The wind shifted.
Fen froze with his hand raised, finger halfway to point at a low gap between two ash hills.
"Stop," he said.
Kairn stopped at once.
Lysa, walking between them with an arm over her ribs, stumbled and caught herself on Kairn's sleeve.
"What now?" she whispered.
Fen tilted his head, sniffing.
The dead ash plain looked calm. Gray hills. Burnt stumps. The faint red glow of the comet on everything. Nothing moved.
Kairn let his own senses stretch.
The world sharpened.
He heard the tiny crunch of ash under Fen's boot, the rough rasp of Lysa's breath. Further out, a soft, steady sound: metal on leather, clink, clink, slow and regular.
Hooves.
He tasted faint iron on the air.
Blood.
"Riders," he said.
Fen gave him a quick look.
"Left side?" he asked.
Kairn pointed without thinking.
"Behind that long ridge," he said. "Coming this way. Not rushing."
Fen grinned a little.
"Nice," he said. "You're useful."
Lysa swallowed.
"How many?" she whispered.
Kairn listened harder.
The rhythm of the hooves came from more than one horse, but not a whole army.
"Six," he said slowly. "Maybe seven. Two heavier. The rest light."
Fen nodded.
"Scouts and a binder team," he said. "They're casting a net. Good news, we're not in the middle of it yet. Bad news, we will be if we just walk straight."
"What do we do?" Lysa asked.
"Duck," Fen said.
He led them down into a shallow dip between ash mounds. The ground here was softer, the ash deeper. Kairn remembered the hand that had grabbed his foot earlier and stepped with care.
"Stay close," he said to Lysa.
She nodded, jaw tight.
Fen crouched behind the curve of the hill and pulled something from his coat: a small leather pouch stained gray. He opened it and tossed a handful of powder into the air.
It spread in a thin cloud.
It smelled like old stone and something sharp, almost like vinegar.
"What is that?" Kairn asked.
"Ground bone and dead rune chalk," Fen said. "Good at confusing smells. But your new trick is better."
He flicked a look at Kairn.
"Cloak us," he said. "If you can cover three people. If not, at least you and the girl."
Kairn did not like taking orders.
But this one made sense.
He took a breath, felt for the coal under his sternum, then reached for Ash Veil.
[ ASH VEIL I – ACTIVATED ]
The ash around them stirred.
It flowed toward Kairn first, wrapping his legs, chest, arms. He pushed, in his mind, as if trying to stretch the cloak wider.
It resisted.
He pushed harder.
The coal burned hotter.
The ash spread, thin but real, reaching out to brush Lysa's shoulders, Fen's back. It wrapped them in a gray haze that dulled their outlines and smothered their scent.
Lysa shivered.
"I can't smell you," she whispered.
"Good," Fen murmured. "Hold it, shade."
Kairn held.
It felt like holding his breath, except he did not need to breathe. A strain, a pull. His muscles didn't tire, but something in him did.
The hoofbeats grew louder.
Voices carried on the wind.
"…no sign at the mine perimeter," a man said, calm and sharp. "Bodies burned. Cage rune crushed. The Warden is missing."
"His ring cracked," another replied. "The King felt it. That is why we are here."
Kairn's skin crawled.
He listened without moving.
The riders came into view over the next ash hill.
Six of them, as he had guessed. Four wore the same dark half-plate as the mine hunters, faces hidden behind smooth helms. One rode with a staff across his saddle, runes glowing faint red along its length. The last was different.
She rode without a helm, white hair braided down her back, pale skin tinged faintly gray. Her eyes were closed, head tilted as if listening to something only she could hear. A strip of black cloth was tied over her eyes.
"What are they?" Lysa breathed.
Fen's voice was a thin thread.
"Ash Choir," he said. "They listen to the King's blood. They hunt things like you."
The blind woman's head turned.
Not toward them.
Toward the ravine they had left.
Her lips moved.
"The mark," she said. Her voice was soft, almost gentle. "It burned here. Faint. Dragon and chain. Then it moved."
"Direction?" one of the helmed riders asked.
She lifted a hand and pointed… almost straight at them.
Kairn went cold.
Fen swore under his breath.
"Distance?" the rider asked.
The woman's brows drew together.
"Faint," she said. "Something smears it. Ash and old magic. But…" She tilted her head. "Close."
"Spread," the rider said. "Two left, two right. We circle. Binder, stay with the Seer."
The horses split.
Two veered left, two right, moving in wide arcs, scanning the ash hills.
Kairn did not move.
Ash Veil pressed tighter around them.
His chest burned with the effort.
He could feel the Seer's focus like a cold finger searching the air.
"What do we do if they walk over us?" Lysa whispered, voice shaking.
"Hope they're heavy," Fen said softly. "And that the ground gives way."
