Outpost Vester did not look like the salvation it was trumped up to be.
It looked like a scar. A very ugly one.
Stone ramparts hunched against the dark like broken teeth, patched in places with metal plating salvaged from older ruins. The walls rose high—higher than Grim Hollow's ever were—but their height told a different story. Not confidence nor security, but the telling of a place ravaged consequently. It was shaded with the stench of paranoia.
That's because no one chooses to paint a building knowing it'll be stained the next day, just as no one wraps a wound expecting the bandage to be torn off.
Two watchtowers flanked the entrance, each glowing with pale lantern-crystals, and two squads of soldiers paced in restless circles beneath them. The sight should have brought Adam some measure of comfort.
It didn't.
Because even from afar, he saw the divide.
