Greyfen did not celebrate.
That, more than anything else, unsettled Kael.
He had expected relief — gratitude, even — the brittle kind that border towns offered hunters when death was pushed just far enough away to feel manageable. Instead, Greyfen watched the Grey Hunt with the same careful eyes it had used before the beast was killed.
No cheers.
No thanks shouted across the square.
Just doors closing a little earlier than usual.
"They're afraid of the answer," Nyx said quietly as they walked through the town at dusk.
Borin frowned. "The beast is dead."
Elyra shook her head. "The question isn't."
The reeve, Luthen Greyfen, had insisted on housing them in the old grain store beyond the inner fence rather than inside the town proper. He'd been polite about it. Apologetic, even.
But the message had been clear.
You dealt with the problem.
You are the problem now.
The grain store smelled of dust and old harvests. The roof leaked in one corner, and the floor slanted just enough to remind you the building had survived by being ignored. A single lantern hung from a hook near the door, its flame restless.
Kael set his bow down carefully and began checking the fletching of his arrows by habit rather than need.
Nyx perched on a crate, sharpening her blades in slow, deliberate strokes. "If they thought beasts couldn't cross, they'd be drinking by now."
Borin sat heavily on the floor, back against a support beam. "Maybe they don't want to believe us."
Elyra stood near the door, eyes unfocused.
"They already do," she said. "That's why they're afraid."
A knock came.
Not loud. Not hesitant.
Measured.
Kael straightened. "Come in."
Luthen stepped inside alone, closing the door behind him. He looked worse in lantern light — older, thinner, like the weight of the last few days had finally settled into his bones.
"I won't stay long," he said quickly. "But… I need to ask."
Nyx didn't look up. "You already know the answer."
Luthen winced. "Then say it anyway."
Kael met his eyes. "That beast came from the Beast Continent."
Luthen swallowed. "Across the sea?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
Luthen rubbed his face with both hands. "That's not possible."
Elyra spoke softly. "It is."
Luthen's voice cracked. "We've lived two hundred years believing the line held."
Borin shifted. "It did. For a time."
"And now?"
Kael answered. "Now something is changing."
Silence filled the grain store.
Luthen looked at the door, as if expecting it to burst open with accusations. "If this spreads—"
Nyx interrupted. "It won't. Not yet."
Luthen stared at her. "How can you be sure?"
"Because the world always pretends the first crack is a mistake," Nyx said. "It waits until the wall collapses."
Luthen's shoulders slumped. "What do you want from us?"
Kael considered that.
"Nothing," he said. "But you'll report exactly what happened. No embellishment. No softening."
Luthen hesitated.
"Or," Nyx added pleasantly, "someone else will."
That did it.
Luthen nodded sharply. "I'll send word."
After he left, the silence felt heavier.
Borin broke it first. "Do you think the Registry already knows?"
Elyra didn't hesitate. "Yes."
"Then why send us?" Borin asked.
Kael's fingers stilled on the arrow shaft.
"Because," he said slowly, "they needed confirmation they could deny."
The Message That Shouldn't Exist
The rider arrived near midnight.
Nyx heard him first — not the horse, but the way the air shifted when someone approached with purpose.
She slipped outside silently, blades loose in her hands.
The rider wore registry colors but no insignia. His cloak was travel-worn, boots caked with mud older than Greyfen's roads. He dismounted quickly, eyes darting toward the forest before settling on Nyx.
"You're The Grey Hunt," he said.
Nyx didn't lower her blades. "Depends who's asking."
He produced a sealed scroll. The wax bore the Hunter Registry's inner sigil — not public, not common.
Elyra appeared behind Nyx, breath catching slightly.
"That seal hasn't been used in decades," she whispered.
The rider swallowed. "Then I need to leave."
Kael stepped out into the lantern light. "You won't."
The rider looked at Kael — really looked — and something in his expression changed.
"You're marked," he said quietly.
Kael didn't deny it.
The rider handed over the scroll with shaking fingers. "I was told not to read it."
Nyx smiled thinly. "Smart."
The rider mounted again immediately and rode hard into the night without another word.
Inside, Kael broke the seal.
The parchment inside was old — not in material, but in language. Formal. Precise. Written as if the words themselves carried weight beyond meaning.
Elyra read over his shoulder.
Her face went pale.
"Read it," Borin said.
Kael did.
