The wind in the Marches carried a different sound.
Not the sharp howl of mountain air, nor the thick hush of forest shadow. This place was too old for that older than roots, older than the roads that crumbled beneath their boots. Here, the wind whispered like it remembered them. Like it judged them.
Kael felt it in his bones.
They had escaped the Harbinger. Barely.
Sarya's warding had saved them all, but not without cost.
She walked stiffly beside him now, her arm still bound where fire had grazed her skin. Her hood was up, though the heat had returned with the valley sun, and her eyes stayed fixed ahead watchful, silent. Avoiding his.
Ahead of them, the others scouted: Tareth and Nyra moved with disciplined grace, each trained to see danger before it could take shape. And behind, Shol crept like a shadow, quiet and brooding, ever wary of being seen as useful or expendable.
They were a band forged in necessity, not loyalty.
Not yet.
But something had shifted.
Kael could feel it.
And that terrified him more than the Harbinger.
Their new shelter was a crumbling ruin near the edge of the Dead Marches half-swallowed by roots, its stone blackened by fire long forgotten. Someone had once made their stand here. A final one, from the looks of it.
Now it was theirs.
They lit no fire that night. They didn't need to.
Kael's memory fragment still burned in his mind like an unquenched brand.
He could see it still feel it:
The Sleeper's blood on his hands.
The betrayal in her eyes.
The way she had screamed not from pain, but from disbelief.
From trust broken.
He hadn't known her name then.
Only her number.
Subject Seventeen.
One more flame-wielder too dangerous to be left whole.
So he had done what they told him.
They made him believe it was mercy.
And the worst part?
He believed it then.
Night fell slowly, dragging time like a wounded beast.
They made camp inside the ruin, using the jagged archways for cover. Kael sat apart from the others, half-shadowed beneath the collapsed stone of what once might have been a bell tower. His hands ached from the climb, from the fights—but mostly, they ached with memory.
Sarya joined him without a word.
He didn't look up.
"I don't expect forgiveness," he said finally.
"Good," she replied, sitting across from him. "Because it's not mine to give."
Her voice was steady, but not unkind.
Still, her eyes were sharper than usual.
"You remembered her," she said. Not a question.
He nodded.
"She was there," he said. "In the Forge. Younger than I remembered. Defiant. More than I was. They told me she was dangerous. That if I... if I could break her resistance, they'd promote me."
"Did you believe it?"
"I wanted to," he said. "I thought if I did what they asked, I could escape the cells. Be useful. Be someone. But when I looked into her eyes… she wasn't afraid."
"You did it anyway."
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Sarya watched him for a long moment.
"I felt her," she said at last. "When the fragment burned through you. Her rage. Her pain. It's vast, Kael. And it's pointed."
"At me."
"At all of them," she said. "But yes… you're part of it."
Kael clenched his fists.
"She's headed north," he said. "Toward the Forge. Toward the Order."
Sarya raised an eyebrow. "To burn it down?"
"She doesn't want justice," Kael murmured. "She wants balance. Flame for flame. Blood for blood."
"And what do you want?"
He looked at her finally.
"I want to stop running."
Later that night, the group gathered for the first time since the ambush. Nyra laid out their map on a flat stone, tracing a jagged path north with a blackened finger.
"This is where the Sleeper was last seen," she said, tapping a ridge south of their current position. "If she keeps moving like this, she'll reach the inner sanctum of the Order within five days."
"And what then?" Shol asked. "She burn it to ash? Free the rest of us? Or level everything?"
Tareth leaned back, arms folded. "She won't stop there. You all feel it, don't you? Her power it's evolving. It's not just about vengeance anymore."
"It's becoming something," Sarya said quietly.
Kael nodded.
"She's not what she was. And she's not what we are. She's… between. Beyond."
"A god?" Nyra asked, half-mocking.
"No," Kael said. "Worse."
---
They debated their path.
Some wanted to go south, warn the outer cities.
Others wanted to cut across the Dead Marches, risking ruin and shadow to reach the Forge first.
Kael said nothing for a long time.
Then he said "We go north."
They all looked at him.
"She's headed there. And we need answers. The Order won't give them willingly. But if we reach the old vaults before she does…"
"You think we'll find something that can stop her?" Tareth asked.
Kael shook his head.
"I think we'll find the truth."
Sarya studied him.
"You're not trying to stop her. You're trying to understand her."
"She deserves that much," Kael said. "I took everything from her once. If she chooses to end me, I won't run. But I won't let the Order bury what they did, not again."
Silence.
Then Nyra rolled up the map.
"Well," she said, "that's suicidal. But also the best plan we've had in days."
They broke camp before dawn.
The Marches opened before them like a wound.
Twisted trees with skeletal branches, grasses that whispered even when still. The ground smoked in places, thin wisps of sulfur and ruin where the world had cracked under old firestorms. No birds. No beasts. Only silence.
And in the distance, always just ahead:
A presence.
Not watching.
Not chasing.
Waiting.
Kael could feel her now. Not just the memory.
The person.
She burned like a second sun on the edge of his thoughts.
Not hot.
Just inevitable.
That night, they found an old milestone charred, broken, half-sunk in muck. Kael knelt beside it and brushed away the ash.
Symbols. Old ones.
Runes of soul-binding.
It marked the boundary of the Order's outer influence, where their reach had ended during the last uprising.
He remembered these stones.
He remembered placing some of them.
Sarya knelt beside him.
"Do you think she remembers this?"
"I think she remembers everything."
They set watch in pairs.
Sarya and Kael shared the final shift before dawn.
She didn't speak at first, just stared out at the horizon.
Then she said "When this ends… what happens to us?"
Kael looked at her.
"What do you mean?"
She didn't meet his eyes. "I wasn't supposed to live past the crucible. You were supposed to be a loyal son of the Order. Now… we're something else."
Kael hesitated.
"I don't know," he said. "But I want to find out. With you."
She looked at him then. Long and hard.
"I believe you mean that," she said. "Even if it's dangerous."
"It is."
She smiled. Just a little.
Then she stood and walked toward the ruin's edge.
He watched her, heart tight.
And for a moment, the flame between them didn't burn.
It warmed.
At dawn, they moved again.
Past the old crater fields.
Past the blood-soaked meadows of Malrath.
Into the killing fields that the Order pretended had never existed.
And with every step, Kael felt her draw nearer.
The Sleeper.
Not a ghost.
Not a myth.
A woman with eyes like fire and a memory sharp enough to cut worlds in half.
And if they reached her
If she remembered him as more than a traitor
Then maybe, just maybe...
There would be something left worth saving.