Chapter 116 – Ash in the Wind
The South Pass narrowed until the rock seemed to lean inward, blocking most of the light. The wind here was a constant whisper, carrying with it the fine grit of powdered snow and the distant smell of woodsmoke. It wasn't the clean scent of a mountain fire—it was acrid, tinged with something darker.
They had been walking for less than an hour since the fight when Elira noticed it. "That smell…" she said quietly.
Kairo nodded without slowing. "Burned structures. Several, maybe more."
Her pulse picked up. The thought of finding another village like the one they'd seen before—silent, abandoned—settled heavy in her chest.
The path bent sharply, then began to widen again, revealing the source. At the base of the cliffs, a cluster of buildings clung to the narrow valley floor. Or rather, what had once been buildings—now reduced to blackened frames, walls caved inward, the snow around them melted into muddy ash.
Kairo crouched on the ridge overlooking the scene. His eyes swept the ruins without lingering on any one thing, but she could feel him cataloguing details—the direction of the collapse, scorch patterns, the way certain debris was scattered.
"This wasn't an accident," he said.
She stepped beside him, pulling her coat tighter. "Feretti?"
"Or someone who wants it to look like him." He pointed to a section of ground where the snow was disturbed by deep, deliberate gouges. "Horses. Heavy ones. Armored riders."
They descended carefully, keeping to the shadows. The heat was long gone, but some beams still gave off the faint smell of char. Elira knelt near a collapsed doorway, brushing away soot. Underneath, a glint of metal caught her eye—a brass button, scorched on one side.
"Military," she said, handing it to him.
Kairo turned it in his fingers. "Not Feretti's men. Too standard. This is provincial issue."
That gave her pause. "Then this… this was sanctioned?"
"Or someone wanted it to look that way."
He moved toward the largest ruin, what might have once been an inn. The upper floor had collapsed entirely, leaving jagged beams thrust upward like ribs. In the center of the wreckage, a shape lay half-buried under snow and ash.
Elira's stomach tightened as they cleared the debris—a man, frozen in death, his coat singed. His face was obscured, but his hands were bound.
"Executed," Kairo murmured, noting the angle of the body. "Fire was to erase the rest."
The sound of shifting snow made them both spin, weapons drawn.
From behind the skeleton of a wall, a figure emerged—small, wrapped in layers of ragged wool. A child. Their eyes were wide but not tearful, the kind of expression that came after grief had run out.
Elira lowered her dagger, moving slowly. "It's all right. We're not here to hurt you."
The child stared at them for a long time, then pointed to the far end of the ruins. "They went that way. Toward the Black Hollow."
Kairo's attention sharpened. The Black Hollow wasn't on any standard maps, but he knew it—a narrow canyon that acted as a shortcut for anyone willing to risk its unstable slopes. Dangerous, but faster.
"When?" he asked.
The child hesitated, then held up three fingers.
"Three days," Kairo translated quietly. He reached into his pack and handed the child a wrapped strip of dried meat. "Stay here until you're sure it's safe. Then head north until you reach the stone bridge. There will be others there."
The child took the food without a word, retreating back into the shadows.
Elira glanced at him as they left the ruins. "You think they'll survive?"
"They've survived this long," Kairo said, his tone even. "Which is more than most."
They climbed back toward the ridge, the wind cutting harder now. In the distance, dark clouds gathered over the peaks, moving in the same direction the child had pointed.
Kairo's jaw set. "If Feretti's men are using the Hollow, we'll have one chance to get ahead of them."
"And if it's a trap?" Elira asked.
His gaze stayed on the dark horizon. "Then we make it theirs instead of ours."
They turned toward the storm, the burned village shrinking behind them until it was just another scar on the white landscape. But the smell of ash lingered, carried on the wind, a reminder that the clock was still ticking.