CONFIRMED SIGHTING — MAINLAND BREACH
Classification: LOW-TIER (DISPUTED)
Location: GREYFEN CONFIRMED
ADDITIONAL REPORTS:
— Coastal village, western shoals (UNVERIFIED)
— Mountain pass east of Talven Reach (SUPPRESSED)
DIRECTIVE:
This information is to remain contained within select registry circles.
No public declaration is to be made until further confirmation is obtained.
NOTE:
If the Mark reacts, escalate immediately.
Silence followed.
Nyx was the first to speak. "They're lying."
"They're delaying," Elyra corrected. "They don't know how bad it is yet."
Borin's hands clenched. "There are other sightings."
"Suppressed ones," Kael said.
The warmth between his shoulders stirred — not sharply, but steadily, like something waking properly for the first time.
"They knew," Kael said. "Before Greyfen."
Elyra nodded slowly. "And they sent us anyway."
Nyx tilted her head. "Why us?"
No one answered immediately.
Outside, the forest shifted.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
Kael looked toward the dark beyond the lantern's reach and felt it — unmistakably now.
Not one presence.
Several.
Far away.
Moving.
Slowly.
Purposefully.
"This isn't migration," he said.
Borin stood. "Then what is it?"
Kael swallowed.
"A return."
Elsewhere — The Gilded Fang
Far from Greyfen, under a sky thick with cloud, The Gilded Fang tracked blood through stone.
Renn Varn crouched beside a shattered carcass, fingers slick and red, eyes alight with something close to joy.
"It fought back," he said softly. "Good."
Halvek frowned. "This wasn't a normal contract."
Renn stood, wiping his blade clean. "None of the important ones are."
Behind them, the mountain pass lay open — and something older than the road itself watched them from the dark.
Renn smiled at the night.
"Let the world burn," he murmured. "We'll be ready."
The night after the letter arrived, Greyfen slept like a town pretending it was alone.
Lanterns were lowered early. Doors were barred with an extra plank of wood that did nothing but make people feel like they'd participated in their own safety. Dogs were kept inside. Even the river seemed to move more quietly, as if it understood that noise could be mistaken for an invitation.
Kael did not sleep.
He sat on a crate near the grain store's only window, watching the black line of trees beyond the fields. The bow lay across his knees. He had cleaned it twice already. The string was perfect. The wood was smooth beneath his fingers in a way that felt too familiar, like the grip remembered his hands more than he remembered it.
Borin tried to rest, but the floorboards creaked beneath the weight of his shifting. Every time he closed his eyes, he opened them again with a slow exhale and stared at the ceiling as if expecting it to fall.
Nyx did what Nyx always did when she couldn't sleep: she sharpened.
Metal whispered against stone. Again. Again. Again.
Elyra stood near the door with her staff in both hands, not guarding it so much as bracing herself against the presence of the world.
Finally, Borin broke.
"So what now?" he asked quietly. "We report. They bury it. We go back to the keep and pretend this was a normal contract?"
Nyx didn't look up. "That's what they want."
Elyra's voice was thin. "It won't work."
Kael's gaze stayed fixed on the treeline. "No."
Nyx's mouth twitched. "You sound confident."
Kael swallowed. "I sound like someone listening."
The warmth between his shoulders had not gone away since the letter. It didn't burn. It didn't flare.
It watched.
Borin rubbed his bandaged arm absently. "What are you hearing?"
Kael hesitated, then answered honestly. "Movement. Not here. Not yet. But… alignment. Like pieces being placed."
Nyx finally paused her sharpening. "You're describing an ambush."
Kael nodded once.
Elyra's eyes flicked to the window, then away. "The spirits aren't whispering warnings anymore," she said. "They're arguing."
Borin frowned. "Arguing about what?"
Elyra's lips pressed together. "About whether to run."
Silence settled again.
Then—softly, unmistakably—someone knocked.
Nyx moved first. She didn't stand; she simply wasn't where she had been a moment before. The door opened a crack, blades ready but hidden, her posture casual enough to be insulting.
A boy stood outside with a hood pulled low. His cheeks were red from cold and fear. He couldn't have been older than thirteen. He held a folded scrap of paper like it might bite him.
"I… I was told to give this to the hunters," he said.
Nyx stared at him. "Who told you?"
He hesitated. "The reeve. But he said—he said not in the hall. Not where people can see."
Nyx took the paper and closed the door without ceremony. The boy's footsteps retreated quickly.
Kael unfolded the note.
It was written in a hurried hand.
