, boots pressing into soft mud, the silence broken only by the occasional murmur of wind slipping through distant trees.
Tali walked ahead, arms crossed over her cloak. She hadn't spoken much since the house in the grove.
"You keep lookin' back," Rudra said after a while. "Expecting something?"
"No. I just don't like what's ahead."
She didn't explain. Didn't need to.
Behind them, the forest was still breathing. Quiet, but not resting.
Rudra adjusted the strap on his shoulder, the leather cut from the edge of a torn bag. His robes had dried poorly — now stiff in some places, and damp in others, sticking to his skin like something clinging for warmth. The sword at his hip hadn't seen use since the first night, and he wasn't sure if it would hold in a real fight.
The sun hadn't risen, exactly. It just brightened a little. Pale light, no warmth. The kind that made you wonder if morning actually happened or if it just gave up halfway.
Eventually they reached the outskirts of Inam.
It wasn't a city. Not anymore. The walls had crumbled, houses leaning like tired men, and smoke drifted up from three different chimneys. Only three. Not a village either. Something between.
Still, it was alive.
A boy chased a wheel down the muddy path, his bare feet slick with dirt. Two women argued near a well, tossing bitter words like stones. A man leaned against a cart selling fire-roasted fish, and an old dog gnawed quietly on a bone near his feet.
It smelled of salt and wet wood. And people.
"I don't like it," Tali said.
"You don't like anything," Rudra muttered.
But he followed her in.
They stopped at a crooked inn near the edge of the central square. Sign just read "Hearth." Not The Hearth, not Hearth and Home. Just Hearth. It swung gently in the breeze.
Inside, the warmth hit him. Soft. Honest. Like the fire had been burning for longer than anyone remembered.
A woman at the counter looked up, mid-pour of something that smelled like boiled herbs and bark. She had silver hair tied in a knot and a scar that ran from her lip to her collarbone. She didn't smile. But she didn't look angry either. Just… tired.
"Rooms?"
"One," Tali said.
Rudra raised a brow. "You're not gonna—"
"No."
He sighed, dropped a few coins on the counter. "We'll take the small one."
The woman nodded, gestured upstairs with her chin.
It creaked. Of course it creaked. The whole place did. But it was clean. Two beds, a window with no glass, just cloth pinned across it. A basin half-full of water. He wasn't gonna ask where it came from.
Tali dropped her bag and sat on the bed nearest the door. "You feel it?"
Rudra nodded. "Yeah."
It wasn't the inn. It was the air. The town. Something here was... wrong. Not screaming wrong, not rotting wrong. Just off by a hair, like a painting slightly tilted.
"Something's watching this place."
"Not watching. Waiting."
She looked at him then. Not just looked — saw him. Her face softened, just for a second. Then she turned away.
"I'm going out," she said.
"We just got in."
"Exactly."
The door closed behind her.
Rudra stared at the ceiling. The wood was split, water-stained. Shapes moved in it if you looked long enough. Like eyes that forgot how to blink.
He let himself lie back, let the cold in his bones settle.
From the street below, someone screamed.
He was up before he could think, sword half-drawn.
But when he reached the window, the scream was gone. Like it never happened.
Only thing out there was the wind.
And the sky.
Which had a crack in it.