Evening settled like a slow sigh across the plains.
They had stopped near the base of a low ridge, where a shallow stream wound through the tall grass and a thin ring of pale trees offered enough shelter for a fire. The sun, now only a bleeding rim on the horizon, cast the land in copper tones that deepened with every breath. Terron had tied the horses with practiced ease and was making a half-hearted attempt at whittling something vaguely animal-shaped. Seta's drone pulsed softly above the treeline, her eyes flicking toward every shift in the wind.
Renn was on the roof again, legs swinging, one blade unsheathed and resting across her lap. Elise crouched near the fire, tending it with efficient movements, while Eno leaned against a rock just outside its glow, watching the distance in the way of archers—quiet, still, endlessly patient.
Maia sat beside Koda, her arm freshly dressed, her eyes unreadable.
The peace they'd tasted earlier was thinning. Slipping.
A wind stirred—not strong, but wrong. It came from no clear direction. It carried no chill, yet left skin crawling. The grass stopped swaying in rhythm. The fire snapped without fuel.
And then came the fog.
Thin at first, curling low along the ground. Then thick, fast, swallowing the edge of their camp in rolling sheets of colorless vapor. Clinging to life, suffocating those trapped within.
Renn leaned forward, brow creasing. "We got company?"
Seta's drone buzzed once—sharply—then fell silent. Its glow dimmed.
Elise rose to her feet, blades already drawn.
Koda stood, his breath catching.
The smell hit first.
Rot. Wet, decaying meat. Like flesh steeped in swamp water, tangled with the stink of open graves and damp linen never fully dried. It filled the throat. It coated the tongue. It turned every breath into a punishment.
Then—movement.
From the fog, they came.
The dead.
Figures emerged like dreams made solid and wrong—bodies half-collapsed but moving, animated by something that had nothing to do with life. Skin hung in loose patches, faces caved in from old trauma, eyes missing or dangling from ruined sockets. Some wore the tattered remains of burial cloth, others the rusted remnants of armor or church robes. No two were the same—but all of them dripped.
Seta was first to react—her hand shooting up as the drone flared back to life and cast a light across the oncoming figures.
The light passed through them.
"Too many," she said flatly.
Renn jumped down, blades already spinning. "We're doing this again, huh?"
"Of course," Eno replied. He summoned his bow with a silent motion, drawing and loosing an arrow in the same breath. It punched through a corpse's neck. The thing stumbled—but didn't fall.
Then they were in the camp.
Viscera tore. Jaws snapped. One lunged at Terron, and his hammer answered with a sickening crunch that sent rotted bone scattering into the grass. Another came at Maia, only for Elise to intercept, blades flashing, removing the creature's hands at the wrist before slamming it to the dirt.
But they kept coming.
They didn't groan. They didn't cry. The only sound was the wet squelch of ruptured flesh, the crack of broken ribs under boot, and the choking stink of bodies that had no right to stand.
Koda's summoned blade screamed into form, flickering black and silver, and he drove it through a corpse's sternum. The flesh clung to the blade like wax, tearing in strings. The body hissed—but didn't fall. Its hands clawed at his shoulders, nails peeling skin.
He shouted, twisted, ripped the blade free in a blur of black light.
Terron fought at the front, hammer rising and falling like a drumbeat, each strike shattering bone and spraying gore across the mud.
"We can't hold this line!" Elise shouted. "They're circling—"
And they were. The fog pulsed, alive, and the bodies came from all sides now. Out of the mist. Out of the ground. Fingers digging free from shallow earth, skulls splitting open as if pushed from within.
Koda turned, heart hammering, to get a headcount—and then he saw it.
Not among the dead.
Beyond.
At the very edge of the mist—half-shrouded, standing where the firelight couldn't reach—a shape.
Humanoid, in the loosest possible way. Arms, maybe. A head. But it didn't move. Didn't breathe. Its form wavered, like smoke trapped in a mold, flickering in and out of cohesion. It stood still. Watching.
No eyes.
No face.
Just presence.
It radiated silence so heavy it crushed the wind. The dead didn't touch it. Didn't turn toward it. But Koda felt it looking at him.
Not at the others.
Him.
A cold pressure bloomed behind his eyes, and for a moment, the blade in his hand dimmed.
Not weakened.
Suppressed.
The creature… whatever it was… didn't step forward.
But the message was clear.
It knew him.
Then the moment snapped—Renn shouting, blood flying from her shoulder as one of the dead scored a glancing bite. Maia screamed a warding glyph and the corpse's spine snapped mid-lunge, falling in pieces.
The phantom was gone.
Just… gone.
As if it had never been.
But Koda felt it. The emptiness it left behind.
And he knew—
This wasn't just another night. It was a pattern.
The phantom was gone—but the dead were not.
More stumbled from the mist, bones grinding, mouths slack with hunger, limbs jerking like puppets on the edge of snapping. The fog rolled with them, thickening like breath from a deeper, colder world.
Behind Koda, the horses snorted and pawed at the dirt, restless. The carriage stood at the center of their camp—their only chance to outrun what was becoming an encirclement.
The realization struck like lightning.
"We need to move—now!" Koda shouted, voice cracking through the roar of bone and steel.