RIDER ARRIVED. REGISTRY. NOT PUBLIC COLORS.
HE WANTS YOU OUTSIDE TOWN. NOW.
SAYS IT'S "OFFICIAL."
I DON'T LIKE HIS EYES.
— LUTHEN
Nyx leaned over Kael's shoulder. "I don't like his eyes either."
Borin stood, rolling his shoulders. "We go?"
Elyra's fingers tightened around her staff. "We should. If they've come this far, they're already involved."
Kael rose and slung the bow across his back. "No heroics," he said, mostly to himself.
Nyx smiled faintly. "You should get that carved into your weapon."
They left the grain store without lanterns, moving through Greyfen like shadows in a town too frightened to notice its own heartbeat. The streets were empty. Curtains twitched. Somewhere a dog growled once and then went quiet.
At the edge of town, beyond the last fence, a single lantern burned beside the road.
A rider waited with a horse as dark as wet stone.
The man standing beside it wore registry leathers without crest or rank. His face was clean-shaven, but his eyes were tired in a way that suggested he'd seen people die and had decided long ago to stop caring about it.
He didn't greet them with courtesy.
He greeted them with measurement.
"You're late," he said.
Nyx pointed at the lantern. "You're bright."
The man didn't react. "My name is Voss."
Borin frowned. "Registry?"
Voss reached into his coat slowly, deliberately, and produced an insignia — the inner sigil. The same one that had sealed the letter.
"Inner Registry," he said. "Which means what I say matters."
Nyx's voice was flat. "To you."
Voss's eyes flicked to her blades. "To your survival."
Kael stepped forward slightly. "Why are you here?"
Voss studied him. His gaze lingered a fraction too long on Kael's shoulders, as if he could see the Mark through cloth.
"The town sent a report," Voss said. "It was… honest. That's rare."
"That honesty will get them punished," Nyx said.
Voss didn't deny it. "It will get them watched."
Elyra's voice was quiet. "And buried."
Voss's jaw tightened. "Contained."
Kael held his gaze. "Same thing."
A brief silence.
Then Voss said, "You killed it cleanly."
Borin blinked. "You read the report."
"I read the report before it became a report," Voss replied.
Nyx's smile sharpened. "So you already knew."
Voss didn't move. "We suspected."
Kael's fingers flexed once. "There were other sightings in your letter. Suppressed."
Voss exhaled slowly, as if weighing how much truth to spend. "Yes."
Elyra stepped forward, eyes calm but dangerous. "Why suppress them?"
Voss looked at her. "Because the world is built on the belief that the Beast Continent holds. If that belief breaks, nations will move armies. Kings will demand miracles. Merchants will riot. And hunters—"
He paused.
"Hunters will be used like knives by people who don't understand what they cut."
Nyx scoffed. "So you keep everyone blind."
Voss's voice was sharp now. "We keep everyone stable."
Kael's gaze didn't waver. "Stability is a delay. Not a cure."
Voss's eyes narrowed. "You're not wrong. But you're not in charge."
Nyx leaned closer. "Then why are you here?"
Voss's attention returned to Kael.
"Because of the Mark," he said.
The words fell into the cold air like stones into water.
Borin stiffened. Elyra's expression changed—subtle, but real. Nyx's eyes sharpened.
Kael felt the warmth between his shoulders pulse once, as if acknowledging being named.
"You were instructed to escalate if it reacted," Kael said quietly.
"Yes," Voss replied. "And it did."
Kael swallowed. "It didn't flare until the beast stepped into the clearing."
Voss shook his head. "Not what I mean."
Elyra's breath caught. "It reacted earlier?"
Voss's gaze stayed on Kael. "Your Mark has been… active since you arrived at Blackhollow. The bow's response confirmed it. Greyfen confirmed it twice."
Nyx tilted her head. "Twice?"
Voss didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he stepped closer to Kael. Close enough that Kael could smell travel sweat and metal.
"Did you feel it," Voss asked, "before the beast appeared?"
Kael hesitated, then nodded. "Yes."
Voss's jaw tightened. "That's the problem."
Borin frowned deeply. "Explain."
Voss looked past them, toward the dark treeline. "A Mark that reacts only to beasts is one thing. A Mark that reacts to what comes before beasts…" He trailed off.
Elyra's voice was a whisper. "A path."
Voss's gaze snapped to her. "Yes."
Nyx's mouth curled. "So something is opening doors."
Voss didn't deny it.
