The Foldlands were defined by impossible geometry.
The sun, a sickly, yellow disc barely visible through the atmospheric static, cast shadows that defied logic. They stretched, twisted, and sometimes pointed back at the light source, warped by the sheer dimensional trauma of the Aether-Rift.
Torvin walked with a controlled limp, his left arm immobilized with a leather strap torn from the Wraith-Stalker's carapace. The wound was deep, the cold Rift-Metal leaving a chilling, burning sensation that promised infection.
He didn't complain. Complaining was inefficient.
Lysa walked beside him, focusing on the rhythmic placement of her feet. She was still coated in the dead Gutter-Beast sludge, her only protection against the high-tech tracking of Aethel. The smell was a constant, vile presence, but it was now a familiar shield.
The Dark Weaver's whisper was a low, constant hum. The encounter with the Wraith-Stalker had intensified it. It sensed her near-death fear, the spike of adrenaline that had almost unlocked her power.
Power saved the Hunter. Power is necessary.
Lysa rejected the thought, anchoring herself again to the small, cold reality of Torvin's labored breathing.
"The Weaver is using the fight against me," Lysa stated, her voice tight with effort. She had to voice the threat to defeat it.
Torvin didn't look at her. He scanned the broken horizon, his eyes tracking the impossible shadows. "The Weaver is Doubt given form, Gatekeeper. It has no power but the power you lend it. You used control, you survived. The moment you believe violence is the only solution, you are its tool."
They moved out of the jagged ravine and onto a wide, flat plain of pulverized stone. This was the Inner Fold, where the atmospheric static was heaviest. Here, the landscape was actively changing.
Lysa saw the evidence of true dimensional flux. A tree line, perfectly vertical, but made of jet-black glass. A small, still lake of mercury. And everywhere, patches of Rift-Grass—vibrant, bioluminescent flora that fed on pure Aether energy. It looked beautiful. It looked hungry.
"Stay off the grass," Torvin commanded. "It's reactive. It registers life-flux and flares to attract feeders."
As they moved, they skirted a massive, cylindrical void in the ground. It was not a hole, but an absence—a perfect circle where the landscape had been instantly vaporized by an uncontrolled power surge. The air above it shimmered, visibly sucking in heat and light.
"What caused that?" Lysa asked, instinctively taking two steps back.
"A Grisha lost control," Torvin explained, his voice flat. "A year ago. Attempted to harness the raw Rift energy. She became a feeder for the Rift instead. It's a clean scar. Quick death."
The sheer finality of the fate—to be erased by one's own power—hit Lysa hard. Her own ability was one of total negation. She had a terrible affinity for that clean scar.
They stopped beneath a low, rocky outcrop near a fissure. Time to assess.
Torvin pulled a tiny, leather-bound map from a hidden pouch in his armor. It was hand-drawn, covered in archaic, spidery script and marked with runes—the accumulated knowledge of the Rift-Hunters.
"The Ghost Peaks are three days' walk. Past the Echo Mire," Torvin pointed with his chin to a distant, hazy lowland. "The Mire is slow, toxic. But the static is too thick there for Aethel's long-range sensors to penetrate. We move through it tonight."
Lysa studied the map. She was not trained in geography, but she understood the map's implicit logic: survival through avoidance. They were seeking the least desirable path.
Suddenly, a shift in the environment forced their attention away from the map. Not a noise, but a distortion of the static.
A massive creature emerged from the shimmering light of the Rift-Grass fields, a quarter mile away. It was colossal, built like a prehistoric deer, but its limbs were too long, its movements too slow, too deliberate. This was no Gutter-Beast.
This was a Rift-Strider. A Tier 3 entity.
It was feeding on the Aether-Grass, consuming the magical radiation like a cow grazing on pasture. Its eyes were pure, blinding white light.
"No, not now," Torvin whispered, pulling Lysa hard against the rock.
