They walked for three days before they saw another human face.
The land beyond the valley was nothing like the stories. There were no glittering cities or marching armies, only long grey hills, burned stretches of forest, and, once, the skeleton of a beast so large that its ribs arched over the road like the roof of a cathedral. Mira walked past it without looking. Nathan stared until it was out of sight.
"Don't," she said quietly. "You'll see worse."
On the fourth morning, the road widened, and they came to Harrowgate.
It was a walled town built on the edge of a river, and it stank of smoke and horses and wet stone. Nathan stopped at the gate, overwhelmed. There were hundreds of people. Carts rattled through the streets, merchants shouted prices, and children darted between legs with hands full of stolen bread. Everyone moved as though they knew where they were going.
"Close your mouth," Mira muttered. "You look like a farm boy."
"I *am* a farm boy."
"You're a Cladrake. Act like it."
"We aren't Cladrakes out here," Nathan whispered. "Not if anyone is hunting the Desteroys."
Mira frowned, then nodded slowly. "Fine. We're travelers. Cousins from the hills."
The gate guard barely glanced at them. His eyes lingered on Mira's wind blade, then flicked to a badge on his own chest, and Nathan noticed something that had been invisible in the valley. Everyone in Harrowgate wore a mark. A pin, a ribbon, a ring: the emblem of a house or a guild, sewn or pinned at the collar.
"Everyone's ranked," Mira said under her breath. "Bloodline houses wear their crest. The ones who don't belong to a family wear the Guild's. Look."
She pointed. Along the main street, armored figures walked in groups: some in matching blue and gold, others in mismatched leather, scarred and weary-eyed. The blue and gold ones moved through the crowd like blades through water, and people stepped aside for them without being asked.
"Greater House Veyron," Mira murmured. "Bloodline warriors. The others..."
"Adventurers."
"Yes. The ones born without a family." She said it flatly, but her mouth had tightened. "They do the same work for a quarter of the pay and none of the protection."
Nathan watched a Veyron guard shove past a ragged guild fighter without breaking stride. The fighter stepped aside, eyes down, and said nothing. It happened so smoothly that it had clearly happened a thousand times.
He felt something shift in him, a quiet, angry thing. In the valley, everyone had been family. He'd never imagined a world where blood decided who got to matter.
They found an inn near the river and paid for one room with Aldric's silver. The innkeeper, a heavyset woman named Dorrin, took the coins without comment, then paused.
"Hills folk?"
"Yes," Mira said.
"You'll want to register at the Guild hall by sundown, then. New arrivals have to give a ranking." Dorrin's tone was casual, but her eyes flicked over Nathan with practiced assessment. "Law of the road. No ranking, no entry to the market. No market, no food."
"We can't," Nathan said, then caught himself. "We, uh, we just got in."
"Everyone just got in." Dorrin shrugged. "Guild hall's the big stone building by the square. Can't miss it."
Upstairs, in the cramped little room, Nathan sat on the narrow bed and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"If they test me, they'll know," he said. "Whatever I am, the crystal broke. It won't work. Or it will, and it'll be worse."
"Then we don't register."
"No market, no food."
"Then I'll register." Mira folded her arms. "I'm B-rank. I can do jobs. You stay out of sight until we figure out a plan."
"You can't carry both of us."
"Watch me."
He wanted to argue. He didn't, because she was already crossing the room to the window, and because he had learned in the last four days that arguing with Mira was a good way to lose a fight twice.
She went out an hour later to find the Guild hall. Nathan stayed behind, uneasy, and made himself useful by doing the one thing he'd been putting off.
He took out Orla's leather book.
It was thin, worn soft at the corners, tied with a faded blue thread. He untied it carefully and opened the first page.
The handwriting was elegant and slanted, the ink faded to brown. It was addressed not to a reader but to a person.
*To the one who inherits the hollow,*
*If you are reading this, then the seal has failed and the world is already hunting you. I am sorry. I would have done anything to spare you this.*
*But there are things I did not tell the family, and things the family chose to forget. You will want to know what truly happened on the night the sky went hollow. You will want to know why I stood at the edge of that city and did what I did.*
*I will tell you. But first, you must understand the price that no record has ever named.*
Nathan's hands were shaking. He turned the page and saw, in the same careful script, a single line at the top:
*It does not only take memories.*