Terron was already moving, his hammer swinging wide as he cleared a path toward the horses. "On it!"
Maia broke from the front line without hesitation, cloak whipping behind her as she sprinted for the carriage. Her hands were already at the harness buckles, whispering soothing glyphs to steady the panicked animals.
Koda turned and raised his blade—both edges catching the moonlight, humming with power—and stepped into the oncoming wave.
He became a symphony of slaughter.
Upward slash—a rotting torso cleaved in half, black ichor spraying into the fog.
Downward return—blade catching the shoulder of another corpse and ripping down through its ribcage, splitting it like spoiled fruit.
Backhand sweep—removing a jaw and the last thread of shriveled breath from a snarling mouth.
Every swing was part of a single motion, a conductor's baton carved from obsidian and will. The blade sang in his hands, carving not just bodies, but air, thought, silence. Where it passed, there was only motion and madness.
Koda's feet never stopped moving. He turned tight circles, reading the flow like a second language. Each time one of the dead reached for him, its arm came away in pieces, or it dropped, missing its spine.
They were slow. He was not.
But they were many.
Behind him, the harness snapped into place. Maia was in the driver's seat beside Terron, who vaulted up with a grunt, reins in hand.
"Elise! Renn! Get in!" Maia called.
Eno was already on the roof, loosing arrows into the mist—each shot a death knell. The moment anything stirred near the road, it dropped.
Renn was last, sliding across the back edge of the carriage and pulling herself up with a one-handed grip, her other blade flicking out to slice clean through a grasping wrist that tried to follow.
Seta's drone surged forward, pulsing brighter now—casting wide beams of pale-blue light ahead, carving a path through the fog. Shapes loomed and fell away, but nothing blocked the road—yet.
Terron snapped the reins.
The carriage lurched forward.
Koda took one final step back, blade arcing high and wide, severing three heads in one stroke—then turned and ran.
His boots pounded through churned earth, blood and fog trailing behind him. The carriage rolled faster now, gaining speed across the open path. He caught the side just as Elise reached down with one hand—her grip solid and cold—and hauled him up.
Koda landed hard on the rear platform, chest heaving, the blade still flickering in his hand. Below them, the dead poured into the space they had just vacated, dozens of them, maybe more, their limbs dragging, jaws clacking, teeth grinding with silent purpose.
But they were too slow.
The wheels shrieked over uneven earth. The fog tried to chase, but the wind from their speed tore it apart.
Seta's drone stayed ahead of them, casting its light like a lance through the mist.
Eno fired again—once, twice—each arrow bursting through the eye socket of a corpse that twitched too close to the roadside. They passed like phantoms in reverse: not entering the world of the dead, but fleeing its jaws.
The sky above them was black.
But they were still alive.
And they were moving.
The carriage never stopped.
Wheels thundered over ruts and cracked stone, the rhythm relentless, drawn forward by sheer will and desperate horses. The road was barely a road anymore—just a thread of passable terrain snaking through the mist-choked plains.
Renn lay inside, wrapped in Maia's arms, her side bandaged tight, soaked crimson through the cloth. Her breaths were shallow but steady, her face twisted in the kind of pain that refused to cry out. Her bow arm had taken the brunt—torn muscle, crushed beneath the bite of something that should never have had the strength to grab her.
Maia whispered prayers as she worked, hands glowing with soft light, but even magic had limits. The bone would knit in time. The wound would close. But Renn would not draw that bow for days, maybe longer.
Outside, the night didn't care.
The fog thickened again, rising around them in boiling swells. Shadows moved in the periphery—silent, twitching, broken things that had once been human and now served only hunger.
They came in waves, not armies. Small clusters. Fast sprinters. Crawlers. Some dragging themselves with exposed spines. Others with bone spears for arms. No consistency. No command.
Just persistence.
And so, they adapted.
Koda hung off the left side of the carriage, foot braced on the axle bar, one hand gripping the railing, the other wielding his conjured blade like a flame meant to hold back night. It cut in both directions—up and down, arcing in broad strokes that tore through bodies on either pass. Flesh peeled. Bone cracked. Each strike an answer to chaos.
Elise mirrored him on the right, one foot on the wheel brace, her body folded with terrifying precision. Her blades struck low and fast, slicing legs out from under the lunging dead before they could even rise into full view. She didn't speak. She didn't grunt. Every motion was silent death.
Above them, Seta's drone pulsed forward, light widening with each surge, illuminating the road and casting the monsters into stark contrast. Its magic thinned the fog where it passed, just enough for Eno—now seated backward on the carriage roof—to loose arrow after arrow into approaching threats. He didn't miss. He never spoke.
Terron kept the reins tight, jaw clenched, muttering curses and bone-dry jokes under his breath between cracks of the whip.
"Never liked sleep anyway," he said through grit teeth, as another creature lunged from the ditch and met Koda's blade mid-air.
The night dragged.
Hours passed in a blur of blood, motion, and shadow.
The carriage became a fortress in motion, its perimeter burning with steel and divine will. Koda's arms ached. Elise's breathing grew shallow. Eno's fingers bled from the friction of summoning string and arrow again and again. Even the drone dimmed slightly, its glow flickering as its power waned.
