No one spoke while they buried the rider.
The Severed Path did not perform prayers. They did not cry openly. They did not speak the dead's name aloud.
They worked in silence, carving a narrow trench between two stone outcroppings where the plains dipped. The soil was thin, dry, reluctant to yield.
Walliam helped dig.
He did not know the rider. He had seen his face only once — wind-burned, sharp-eyed, young.
He had died because something had followed him.
That truth hung heavier than the shovel in Walliam's hands.
Kael knelt when they finished, placing the rider's cracked-circle emblem on the mound of dirt. She pressed her forehead to the metal for a brief moment, then stood.
"Ride," she said.
That was all.
They moved slower that day.
Not because of terrain.
Because of thought.
The Severed Path's formation tightened. Two riders never left Walliam's flanks. It was not hostility.
It was containment.
Elaris walked close, quiet for once. Torren scuffed stones ahead of them, jaw tight.
Finally, he broke.
"So," he said loudly, "we've upgraded from 'magical wolves' to 'interdimensional surveyors.' Great pacing."
No one laughed.
Walliam stopped walking.
"I'm putting people in danger."
Kael didn't turn. "You were doing that before you left your valley."
"That's not what I mean."
"Isn't it?"
Her tone wasn't cruel.
It was sharp.
Honest.
He clenched his fists. "If I walk away—"
"It will still come," she cut in.
He blinked.
Kael finally faced him. "You think hiding the Heart will stop the things that broke it? They shattered the sky. You think distance matters?"
Elaris stepped closer. "Then what does matter?"
Kael's gaze stayed on Walliam.
"Whether he becomes a door…"
A beat.
"Or a wall."
They reached the settlement by dusk.
Stone buildings clustered around a shallow lake, windmills turning lazily on the ridge. Traders' banners snapped in the wind. The place buzzed with life — voices, smoke, cooking fires.
Normal.
Painfully normal.
People stopped when they saw the riders.
Eyes lingered on armor. On weapons.
On Walliam.
The mark in his chest felt like a spotlight.
Torren leaned in. "Do we have a 'don't tell villagers about cosmic horrors' policy?"
"Yes," Elaris and Kael said together.
They found lodging in a low stone inn. The Severed Path took the perimeter. Elaris disappeared into conversation with a scholar-looking woman near the hearth. Torren went to secure food like it was a tactical operation.
Walliam stepped outside.
He needed air.
The sky was clear. Fractures faint, almost invisible.
Almost peaceful.
"You look like someone trying to outrun their own shadow."
He turned.
An old man sat on the well's edge, carving something from wood. He wore simple clothes, travel-worn.
Walliam hadn't heard him approach.
"Long day," Walliam said.
The man nodded. "World's been having a lot of those lately."
Walliam stiffened.
"You felt it, didn't you?" the man asked. "The blink."
Walliam didn't answer.
The man smiled faintly. "Relax. I'm not with your sword friends."
"Then who are you?"
"Someone who watches patterns."
Walliam's pulse quickened. "Like Wardens?"
"Older."
That wasn't reassuring.
The man held up the carving — a small wooden circle with a crack down the middle.
Walliam froze.
"You carry the Heart," the man said gently. "And now something else carries your scent."
"Who are you?" Walliam repeated.
The man's eyes met his.
Deep. Reflective.
Too aware.
"I am what remains of a Listener," he said. "Before the Wardens. Before the Severed Path. We studied the Heart when it still sang."
Walliam sat beside him slowly.
"Then tell me what that thing was."
The Listener looked at the sky.
"When the Heart broke, it did not just fracture the world."
He tapped the wooden circle.
"It tore a boundary."
"Between what?"
"Between being… and not-being."
Walliam's stomach dropped.
"There are things beyond the weave of reality," the Listener said. "Not evil. Not good. Simply… other. The Heart's light kept them distant. The fractures let them peer in."
"Like the thing on the plains."
"Yes."
Walliam's voice was barely a whisper. "It used me."
"Because you are a bridge."
"I don't want to be."
"No one ever does."
The Listener studied him.
"But bridges choose what crosses."
Walliam looked up sharply.
"That creature followed the Heart's pathways. You closed them."
"Painfully."
The old man chuckled. "Growing pains of a wall learning to stand."
Walliam felt something settle inside him — not comfort, but clarity.
"I can change how the connection works," he said slowly. "Not just open. Filter."
The Listener nodded. "Now you are thinking like a Heart-bearer."
"Can I stop them?"
"No."
Walliam's hope fell.
"But you can decide how much of this world they are allowed to touch."
Inside the inn, laughter rose from a table of traders.
Life, going on.
Unaware of the sky watching back.
Walliam stood.
"Why help me?" he asked.
The Listener smiled faintly.
"Because once, long ago, someone helped me carry something I didn't want."
He handed Walliam the wooden token.
"For when you forget you're not alone."
Then he walked into the crowd.
And vanished.
Walliam knew he would not see him again.
He returned to the inn.
Elaris looked up. "You okay?"
He nodded.
Torren slid a bowl of stew toward him. "Eat. Existential dread burns calories."
Kael watched from the corner.
"You made a decision," she said quietly.
Walliam met her gaze.
"I'm not a doorway," he said.
"Good."
"I'm learning to be a gate."
Kael gave the smallest nod.
That was approval.
Outside, the sky did not blink again.
But Walliam knew—
It would.
And next time, he would be ready.