Kael's voice was calm, but his stomach tightened. "What do you want from us?"
Voss spoke like he hated the answer. "I want you to take another contract. Quietly. Off-ledger."
Borin stared. "Off—"
Elyra interrupted. "Illegal."
Voss's eyes hardened. "Necessary."
Nyx laughed once, humorless. "You said what you say matters."
"It does," Voss replied. "But not enough to do this publicly."
Kael held his gaze. "Where?"
Voss reached into his coat and produced a second parchment. No seal. No stamp. Just ink.
"Two miles east," he said. "Old watch road. A farmhouse. Entire family missing. No blood. No signs of bandits. But the ground—"
He stopped, and for the first time, something like unease crossed his face.
"The ground is wrong," he finished.
Borin's eyes narrowed. "Wrong how?"
Voss looked at Borin as if recognising his gift. "It feels hollow. Like something passed through it."
Borin swallowed. "Like a tunnel."
Nyx's voice was flat. "Or like the world forgot to be solid."
Elyra's gaze drifted, unfocused. "Spirits are screaming."
Kael's Mark pulsed faintly.
Voss noticed.
"There," he said quietly. "That. It's responding now."
Kael stiffened. "There's no beast."
Voss's eyes didn't blink. "Exactly."
A long silence.
Nyx spoke first. "So we do your off-ledger job, and then what? You pay us? You pat our heads? You hide it again?"
Voss's mouth twisted. "I don't have the luxury of comforting you."
Elyra's voice was soft. "Then tell us the truth."
Voss looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said, "The Long War didn't end with victory."
Borin frowned. "It ended with containment."
Voss shook his head. "Containment is what we call it now. To make it sound clean."
Nyx's eyes narrowed. "What was it called then?"
Voss's voice dropped. "Sealing."
Kael felt the word land in him like a hook.
Elyra whispered, "A prison."
Voss didn't answer.
He simply said, "Go to the farmhouse. If you find evidence of a breach path, you burn it. You don't bring it back. You don't tell Greyfen. You tell me."
Nyx smiled thinly. "And if we find nothing?"
Voss's gaze stayed on Kael. "You will."
Then he mounted his horse. "Before dawn."
He rode off, lantern light swallowed by darkness.
The Grey Hunt stood in the cold road silence, the wind pressing against them like a hand.
Borin finally spoke. "Off-ledger contracts."
Nyx sheathed her blades slowly. "We're officially unofficial now."
Elyra stared into the dark. "We're walking into a secret someone didn't want exposed."
Kael felt the Mark pulse again—steady.
"Then we walk carefully," he said.
The Farmhouse
The road east was an old one, half-swallowed by weeds and time. Stones that once marked distance lay toppled, their inscriptions worn away as if the land itself had decided to forget they were there. The sky above was cloud-thick, hiding moonlight. Their lantern was kept low.
Nyx walked ahead, silent. Borin followed, breathing slower than usual, listening with his feet. Elyra walked beside Kael, her staff tapping softly against stone.
"You're quiet," Elyra said.
Kael didn't look at her. "I'm listening."
"To what?"
Kael hesitated. "I don't know."
Elyra's expression softened. "That's worse, isn't it?"
He nodded.
They reached the farmhouse just before the first hint of dawn began to lighten the sky.
From a distance, it looked intact. No broken door. No smashed windows. No signs of struggle.
Nyx stopped at the edge of the field. "If this is bandits, I'll be disappointed."
Borin's brow furrowed. "It's not bandits."
Elyra's voice was a whisper. "They're gone. But the place is… loud."
Kael felt the Mark pulse faintly again, more insistent now.
"Stay tight," he said.
They approached.
The front door was closed, latch intact. Nyx tested it gently. It opened without resistance.
Inside, the air was stale and cold, like a room that had been exhaling for days.
A table sat set for a meal that had never been eaten. Bread hardened like stone. A cup of water sat untouched, its surface filmed.
Borin scanned the room, jaw tense. "No blood."
Elyra stepped toward the hearth. "No heat either. Not recently."
Nyx moved deeper into the house, blades loose in her grip.
"Upstairs," she said quietly.
Kael followed.
The stairs creaked under their weight, loud in the silence. On the landing, three doors.
Nyx pushed the first open.
A child's room. Small bed. Toys carved from wood. A blanket half-folded.
Empty.
The second room—parents' bed. Clothes laid out carefully on a chair.
Empty.
