The trail into Dustmere was lined with low pines and half-sunk fenceposts, the kind that leaned inward like they were trying to listen. Fog clung to the earth in strips, and the wind carried the faint smell of coal smoke and stale ale.
Septimus walked at the front of a trio, boots crunching over gravel. His eyes moved with the hills, shoulders loose but alert.
He traveled with odd company, if not yet kin.
Lottie Loring strode with a spring in her step and fire behind her eyes, wild and untamed. She had the look of someone who’d never been caged properly, and may the Totems help the fool who tried. Her laughter cut through the dry air like it meant to rattle the sun. She wore her confidence like armor, and fought with fists instead of reason.
Silas Vell, on the other side, moved differently. With a near silent, measured stride. The shadow that clung to his heels wasn’t just a trick of the light. It was tethered to something deeper, and darker.
His Aberrant nature didn’t flare like Lottie’s connection to the elements. It was coiled, restrained, marked with an air of solemnity. His cloak hung like dusk across his shoulders, and he watched the world like it might tilt sideways at any moment.
They’d shared roads long enough to fall into rhythm, but not long enough to trust the silence between them.
Dustmere rose from the horizon like a dying ember.
Smoke-stained wood. Slumped roofs. A crooked outline that suggested the town had been forgotten by whatever order once graced this stretch of the frontier. At its center stood a cracked totem stone, jagged and leaning, like it had tried to scream, but shattered instead.
At the edge of town, Lottie elbowed Septimus in the ribs. A playful jab. One that might’ve knocked over someone less rooted.
“So what’s your theory, hammer man? Totem blew itself up? Angry squirrel? Uncontrolled totemic flare?”
Septimus didn’t answer right away.
His gaze drifted to a weathered plaque bolted crooked on the crumbled shrine wall. Most of the words had been worn smooth by wind and rain, but one line remained. Darkened by soot, aged by time, like it had outlived the stone it clung to.
Beware the Hands That Weigh the Earth.
His jaw set, just a little too tight.
He’d seen words like this before. Twenty-some years ago. Closer to home than he was standing now.
“I think I want a drink,” he muttered, brushing past her without breaking stride. “And maybe someone inside the bar who can give us the story straight.”
Lottie chuckled, catching up with a bounce in her step. “You know, for someone so cold, you’re a damn heat magnet for weird trouble.”
“I don’t attract it,” he said. “It finds me.”
Silas said nothing, his eyes moved from the plaque to the broken totem. Something in his gaze darkened.
Septimus noticed, but didn’t ask, not yet.
They walked through Dustmere with the weight of silence heavy around them. Not just their own silence, but the town’s. No one greeted them. Doors creaked shut as they passed. The only things that watched were the wind and the broken stone.
Trouble had found Dustmere. And if history was any lesson, it would find them too.
The tavern sat near the square, crooked in its foundation and leaning like it had given up on right angles years ago. The door creaked when they entered. Not loud, but enough for the two drinkers inside to glance up before quickly returning to their cups. It was midday, and already the place stank of cheap malt and old smoke.
Septimus stepped in first. He moved with that deliberate weight that made people watch him without realizing they were doing it.
He didn’t speak at first. Just took a slow look around, like he was measuring the place in nails and ghosts.
The barkeep was lean, all elbows and anxious glances, polishing a mug that hadn’t seen soap in a week.
He tensed as they approached, and for a moment, looked like he was thinking of running.
Septimus leaned against the counter like he’d done it a hundred times before. Cold-eyed, calm, and carved from whatever stone the totems used to be made from.
“You serve much traffic these days?” he asked, voice low.
The barkeep blinked, then answered a little too quickly. “Not since the break.”
“The break?” Septimus lifted an eyebrow. “Totem doesn’t crack on its own. What happened?”
“Nothing to do with us,” the man said. “Folks said it was some kind of ritual. But that’s all stories.”
Septimus let the silence hang. Just long enough to make the man sweat.
“Stories get people killed.”
The barkeep didn’t reply.
There was something behind his eyes. An old fear, sealed behind habit. Septimus recognized it. He’d seen that look in guttered streets and in men who’d outlived their choices.
He clocked it, but didn’t push.