Maia stayed inside with Renn, her glow flickering over the wounded girl's side, keeping her from slipping too far into fever. She glanced out only once—when Koda nearly slipped—her magic flaring to brace his shoulder with a pulse of stabilizing force before returning to her patient.
No one rested. No one dared.
But then—
A change.
It was subtle at first. The sound of feet—too many, too close—began to fade. The air, thick with the stench of rot and the iron-slick smell of blood, began to thin. The fog, once a wall, started to lose its grip.
Then the wind shifted.
The pressure in Koda's skull—tight and clawing since the first moment the dead rose—lifted.
Elise stilled, one blade half-raised, eyes narrowing. Eno lowered his bow, breath fogging in the cool air. Seta's drone gave a single, soft pulse—and held.
Behind them, Maia looked up from Renn's side.
And before them…
The world changed.
Just like that.
The dead were gone.
No stragglers. No cries. No skittering claws or dragging limbs. Only mist. And beyond it—fading.
Koda looked up.
The first blush of light touched the edge of the sky—blue and thin, the color of mourning linens. The sun had not yet risen, but the world had decided: the night was over.
The carriage slowed to a crawl.
Koda climbed back inside and collapsed beside Maia, his arms numb, his blade flickering once before fading into smoke. Elise stepped down lightly and moved to the front to check the horses. Eno curled into himself on the roof, not asleep, but still.
Renn stirred faintly, whispering something no one could understand.
Maia looked at Koda with hollow eyes rimmed in red.
"It's morning," she said.
But it didn't feel like victory.
It just felt like survival.
They stopped just after sunrise.
The carriage came to rest in a hollow between two sloping hills, the fog burning away under the weak weight of morning light. The grass here was high enough to offer cover, but low enough to give them sightlines. It wasn't safe—but it was enough.
No one said it, but they all felt it: they weren't going any farther without sleep.
Renn was the first laid down, still pale and sweating despite Maia's steady healing. She didn't resist. None of them did. The kind of exhaustion that follows terror came down like a blanket—heavy and suffocating.
They set a watch, one at a time. Two hours each.
Koda insisted on taking first.
His eyes stayed on the horizon while the others collapsed one by one. Seta curled up near the carriage wheel, her drone tucked under her arm like a faintly glowing animal. Elise leaned against a rock, arms crossed, blades still sheathed but within reach. Eno slept with his bow beside him, his body half-curled into the brush.
Terron rolled into the driver's seat, wide-brimmed hat tugged low, muttering, "If I snore, it's to scare off ghosts."
Maia slept last, taking only a few hours. Then she rose in the soft light of morning and went to the horses. One had taken a bite to the shoulder, the other a sharp kick just beneath its ribs. She whispered healing chants under her breath, hands moving slow, deliberate—tired but focused.
The tension didn't lift with the sun.
It just hung.
Like smoke that didn't rise.
By midday, the group stirred again, slowly, like bodies waking underwater. They ate in near silence, passing dried fruit and hardbread without words. Even Terron didn't joke. The exhaustion had dug deeper than muscle—into trust, into rhythm.
Maia sat beside Koda, picking at her food.
"They're waiting for it to happen again," she murmured.
"I know."
He could feel it in the air—every shift of eye, every unfinished sentence. It wasn't fear anymore. It was uncertainty. And that was worse.
Eno cleaned his bow with short, aggressive strokes. Seta had her drone floating again, sweeping in slow, wide arcs, eyes tracking every flutter of the grass. Elise barely touched her food, back turned to the group, watching the ridge.
No one was healing from the inside.
Not yet.
Finally, Koda stood.
"We should move."
Terron raised a brow from his half-seat in the carriage. "Move? Daylight's halfway done. You want to start another march into dusk?"
"No," Koda said. "I want to flip the pattern."
The others looked toward him, expressions varying between curiosity and quiet protest.
"If this is going to happen every night—and we don't know for sure yet—but if it is…" He let the thought hang there, then continued. "Then we may as well travel when it happens. Fight while moving. Defend while going. Because at least then we'll sleep during the day—when it's safe."
Seta crossed her arms. "You want to fight and navigate at the same time?"
"I want to survive," Koda said. "Last night nearly broke us, and that was after a full day's travel. If we keep that up, someone's going to collapse at the wrong moment."
"And if you're wrong?" Elise asked quietly, without accusation.
"Then we wasted a quiet night on the road," Koda answered. "And got better rest for it. That's all."
Maia looked up at him, not surprised, not questioning. Just steady. "It makes sense."
He nodded. "We camp now. We ride at dusk. If the dead don't rise—good. If they do, we're already moving."
Renn stirred from inside the carriage, groggy and wrapped in blankets, her voice rough but audible. "Just don't forget to wake me for something fun."
Terron laughed once—short and bitter. "Your idea of fun might be broken."
But no one argued.
Because somewhere beneath the weight of exhaustion, the idea offered something they hadn't had since leaving Callestan.
A plan.
They'd ride at dusk.
And find out what the night truly wanted.
—-
The wagon was still, nestled in the hollow like a wounded beast licking its wounds.
The wind whispered through the grass above, warm and dry, doing little to cool the weight of exhaustion that hung in the air. Outside, the others rested in loose shifts—Elise sharpening her blades in silence, Seta's drone hovering on low idle, Eno napping with one eye half-open. Terron had rigged a shaded tarp over the driver's bench, muttering darkly to himself as he patched a cracked wheel brace.
