Harlen didn't respond immediately.
He stood with his arms crossed, watching Vesperyn.
Assessing.
He'd trained people before. Dozens of them over the years. Some had been talented. Some desperate. A few had been reckless enough to get themselves killed within weeks.
Vesperyn wasn't reckless.
That was the problem.
Reckless people burned out fast. They pushed until something broke, then they stopped.
Vesperyn pushed until something broke, then pushed harder.
There was a difference.
"You're not training anymore," Harlen said finally. "You're running."
Vesperyn's smile faded. "What?"
"From what happened," Harlen continued, stepping closer. "You think if you move fast enough, it won't catch up."
Vesperyn's jaw tightened. "That's not—"
"It doesn't work," Harlen said, cutting him off. "Trust me. I've tried."
The words landed heavier than Vesperyn expected.
Harlen held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked away.
"What's driving you?" he asked quietly.
Vesperyn stopped moving.
For a moment, he didn't answer.
Then he spoke, voice carefully controlled.
"I have a goal."
Harlen waited.
"I need to see my family again. No matter what it takes."
The words came out steady, like he'd practiced saying them. Because he had. Every night before sleep. Every morning when he woke.
"If it's impossible," Vesperyn continued, "then I'll make it possible."
His hands curled into fists.
"I'll find a way. Even if I have to tear through time itself to do it."
Silence.
Harlen studied him for a long moment.
"That's not a goal," he said finally. "That's an obsession."
Vesperyn met his eyes. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," Harlen said. "Obsessions make you stupid. Goals keep you alive long enough to reach them."
He stepped forward.
"You want to see them again? Fine. Then you survive first. You get strong enough that nothing in this world can stop you. You learn how it works. You find the people who know things."
He tapped Vesperyn's chest, right over his heart.
"But you do it smart. Because rushing toward impossible things is how you end up dead before you ever get close."
Vesperyn swallowed.
Harlen's expression softened slightly.
"I'm not saying give up," he said. "I'm saying don't let it kill you before you get there."
He turned back toward the hut.
"Now come on. You earned that story."
Harlen opened his mouth to speak.
"I was a captain in the Pilgrim..."
The air trembled.
Not sound. Not wind.
Something else.
A vibration that came up through the ground, rattling in Vesperyn's teeth before he consciously registered it.
Harlen's whole body went rigid.
His eyes snapped toward the treeline, already tracking something Vesperyn couldn't see.
"No," he said quietly.
The vibration came again. Stronger.
Dust shook loose from the branches overhead. Small stones rolled across the clearing.
"No, no, no....." Harlen's voice dropped into something colder. "Not now. Not here."
Vesperyn felt his pulse quicken. "What is it?"
Harlen didn't answer.
He was already moving toward Vesperyn, hands reaching for something inside his coat.
"We need to....."
The third vibration hit.
Harder.
The ground cracked beneath them.
Vesperyn staggered, barely keeping his footing.
Then he felt it.
Warmth.
Spreading down his upper lip.
He touched his face.
His fingers came away red.
"Harlen?" His voice cracked. "I'm—I'm bleeding—"
Harlen's expression went from tense to horror in an instant.
"Fuck," he spat.
He grabbed Vesperyn's shoulders, eyes scanning his face, his arms, his neck.
Blood was seeping from Vesperyn's nose. Then from the corners of his eyes. Thin lines of red began appearing along his skin, emerging from nowhere, like his body was leaking from the inside out.
"It's already started," Harlen said, voice tight. "Listen to me...."
Another vibration.
Vesperyn gasped as the bleeding intensified. His vision swam.
Harlen's hands moved fast, pulling light from somewhere deep. A barrier began forming around Vesperyn—rushed, layered, desperate.
"Stay inside this," Harlen ordered. "No matter what you hear. No matter what you see."
"What's happening?" Vesperyn asked, panic rising.
The ground split open twenty feet away.
Something massive moved beneath the surface.
Harlen's face went pale.
"Rank Four," he whispered.
Then louder, to himself: "I can't.....I don't have enough left—"
He looked at Vesperyn one last time.
"I'm sorry."
Vesperyn barely had time to react before Harlen grabbed him and threw.
The barrier flared. The world spun.
Vesperyn flew backward through the air, crashing through branches, the forest blurring past him.
He hit the ground hard hundred meters away, rolling, the breath knocked out of him.
When he finally stopped, gasping, he looked back.
The centipede was pulling itself free.
And Harlen was already running toward it.
Harlen hit the ground running.
His hand went to his chest, fingers closing around the worn symbol beneath his coat.
"Watcher of the Path," he said, voice steady despite everything. "Grant clarity, not mercy. Give me your blessing, Goddess of Pilgrim."
Light gathered around him.
Not the explosive, radiant kind. This was focused. Controlled. White light traced along his arms, sinking into muscle and bone, reinforcing what was already breaking down.
A spear formed in his grip—long, narrow, perfectly balanced.
The centipede's head rose from the shattered ground.
Fifteen feet of armored nightmare.
Four limbs unfolded from its skull, each one tipped with hooked claws. Its mouth opened in layers, rings of pale feelers twitching as they tasted the air.
Then it pulsed.
The frequency wave rolled outward, invisible but immediate.
Harlen felt it slam into him—pressure against his eardrums, his sinuses, the soft tissue behind his eyes. Blood welled in his mouth. He spat and kept moving.
The centipede tracked him.