Behind him, Lottie leaned against the bar with a lazy grin, drumming her fingers against the wood. “Friendly little place,” she said. “Real warm welcome.”
Silas lingered near the doorway, half in shadow, scanning the corners of the room like they might peel open.
Septimus straightened and stepped back.
“We’ll find answers,” he said, “just not from here. Come on. Let’s go stare at something cursed.”
The corner of Lottie’s mouth pulled. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
The shrine stood at the edge of Dustmere, tucked behind overgrown hedgerows and half-collapsed stone walls. Whatever reverence it once held had been choked out by neglect.
Vines crept over the cracked stone path where herbs might’ve once grown. The air smelled of dry rot and memory. Glyphs etched into the archway bore scorch marks. Their language old, nearly forgotten, burned at the edges as if the words themselves had caught fire.
Septimus crouched at the base of the shattered totem, his fingers tracing moss-laced stone. The fracture cut clean through the heart of the monolith, like a wound that never healed.
“Still breathing,” he muttered. “Barely.”
Silas stepped forward, silent until the moment he spoke, and when he did, it was with a weight that settled over them like ash.
“It’s not just broken,” he said, “it’s grieving.”
Lottie’s smile faded. Even she knew better than to joke with a line like that.
They spent the next hour scouring Dustmere’s hidden corners. The alleys behind butcher stalls, the shaded folds of the blackmarket.
Septimus spoke with a few traders tucked beneath sagging awnings, slipping coin and wary glances until someone offered up a small item wrapped in a scrap of dyed silk. A shard, jagged and still faintly pulsing.
It vibrated softly in Septimus’s palm, like the echo of something still screaming, and he turned and held it out to Silas. “Here. Maybe it’ll keep you from dragging us into any more cursed basements.”
Silas didn’t smile. Just took the shard and studied it with slow reverence.
“It’s not enough,” he said.
Septimus exhaled through his nose. “Of course it’s not.”
They returned that evening, when the last of the sun had dipped behind the hills and the shadows stretched long across Dustmere. The entrance to the shrine’s lower vault lay hidden behind a thicket of hanging moss and rusted iron.
It took effort to pry the grate free. Stone groaned, roots snapped, and silence bled into every motion. The steps below descended into dry, metallic air. What lay at the bottom was not ruin.
It was desecration.
Twisted metal lay scattered across the chamber floor, coiled like ribs torn from something too old to die properly. The remains of an ancient leonine Sentinel sprawled like a broken monument to a war no one had spoken of. Its plating had been cracked open from within, claw marks scoring the floor around it in wild spirals. One of its limbs had snapped at the joint and twisted backward, as if it had tried to crawl away from its own failure.
Septimus stepped forward, slow and deliberate. He crouched beside what might’ve once been a crest on the thing’s shoulder and brushed it clean with a gloved hand.
“This wasn’t just left behind,” he muttered, “it was taken apart. Piece by piece.”
Then came a whisper. It wasn't loud, just a rasp, but it slid between the ribs like a blade. A figure wrapped in shadow stepped out from the shadows of the ruined Sentinel, his robes slick with moisture and trailing along the blood-muddied stone. The shadows seemed to gather behind him, trailing like smoke off a fire that had never quite gone out.
“Should’ve stayed blind,” the figure hissed, voice like flint against bone.
Lottie didn’t hesitate. Her reaction was instinctive, born from fire and temper. With a flick of her wrist, a compressed burst of air rocketed forward, slamming into the cultist’s shoulder. He reeled, but not enough.
“You don’t get to narrate, creep,” she snapped, already reaching for another stone.
The shadows retaliated. They surged outward like a pulse, an exhalation of malice. The wave struck like a thrown wall. Septimus caught a glimpse of Lottie and Silas being flung backward before instinct took over.
Pain would come later. He surged forward, the hammer already in his hands, his pulse beating loud enough to drown out fear. His boots skidded across slick stone, and then he was on the cultist, bringing the full weight of steel and fury down. The blow landed with a crack. The robed figure staggered, gasped, but didn’t fall. His eyes, black as pitch, locked with Septimus’s.
“Too slow,” he sneered.
Silas was already moving again, blood trailing from his nose. With a hiss, he extended his hand. Shadows slithered like cords from his palm, wrapping around the cultist’s legs.
