Trillstone Way, Northern Velgrath
By the time the trail curved toward the hillside, night had pulled its shawl tight over the land. Fog pooled like broth in the gullies, veiling the brush and bramble in a quiet stillness only broken by hoofbeats and the occasional groan of saddle leather.
Aeron Thorne pulled his cloak tighter against the wind. It had teeth now—dry and cutting, a sign that frost would creep in before moon's end. Harwin rode beside him, his silhouette stooped but steady. Behind them trailed three more: a former sellaxe named Elric, a washer-widow with one eye, and the same sharp-eyed boy from the ruins, now silent but resolute.
The path narrowed into a ledge overgrown with moss and nettle, marked only by the worn stones known to traders as the Trillstones—ancient and rounded, said to have once rung like chimes underfoot when tread by those of "true blood." Now they rang for no one.
The Widow's Hearth appeared in a hollow just past the bend, half-sunk into the hill and roofed with peat and sod. Ivy strangled the chimney. Light bled from its warped shutters, warm and flickering, promising bread and drink—or treachery.
"See that?" Harwin grunted, nodding to the symbol carved above the doorframe—a looped knot of thorns and bone.
"A ward," Aeron murmured. "Folk magic."
"Folk magic don't stop blades."
"No," Aeron said, dismounting. "But it tells you who might use one."
Inside, the hearth was wide and low, its flames crawling up damp logs. Ten souls sat around three tables—miners, fur traders, and two women in faded noble gowns turned inside out. At the back, a huge iron pot simmered over coals, watched by an innkeep with hair gone white and eyes milk-clouded.
She looked up as Aeron entered. Her voice rasped like gravel over honey.
"No coin, no broth. No names, no quarrels."
Aeron nodded. "Then we'll have broth and quiet."
The woman squinted at him, then at the boy. "That one yours?"
"Found him beside a dead farm."
"Then he's yours now."
Harwin chuckled darkly and passed a coin to the crone. "Three bowls and oatbread. Nothing boiled too long."
The party settled in near the hearth. Conversation in the room dulled but did not die. Murmurs swelled and swirled—"river tolls doubled," "Lord Caerwyn's levy vanished," "Velstrom banners seen south of the Lowpine."
Aeron said nothing. He watched. Always.
Then he heard it—three notes, hummed low by a hooded man near the hearth. Not a song, not quite. A signal. Three tones: pause, then two sharp.
Harwin's hand drifted to his sword pommel. "You hear it?"
"I hear it."
The man rose, swaying like a reed. "Stranger," he said to Aeron. "You wear no sigil."
"Not for lack of birth," Aeron replied. "Only lack of patience for judgment."
The man nodded, and from his sleeve, a token dropped—a coin, cut in half. The crest of House Thorne etched on one side. The other scorched black.
Aeron stared. That coin had been minted twenty years ago, before exile. Before the Crown's decree. Only ten were made. He had carried one. His father another. The rest had vanished.
"Who gave you that?" he asked, voice low.
The man smiled through yellow teeth. "A ghost."
He turned and walked out the door.
Harwin stood halfway. "Trap?"
"No," Aeron said, rising slowly. "A door."
He followed the man out, into the fog. Behind him, the boy edged closer to Harwin.
"Is he going to be killed?" the boy asked.
Harwin didn't answer. He watched the door, hand on his hilt.
"No," he finally said. "He's already dead. He just hasn't been buried yet."