Day after day, the rhythm stayed the same.
Wake with the sun.
Cook a simple breakfast.
Pack the camp.
Ride until noon.
Rest.
Ride again until the sky dimmed.
Find a place to sleep.
Repeat.
Three weeks of this made the world blur into gentle consistency — a strange contrast to the violent chaos they had lived through. The road north-easterly curved through soft hills, sparse woods, and patches of meadow. Every day brought a subtle shift in scenery: greener fields, denser forests, sharper cold in the air as they approached Nateron's border regions. Even the wildlife changed — fewer plains beasts, more mountain birds and long-antlered deer.
The closer they got, the clearer the air became, as if the land itself announced their approach to a city perched in the east like a jewel carved out of stone.
But today…
Today snapped their calm like a twig underfoot.
It started with Vartha.