Kairn almost laughed.
His hands itched for blood.
He could kill one rider. Maybe two. But six, with a Seer and a Binder? They would die.
He forced his claws to stay sheathed.
The two riders on the right passed less than thirty paces from their dip.
One turned his helm slightly, as if sniffing.
"Smells like every other ash hole," he muttered.
"Keep moving," the other said. "The Seer will call if she tastes anything."
They rode on.
The Seer's head turned again.
For a moment, Kairn felt her gaze brush the place where he knelt, even though her eyes were covered.
The coal in his chest flared.
He thought of the King's cold smile, far away.
He pushed Ash Veil harder.
The ash around them thickened.
For a heartbeat, the Seer's lips formed a word.
"…there…"
Then her expression smoothed.
"No," she said. "It flickers. Like a coal under wet cloth. It is not here."
Kairn let out a slow breath he did not know he had been holding.
[ ASH VEIL I – 02:47 / 03:00 ]
Almost spent.
He did not dare drop it yet.
"Further north," the Seer said. "Toward the broken river. It moves. Small steps. Not running. It does not know we feel it."
Kairn almost smiled.
She was wrong.
But not by much.
"Then we ride ahead and set the net," the helmed leader said. "We will cut it off at the river bend. The King wants it alive if possible."
"And if not?" another asked.
"Then we send ash," the leader said.
They turned their horses and rode away, faster now, heading not toward the ravine but toward a low line of broken stone in the distance.
Fen waited until the sound of hooves faded.
"Drop it," he whispered.
Kairn let Ash Veil go.
The ash fell away from his skin.
He sagged, suddenly tired.
"That," Fen said, "is going to be fun later. You can feel them feel you?"
Kairn nodded once.
"Through the mark," he said. "And through… whatever ties me to the Court."
"Then we use that," Fen said. His eyes were bright behind the cracked glass. "Make them think you're going where you're not. Make them chase shadows."
Lysa rubbed her arms, still shaking.
"They almost found us," she said.
"Almost isn't is," Fen said lightly. "Come on. The longer we sit here, the more likely someone stumbles on your foot prints."
He stood and slid over the side of the dip, moving low and quick along the hill's base.
Kairn helped Lysa up.
"You all right?" he asked.
"No," she said honestly. "But I can walk."
They followed.
Fen led them away from the direction the riders had taken, angling instead toward a cluster of broken stone shapes on the horizon.
"What's that?" Kairn asked.
"Old wayhouse," Fen said. "Used to be a resting point on the sky road before the Court broke it. Now it's half-buried and full of rats. And other things. Good cover. Maybe good loot."
"Other things?" Lysa repeated.
"Nothing too big," Fen said. "Mostly." He flashed a grin. "And if there is, that's where your new powers come in, shade."
Kairn's fingers flexed.
He thought of his claws, of his fangs, of Ash Veil, of the coal in his chest. Of how he had felt the dragon's weight and turned it.
"What else can you do?" Fen asked, as if reading his thoughts. "Can you sniff out blood better now? Hear heartbeats? See in the dark?"
"Yes," Kairn said. "Some of that."
"Show me," Fen said.
Kairn gestured at the empty ash.
"There's no one here," he said. "Nothing to test on."
Fen shrugged.
"There will be," he said. "The Wilds never stay empty."
He was right.
Half an hour later, as they neared the broken stone shapes, Kairn's nose caught a new scent.
Rot.
Wet fur.
Old blood.
He lifted a hand.
"Stop," he said.
Fen stopped at once.
Lysa almost walked into Kairn's back.
"What now?" she whispered.
"Something dead," Kairn said. "And… not dead."
Fen's face turned serious.
"Where?" he asked.
Kairn closed his eyes and listened.
He heard distant, slow scrapes. Something dragging itself over stone. A wet sound, like meat peeling from bone.
He pointed.
"There," he said. "In that hollow before the stones."
Fen nodded slowly.
"Ghoul pit," he said. "Great."
"What?" Lysa said, panic edging her voice.
"Leftover corpses," Fen said. "Sometimes when the Court pulls out of a place, they leave the dead in piles. The ash and magic make them… stand up again. Hungry and stupid."
"Can we go around?" Lysa asked.
"Not without walking into open ground where the riders can see us from a hill," Fen said. "We go through, fast and quiet. Or we make noise and those things scream and bring more."
He looked at Kairn.
"How do you feel about testing your bite on something that's already mostly dead?" he asked.
Kairn bared his teeth.
"Hunger's not picky," he said.
They crept to the edge of the hollow.
It was a shallow basin, half hidden by collapsed stone.
Inside, bodies lay in a tangle.
Or had once.
Now they shifted and twitched, slow and wrong. Limbs moved that should not. Heads turned too far. Eyes stared without seeing.