Inside, the light was golden and still. The smell of sweat and old blood clung to the wooden walls, but the space felt… quiet.
Maia sat on a stack of folded blankets, her back against the wagon wall, eyes heavy but awake. She watched Koda from beneath her lashes—he hadn't said much after giving the order to switch their rhythm. He'd simply sat beside her, legs stretched out, hands resting loose on his lap.
They hadn't spoken in some time.
They didn't need to.
Koda exhaled through his nose and leaned his head back, letting the tension slip from his shoulders. He could feel her watching him—but not with worry. With presence.
Maia shifted, carefully, and leaned into him, her head resting just below his chin, her hand settling lightly against his chest.
He didn't resist. Just turned slightly to rest his cheek against her hair, his arms encircling her without thought.
No words passed between them.
Just the rhythm of breath.
The hum of two people who had survived something together—and knew more was coming.
The heat outside thickened. The air didn't feel clean. The shadows beneath the wagon had started to stretch long.
But inside, for just a moment, sleep claimed them.
Not deep. Not safe.
But real.
The last hour of light held them in place.
And then the wind changed.
The sun died quietly.
No blaze. No glory. Just a slow dimming, like the wick of the world being snuffed out.
And with it—the fog returned.
It rolled in low, slow, and patient—curling between the blades of tall grass, winding around wagon wheels, and whispering along the horses' legs like a predator tasting the edge of its reach. There was no wind. No sound. Just presence.
And with it, that smell.
Rot.
It crept in before anything else. Faint at first—like spoiled meat buried in damp earth—but growing stronger with every heartbeat. A sour stench that clung to the tongue and curdled in the lungs. The kind of smell that told the body: something is wrong. Something is dead. And it's moving.
Maia stirred first, sitting up sharply in the wagon, already reaching for her staff.
Koda's eyes opened next, and without a word, he was on his feet and leaping down from the wagon's back.
Seta was already scanning the tree line. Her drone had reactivated the moment the light dimmed, pulsing once with a high, sharp flicker. "They're coming."
Terron climbed into the driver's seat and grabbed the reins with one hand, hammer already buckled at his side. "No ceremony this time."
"No need," Elise muttered, sliding into position on the running board, her eyes already hunting movement through the fog.
Eno moved silently to the roof, bow in hand, fingers brushing the summoning glyph with practiced precision.
And then, without warning—
The carriage lurched forward.
Terron snapped the reins hard, the horses responding with a sudden burst of speed, hooves tearing into the dirt path as they surged into motion. The wheels shrieked over loose rock, the frame groaning as weight shifted, but they held together.
The fog didn't slow.
It followed.
And somewhere behind them, from within it, came the first shuddering cry—not human, not animal, but something that remembered the sound of both and had forgotten how to use it.
Maia braced herself inside the wagon, already whispering strengthening glyphs to the horses, forcing clarity into their frightened minds. The beasts were terrified, foaming and wide-eyed, but they didn't falter.
The world blurred.
Trees became shadows. The path became memory. And still, they rode.
Only the drone's pulsing light lit the way forward, swaying and bobbing through the gloom ahead.
Elise stood at the edge, blades ready.
Koda moved to the opposite side, his conjured weapon forming again with a shimmer of black-edged silver.
They didn't speak.
There was nothing left to say.
The dead would come.
But this time—they would outrun them.
The carriage carved through the darkness, tearing apart the erie still.
Wheels thundered over the broken path, hooves hammering earth slick with mist, the drone's light carving narrow tunnels through the wall of fog ahead. The trees had thinned, but the dead did not care for terrain. They came just the same—shambling, sprinting, crawling—but none reached the heart of the wagon.
Not this time.
Eno worked in steady rhythm atop the roof. One arrow loosed, another summoned. Each shot quiet and exact. A figure twitched in the shadows—he struck it through the chest. Another rose in the brush—he put one clean through the eye. He didn't wait to see them fall. He knew they did.
Seta rode behind the drone, one leg braced on the front rail, a throwing knife in each hand. Her face was expressionless, but there was focus in the way she moved—each throw a punctuation mark. She didn't waste effort.
Koda and Elise manned the flanks again, blades singing through the air whenever the dead grew bold enough to close in. Elise worked low and fast, slicing tendons and knees. Koda struck in arcs—high, sweeping motions that severed heads and arms and anything else that came near. Their rhythm began to overlap, two parts of a single, brutal machine.
Every now and then, Elise glanced across the wagon at him—not a word exchanged, just the brief recognition of mutual pace. Measured violence. Efficient survival.
Terron steered with one hand and swung his hammer from the driver's bench with the other. If anything lunged near enough to reach the horses, it was met with a satisfying crack and a flash of pulverized bone. "Left side!" he'd shout, or, "Something's twitchin' in the ditch!"—but always with a bite of dark amusement in his voice.
Maia stayed inside the carriage, still tending to Renn, who drifted in and out of sleep with quiet groans. Between healing pulses, Maia pressed her palm to the floor, sending out bursts of soft warding energy—not strong enough to push the dead back, but just enough to keep the wheels steady, the horses unshaken, the light reaching farther.