The third door was slightly ajar.
Nyx nudged it open with a blade.
Inside was a storage room—small, cramped. Shelves. Jars. A sack of grain. A trapdoor in the corner, half-lifted.
Borin's eyes narrowed. "Cellar."
Kael's Mark pulsed.
Harder.
He swallowed. "It's below."
Nyx's voice was light, but the tension was obvious. "Of course it is."
Borin knelt by the trapdoor, hand hovering above the wood. "The ground is wrong," he whispered. "It's… thin."
Elyra's breathing quickened slightly. "There's something down there that doesn't want to be remembered."
Kael drew an arrow and held it ready, not nocked.
"Open it," he said.
Borin lifted the trapdoor slowly.
Cold air spilled upward like breath from something buried alive.
The smell wasn't rot.
It was absence—a hollow, metallic emptiness that made Kael's teeth ache.
Nyx descended first, silent as smoke. Kael followed, then Elyra, then Borin carefully, one hand on the ladder as if the earth might shift.
The cellar was unfinished stone. The walls sweated. The floor was packed dirt except for one patch near the far corner where the ground looked disturbed.
Not dug.
Pressed.
As if something had passed through it without needing to open it.
Borin stepped toward that patch and stopped, breath caught.
"This…" he whispered. "This isn't a tunnel."
Elyra's voice was tight. "It's a scar."
Nyx crouched, fingertips hovering just above the dirt. She didn't touch it. "Feels like it's waiting."
Kael's Mark flared.
Not pain.
Not fire.
A sudden pulse of presence, like a hand pressed against his spine from the inside.
He staggered half a step.
Elyra grabbed his arm. "Kael."
Kael swallowed hard. "It's here."
Borin stared at the ground. "There's no beast."
Kael's voice was a whisper. "Then there's something worse."
The air in the cellar shifted.
Lantern flame bent.
Not toward wind—but toward a point in space that hadn't existed a moment before.
Nyx's blades came up instantly. "That—"
A seam opened in the air.
Not a tear like cloth.
A line, as if reality had been scored by a blade and was remembering it could be cut.
The sound was not loud, but it was wrong—like ice cracking inside bone.
Elyra gasped. "That's not magic. That's—"
"Old," Kael finished.
From the seam, a low mist spilled out, clinging to the ground like hungry breath.
And then—
A sound.
Not footsteps.
A scraping, dragging movement, as if something on the other side was trying to decide whether this world was worth entering.
Borin's voice was strained. "Kael. What do we do?"
Kael's grip tightened on his bow. The Mark pulsed again, steady, instructive.
He realised with sudden clarity that it wasn't warning him.
It was guiding him.
"Elyra," Kael said, voice controlled. "Can you bind it?"
Elyra stared, eyes wide. "That isn't a spirit."
"Can you slow it?" Kael corrected.
Elyra swallowed, then nodded once. "For seconds. Maybe."
Nyx's gaze never left the seam. "Seconds are enough if you don't waste them."
Borin raised his hammer, pain flashing across his face as the ground responded. "If I strike the earth there—"
"Don't," Elyra snapped. "If you widen it—"
Borin froze.
Kael breathed in slowly.
Then he spoke, calm as if naming a beast.
"Close," he said.
Nyx blinked. "What?"
Kael stepped forward, one hand reaching toward the seam, stopping just short.
"The Mark… it wants it closed," he said.
Elyra's voice trembled. "That's not how—"
Kael looked at her. "Trust me."
Nyx's mouth tightened. "I hate that sentence."
Kael didn't argue. He simply reached closer.
The seam pulsed in response, as if recognising him.
The Mark surged.
Kael's vision flashed—brief images: a field of ash, hunters in old leathers, a continent burning at its edges, and a line of light sealing shut.
He gasped, stumbling back.
Elyra caught him. "Kael!"
Kael's voice was rough. "It's been done before."
Nyx's eyes narrowed. "And it failed."
Kael nodded once. "Yes."
Borin's jaw tightened. "Then why would it work now?"
Kael stared at the seam, which was widening slightly.
"Because it's not the same seal," he said. "It's a leak."
Elyra lifted her staff, hands shaking. "Then we plug it."
Nyx smiled thinly. "Finally. Something practical."
Elyra whispered words that weren't meant for human tongues. The lantern flame steadied briefly, as if listening.
The mist slowed, thickening, reluctant to cross.