“Hold him!” Silas shouted, voice shaking with focus.
Lottie appeared in a flash, fire licking up her arms. She drove a punch into the cultist’s side. There was a crunch of breaking bone, and he thrashed while choking on air.
The shadows erupted again. Dark tendrils lashed in every direction.
Silas didn’t move fast enough. His own shadows buckled, swallowing him whole. For a moment, he vanished. Then the light caught him. He was on the ground, breath ragged, limbs twitching like they didn’t know where to land.
Septimus’s chest clenched as he saw the boy crumple. “Silas!” he roared, voice cracking. It was rage, but it was something else, too. Something that sounded like fear.
The cultist was panting now, bleeding and grinning through cracked lips. He raised his hand again. One more surge. One more curse.
But Lottie was faster. She hurled another wind-carved stone, and it slammed into his temple with a wet crack, snapping his head sideways.
Septimus didn’t remember choosing to move. His legs carried him like they already knew what to do. His grip tightened around the haft of his warhammer. He charged. Each step landed with the weight of something older than anger. Older than vengeance. The hammer struck his chest. A crunch. Then a squelch.
Not a scream, there was no air in what once was the cultist's lungs. Then the wet collapse of a body giving up.
Septimus stood over him, breath ragged, staring at what was left. The warhammer hung low in his grip. His knuckles were white. Behind him, Lottie was already crouching beside Silas, her hands glowing faintly, panic bleeding into her movements.
Her knees hit the stone hard, hands aglow with flickering heat. Her voice trembled beneath the force of her will.
“Come on, come on, kid. Breathe!”
Silas's chest jerked. A shallow inhale. Then another. His eyes cracked open like he was surfacing from deep water.
“Still here,” he rasped.
Septimus stood over them both, his hammer slack in one hand, the other clenched at his side. His breaths came hard, shoulders rising with each one, like the fight hadn’t ended, just shifted.
The room felt wrong. Not dangerous. Just… unfinished. The shadows still hummed. The stone still pulsed. Whatever ritual had been attempted here still hung in the air like smoke that refused to rise.
He watched Silas breathe. Counted each rise of his chest. Only when it grew steady did Septimus find his voice.
“We’re done here,” he said, “We leave tonight.”
Lottie didn't argue, nodding tersely.
They made camp beneath a sky that looked just as fractured as the shrine they’d crawled out of. Stars scattered like broken glass across black velvet. The kind of night that didn’t promise peace, only respite.
Silas slept shallow and still, one hand curled over the edge of his bedroll like he’d meant to reach for something and forgot. His breath had evened out, but Septimus checked it anyway. Twice.
Lottie sat under the crooked silhouette of a dead tree, arms around her knees, quiet for once. The firelight danced across her face, flickering gold over ash-flecked cheeks.
Septimus stayed near the edge of the camp’s glow, the fire painting the front of his armor orange while shadows clung to his back.
He didn’t sleep. Didn’t even try.
His hands moved without purpose. Thumb tracing the worn strap of his gauntlet, tightening it, loosening it, again and again. A nervous tick he hadn’t had since he quit working the roads as a common bandit. Since the days where tents meant bad dreams and worse orders from ruthless bandit bosses.
The image of Silas going down wouldn’t leave his mind. Nor the way Lottie had flung herself into the fight like it didn’t matter if she walked away from it.
They were going to die down there, all of them. He hadn’t stopped it when every warning bell was ringing.
“I should’ve stopped this,” he said, voice low, barely louder than the crackle of flame.
Lottie glanced up, her voice softer than he expected.
“No one saw it coming.”
“I did.” He didn’t look at her. “Just didn’t want to be the bastard who said it out loud.”
“You kind of are that bastard,” she replied, not unkindly. “But I’m glad you’re ours.”
He didn’t answer, but his fingers stopped fidgeting. He watched the fire for a long while after that. Long enough that the stars began to shift overhead. Long enough to think through all the reasons he should’ve walked away when he met them.
Two strangers with scars deeper than sense. Fire and shadow. Chaos on either side of him. They were both trouble. Yet, there was something there. In both of them, a kind of rawness that hadn't calloused over yet. A spark that hadn't gone out, even when the world had tried without reprieve.
