The sky was split between bruised violet and smudged gold, like the gods hadn't decided whether to end the day or keep it hostage.
Ashen sat with his back against a crumbled wall. His cloak had been washed earlier that morning, now hanging across a branch like a discarded skin. His undershirt stuck to him with salt and heat, and dust caked the folds of his boots. He chewed on dry bread, eyes scanning the road.
Near the foot of the hill, merchants were packing up. A child ran behind one of the carts yelling something in a local dialect. No one listened to him.
"That boy's been running since dawn," said Letha, approaching with a small satchel. "I think he's chasing something he lost."
Ashen nodded, but didn't answer.
She dropped beside him, stretching her legs. Her trousers were patched at the knees now. Someone had offered her a job skinning fish earlier but she turned it down.
"Still not sleeping?" she asked.
He gave a half smile. "Do I look like I've been?"
"You look like a sack of regret wrapped in sweat," she replied.
A beat of silence.
The wind shifted. Somewhere far off, a bell rang. It wasn't local. A tone that felt… colder.
"You hear that?" he asked.
Letha turned her head. "The bell?"
He nodded. "Not from this village."
"No," she said, then looked at him carefully. "But you already knew that."
Another silence, not hostile. Just hanging there.
Ashen stood, brushing crumbs from his lap. "We leave at nightfall. I don't want to sleep here again."
"What about the girl who saw the eyeless beast? Didn't she say it came out after dusk?"
He shrugged. "Maybe I wanna meet it."
Letha muttered something and grabbed her pack.
As they made their way downhill, the world was not quiet. A drunk argued with a lamplighter about fire taxes. A woman spilled grain and cursed at a goat. A group of children played with dried bones shaped like dice.
It was all ordinary. And loud. And full of life.
Ashen glanced at them once, just once, then kept walking.
Night came with no elegance. Clouds drifted like burned curtains over the moon. The stars were distant, reluctant.
They walked in silence along the main trade path until the lights of the village vanished behind trees. Then, in a place where the trees thinned out and the grass became stone, Ashen stopped.
Letha looked around. "This is where she said it happened."
Ashen said nothing.
Then—
"Wait," she said, stepping forward. "Do you smell that?"
The air was copper, damp. Not rain. Blood.
And then something moved.
Not fast. Not loud.
Just… wrong.
It was crawling across a shape that resembled a man but had too many joints. It wore no eyes, no face, only a mouth wide enough to echo.
Letha gasped. Ashen didn't move. He was looking not at the creature, but past it.
Because behind it, partly buried in the dirt, was a symbol.
One that he knew.
From before the name Ashen ever existed.
A thin spiral carved into stone, with lines that shimmered faintly when you didn't look directly.
The thing with too many joints opened its mouth.
"You've come back, Rudra."
Letha turned to him, slowly.
"You—what?"
But Ashen wasn't looking at her.
He was already stepping forward.
And his shadow didn't match his body