Ash fell like snow through the bones of Emberglass.
The tavern had no name. Most places in the Blightlands didn't anymore. Names invited memory. Memory invited ghosts. And ghosts in Emberglass had teeth.
Silas Mar sat alone at the back, one boot on the table's edge, the other buried in a nest of soot. His coat was half-unbuttoned, soaked through at the collar with sweat and grime, and his shirt — what was left of it — clung to the scars across his chest like prayer flags after a storm. He drank slow, from a tin cup that tasted faintly of rust and blood.
It was quiet here. Not peaceful — nothing in Emberglass was — but quiet enough to think. Or to try not to.
Outside, the crimson moon glared through a crack in the roof. It poured a red sheen across the broken floorboards, illuminating the twisted shadows of the tavern's only other occupants: a barkeep with half a jaw, and a trio of black-veiled mercenaries betting fingers in the corner.
Silas ignored them. He always did.
Until the door opened.
It wasn't the sound that caught his attention — the wind always howled through the empty frame like a dying hymn — but the silence that followed. The barkeep stopped scrubbing the same cracked cup. The mercenaries stopped laughing. Even the ash seemed to pause midair, suspended in the stale light.
Silas didn't look up at first. He didn't have to. He felt the shape before he saw it — tall, cloaked in black, face hidden beneath a mask of bleached bone and gold.
The emissary.
It moved through the room like smoke, no footsteps, no words, just presence. When it reached his table, it didn't sit.
"Silas Mar," the voice rasped from behind the mask, male or female he couldn't tell — it sounded more like breath given shape.
"You're not from here," Silas muttered, eyes still on the cup in his hand.
"No one is. Not anymore."
Silas finally looked up. The emissary placed something on the table: a pouch. Leather. Blood-tied at the top. Heavy.
Silas didn't touch it.
"What's the job?"
"A delivery."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Living?"
"Yes."
"Fragile?"
"Yes."
"Dangerous?"
A pause.
"Yes."
The pouch didn't move, but he could feel the weight of it pressing on the table like an oath.
"Who?"
"She will meet you at the old gate. Sundown."
"She?"
"Ask no questions."
"That was a question."
The emissary tilted its head. "You haven't said no."
Silas stared at the pouch. Blood contracts weren't rare in the Blightlands, but they always came with curses. Or worse — promises.
"How far?" he asked.
"Across the Blightlands. Through the Hollow Coast. Into the Shattered Reach."
Silas laughed. Once.
"No."
"You'll do it."
"Why's that?"
"Because you're out of coin. Out of faith. And nearly out of time."
The emissary slid something else onto the table: a single black rose petal, etched with a rune that shimmered faintly red.
Silas didn't know the symbol. But his blood did. It went cold.
He reached for the pouch. It was warm.
The emissary stepped back.
"She'll be waiting."
And then, it was gone.
No door creak. No footsteps. Just ash swirling where it had stood, curling like smoke from a long-dead fire.
Silas sat for a long while, the pouch in his lap, the rose petal in his hand.
He didn't move when the mercenaries started whispering again.
He didn't notice the barkeep watching him with one eye that didn't blink.
And he didn't feel the blood drip from his palm — not until it hit the table and hissed like something alive.
The pouch sat heavy in Silas's coat, thudding against his ribs with every step like a second heartbeat.
He walked alone through the ruin, wrapped in dusk and soot, the wind dragging long screams through broken arches and shattered towers. Emberglass hadn't fallen — it had unraveled, like a lie caught in fire. What had once been domes and temples and palaces was now a mosaic of jagged stone and bone-bright metal, warped by heat and time.
The sky above was bruised with smoke, the moon a red eye behind layers of drifting ash.
Silas passed what was left of a shrine — its saint decapitated, its altar blackened. Coins still glittered in the offering bowl. No one dared take them.
He crossed what had once been the Royal Library, now a half-collapsed spire cradled in the arms of a fallen bronze angel. Words still whispered from its walls when the wind hit just right. He didn't stop to listen.
The pouch knocked against his side again. Warm. Still warm.
As he walked, he touched the rune-marked petal still in his pocket. His thumb traced it absently. Smooth. Cold. Wrong.
He could feel something watching him now. Not eyes. Pressure. Like being measured.
He stopped.
Ash swirled at his boots. The streets were empty. Too empty.
He turned slowly — no sound, no shape behind him. But the ash stirred, just once, like something had moved and disappeared.
He kept walking.
Two streets later, he passed the remains of a plague pyre. Bones tangled in charred rose vines. Still smoking. Emberglass burned slow.
The old city gate appeared just past the garden of broken statues. It was half-collapsed, an arch of blackened glass and rusted iron. One side bore the seal of the House of Dawn — shattered in two. A field of cracked obsidian spread before it like a frozen lake.
And there, in the middle of it, stood the carriage.
It was long, veiled in crimson cloth that fluttered even without wind. Two creatures — not horses — pulled it: eyeless, horned, bodies stitched with runes. They stood motionless, breath visible in the cold.
The driver was cloaked, hood low, hands too long for a man.
Silas approached slowly.
The wind stilled.
The driver did not speak. Just opened the door.
And she stepped out.
She moved like shadow made silk, barefoot, the ash curling beneath her steps but never touching her skin. Her gown was black and red, stitched with silver thread and something that shimmered like molten dusk. Her silver-white hair fell down her back like poured moonlight.
Her eyes glowed faintly — not bright, just enough to unnerve. Crimson. Not entirely human.
She looked at him.
Not like someone meeting a stranger.
Like someone remembering a dream they hadn't earned.
"Silas Mar," she said, voice like smoke on glass. "You kept me waiting."
He didn't speak.
She smiled.
"Good. I hate men who beg before they even see the price."
Silas didn't move.
Neither did she.