He’d seen too many people break. Too many men who cracked under the weight. Maybe, if he could keep them from breaking... he might find himself again, too. He knew that if he doesn't shield their small flame, their spark, then he's truly irredeemable.
His eyes stayed fixed on the fire.
"Best keep them safe", he thought. “Until they can fully stand on their own.”
They didn’t speak much in the days that followed.
Dustmere disappeared behind them in slow retreat, fields gone fallow, fences broken, homes shuttered against rot and memory. Whatever life had clung to that village had begun to loosen its grip the moment the totem cracked.
The cultists hadn’t just shattered stone. They’d uprooted the only anchor that still held the place in place. There would be no rescue. Only a long, quiet death.
Septimus led the way most of the time, walking ahead in silence as the landscape shifted from dust-choked flats to sparse woodlands and stone-lined trails. Nights came cooler. The wind less bitter. Once or twice, Lottie broke the silence with a half-joke that didn’t land, but no one asked her to stop.
They crossed into the very fringes of the aura of Viremoor’s Totem sometime late on the second evening. The hum settled deep in their chests, quiet and persistent. Mana, finding its way back. There was still distance to cover, four full days of travel before the city itself, but the worst of the wilds were behind them.
Stonehollow came into view the following morning.
A small cluster of buildings pressed into the cradle of two hills, smoke rising from narrow chimneys and laundry flapping in the breeze like flags of truce. Chickens wandered roads without fear. A rusted well stood at the heart of the square, worn smooth by years of calloused hands.
The people here didn’t stare openly. But they watched, and in those eyes was something gentler than suspicion, caution worn with care.
They didn’t meet strangers often, but they hadn’t forgotten how. Stonehollow welcomed them with slow warmth.
The healer’s hut was near the eastern edge of town, roof half-covered in creeping ivy and its door creaking like it had stories to tell. Inside, Mira worked in silence, her hands steady as she wrapped fresh linen around Silas’s ribs.
“You act like you’re guarding treasure,” she murmured to Septimus, not looking up. “But you carry it like weight.”
He said nothing for a while. Just watched her work. Watched Silas, face pale in the cot, breathing but quiet. Watched Lottie pacing by the door like a tethered flame.
“They’ve got a spark that I don’t have,” he said at last.
Mira nodded, “then protect them like they deserve.”
Septimus stepped out into the morning sun, blinking against the light. It stung his eyes in that way that always came after too many dark places. The village square looked calm, shaded by overhanging cloth strung between rooftops. A trader’s stall stood quiet in the corner, its shelves lined with gear worn but serviceable.
“Outfit for three?” the merchant asked, watching as Septimus laid out a handful of Stars. Dried meat, rope, and a new bedroll.
Thin coins clinked against the table, violet edges catching the light.
“Yeah.”
“They good folks?”
Septimus glanced back toward the clinic window. Through the warped glass, Lottie’s laugh echoed faintly. Sharp and bright and alive.
He didn’t hesitate, “Yeah, far better than me, in fact.”
The trader’s grin didn’t quite reach his eyes, but there was a flicker. Respect, maybe. He swept the Stars into a folded cloth and gave a nod.
"Well then, you stick close to 'em. The good ones go fast out here."
He gave Septimus a parting sign. Two fingers raised and tapped gently against the wrist of his other hand. A quiet sendoff in the common hand.
Something between take care and watch your back.
As Septimus stepped outside, Viremoor Totem's aura brushed faintly against his skin, a subtle pressure behind the lungs, like the world is holding its breath just a little more patiently now.
Septimus returned to the healer’s hut as the sun tilted west, shadows stretching long across Stonehollow’s square. Inside, the light was soft, filtered through worn curtains. He found both Lottie and Silas upright. Tired, but talking. Color had returned to their cheeks, though it still sat faint beneath the bruises.
Mira moved between them with the ease of someone who didn’t need to be asked twice to do her work. Her hands were quick, sure, and not particularly gentle.
“Almost good as new,” she muttered as she tightened the last wrap of gauze around Silas’s ribs. “Which means you’ll be getting into trouble again in no time.”
Septimus stepped inside, unfastening the small coin pouch from his belt. The familiar weight of it felt heavier than it was.