They weren't just surviving.
They were moving.
And slowly—like water cutting through stone—a change passed through them.
They began to believe.
The panic dulled. Not gone, never gone, but shaped into something sharp and usable. Koda could feel it in the way Elise didn't tense as much when the fog thickened. In how Seta adjusted the drone's pulse to sweep wider. In the exactness of Eno's breathing between each arrow.
Even Terron's curses had rhythm now.
Maia leaned briefly out the window as Koda gutted another corpse leaning up from the roadside, the remnants of a bishop's robes still clinging to its ruined frame.
"This is working," she said. Simple. Certain.
Koda didn't answer with words.
He just nodded and cut down the next one.
Hours passed like this.
Fog. Arrows. Screams. Steel.
Then—light.
Not the drone. Not magic.
Real.
The first blush of dawn kissed the tops of the distant hills—pale gold, barely breaking through the mist, but there.
Eno lowered his bow slightly. Elise stopped mid-motion, blade still raised.
The fog didn't vanish—but it faltered.
The cries of the dead thinned. The movement slowed.
Whatever power had held them loosened.
The wagon slowed, breathless. Hooves stomped, steam rising from their sides. The mist clung stubbornly, but it no longer felt like it hunted.
Koda stood at the edge of the carriage, chest rising with deep, measured breaths, and looked toward the paling sky.
They had made it. This would work.
But they still had miles to go.
The carriage rolled to a stop on a rise just as the first true light of morning broke across the horizon.
The grass here was damp with dew, the mist beginning to recede in wisps that clung low to the ground. Nothing stirred. No groaning from the fog. No cracking bones beneath boot. Just silence, broken only by the slow, rhythmic panting of the horses and the soft creak of the carriage frame settling into place.
They dismounted slowly—limbs aching, eyes sore, blood drying where it had splashed and spattered in the chaos of the night. Elise sheathed her blades without ceremony. Eno hopped down from the roof, bow still slung loosely in hand.
Maia climbed down last, helping Terron ease the horses free from their harnesses. Seta's drone floated low and dim now, hovering over her shoulder like a lantern fighting to stay lit. Even it was tired.
They gathered in a loose circle around the fireless center of their camp, speaking only after the second full minute of silence.
"We can't keep this pace forever," Seta said first, wiping her face with the edge of her sleeve. "It's working, but it's bleeding us dry."
"We're alive," Terron said, tone matter-of-fact. "It's the first plan that's got a win streak."
"Barely," Elise muttered.
Koda crouched near the ground, fingers tracing a line in the dirt. The road ahead—still weeks long. Still unclear.
Maia looked between them. "How many more days at this pace?"
"Sixteen," Koda answered without looking up. "If we ride at night, rest during the day. Keep moving. No stops."
A silence followed. That number had weight.
Elise folded her arms. "And if we break south? There's an outpost two, maybe three days that way. Smaller, quiet. Might even have better supplies."
Koda nodded. "If we go south for a day, we can hit it in nine. But that adds time."
Terron let out a slow exhale, scratching at his jaw. "So we lose a day now to get maybe safer ground and better sleep, but it puts us eighteen days out from Callestan total."
Eno finally spoke. "That's two more nights to survive."
The way he said it made it clear: two more is no small thing.
Seta looked to Koda. "What's your call?"
He met her eyes, then looked to Maia, then Elise. Finally, he stood.
"I'm not gambling on safer ground unless we're dying where we are," he said. "We've got a system. It's ugly, but it's working. We shave days off and we stay ahead of whatever's trying to catch us."
Another silence followed.
Then Terron clapped his hands once. "Sixteen it is. Hope Callestan's got cold beer and hot food."
Renn, still weak but alert now, leaned from inside the wagon and gave a faint, half-smile. "You're buying."
"Hell no," Terron said. "We'll steal it off a priest's plate before I'm paying for bread."
A few dry chuckles.
No one argued.
Sixteen days.
A plan. And for now, that was enough.
——
The nights blurred.
Each one like the last: the fog rolling in with the fall of darkness, the stench of the dead following soon after. Arrows flew. Blades flashed. The carriage hurtled through the dark, wheels slick with blood, hooves pounding like war drums across the haunted plains.
But they adapted.
The rhythm of survival became second nature. Danger was no less brutal, but it was expected—and that changed everything.
Renn regained her strength first.
By the fourth night, she could draw her bow again, albeit briefly. By the sixth, she was back on the roof beside Eno, trading shots, calling distances with her old sharpness. The fire in her voice returned—wry, edged, alive.
Terron's arms ached nightly, but his hammer never failed. He built a half-slung brace into the front of the driver's bench so he could swing without dismounting, and claimed it was the best upgrade since bread.
Elise grew faster. Her strikes more precise. The nightly battles honed her already lethal efficiency into something almost clinical. Each night she moved more like a shadow than a soldier.
Seta's drone evolved—responding to her mental focus with greater accuracy. By the eighth night, it not only lit the road but mapped enemy movements in flickering lines that guided Elise and Koda to intercept. Her aim with knives became surgical.
Eno spoke more. Not much, but enough. He called targets. Warned of new patterns in the dead's approach. Once, he even made a joke—dry as dust—but it drew a rare grin from Elise, and that was something.
