The trees were twisted, their bark white and crystalline. The air here didn't smell like sulfur; it smelled clean like a winter morning.
It was a Natural Sanctuary, one of the few places where the White Halo grew in the wild.
They made a small, hidden fire. Elara boiled water and added a handful of crushed Halo Stone and bitter bark. She brought the cup to Kai.
"Drink. It will taste like lye, but it will stop the rot from spreading to your chest.
Kai drank. The liquid was foul, making his stomach churn, but a few minutes later, the violent shaking in his left hand slowed.
He looked at Miri, who was curled up asleep by the fire.
"She shouldn't see me like this," he whispered.
"She will see the worst," Elara replied, sharpening a small knife by the firelight.
"She is a child of Oros, kai. She will or has to know that light always comes at the cost of something."
The night in the Weeping Grove was the first time Kai had a silent night in years. No wind, no scratching, no distance screams. The ironwood trees stood like silver sentinels, the salt in their sap spreading in all directions that kept the Void Beasts at bay.
Kai sat by the dying embers at the fire, his left arm wrapped in clean linen soaked in bitter bark juice.
The feeling was coming back to his fingers: a dull, throbbing ache that was better than the numbness.
He looked at The Scourge leaning against a white trunk. The iron was cool now, but the notches were stained with the grey ash of the Shepherd.
"You are staring at it again," Elara said, walking over with a piece of dried fruit. She tossed it to him.
"The sword. You look at it like it is a gravestone."
Kai caught the fruit with his good hand. "It is. For whoever is on the other side of it. And eventually, for me."
Elara sat on a root across from him.
"The Shepherd said something before you burned him. He called Heartbroken. And he wanted the Spark. He wasn't talking about a fire pit, Kai."
Kai chewed the fruit slowly. The sweetness felt foreign on his tongue.
"The Hearth Guard was the title of the Fire Hero. The legend says he stood at the center of the world and kept the fire alive so the sun wouldn't fail. The Church says he succeeded. The Shepherd…he was telling me the legend is a lie."
"If the Hearth is broken," Elara whispered, looking up at the violent sky through the white branches," then the sun isn't just away. It is dead. And your Mark… It is not a blessing from the Light; it is a fragment of a corpse.
Kai didn't answer. He didn't want to think about being a fragment of a corpse.
He looked over at Miri. She was sleep-talking to Joram by the wagons, her small hands moving as she described something. She looked almost like a normal child in the safety of the Grove.
"We will reach the inner walls in two days," Elara said, her voice returning to her business tone.
"With that service pass and the news of a killed Harbinger, we will be famous. Or arrested. After all, the Church doesn't like it when mercenaries do their job better than paladins."
"I don't want fame," Kai grunted, standing up. His knees popped, and a sharp pain flared in his shoulder. "I want a hot bath and enough salt pork to make me forget the taste of that mash. After that, I am taking the girl and finding a place where the sky is still blue."
"There is no such place left, Kai," Elara said softly.
The peace of the Grove was suddenly broken by a low, vibrating hum from the ground. The white trees shivered, and a fine dust of salt fell from their leaves like snow.
Kai grabbed The Scourge. He scanned the darkness beyond the white trunks.
"Joram! Get the horses!"
A man stepped out from behind a massive ironwood tree. He wasn't a void beast. He was a human, wearing heavy, gold-trimmed plate armor that looked like it belonged in a cathedral. In his hand, he carried a mace that pulsed with a steady, rhythmic yellow light.
"Peace, you all," the man said. His voice was deep and resonant, like a cathedral bell.
"I am Vane, of the Third Order of the Spark. I followed the smoke of the Harbinger's end. I didn't expect to find a Scourge wielder to be alive at the center of it."
Kai didn't lower his blade. He watched the gold-trimmed armor of the knight. The pure light from Vane's mace made Kai's Mark itch with a strange, oily sensation.
It was like two magnets of the same pole trying to push each other apart.
"The Third Order," Kai spat. "You are a long way from the High Cathedral, Vane. Did you get lost, or did the Church run out of poor men to send into the mist?"
Vane took a step forward.
"I am a seeker of the Truth, Scourge bearer. I felt the death of a Shepherd. Such a feat requires a Great Flame….or Great Sin."
Vane's eyes moved to the unconscious Miri by the fire.
"And why do you travel with an unclaimed child?"
Kai stepped between Vane and the girl. He felt the heat in his shoulder rising.
"She is none of your business, Church dog. Walk away while you still have a head to put on that helmet."
Vane didn't reach for his mace. He simply raised his empty hand. A soft, humming yellow light gathered in his palm; the spark. It wasn't hot like Kai's fire; it was blinding and sterile.
"You are unstable, Hearth Guard. The Red is already eating your nerves. If you don't come with me to the Salt Sanctuary for purification, you will turn before the next moon."