“How much?”
Mira didn’t pause, “Put that away.”
He hesitated, eyebrow raised quizzically, the pouch still in hand, “You sure?”
She stepped over to him, pressing something small and cool into his other hand. A glass vial, half-filled with pale blue liquid. Light caught the edges of it and made the contents shimmer like trapped sky.
“Use this on one of them if things go south again,” she said. “I’d rather they come back alive than see coin.”
He blinked. Not because he didn’t understand, but because he wasn’t used to this. Kindness without bargain. No obligation wrapped in silk. No favors disguised as debt. For a breath, he studied her face. Looking for the catch, but Mira’s expression was steady. Tired. Honest. The kind of woman who’d buried more than one patient and had no patience for needless pride.
He nodded once, “Thank you.”
By afternoon, Lottie and Silas were moving again. Slow, but upright. Together, they stepped out into the main path running through Stonehollow, the wind light, the sun creeping across slate roofs.
Lottie stretched her arms overhead and winced, testing the movement in her shoulder.
“Better than I deserve, probably,” she said, rolling it once, something wry in her expression. “I don’t know if that was healing or some kind of miracle brew, but I’ll take it.”
Silas didn’t respond right away. His gaze had drifted past the edge of the village, fixed on the distant lines of farmland where wildflowers peeked through fenceposts and the soil held fewer scars. His voice, when it came, was quiet.
“I’ll do better next time,” he said. “That won’t happen again.”
Lottie glanced over, then nudged his ribs with a gently placed elbow.
“Not unless you try to single-handedly swallow a cultist with your shadows again.”
He almost smiled in response.
She turned to Septimus next, stepping back into the rhythm they shared without needing to name it.
“You were right, by the way,” she said. “About leaving Duskmere. We needed to.”
She flicked a flint between her fingers, sparks catching in the wind. Harmless, but precise, guided by a faint thread of mana that trailed behind her hand like smoke.
“So,” she asked, “are we finally getting paid to hit something?”
Septimus snorted, “Let’s see if we can find some work that gets us warm beds and a roof over our heads tonight.”
Stonehollow’s town square wasn’t much of a square. Just a wide dirt clearing flanked by low buildings and half-hinged doors.
A cracked stone fountain leaned drunkenly near the center, barely holding together. A pair of children chased a wooden hoop across the square, one laughing, the other barefoot. A few traders haggled near supply sheds while chickens pecked at grain beside them.
They made their way to a notice post nailed into a split beam beneath a crooked awning. Most of the papers were weather-worn and long since irrelevant. Gain prices, festival dates, and a request for missing goats.
One stood out. New ink. Sharp handwriting.
Boar Trouble. Dangerous. One gored. Seeking help. Payment promised.
Septimus tore the posting from the board. He scanned the bottom where a farm name and direction were scrawled in faded pencil.
His eyes flicked briefly to another posting beneath it, an armed escort gig headed to Viremoor in two days’ time. He left it there. For now.
They followed a worn dirt path that curved west, the packed earth giving way to uneven slopes and grazing land ringed by crooked fence posts. Wind tugged at tall grass. In the distance, goats bleated.
A stocky woman stood near a paddock gate, one arm tucked into the fold of her cloak, the other resting on a walking staff. Her straw hat was bent out of shape, and a battered crossbow hung off her hip by a strap that had seen better decades. She squinted as they approached.
“You lot come for the tuskers?” she asked, voice hoarse from years of shouting at stubborn things.
Septimus gave her a nod, paired with a worn but honest smile. The kind he hadn’t used in a while.
“We’ll take care of the tusked bastards.”
The fields were too quiet. No birdsong. No rustle of brush. Just the soft crunch of boots over dried earth and the occasional creak of old leather.
They followed a narrow game trail that split about fifteen minutes south of the paddock. It wound between thickets of thorn and stone, barely wide enough for a wagon, but worn enough to suggest this wasn’t the first time something large had passed through.
Lottie sniffed the air once, wafting it from her nose with a wrinkle. Then the scent hit Septimus, musk and rot. The kind of stench that clung to fur and blood and old wounds.