Maia's healing deepened. Her barriers and calming charms had always been precise, practiced—she'd wielded them since before this journey began. But her true healing—once modest, slow-working, the kind meant for rest and recovery—began to accelerate. Wounds that should have taken days to close knit themselves in hours under her touch. Fever broke faster. Breath returned smoother. The edge of pain dulled more completely.
She no longer needed full incantations—just intent, focus, and quiet will. And the more she gave, the more it responded.
And one by one, they all leveled.
Except Koda.
He didn't level with the rest of them—but not because he was stagnant. His path was different. Harder. Slower.
He was already well above them, chosen by something older than the system itself. His progression came with weight—strict requirements, divine conditions that didn't yield to routine victories or daily survival.
But still… he could feel it now and then. A shift in the mark. A tension drawing tighter.
He was getting closer.
The landscape began to shift in the fourteenth night. The dirt roads grew firmer, more defined. Abandoned farmhouses cropped up—rotted and collapsed, but there. The trees were less twisted, the fog thinner.
Signs of civilization. Proximity.
But they were close.
That knowledge alone was enough to carry them a little farther.
They found shelter that morning in the splintered remains of an old barn—its roof half-caved, the wood blackened and soft with age. Still, it held. It was dry. And it stood.
That was all they needed.
They slept in shifts, curled around what little warmth remained in the midday sun. The ground was cold, the boards brittle, but no one complained. Not this close. Callestan lay just beyond the southern ridgeline, the outline of its walls occasionally glimpsed between breaks in the hills.
It was within reach.
That night, they pushed harder.
Not recklessly—but with purpose. Riding longer after sundown, and starting sooner in the fading dark before dawn. Every hour mattered. Every mile was one they wouldn't have to survive under moonlight and fog.
But the dead didn't care.
Even this close to the city—even under the shadow of its watchfires—the undead did not rest.
By the end of the fifteenth night, they could see the lights of Callestan illuminating the horizon like a gentle flame. The outer towers flickered with maintained glyph-flame, and the silhouette of its gates stood out sharp and unmoving in the darkness. It should have meant safety.
But safety didn't come with visibility.
They watched as more of the dead clawed through the mist behind them. Tireless. Thoughtless. Endless.
Terron had said it aloud, his voice low from the driver's bench as another corpse slipped from the treeline: "If they won't stop now, they won't stop at the wall."
And so, they made a choice.
They slowed.
Deliberately.
They rode into the night, but no longer in haste. They paced themselves, carefully measuring their final travel times. If they arrived at Callestan under cover of darkness, they would likely find its gates sealed—and be forced to survive on the threshold until dawn.
That, they all agreed, was not a gamble worth taking.
So they held their distance.
Watched the glow of the city flicker on the horizon.
And waited.
One more night.
One more ride through literal death.
And then—
Callestan.
For real.
———
The night was colder than the last.
Their carriage rolled through the low fog, steady and sure, not at the frantic breakneck speed of desperate flight—but at a measured, living pace. The hooves of their horses pounded in controlled rhythm. The drone's steady light, softer now, carved a path through the mist. Every arrow loosed by Eno flew true. Every blade swung by Koda or Elise struck with cold, patient purpose.
They had learned.
They had survived.
And as the stars began to fade into the grey of pre-dawn, they saw the truth for themselves.
Callestan was no longer a promise on the horizon.
It was real.
Tall, black-stone walls crowned the distant ridgeline, latticed with runes that shimmered faintly even in the wan light. Tower spires rose like monuments against the breaking sky, defiant and enduring. From this distance, the watchfires along the battlements were small points of gold—but they burned steadily, refusing to be swallowed by the mist.
And still—they were not there yet.
When the first rays of sunlight cracked over the hills, they found themselves half a day's travel out. The dead had begun to thin hours ago, and now, with the coming of the light, the last of them vanished into the grasses like nightmares dissolving with waking.
The group slowed atop a ridge, surveying the road ahead—clear, blessedly clear, stretching wide between fields of silvered grass waving gently in the morning breeze.
It would be a gamble, pushing on through the day. They were battered. They were tired.
But they had made it this far.
And the sight of those walls—those impossibly high, steadfast walls—seemed to lift their bodies beyond weariness.
Koda looked across the carriage to the others.
No words were needed.
They would ride.
Not in fear this time.
Not in desperate escape.
But with hope surging in their veins.
The sun rose higher as they pressed forward, casting the plains into vivid golds and brilliant greens. The silvergrass along the roadside danced like ocean waves under the soft wind. The drone, long dimmed to conserve its magic, glowed faintly but proudly, bobbing ahead of them.
As they drew closer, details sharpened—the banners of the city flaring high above the gates, deep crimson and white, the symbol of the First Crest embroidered in broad strokes. Guards patrolled the walls, visible now, their spears glinting in the light. Smoke from distant cookfires rose into the sky in curling trails. The city was awake. Alive.
Terron grinned under his breath, reins firm in his calloused hands.
Seta leaned forward, shading her eyes.
Renn, sitting wrapped in a blanket beside Eno, let out a slow, relieved breath.
Even Elise, ever cautious, lowered her guard for just a heartbeat.
And Maia—Maia smiled.
