Vesperyn staggered upright, legs shaking. His whole body felt wrong—like clothes that didn't fit quite right anymore.
As he stood, Harlen went still.
His eyes narrowed.
He leaned in slightly, head tilting, like he was listening to something Vesperyn couldn't hear.
Then he inhaled sharply through his nose.
His expression changed.
Not shock. Worse.
Recognition.
"No," he muttered. "No, that's not....."
He grabbed Vesperyn by the shoulders, ignoring the pain it caused his broken arm. His eyes searched Vesperyn's face, then dropped lower, like he was looking at something beneath the skin.
"What is it?" Vesperyn asked, stomach dropping. "What's wrong?"
Harlen's grip tightened.
"You awakened," he said quietly.
The words should have been good news. Celebratory.
They sounded like a death sentence.
"What?" Vesperyn's mind was still catching up. "I...when? How do you—"
"I can sense it," Harlen interrupted. He released Vesperyn and stepped back, running his good hand through his hair. "The aura. Every Pathway has one. Distinct. Unmistakable."
He looked at Vesperyn like he was seeing him for the first time.
"Yours is..." He trailed off, jaw tight. "You're Harbinger."
The word hung between them.
Vesperyn waited for explanation.
Harlen cursed—low, vicious, inventive.
"Of all the fucking Paths," he said. "Of course it's that one."
"Harbinger," Vesperyn repeated, testing the word. "Is that... bad?"
Harlen let out a sound that might have been a laugh if it had any humor in it.
"Bad?" He started walking...limping, really—forcing his body to move faster than it wanted to. "That's not the word I'd use."
Vesperyn followed, stumbling slightly. "Then what word would you use?"
"Fatal."
The word was flat. Final.
Harlen didn't slow down. If anything, he moved faster, glancing at the sky like he was measuring time they didn't have.
"In the Pilgrim Kingdom," he continued, voice clipped, "Harbingers aren't citizens. They're not criminals. They're not even people."
He ducked under a low branch, cursing when it jostled his broken arm.
"They're enemy combatants. Hostile foreign agents. Spies from the Shade Kingdom."
"But I'm not" Vesperyn started.
"Doesn't matter," Harlen cut him off. "The Church doesn't ask where you're from. They sense what you are, and they act."
He shot Vesperyn a look.
"And by 'act,' I mean execute. Immediately. No trial. No detention. No investigation."
Vesperyn's stomach turned. "Why?"
"Because of the war," Harlen said. "Sixty years ago. Pilgrim and Shade nearly destroyed each other. Millions died. Cities disappeared—not conquered, disappeared. Erased."
He pushed through a thicket, not bothering to hold branches back.
"Harbingers were the ones who did it. They opened ruptures in reality itself. Collapsed entire regions into void."
His voice dropped.
"The Pilgrims still remember. Their grandparents remember. Every child grows up learning what Harbingers can do."
He stopped suddenly, turning to face Vesperyn.
"You understand what I'm saying?" he asked. "To them, you're not a person who awakened a dangerous Path. You're the thing that killed their families three generations ago."
Vesperyn swallowed. "And we're in Pilgrim territory."
"The border," Harlen corrected. "Which might be worse. Border patrols are paranoid. Aggressive. They're looking for infiltrators."
He started walking again.
"And you just lit up like a fucking beacon."
They reached the caravan as the sun began to set.
The structure was damaged—one side torn open, wood splintered, supplies scattered. Evidence of the centipede's rampage.
Harlen sat heavily on the steps, breathing hard.
"Bandages," he said, nodding toward the storage compartment. "Under the bench."
Vesperyn found them and knelt beside him.
Harlen tried to wrap his own arm, but his good hand was shaking too badly. The cloth slipped twice.
"Let me," Vesperyn said.
Harlen hesitated, then nodded.
Vesperyn worked carefully, wrapping the broken arm with steady hands. His fingers moved on autopilot—around, under, pull tight, secure.
His mind was somewhere else entirely.
Harbinger Pathway.
Harlen had explained how Pathways worked during training. They weren't random. They followed bloodlines. DNA. Compatibility.
If he'd awakened as a Harbinger...
Vesperyn's hands slowed slightly.
That meant he had Harbinger blood.
Which meant one of his parents had been a Harbinger.
Or descended from one.
He thought back to that night.
His mother's magic had been white light. Pure. Ordered. Defensive barriers and protective fields.
That was Pilgrim magic.
Harlen used the same kind. Drew power from the same source—the Goddess of Pilgrim.
If his mother was Pilgrim...
Vesperyn's throat tightened.
Then the Harbinger blood hadn't come from her.
His real father.
Not the man whose head had rolled across the kitchen floor, that man had never used magic at all. Had never even seemed to understand it.
His biological father.
The one his mother had been running from.
The one she'd told never to find her.
Kaiden.
The realization hit like a physical blow.
Vesperyn's hands froze mid-wrap.
*Kaiden is from the Shade Kingdom.*
*Harbingers come from Shade.*
*Kaiden killed my... the man who raised me.*
*Took Darian.*
*And I have his blood.*
His vision blurred.
"Ves?"
Harlen's voice cut through the spiral.
Vesperyn blinked, forcing himself back to the present. His hands were trembling now.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Just—tired."
He finished the bandage quickly, tying it off with more force than necessary.
Harlen studied him carefully.
"You alright?" he asked quietly.
Vesperyn didn't answer right away.
Was he alright?
He'd just learned that the man who destroyed his family—who killed his father, kidnapped his brother, forced his mother to die—
That man was his biological father.
That the power he'd just awakened came from the same source as the monster who'd ruined everything.
"No," Vesperyn said finally. "But I will be."
He stood up, turning away so Harlen couldn't see his face.
His hands curled into fists.
*I don't care whose blood I have,* he thought viciously. *It doesn't change anything.*
*Kaiden destroyed my family.*
*And I'm going to make him pay for it.*
*Even if I have to use his own power to do it.*
The irony wasn't lost on him.
But right now, he didn't care.
****
Far away,
A woman knelt beside a pool of perfectly still water.
The Cathedral of White was silent, immaculate. No dust.
The High Seeress wore a blindfold of woven silver cloth. Her hands rested lightly against the stone as she prayed, breath slow and measured.
Ripple
The water rippled.
Then again, harder.
The surface darkened for the briefest instant, like rust blooming beneath glass.
The Seeress froze.
She lifted her head slowly and inhaled.
Ozone.
Old blood.
Her lips parted.
"A bell just tolled," she said quietly. "In the forest."
She rose to her feet.
"An unauthorized bell," she continued. "A dirty one."
Shapes shifted in the surrounding light. Paladins stepped forward from the walls, silent and waiting.
The Seeress turned toward them.
"It is a Harbinger."
******
(PS: Send Powerstones)