The ruined village offered little comfort, but they had nowhere else to go. Night had fallen hard and fast, swallowing the road behind them, and the horses were spent. Shawn found what remained of a square near the well—half-collapsed, the stone rim cracked but still upright—and declared it safe enough for camp. Mist curled around the broken walls like searching fingers, muffling sound, swallowing the edges of their firelight until the world contracted to this: charred stone, cold air, and the weight of watching ruins.
"Safe," Rory muttered, nudging a loose stone with his boot. It skittered across the ground with a hollow scrape. "It looks like ghosts live here."
"No ghosts," Shawn said firmly, kneeling to strike flint against steel. The sharp ring of metal on stone punctuated his words. "Only what we can see. That's danger enough."
Sparks caught the dry kindling he'd gathered from the edges of the village—wood so desiccated it crumbled at the touch. The flame bloomed weak and reluctant, as if the air itself resisted burning. Shadows stretched long across the blackened ruins, shifting with each flicker of firelight, making the broken walls seem to lean closer.
Elise perched on a fallen beam, arms wrapped tight around her knees. Her gaze never lingered long on the fire. She kept glancing toward the charred houses that ringed the square, their empty windows gaping like broken mouths screaming silent warnings into the dark.
"This place feels… wrong." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"It is wrong," Lyra muttered, lowering herself onto a stone slab that might once have been a market stall. The hairs on her arms prickled beneath her leather bracers; dread coiled in her gut, heavier with every breath of scorched air. The smell lingered—old smoke, old death, something acrid that caught in the back of her throat. "Like something tore the heart out and left the shell to rot."
Selene sat quietly beside her, drawing her travel-worn cloak close despite the stillness of the air. Her green eyes reflected the flame, wide and unsettled, darting between shadows. "There are claw marks on the well too," she whispered, as if speaking louder might wake whatever had made them. "Deep ones. Gouged into solid stone. And I saw walls burned as if fire crawled across them—branching, spreading like lightning frozen in ash."
Elise's head snapped toward her, braids swinging. "Not normal fire." She pushed to her feet, moving to the nearest wall with swift, purposeful strides. "The marks—look at them again. Really look."
Shawn frowned, pushing to his feet with a grunt. He grabbed a torch from their supplies, wrapping oil-soaked cloth around a branch, and strode to the wall Elise indicated. Half-collapsed but still standing, it bore the weight of whatever horror had visited this place. He brushed away soot and ash with his gauntleted hand, revealing what lay beneath.
Lines emerged—blackened, deliberate, carved with precision into stone that should have crumbled under such abuse. A circle, cut through with sharp angles. At its center, a star with too many points, each one stretching toward something unseen.
"It's them," Selene said quietly, voice hollow. Her hands had begun to shake.
Lyra felt ice slide down her spine. "The mages of the Star insignia."
"They made sure people would know they were here," Shawn said grimly, torch held high. More symbols emerged along the wall—the same pattern repeated, obsessive, marking territory like a wolf pisses on trees. "This was a message."
Lyra remembered them too clearly—the ambush in Oakhart three weeks past, the mages in dark robes with silver stars stitched behind their cloaks, threads that caught moonlight and seemed to move of their own accord. She hadn't forgotten the way they'd circled Selene like hungry dogs, hadn't forgotten the words they'd spoken: *The girl is what they need."
She hadn't forgotten how close they'd come to dragging Selene away into darkness.
The fire popped sharply, sending sparks spiraling upward into nothing.
Lyra's grip tightened on her sword hilt until her knuckles showed white. "Then this wasn't just some monster's rampage. They were part of it. Maybe they summoned it. Maybe they unleashed it on purpose."
"But what did they unleash?" Rory asked, voice cracking slightly. "What could do… this?" He gestured at the devastation around them—an entire village reduced to char and memory.
"Whatever it was, it sure is angry," Elise said softly, returning to the fire. She settled back onto her beam, but her hand never left the hilt of her dagger.
Lyra's gaze flicked toward Pyn, who sat across the fire, arms resting casually over her knees—too calm, too at ease in a place that reeked of death and dark magic. The thief hadn't so much as flinched when they'd found the symbols. If anything, she'd seemed… unsurprised.
Pyn caught the look and smirked faintly, amber eyes glinting like a cat's in firelight. "Relax, long-sword. If those mages were still here, we'd already be ash. Or worse."
"You sound very sure of that," Lyra shot back, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice.
"Because I'm not stupid," Pyn replied smoothly, leaning back against a toppled cart with enviable ease. Firelight carved shifting shadows across her angular features, making her grin seem wider, sharper. "You learn to recognize danger before it bites when you grow up in the Undercroft. Helps you live longer."
"Longer doesn't mean forever," Shawn planted his torch in the dirt between two stones, jaw set like granite. "And this place smells like the grave. Fresh-dug and waiting for tenants."
Silence pressed in, thick and suffocating. The fire crackled, but it seemed a small, defiant sound against the weight of the ruins around them.
A distant howl curled through the mist—thin, mournful, wrong somehow in ways Lyra couldn't articulate. Not quite wolf. Not quite human. Something caught between, or beyond.
Rory edged closer to Selene, shoulder bumping hers. "I don't like this," he muttered. "Not one bit. We should keep moving. Dawn's only a few hours off."
"The horses need rest," Shawn said, though he didn't sound convinced by his own argument. "And so do we. We've been riding hard for two days. If something finds us and we're exhausted…" He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
Selene reached out, squeezing Rory's shoulder gently. "Stay close. We'll be fine." Her voice was soft as falling snow, but the tremor beneath it betrayed her—the same tremor that had appeared after Oakhart, that came when she thought no one was listening, that made her wake gasping from dreams she wouldn't speak of.