A low, hungry moan rose as one of them scented the living.
"Stay behind me," Kairn said to Lysa.
She nodded, swallowing hard.
Fen hung back too, one hand on a short hooked blade at his belt.
"You make the first cut," he murmured. "I'll make sure nothing gets around you."
The nearest ghoul dragged itself forward.
It had been a man once. Most of its face was gone. Its chest had a hole where ribs showed. Its hands were raw bone at the tips, clawed from digging.
It crawled with jerky, ugly motions.
It smelled like old blood turned sour.
Kairn's nose wrinkled.
His hunger still rose.
Not as sharp as with fresh blood.
But there.
He took a step forward.
The ghoul hissed, jaw opening too wide.
It lunged.
He moved.
Faster than he ever had as a human. Faster than he had in the mine, even after turning.
His claws slid out with a thought.
[ SKILL: CLAW I – ACTIVATED ]
He sidestepped the ghoul's reaching hands and raked across its neck.
The flesh there was soft.
His claws tore through in one clean motion.
The ghoul's head flopped to the side, half attached.
It kept moving.
"Annoying," Kairn muttered.
He grabbed its hair with his left hand, yanked its head back, and drove his right claws up through the base of its skull.
Bone cracked.
The ghoul went limp.
Behind it, three more dragged themselves forward.
Fen whistled low.
"Nice," he said. "But careful. Their blood's foul. Don't drink deep."
Kairn's tongue had already touched his fangs.
The little bit of blood that had splashed there tasted flat and bitter.
He spat.
"Not worth it," he said.
"Still counts for the Wild Hunt quest," Fen said. "Or whatever your System calls it."
Kairn pushed forward.
The next ghoul was quicker, legs still half-working.
It lurched to its feet and stumbled toward him, mouth open in a silent scream.
He waited until it was almost on him.
Then he stepped in, closer than it expected, and drove his hand up under its chin, claws piercing through soft palate into brain.
It jerked once and fell.
The third grabbed at his arm.
Its fingers scraped his skin.
He twisted, letting it pull him closer, then sank his fangs into its throat.
The blood that filled his mouth was thick and sour.
But there was something under it.
A faint trace of the person it had been.
A flash of memory hit him.
A woman's face, crying as a child was pulled from her arms.
The crack of a whip.
The stink of the mine pens.
He jerked back, gagging.
The ghoul flopped, throat torn out, still twitching.
"What?" Lysa called.
Kairn wiped his mouth on his arm.
"Nothing," he lied.
Fen's eyes were sharp behind the cracked glass.
"You saw something," he said.
"Memories," Kairn said, voice flat. "From the blood. Not good ones."
Fen nodded slowly.
"Vampire trick," he said. "Some of your kind say they see everything their dinner ever did. Most of them drink to forget that."
Kairn's jaw clenched.
He looked at the half-crushed ghoul.
He had no pity.
But he felt a different kind of anger now, aimed not at this thing but at the people who had made the pile in the first place.
"Move," he said. "Before they sing."
They cut through the hollow fast, killing the few ghouls that tried to drag themselves close. Kairn kept his bites shallow, more for tearing than drinking.
By the time they reached the far side, his claws dripped foul blood.
His hunger had dulled.
Not fed.
Just… stalled.
He wiped his hands on an old cloak someone had died in and threw it aside.
Fen watched him with a thoughtful look.
"You can feel other people in the blood," he said. "That's useful and horrible."
"Yes," Kairn said.
"You can smell hunters and hear their horses," Fen went on. "You can wrap yourself and others in ash. You can bite and not go mad from it." He nodded. "Yeah. I picked the right idiots to follow."
Lysa glared at him.
"We picked you," she said. "Remember that."
Fen laughed.
"Sure," he said. "Let's say that."
The broken stone shapes loomed ahead now.
Closer, Kairn saw they had once been walls and arches. A wayhouse, like Fen had said. Half of it had sunk into the ash. The other half jutted up, forming jagged shelters from wind and sight.
"Home for the night," Fen said. "If we live that long."
Kairn looked back once.
The ravine was out of sight.
The dragon slept under stone and ash, fire dim but not gone.
Ahead, the Obsidian Court's net tightened.
He felt the coal in his chest pulse in time with something far away—a ring on a king's finger, maybe, or the blind Seer's blood.
His claws itched.
His hunger stirred.
His new tricks were small compared to the forces moving against him.
But they were his.
"We won't hide forever," he said quietly.
Fen raised a brow.
"Tonight we do," he said. "Tomorrow we bite."
Lysa sighed.
"Can we at least not die before we get a roof?" she asked.
They stepped into the shadows of the broken wayhouse, Kairn's eyes already searching for new threats, new ways to kill, and new ways to stay one step ahead of the chains that wanted him back in the dark.