Borin stepped forward, hammer raised—not to strike the seam, but the ground around it. He brought it down once, carefully, controlling the force.
The earth rose around the seam like a tightening fist.
Nyx moved in a blur, blades cutting through the air—not at anything visible, but at the edges of the opening, as if slicing loose threads.
Kael raised his bow.
He aimed not at a beast—
But at the seam itself.
He loosed.
The arrow flew straight, humming softly, and struck the line of reality.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the arrowhead glowed faintly, and the seam recoiled as if it had been stabbed.
The mist screamed.
Not a sound—an impression, a pressure that made Elyra's eyes water and Borin's teeth grind.
Kael felt the Mark flare one final time.
And the seam snapped shut.
The cellar fell silent.
Lantern flame straightened.
Everyone stood frozen, breathing hard.
Nyx exhaled slowly. "That was… disgusting."
Borin looked at the patch of dirt, now settled and heavy. "Did we do it?"
Elyra's voice was quiet, shaken. "We closed a door."
Kael's shoulders still pulsed faintly, warmth receding like a tide. "Not the door," he said.
Nyx's eyes flicked to him. "What do you mean?"
Kael swallowed. "Just one of them."
Silence followed.
Above them, the farmhouse creaked as dawn began to touch the world.
Elyra's voice was barely audible. "This is what the spirits are afraid of."
Borin's face tightened. "How many?"
Kael didn't answer immediately.
He stared at the dirt patch, the place where the world had briefly admitted it could be cut open.
Then he said, softly, "Enough."
The Choice
They returned to Greyfen as dawn broke.
The town looked the same.
That was the cruel part.
People would wake, bake bread, argue about trade, and pretend the world was still contained because they needed it to be.
Luthen met them at the edge of town, eyes wide with fear.
"You went?" he whispered. "What did you find?"
Nyx stepped forward, voice calm. "Nothing you want to hear."
Luthen swallowed. "Then tell me anyway."
Kael shook his head. "No."
Luthen flinched. "No?"
Elyra spoke gently. "Not because we don't trust you. Because if you know, you'll be forced to repeat it. And then it won't be contained."
Luthen's hands trembled. "So I just… live with the unknown?"
Nyx's smile was thin. "Welcome to the world."
Kael turned away.
Back at the grain store, they found Voss waiting.
He sat on a crate like he owned it, lantern beside him, face unreadable.
"You're alive," he said.
Nyx crouched across from him. "Disappointed?"
Voss ignored her. "Report."
Kael described it without drama.
The seam. The mist. The closing.
When he finished, Voss was silent for a long time.
Then: "You did the right thing."
Borin's voice was tight. "It shouldn't exist."
Voss nodded slowly. "It shouldn't."
Elyra leaned forward slightly. "How many?"
Voss's eyes flicked to her. "We don't know."
Nyx scoffed. "You do know."
Voss's jaw tightened. "We have… indications."
Kael held his gaze. "Where?"
Voss hesitated. The first real crack in his control.
Then he said, "Near old battle lines."
Elyra's voice turned colder. "Places the Long War touched."
Voss nodded once.
Kael's Mark pulsed faintly again—just at the mention of it.
Voss noticed. "It reacts to the idea."
Kael swallowed. "Then it's not beasts. It's the breach."
Voss's voice dropped. "And whatever is making them."
Nyx's eyes narrowed. "So what now?"
Voss stood. "Now you leave Greyfen. You return to Blackhollow. Quietly."
Borin frowned. "We just found proof—"
"Proof you cannot carry in a town like this," Voss snapped, anger finally breaking through. "If you stay, you become a fire."
Elyra's voice was soft. "And the world is dry."
Voss exhaled slowly, regaining control. "Exactly."
Kael stared at him. "You're afraid."
Voss met his eyes. "Yes."
Kael's shoulders warmed faintly. "Good."
Voss's brow furrowed. "Good?"
Kael's voice was steady. "It means you understand what's coming."
Voss didn't answer.
He mounted and left again without ceremony.
When he was gone, Nyx spoke first. "So we've officially become secrets."
Borin rubbed his face. "I don't like this."
Elyra stared at her staff. "Neither do I. But it's true."
Kael looked out toward the road. Toward the keep. Toward the world that still thought the Beast Continent was a prison and not a seal.
"We go back," Kael said. "And we make them listen."
Nyx smiled faintly. "And if they don't?"
Kael's Mark pulsed once—quiet certainty.
"Then we hunt anyway," he said.