They moved together. Wordless. Practiced. Lottie took the lead, crouched low, her fingers flexing with anticipation. Her boots barely stirred the dirt as she moved, weight forward, ready to spring. Silas flanked right, keeping to the tree line, shadow trailing him like an obedient dog. Septimus walked center, hammer over one shoulder, shield low, his footfalls careful and deliberate.
The first boar came without warning. Tusks low, hooves thundering, eyes wide and wrong. It exploded from the underbrush like a cannonball of bristle and rage.
Lottie moved before anyone else. She flicked a stone from her palm and caught it midair with a burst of air. It punched through the boar’s thick hide, struck deep into the chest, and pierced the heart in a single, surgical strike. The beast screamed once and collapsed mid-charge, skidding to a stop at Septimus’s feet.
The second came from the left, heavier. Quieter.
Silas whispered to the shadows. They answered. Dark tendrils rose from the roots of the trees overhead, draping across the beast’s flank like netting. It slowed. Just enough.
Septimus pivoted and brought his hammer around in a wide arc, the haft shuddering in his grip as it connected with the boar’s side. Bone cracked. The beast crumpled, legs kicking once before going still.
Then came the Juggernaut.
It barreled toward them from the far edge of the clearing, twice the size of the others, hide caked with dirt and old scars. One tusk was broken. One eye clouded white. Its breath steamed from wide nostrils. Heavy hooves tore trenches in the earth.
“Get behind me!” Septimus barked, dropping low and bracing his shield.
The impact was like being hit by a falling tree. His shield splintered on contact, and his boots carved deep furrows into the soil as he slid back. His legs locked. He held. Pain flared up his spine.
Lottie circled wide. A spark leapt from her flint to her palm, catching wind and igniting along her knuckles. Her entire arm lit with flame as she darted toward the beast’s blind side.
Silas anchored the boar in place with a spike of shadow, lancing upward from its own footprint and rooting it where it stood.
Septimus rose with a grunt and shifted his grip. He drove the spike of his warhammer into the Juggernaut’s side, punching through hide, muscle, and into something vital.
Blood spilled dark and thick, steaming in the air.
The Juggernaut reeled and tried to gore him, its head jerking low. Septimus parried the blow, but the remains of his shield splintered again, deeper this time. The wooden core groaned under pressure it wasn’t built to take.
Lottie didn’t wait. She slid in low, her burning fist driving into the open wound with a grunt. Her arm vanished up to the elbow. The scent of scorched fur and cooked flesh filled the air. The beast screamed.
Septimus flipped the grip on his hammer and brought it down. Once. Twice. Like he was driving a spike into the earth.
The Juggernaut’s legs folded beneath it. Its eye dimmed.
The weight of it gave way all at once, collapsing into the churned dirt with a dull finality.
Septimus stood over it, his breath coming in hard pulls. Blood spattered across his chestplate, boots sunk deep into the scarred soil. He didn’t raise the hammer again. He just stared.
Lottie wiped her brow, fire extinguished, shoulders heaving. “Come on,” she panted. “Let’s carve it.”
He shook his head, slow.
“No,” he said. “We drag it back.”
His gaze dropped to the matted blood near the beast’s jaw. The same spot where a farmhand’s blood had soaked in, not long ago.
“Let them see we meant it.”
Lottie and Silas didn’t argue. They hitched ropes. Worked as one. They dragged it back. By the time they crested the hill and crossed into the farmstead, a voice rang out.
“By the Totems,” someone whispered. “That’s the one! That’s the one that gored Harven!”
A half-dozen workers emerged from the sheds and fields, eyes wide, boots clapping over the packed dirt. The farmer, the same stocky woman who’d given them the job, stepped forward slowly. She crouched beside the beast’s ruined snout, one hand running along the cracked tusk with reverence.
“You brought it down,” she said softly. “Didn’t think anyone would.”
Septimus nodded, “It won’t take anyone else.”
The farmer rose, the weight of relief slumping his shoulders.
“You didn’t just kill a beast. You settled nerves. Brought a bit of safety back to the field.”
She glanced between them, her voice steadier now.
“The contract promised coin and a night in the barn. You’ll get both.”
Then she looked back at the tusks, lips twitching into a smile. “And the tusks. Seems only fair.”