Lyra shifted nearer on the stone slab, resting her calloused hand over Selene's smaller one. She wanted to promise more—to swear that no harm would touch her, that she'd stand between Selene and whatever darkness hunted her—but the words felt hollow in a place like this. Promises were easy. Keeping them was another matter entirely.
Pyn's eyes flicked to the gesture—sharp, knowing, assessing. The thief's smirk deepened as if savoring some private joke, or perhaps savoring the tension itself. Her gaze lingered on their joined hands for just a moment too long before sliding away.
Lyra felt heat burn in her chest. Not the warmth of attraction, but something hotter. Anger. Possessiveness. The fierce, irrational need to bare teeth and growl mine.
The fire devoured the silence after that. They spoke little, retreating into their own thoughts and fears. Elise sharpened her daggers with steady, methodical strokes, the rasp of whetstone on steel oddly comforting in its familiarity. Shawn kept watch on the mist-shrouded edges of the camp, hand never straying far from his sword hilt. Rory eventually dozed against a pile of packs, sword clutched to his chest like a child's doll.
Selene leaned toward the flames, lashes growing heavy with exhaustion. The journey had worn her down—not just physically, but in deeper ways. Lyra saw it in the hollows under her eyes, the tightness around her mouth, the way her hands trembled when she thought no one was looking.
Lyra stayed beside her, always alert, always watching. Not just the ruins and the mist, but also the others. Especially Pyn.
Across from them, Pyn's amber eyes glinted in the dim light—not scanning the shadows around them for threats, not watching the perimeter like Shawn, but fixed on Selene herself. Studying her. Cataloguing her. Looking at her the way a thief appraises a particularly valuable mark.
When Selene finally drifted into uneasy sleep against her shoulder, Lyra laid her travel cloak over her gently, tucking it around her shoulders with practiced care. Her gaze never left Pyn.
"Don't," she mouthed across the fire, putting every ounce of warning she could into that single word.
Pyn only tilted her head, lips quirking in amusement. Then she rose in one fluid motion—silent as shadow, graceful as a dancer—and slipped toward the edge of the ruins, disappearing into the mist like smoke dispersing.
Lyra counted to ten, each number measured against her heartbeat. Then she carefully eased Selene's head onto a folded blanket, checked that her sword was loose in its sheath, and followed.
The mist thickened away from the fire's warmth, pressing cold and damp against her skin, beading on her leather armor. She moved quietly, placing each boot carefully on the ash-covered ground. Ahead, barely visible through the fog, Pyn stood at the base of a crumbled wall, shoulders hunched in a posture, Its the first time Lyra had seen her take—vulnerable, almost defeated.
Lyra ducked low behind what had once been a doorway, pressing herself against cold stone. She controlled her breathing, quieting it to nothing, and listened.
Pyn's voice drifted through the fog—low, raw, meant for no ears but her own or perhaps the ears of ghosts.
"He's close. Too close. I can feel him here—feel his anger, his pain. He's still here. Still burning."
Lyra's pulse kicked hard against her ribs. She leaned closer, straining to hear.
"Soon," Pyn whispered, and there was something breaking in her voice, something that made her sound almost human. "You're not alone. I haven't forgotten. I'll find a way—with her if I must. If she's the key, then I'll use her. If not…" Her breath hitched, audibly raw even through the mist. "Then he's lost forever, and this was all for nothing."
Lyra stiffened, every muscle going taut. He? Use her?
The mist curled like smoke around them both, responding to something Lyra couldn't see or understand. Pyn bowed her head, fingers brushing reverently over the twin blades crossed on her back—weapons she'd never drawn in Lyra's presence, weapons that seemed to drink light rather than reflect it.
"Hold on," she breathed. "Hold on just a little longer. I'm coming. I swear I'm coming."
Lyra's jaw clenched, nails biting into her palms hard enough to draw blood. Every instinct screamed at her to confront the thief here and now, to demand answers, to put steel between Pyn and whatever scheme she was hatching.
But something held her back—perhaps wisdom, perhaps cowardice. She didn't know enough yet. Didn't understand what she was dealing with.
She slipped back soundlessly, retracing her steps with painful slowness, returning to the fire before Pyn could turn and catch her. Sliding down against the stone slab, she carefully repositioned Selene's head against her shoulder, wrapping one arm protectively around her. Her heart was a knot of suspicion and rage, beating too fast, too hard.
Pyn lingered in the dark for another long minute, a shadow among shadows. Then one final word drifted back on the mist-laden air, soft as a prayer or a curse:
"Brother."
When she returned to the firelight, she was all ease again—the mask firmly back in place. Her grin sat comfortably on her features, her posture was loose and relaxed, and her eyes were unreadable as polished amber. She settled onto the ground close enough to Selene that Lyra felt her blood simmer, felt the urge to growl rise in her throat.
"Pleasant night for a stroll," Pyn said conversationally, meeting Lyra's glare with that infuriating smirk. "Though the company leaves something to be desired."
Lyra said nothing. Not yet. But her hand rested on her sword hilt, and she let Pyn see it there.
The thief's smile widened fractionally, acknowledging the threat, dismissing it.
They sat in silence as the fire burned low, neither willing to look away first, neither willing to surrender this small battlefield. Around them, the ruins watched with empty eyes, and the mist pressed closer, hungry for secrets.
As Lyra stared into the dying flames, the vow sharpened inside her chest like drawn steel, cold and absolute:
She would uncover Pyn's truth—whatever it was, whatever it cost—before it took Selene from her. Before this mysterious brother and his dark purpose consumed the one person Lyra had sworn to protect.
Even if she had to burn the world down to do it.
The fire popped once more, sending a final spray of sparks into the darkness, and the night settled in to wait.