A real, bright smile.
The kind Koda hadn't seen in weeks.
Koda felt it too—a low, deep thrum of something he hadn't let himself taste for too long.
Hope.
The gates of Callestan grew larger with every breath, every heartbeat.
And this time—
There would be no running.
No death at their heels.
Just the sound of home calling them forward.
The carriage rolled up the final rise toward the city gates, the morning sun catching on iron-banded stone and flaring along the tall, fortified walls. Glyphs woven into the masonry flickered faintly, forming a web of light along the blackened stone—layers of protection that hummed quietly even during daylight.
Two guards waited at the heavy outer gate, spears in hand, their armor marked with the deep red sash of Callestan's outer warders. They were young—not untrained, but not battle-hardened either. Neither had expected much more than merchant carts or supply runners that day.
And certainly not travelers from the east.
One of the guards, a lanky man with sun-bleached hair sticking to his forehead, stepped forward with a confused frown as the carriage approached, slowing to a stop.
He looked them over—saw the bloodstained weapons, the battered horses, the exhaustion stamped into every line of their faces—and hesitated.
"From the east?" he said, almost disbelieving.
Terron leaned down from the driver's seat, voice rough from dust and long nights. "Last I checked, yeah. East. Why?"
The guard traded a glance with his companion—a shorter woman whose hand instinctively tightened on her spear.
"No one's come from that way in months," she said, more softly. "We thought…"
She let it trail off.
Koda climbed down, stretching slowly, feeling every bone in his body protest the movement. He approached the guards calmly, hands visible, weapon summoned as a single saber and sheathed at his hip - people were less weary when they could see the potential threat.
"We'll submit a full report," he said, tone even. "Right now, we're just asking for entry."
The guards scrambled slightly, pulling a worn leather ledger from a side table bolted into the stone wall. They scribbled a quick intake—names, origin, condition. One of them sketched a rough description of the group in shorthand script. Another scrawled "possible survivors from eastern reaches" into the notes.
They were professional enough—but Koda saw the uncertainty behind their eyes.
Survivors weren't expected.
When the brief report was finished, the guards handed it off to a runner boy, who took off through a side door at a sprint.
They waited. The seconds dragging. Dust swirled around the hooves of the horses. The heavy, ancient gates stood closed behind the guards—silent, immovable.
And then—
The side door swung open again.
A figure emerged.
Not a guard.
Not an officer.
A representative of the Order.
The man was tall and spare, robes of deep indigo trimmed with silver falling neatly to his boots. His hair was pale, almost colorless under the morning sun, and his eyes carried the sharp, unsettling clarity of someone who looked through more than what was in front of him.
His presence was immediate. Heavy without being loud. Absolute without being aggressive.
Both guards stiffened instantly, standing ramrod straight. One nearly dropped his spear, fumbling it before catching himself.
The Order representative crossed the short distance without hurry, but with complete purpose, stopping just before Koda.
He offered a slight bow—not low, but present, respectful in a way that said he knew exactly who he was greeting.
"Koda of Oria," he said, voice quiet but cutting through the air. "Maia of the Holy Mother. And companions."
Koda felt the others behind him shift slightly, instincts honed by weeks of survival twitching at being named so precisely.
The representative continued without waiting for confirmation. He held out a rolled parchment—their entry permit, sealed with the Order's crest.
"You are welcome in Callestan," the man said. "Your arrival has been… anticipated."
The two guards paled slightly, exchanging a panicked glance.
They hadn't been impolite—but they hadn't exactly rolled out banners either.
Now, standing stiffly as the representative of the Order personally greeted a group they'd almost waved through like common travelers, the weight of their mistake clung to their skin like a second uniform.
Koda accepted the parchment, feeling its wax seal still warm from the sigil spell that sealed it.
The gates behind the guards began to groan open, the ancient wood and metal parting on slow, grinding hinges.
The path into Callestan lay before them.
And behind them—the broken, bloody road they had left behind.
They did not step forward yet.
For just a breath longer—they stood, suspended between survival and something entirely new.
The gates yawned open wider, and Koda and the others stepped through, following the Order representative in a slow, deliberate procession.
The runner boy—barely more than fourteen—darted ahead, barking orders to the stablehands to meet them just inside. Their horses and battered carriage were quickly intercepted by the waiting stablemasters, who took the reins with brisk efficiency. Within moments, their gear was already being cataloged, checked, and moved toward maintenance without the group even needing to say a word.
Callestan unfolded before them like a living map.
It was smaller than Sanctum Oria—far smaller—but where Oria had stretched wide with layered districts and winding streets, Callestan was tight, ordered, deliberate. Heavy fortifications shaped the very bones of the city. Stone towers punctuated the walls at precise intervals, each equipped with heavy siege ballistae. Guard patrols marched in pairs and quads, armor uniform and polished, their movements almost synchronized.
The streets themselves were clean, wide enough for traffic but narrow enough to defend. Market squares were set at regular distances, each enclosed enough to be barricaded if needed. Homes were sturdily built, low to the ground, their windows shuttered not just for weather, but clearly for security as well.
Here—everyone had a place.