Lottie raised an eyebrow, “You sure? These are massive.”
The farmer chuckled, “And what the hell am I gonna do with ’em? You three earned more than coin.”
The three of them shared a late lunch in the shade behind the barn. The farmer had carved off fresh cuts from the Juggernaut boar and roasted them slow over woodsmoke, served with wildroots and charred greens blackened just enough to crisp. The meal was simple, but it had weight. Smoke, salt, and the kind of comfort you only earn with blood.
Septimus sat cross-legged on a stack of firewood, chewing a strip of meat slowly, more focused on the other two than the food in his hand. His plate had cooled, but he hadn’t noticed.
Lottie lay in the tall grass, boots off, one sock half-pulled, her toes flexing in the sunlight like they were tasting freedom. Grease clung to her chin, and she didn’t care. Her grin was crooked, full of satisfaction.
“Y’know,” she said lazily, “I think I’d die happy if all jobs ended with roasted beast and a nap in a hayloft.”
Silas sat nearby, elbows resting on his knees, pulling bits of meat from a folded flatbread like it was a puzzle that required concentration.
“You say that,” he said, “but you nearly got gutted.”
“Nearly doesn’t count,” she replied, eyes still half-lidded. “Besides, it worked out. Look at us. A well-oiled death machine. Sort of.”
A twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Lottie rolled onto her side and squinted up at him. “You’re quiet. Even for you. That boar didn’t shake the infamous Septimus, did it?”
He swallowed the bite and rested his elbows on his knees. “No. Just thinking.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That sounds dangerous.”
“About how both of you dive into danger like it’s a lazy river and not a death sentence.”
Silas didn’t look up. “Says the man who stood still and took the full brunt of a Juggernaut charge.”
Septimus gave a tired shrug, like it was just gravity doing its work. “Better me than you.”
Lottie’s grin faltered, not gone, but shifted. The light in her expression dimmed at the edges. She pushed herself upright and rested her arms across her knees, staring into the middle distance.
“You keep doing that,” she said, “Throwing yourself in the line.”
“Someone has to,” Septimus replied. “I can take it.”
The air settled between them, quiet but not cold.
Silas spoke next, his voice softer than before. “You act like we’re a problem you’re managing.”
Septimus looked up, first at him, then at Lottie.
“You’re not a problem,” he said, “You’re a spark.”
He glanced toward the treeline, where wind stirred the grass like a slow breath.
“And I’ve been walking through ash for a long time.”
Lottie didn’t say anything. Just leaned over and bumped her shoulder into his, firm, familiar. Her smile this time was smaller, but more honest. Like something bruised still learning how to hold its shape.
Silas gave a slow nod and passed Septimus the last piece of flatbread, wrapped in a scrap of cloth still warm from the sun.
They ate in silence after that. Not because they’d run out of words. Just because they didn’t need them. No one kept an eye on the horizon. No one reached for a weapon. The quiet between them no longer felt like the pause before a storm, it felt like rest. And for the first time since Dustmere, it actually was.
That evening, the sky dimmed into lavender, and golden lights shimmered in the tree-line beyond the barn. Soft pulses, flickering like fireflies but too steady, too purposeful.
“You gonna stop us?” Lottie asked, one brow raised, half-daring.
Septimus crossed his arms.
“I’ll drag your asses out if it goes bad.”
But he followed anyway.
They moved beneath swaying trees and through thick underbrush, the fading daylight painting the world in slow rust. The light danced ahead of them, always just out of reach, drawing them deeper into the forgotten woods. Roots jutted from the earth like broken ribs, and thorned vines reached out as if trying to hold them back.
It took the better part of an hour before the trail narrowed into a path carved by time, not man. At the end of it stood a crumbled farmhouse, sunken into the hillside, half-swallowed by moss and rot. Its roof had collapsed long ago, and trees grew through the walls like they’d claimed it as their own.
The door to the cellar still hung on rusted hinges. The stairs groaned beneath their weight as they descended. The air changed as they entered, cooler, and still. The scent of damp earth and old wood filled the space.
It wasn’t threatening. Just forgotten.
At the far end of the cellar, tucked between collapsed shelves and fallen beams, the wisp hovered quietly above a skeleton. Its glow cast a soft radius of light, no brighter than a candle, and within the ribcage lay a shard of pale quartz, faintly pulsing like a heartbeat struggling to be remembered.