The Rift-Strider turned its head, slowly, with unnatural focus. It hadn't heard them. It was registering a change in the environment.
It sees the scar.
The Rift-Strider stopped grazing. It lifted its head, turning its blind eyes directly toward their location. It wasn't tracking heat or sound. It was tracking Lysa's displacement signature, the lingering psychic scar of the Ghoul's erasure.
Lysa felt the creature's focus. It wasn't predatory. It was curious. It was drawn to her power, recognizing its source.
Torvin cursed, a low, guttural sound. "The sludge only stops the Wardens' tech. It doesn't hide the Rift-Born signature from the true beasts."
The Rift-Strider took a single, slow, massive step toward them. The ground shook.
"We can't fight that," Lysa stated, the raw logic cutting through her fear. Torvin's arm was compromised. His Slicer couldn't breach that hide easily.
"No," Torvin agreed. "We distract it. We draw it away from the Mire."
Torvin reached into his pack and pulled out a small, metallic cylinder—a tiny, custom-made Aether-Net Beacon. It was a piece of high-tech gear, clearly stolen from a High City supply line. He looked at the Beacon with distaste.
"Anya's tech," he said, his mouth twisting. "The engineer is useful, even from afar."
The Beacon was designed to mimic the exact signature of a low-level, uncontrolled Aether flare—the kind of unstable power signature the Rift-Strider would be drawn to. It was meant to confuse High City sensors.
Torvin tossed the Beacon, hard and low, thirty feet in the opposite direction, toward a cluster of petrified trees.
The Beacon landed and immediately pulsed with a soft, unstable violet light, emitting a frantic, dying Aether signature.
The Rift-Strider's head snapped toward the false signal. Its curiosity shifted to a focused, consuming need. It took a single, massive leap toward the Beacon, its crystalline legs crushing the ground.
"Now," Torvin rasped. "Run, Gatekeeper. Run for the Mire."
They ran. Not toward the Rift-Strider, but directly toward the hazy, poisonous lowlands. Torvin, despite his injury, maintained a terrifying pace.
As they ran, the Dark Weaver whispered louder than ever, mocking her need for the Hunter's protection.
He uses the enemy's tools to survive. You use nothing. He is weak. You are the source of power.
Lysa focused on the physical act of running, pushing the toxic voice back. She knew the Weaver was lying. Torvin was not weak. He was disciplined. He was the anti-thesis of the raw, violent impulse the Weaver demanded. He used logic, theft, and grit to survive.
They reached the edge of the Echo Mire. It was a vast field of dark, viscous mud and pooling, toxic liquid, shrouded in a permanent mist that smelled of ozone and decay. The perfect cloak.
Torvin stopped at the edge. His eyes, tracking the fading figure of the Rift-Strider, were calculating.
"The Mire is slow. If they follow, they follow slowly," Torvin said. He looked at Lysa. "We need to slow your signature further. We need to create a false trail."
He reached into his pack again, pulling out two small, flat Witch-Iron ingots. He handed one to Lysa.
"We need to split your signature," Torvin explained. "You carry this. I carry the other. We walk apart. Thirty paces. I am the target. If they come, they take me. You keep walking."
Lysa stared at the ingot in her hand, then at his bloodied, injured arm. His plan was sound. It was the logic of a Hunter accepting his own utility as a distraction. It was a trade: his body for her survival.
"You won't survive," Lysa whispered, the fear for him, a strange, new emotion, cutting through the general terror.
Torvin looked at the deep, pooling mud. "Hunters are hard to kill, Gatekeeper. Now, the path is straight. Thirty paces. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see. You keep walking."
He waited for her nod. Lysa, swallowing her fear and the Weaver's desperate calls for violence, nodded once.
Torvin moved first, plunging into the thick, sucking mud. Lysa followed, the thirty paces between them becoming an absolute, terrifying gulf. They were two separate, silent targets in the suffocating static of the Foldlands. The hunt had become personal.