The silence between them stretched — not awkward, not hostile, but thick, like something sacred had been disturbed.
Then, she took a step forward.
Her bare foot touched the ash. It didn't stain her skin. It parted for her.
"I expected someone taller," she said lightly, surveying him from boot to brow. "But I suppose we work with what remains."
Silas exhaled through his nose. "You're late."
"No," she replied. "You're early."
He watched her — the way she moved, not carelessly, but with deliberate grace, like every motion was part of a script only she had read.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "I thought the contract said no questions."
"Then consider it a courtesy."
"Virelle," she said. "Of the bloodline you'll never be able to trace. Of a house that no longer burns."
She was close now — near enough for him to see the fine glowing script running along her collarbone, half-concealed beneath her gown's edge. Old tongue. Pact-tied.
"Demon," he muttered.
She smiled.
"Half. The worse half, by most accounts."
The wind stirred. Ash curled around her legs. The veil of her carriage snapped like a banner behind her.
"I don't escort curses," Silas said.
"Too late," she replied. "You already touched the petal."
He paused.
Her eyes flicked toward his pocket.
"You felt it, didn't you? The mark blooming behind your ribs?"
He said nothing.
"Then we're bound, you and I," she said softly. "Until either I reach the Hollow Coast... or you don't."
Silas's hand hovered near the hilt at his side.
Virelle didn't flinch.
"I didn't agree to blood magic," he growled.
"You didn't read the fine print," she replied.
The wind died again.
For a moment, the sky went very still — the kind of stillness that only came before a scream.
Virelle stepped closer.
"You want coin," she whispered. "But that's not why you took the job."
She reached up — slow, deliberate — and laid two fingers over the scar above his heart.
"You want absolution."
Silas caught her wrist. Gently. Not pulling away. Not holding tight.
"I want to be done," he said.
Virelle leaned in.
"You will be. One way or another."
They moved together through the ruin — not speaking, not touching, but tethered by silence.
Virelle led him beneath the broken archway, past columns twisted by heat and time, into what had once been a chapel. The ceiling was gone. The moonlight fell in jagged strips across the cracked floor, where prayer tiles had given way to black glass and thornroots.
At the center: a low stone altar, half-buried in ash.
"Here," she said.
Silas hesitated. "Why here?"
"Because once, people bled for gods here. Now it bleeds for us."
She knelt before the altar, spreading the tattered folds of her gown so they lay around her like wings. Her hand reached into a small satchel — not the coin pouch, but a second, wrapped in faded blue silk. She drew out a vial.
The liquid inside shimmered violet-black. Not oil. Not wine. Blood, but not hers.
Silas remained standing. "You don't need me for this."
"No," she said, uncorking the vial. "But the ritual does."
She poured it slowly onto the altar's surface. The stone hissed. Smoke curled upward in tendrils. The air smelled of iron and cloves.
From her sleeve, she drew a knife. Not curved. Not ceremonial. A soldier's knife — sharp and efficient.
She offered it to him.
He didn't take it.
"What happens if I say no?" he asked.
"You return to the city with coin and a mark on your soul that will never stop bleeding."
He stared at the blade.
Took it.
"Just a drop," she said.
He sliced the edge of his palm without flinching. A thin ribbon of red dripped down onto the altar, mixing with the black-violet smear.
The reaction was immediate.
The blood boiled. The runes carved into the altar flared red, then white, then gold. The ground trembled beneath them. And Silas felt—
Not pain.
Not fear.
Something older.
A voice. Not a voice. A memory not his.
Fire screaming through bones. A woman chained to a throne made of broken swords. A crown of thorns nailed into her skull. And behind her — a door. Shut tight. Bleeding light.
Silas staggered back. The knife fell. His breath caught in his throat like smoke.
Virelle stood now, watching him.
"You saw it," she said.
He didn't answer.
"You heard her," she added. "Didn't you?"
He looked at her — really looked.
She wasn't breathing fast. She wasn't even tense.
She was waiting.
"Who was she?" he asked, voice hoarse.
Virelle stepped forward. "Not was."
She placed her hand over his bleeding palm, fingers curling into his.
"Is."
Their joined hands lingered a second too long.
When Silas pulled back, his skin still burned faintly where her palm had touched his. Not hot. Not wounded. Branded.
He wiped his hand on his coat. The blood had stopped, but something deeper hadn't.
Virelle said nothing. She simply turned, her steps light across the fractured stone, and walked back into the moonlight.
The driver waited — that same tall, too-silent figure with the bone-pale hands. Without a word, it opened the carriage door.
Virelle stopped before entering.
"You ride?" she asked.
"No," Silas said. "I walk."
She studied him. Nodded. Then climbed in, the crimson veil closing behind her like the last page of a book you weren't sure you'd read correctly.
Silas turned to the driver. "You follow me."
The thing tilted its head.
"I said—"
It nodded once, then climbed to the front seat, reins in hand, though the beasts never moved unless she willed them.
Silas stepped onto the path — or what passed for one — leading through the garden of shattered saints and half-buried gravestones. The ground was black and brittle. Every step cracked like bone.
Behind him, the carriage followed.
The moon above was swollen and bloodshot. The air stank of cinders and something sweeter — rot, maybe, or memory.
The city didn't say goodbye. Cities never did.
But something whispered as they passed the final arch.
It wasn't a voice. Not really.
Just a sound caught in the ash. A syllable that could've been a name. Or a warning.
It came from the ruins. The stones. The bones. It came from below.
Silas turned once.
Behind them, in the distance, the red light from the shattered cathedral glowed brighter for a heartbeat — just one. And then it was gone.
The carriage continued, wheels leaving no tracks in the ash.
Virelle's silhouette sat motionless behind the crimson veil.
And Emberglass burned — not from fire, but from something remembering.