“A Solshade,” Silas whispered, “Or what’s left.”
He stepped forward slowly, each footfall careful, respectful.
There was no fear in his movement. No urgency. Just a kind of solemn purpose, like someone who had walked this path before, who knew how to speak to the dead in a language they’d still recognize.
Lottie reached for her flint out of habit, sparks always at the ready, but Septimus placed a firm, but gentle hand over hers.
“Let him do it.”
She didn’t argue.
Silas knelt beside the bones, his breath steady, his eyes filled with something that wasn’t quite sadness. More like understanding. Acceptance. The kind only someone scarred the same way could feel.
From his palm, shadows curled upward. Not sharp, not cold, but soft and slow, like breath against frost. He extended his fingers above the shard, the tendrils weaving like thread drawn through a loom no one else could see. He was guiding it. Not commanding. Not binding. Just… easing it on.
“I’m sorry you died afraid,” he whispered, “Let me carry the rest.”
He touched the shard. The wisp pulsed once, glowing brighter for a single heartbeat. Then, with a sound more felt than heard, a sigh of mana and memory, it faded. Silas bowed his head. Shadows curled in close around his shoulders, not to conceal him, but to hold him. A vigil. A cloak of quiet mourning.
Lottie said nothing. She stepped back, arms folded, watching with a rare stillness.
Septimus stood at the edge of the room, half-lit by the fading light, arms crossed. He didn’t speak, but something shifted.
This boy, he thought, is more than they see. A scholar. A mirror. A soul that refused to harden, even now. He’d seen shadows used for death. Silas had turned his into sanctuary. And maybe, Septimus thought, something else too, something colder, older. Not a weapon. A reaper.
Back at the barn, as dusk sank into the floorboards and the scent of old hay thickened in the air, Septimus sat cross-legged near the lantern, a worn contract unfolded across his knee. The ink had already begun to smudge where his thumb pressed into the edge.
Armed Escort. Viremoor-bound. Three-day travel. Half payment up front.
Simple. Clean. Just dangerous enough to be honest.
He stood, dusted straw from his coat, and crossed the stableyard to where the merchant stood by her wagon. Weathered, sharp-eyed, dressed in layered cloth dyed in the dull grays of someone used to being ignored.
“You’re looking for protection,” Septimus said. His voice carried with the weight of certainty, not offer. “We’re it.”
She gave him a long look. Then a short nod. No negotiation. No posturing. Half the coin changed hands then and there.
They left at first light. The morning air was thin and cold, but quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t last long.
Two days out, the road narrowed into a stretch of shale and wild bramble, hemmed in by trees with limbs sharp as spears.
That’s when the bandits stepped out. Five of them, maybe six. Lean and road-dirty, but not desperate. Not yet.
Septimus handed the reins off to Silas and walked forward, warhammer slung lazily over one shoulder. His steps were slow, measured, deliberate.
“Think real hard,” he called, voice flat and even, “If we’re worth the trouble.”
The wind tugged at the edge of his coat. The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. The lead bandit’s eyes narrowed. His stance faltered. Then recognition cracked across his face.
“...Shit,” he muttered, “He’s one o’ the old ones.”
He raised a hand and stepped back. The others followed. No blades drawn. No second guessing. Just retreat.
Lottie let out a low whistle.
“Terrifying and handsome,” she said. “Dangerous combo.”
“Do I look that old?” Septimus asked, not breaking stride as he returned to the wagon.
“Only when you scowl,” Lottie replied, nudging him in the ribs.
Silas, still seated with reins in hand, tilted his head.
“You do have a specific kind of stare,” he said. “Makes people think of the last time they begged for mercy.”
Septimus didn’t smile. But the corner of his mouth twitched just once.
They crested a hill a day later. Viremoor rose before them. Walls of smoke, stone, and silence. A city forged from ambition and ash, its central Totem towering over the skyline like a verdict waiting to be read.
Septimus stood at the edge of the path, the others quiet beside him. The wind stirred his coat. The hammer on his back felt lighter today. For the first time in years, he wasn’t running from something.
He was walking into it.