The road dipped and leveled, and then Nashkel was there.
No guards called out as we approached. No idle chatter drifted down the road. The town didn't announce itself the way it had before.
We slowed instinctively.
The first thing I noticed was the silence. Voices carried in short bursts instead of conversation, sharp with urgency and cut off just as quickly. Doors stood open where they hadn't before, shutters half-latched, as though no one had bothered to finish deciding what to do.
Then I saw the blood.
It wasn't everywhere. That would have been easier. Instead, it appeared in places that suggested interruption rather than battle—darkened patches ground into the dirt near the well, smeared along a low stone wall, tracked across the threshold of a shop whose door now hung crooked on its hinges.
Two bodies lay near the center of town, covered with rough cloth. The shape beneath one was unmistakable—broad shoulders, armor beneath the fabric.
Amnian soldiers.
Dead.
Nearby, several others sat or lay where they'd been guided rather than carried—arms bound in hastily wrapped cloth, faces pale with pain and shock. A woman knelt beside one of them, hands red to the wrists, whispering something I couldn't hear.
No one looked surprised to see us.
No one looked relieved, either.
Imoen's steps slowed beside me. Khalid's grip tightened on his shield. Jaheira stopped just short of the square, eyes already moving—counting, assessing, cataloging damage without comment.
My mind reached for the old shape of things anyway—the remembered route, the expected beats. Nashkel was supposed to be anxious, yes. Strained, yes. Rumors about the mines, shortages, fear.
But not this.
This wasn't a scene I recognized because I'd lived it.
It was a scene I recognized because it shouldn't have existed at all.
I felt something in me try to adjust—to force the pieces into the story I knew. To find the hidden cause that would make it make sense.
But there was no simple version of this.
The man outside the mine had promised divergence, and the world had answered before we even had time to doubt him.
Whatever advantage my memory had given me—the quiet confidence of knowing when danger would arrive, which names would matter, which roads would stay reliable—had just been proven conditional.
Rasaad stood still for a moment, gaze sweeping the wounded and the covered forms without theatrics. His posture stayed straight, but his hands—briefly—closed and opened again, as if releasing something from his palms.
"Violence distorts all balance," he said quietly, almost to himself. "Even when one side believes it is right, the harmony of the world is shaken."
Xan, a few paces away, let out a soft breath that might have been a sigh if he'd cared enough to commit to it.
"Harmony," he said, mild and dry, "rarely returns. This is the world's natural state. The only surprise is how long it takes others to admit it."
Imoen shot him a look. "Could you, just once, be even slightly helpful?"
"I am being helpful," Xan replied. "I am adjusting expectations."
Jaheira's attention had already moved past philosophy. Her gaze tracked the town's edges, then returned to the center, to where several people had gathered near an improvised line of injured.
A man in polished plate moved among them with practiced efficiency. His armor bore scrapes and dull smears of blood where gauntlet met cuirass, but it was worn the way a tool is worn—used, not neglected. A heavy mace rested at his side, its head plain but balanced, the metal carrying a faint, steady weight that suggested enchantment without advertising it.
On his left pauldron, worked cleanly into the metal, an open eye rested upon a raised gauntlet.
Helm.
Not decorative. Declarative.
He looked up as we approached, and whatever he saw in our faces made him straighten a fraction faster.
"Nalin," someone near him murmured—either greeting or warning, I couldn't tell.
He stepped away from the wounded and toward us, his movements economical, his presence settling with the quiet authority of someone who had already made too many decisions today. There was grime on his greaves, darkened fingerprints on his gauntlets, and a weariness held tight behind his eyes.
"You're not from here," he said, voice steady but threaded with strain. Not hostile—sorting. "But you're armed."
"We came through the mines," Jaheira said. "We arrived to find the town like this. What happened?"
Nalin's gaze flicked once to the covered bodies. His jaw tightened.
"A former commander," he said. "Brage."
The name landed like a stone dropped into water—quiet, then widening rings.
"He returned," Nalin continued, "and he was not as he should have been. He struck at the town. At the soldiers. At anyone who tried to stop him." His eyes sharpened, as if the act of saying it made it more real. "He did not come alone. Tasloi—quick in the dark—and war dogs. I do not know how he rallied them. I only know that he did."
Imoen's brows lifted. "Tasloi? Here?"
Nalin nodded once, sharp. "They moved like they were being driven. Herded. The dogs were worse. Not feral. Trained. Directed." He glanced past us toward the road we'd come on, as if expecting the violence to follow. "We held what we could. We lost what we couldn't."
Jaheira's grip on her staff didn't change, but her shoulders set as if she'd accepted a weight.
Khalid swallowed. "W-where is he now?"
"Gone," Nalin said. "And the town fears he will return."
My mind tried again—one last useless reach for the old story. Brage had a place, a sequence, a path that didn't include this.
The divergence wasn't theoretical anymore.
It had already begun to stack consequences.
Nalin studied us. "If you mean to help," he said, "I can guide you to those who saw him last. But we will need strength. And resolve."
I felt Jaheira's gaze flick toward me, quick and unreadable.
I stepped forward just enough to make the decision visible.
"We intend to help," I said. "But we need to settle a few things first. Then we'll come find you."
Jaheira nodded once. Khalid echoed it, smaller, relieved at the presence of process.
Nalin's expression didn't soften—but something in his posture eased, as if he respected a plan that didn't mistake haste for clarity.
"Then do so," he said. "Quickly." His eyes flicked briefly to the symbol on his pauldron, as if remembering the weight of it. "You'll find me at the temple. The wounded won't wait. And neither will fear."
Imoen pointed vaguely toward the town's edge. "That way?"
Nalin nodded. "Follow the sound of prayers."
He turned back before we could say more, already kneeling beside someone who had tried to stand and failed. His gauntleted hands moved with practiced certainty—duty in motion.
We stepped aside, letting the town's suffering reclaim him.
For a moment, none of us spoke. The air felt too bright, too exposed, as if the sky itself had drawn closer.
Jaheira angled her body so her voice wouldn't carry. "We'll go to the inn," she said. "We read what we found. We decide what it means."
"And after?" Imoen asked, though she already knew.
Jaheira met her gaze. "After, Khalid and I will have to leave for a time."
"We'll act on what we discussed," she said simply. Her eyes shifted to me, steady. "You know where to look for us. And we know how to find you."
Xan's expression didn't change. "Separations," he said mildly, "are the most reliable kind of arrangement."
Rasaad looked toward the temple and then back to the town. "I will remain," he said. "For now."
Jaheira acknowledged that with a nod.
I adjusted the straps of my pack and felt the weight inside settle.
We started toward the inn.
Not because it was safe.
Because it was the only place we could turn chaos into information—and information into a decision.
Nashkel did not pause its suffering for our decisions.
The road waited.
Not to guide.
To see what we would do next.