Civilians moved with a quiet, practiced urgency, dressed in muted tones. Merchants barked orders efficiently. Couriers ran without hesitation. Even children sweeping storefronts seemed to know exactly where they needed to be and what they needed to do. There was no wasted energy. No lingering.
Callestan hadn't survived by faith alone.
It had survived by discipline.
The Order representative moved smoothly ahead of them, not rushing, but making clear that their arrival was expected—and that their time here would not be spent wandering.
The city buzzed—but not with fear.
Anticipation.
A kind of taut energy rippled through the streets, as if the people of Callestan sensed change coming, and braced themselves for it. But there was no panic. No wild-eyed dread like Koda had seen in Blount or the outposts farther east.
The Shield ruled here—the Shield of Callestan, the great order of defenders.
The other churches—of the Librarians, the Forgers, and the followers of the Holy Mother—supported it, but they did not guide it. Here, protection was king.
And the city wore it like armor.
They passed through two inner checkpoints, each one more heavily guarded than the last, before the representative finally led them toward a broad, open square.
Ahead loomed the capital building, its towering facade a testament to old-world craftsmanship—vaulted stone, intricate carvings, heavy banners of deep blue and silver hanging in disciplined rows.
But the Order representative did not lead them there.
Instead, he veered slightly to the right, toward a second structure—large, imposing, and meticulously maintained, but without the grandeur of the capital itself.
It was a building built for function first: stone walls smooth and straight, reinforced doors wide enough for the passage of soldiers in full armor. Its windows were plain and narrow, spaced evenly like watchpoints.
There was power in its presence—not ostentatious, but undeniable.
They came to a halt before the thick iron gates at the building's front. Guards in silver-and-blue armor flanked the entrance, halberds crossed, expressions stern but respectful.
The Order representative turned back to them for the first time since leaving the outer gate, his face unreadable beneath the midday sun.
"This is where your path continues," he said quietly.
He gestured once—and the gates began to open with a deep, grinding growl.
The iron gates swung wide, the heavy chains rattling deep within the stone.
Beyond the threshold, the building's interior unfolded with the same sober authority as its outer walls—grand in size, but stark in design. The floors were laid with wide, gray slate tiles, worn smooth by centuries of disciplined footfall. Walls of pale stone soared upward, their only decorations the carved sigils of the Eternal Guide and the crests of the Four Churches: the open book of the Librarians, the hammer and flame of the Forgers, the crossed shields of the Shield, and the blooming branch of the Holy Mother.
Their guide—the Order representative who had met them at the gate—led them without hesitation through the cavernous entrance hall and up a sweeping stone staircase that branched into twin paths. His steps echoed with purpose.
They climbed silently, the exhaustion of their long journey pressing against their shoulders like wet cloth, but none faltered.
At the top of the flight, the hallway opened into a narrower, but still tall corridor lined with thick oak doors. Soft golden light poured through glass-paneled sconces, casting long shadows across the floors.
The representative stopped before a cluster of heavy doors, turning to face them once more.
"Here," he said simply. "Rooms prepared for each of you. You are guests of the Order. Lodging, meals, and necessities will be provided."
He gestured to a small attendant stepping forward—a younger scribe robed in slate gray—carrying a flat, blackwood tray.
Laid across the tray were seven coins.
One by one, the scribe presented them.
Each coin was about the size of a human eye—broad, thick, and heavy-looking. Smoky gray, polished smooth at the edges, but engraved sharply in the center with a single handprint. An ancient symbol—older even than the written scripts—denoting not ownership, but responsibility.
The scribe handed them out carefully:
Seta. Eno. Elise. Terron. Renn. Maia.
Each received one of the smoky gray coins, their surfaces catching the light like mist caught in stone.
When he reached Koda, however, he paused.
The final coin wasn't gray.
It was black—deep, rich, and without sheen, like a shard of polished obsidian.
The handprint carved into it seemed darker still, as if it had been burned into the surface rather than engraved.
The scribe bowed slightly deeper as he placed it into Koda's hand.
The representative's voice, calm and unwavering, filled the space.
"These tokens mark your right to move freely within Callestan, and through the gates should you choose to leave and return. They will serve as your proof of passage and protection under the Order."
He paused a moment longer, as if weighing his next words carefully.
"The smoke-gray denotes mid-level authority—equal to our enforcers. Your presence will be respected. Your needs heard."
He turned his gaze to Koda, sharp as a blade honed too fine to be seen.
"The obsidian token," he said, voice dipping lower, "is held by few. It grants access and influence equal to the heads of our great houses. You will be treated accordingly."
Another pause.
Weight pressed into the air like a second gravity.
"Use it wisely."
The representative bowed once more, a slow, formal dip of the head.
No further instructions were given. None were needed.
The meaning was clear.
They had not merely survived to reach Callestan.
They had arrived as something more.
As the others peeled away toward their rooms, shoulders heavy with exhaustion and relief, a voice called out—sharp, deliberate—cutting across the stillness.
"Koda."
He stopped mid-step, feeling the weight of that single word sink like a hook into his spine.
The others hesitated, glancing back, but the representative simply raised a hand—calm, dismissive.
"This won't take long," he said, though the undercurrent in his tone promised otherwise.
Koda turned slowly, meeting the man's gaze.
There was no malice there.
But there was urgency.
The kind that couldn't be ignored.