The Hollow Road was a scar across the earth.
Once, it had been a trade artery connecting the inner cities to the coastal strongholds — gold, iron, salt, slaves. But that was before the empires fractured, before the gods turned to silence and the mapmakers stopped pretending there was order.
Now the road belonged to no one. No kings, no banners, no taxes. Just dust, bone, and the kind of silence that made men forget their names.
The Ashwalker walked it anyway.
The girl followed.
They hadn't spoken in two days.
Not because of anger. Not even because of caution. Just… understanding.
Whatever tethered them now wasn't conversation. It was shared ruin. Like two broken swords leaning against each other because neither could stand alone.
But even silence could break.
"Do you remember their faces?" she asked.
The Ashwalker didn't stop walking. "Whose?"
"The ones you kill."
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "I remember the ones who begged."
She blinked. "You don't strike me as the type to kill men on their knees."
"I don't," he said.
A pause.
"I remember because they didn't beg for themselves."
She let that sink in. Let it twist inside her like a nail through cloth.
"What do they beg for?"
"Time. Their sons. Their wives. To be buried whole."
He didn't say it with guilt. Or pride. Just a tone scraped hollow by repetition.
"And you?" she asked.
"I never begged," he said.
By nightfall, they reached a collapsed toll station — a stone arch strangled by thornroots, half-swallowed by the earth. The wind pushed through the old stones like breath through broken teeth.
The girl searched the rubble for dry wood while the Ashwalker set his sword down and crouched beside the old firepit. He struck flint with quiet rhythm, watching sparks jump and die like tiny lives.
"Why here?" she asked.
"Used to be a watchpost," he said.
"How do you know?"
"I remember dying here."
She frowned. "You said you weren't killed."
"I wasn't," he said. "But I died. The first time."
She waited for more. Got none.
That night, she dreamt of bells.
Not the kind that rang for death — but the ones from before. Market bells. Morning bells. Bells that meant warmth and food and streets that didn't scream.
She woke to footsteps.
Not his.
She didn't move at first. Just listened.
The fire had burned down to quiet coals, casting more shadow than light. The Ashwalker sat still across the pit, eyes closed — but not asleep. She knew that now. He never slept the way normal people did.
The footsteps were soft. Deliberate. Two sets, maybe three, approaching the ruins from the south side where the bramble was thickest.
She reached for the dagger he'd given her the night before. It wasn't much. Just a rusted blade with a handle wrapped in pitch string. But her grip was steady.
Then a voice called out — too loud for stealth, but not careless.
"Strangers! You awake?"
The Ashwalker didn't respond. His hand rested on the sword beside him, fingers relaxed but ready.
"We're just travelers," the voice said. "Hungry. Got a bottle of southern red, if you'd trade for fire."
Still, silence.
Then the man stepped into view.
He was tall, unshaven, dressed in patchwork leathers and a cloak that had seen better centuries. Two others followed — one a wiry woman with a bow, the other a boy no older than fifteen, eyes wide from the road.
"We've no quarrel," the man said. "Just tired of cold food."
The Ashwalker finally opened his eyes.
"You armed," he said.
The man raised his hands. "Just for wolves."
The Ashwalker looked at the woman. "That bow's oiled."
She blinked. "What?"
"You've maintained it."
She hesitated. "Yes."
He looked at the boy. "And him?"
"My nephew."
"Is he trained?"
"No."
The Ashwalker stood. "Then let him build the fire."
The three glanced at each other.
Eventually, the boy nodded and knelt by the pit, feeding dry kindling to the coals.
The wine was real.
So was the tension.
They sat across from each other — the three travelers and the two shadows from the ashlands. The girl didn't drink. Neither did the Ashwalker.
But the man did. Generously.
He talked, too.
"Tried the coast first," he said. "But the border lords are closing their ports. Refugees flooding in from the east — plague, they say."
The Ashwalker said nothing.
The woman added, "We passed through Blackridge last week. Gone. Whole town."
"Burned?" the girl asked.
The man shook his head. "Empty. Like they just walked out. Tables still set. Beds still warm."
She looked at the Ashwalker. His face didn't change.
"What about the capital?" she asked.
The woman snorted. "The High Table's splitting at the seams. Lord Marshal's in hiding. Rumors of a failed coup. Someone poisoned the water in the South Chamber — thirty dead."
The boy stopped drinking.
The Ashwalker finally spoke. "Did you take anything from Blackridge?"
The man blinked. "No. Just passed through."
"Good," he said. "You'd be dead otherwise."
The girl glanced at him. "Why?"
The Ashwalker looked at the fire.
"Because something stayed behind."
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The strangers lay curled near the outer stones, fitful in their dreams. The fire was low. The wind had died. Even the crickets had gone quiet.
She turned to the Ashwalker.
"You believe them?" she whispered.
"No."
"Then why let them stay?"
"Because I wanted to see if they'd try."
"Try what?"
He didn't answer.
A few feet away, the boy stirred. Not from noise — from guilt. She could see it in the way his shoulders tensed. The way his eyes darted open, then shut again.
He wasn't going to sleep, either.
He was waiting for the others to make the move.
And deep down, she knew:
The knife came at dawn.
Not loud. Not clumsy. Just quick — the kind of violence that came from habit, not desperation.
The man lunged across the fire pit, blade drawn low to slash the Ashwalker's throat while the woman nocked an arrow from behind the stones.
It should've worked.
It never did.
The Ashwalker didn't rise. He didn't draw.
He moved.
One motion — like a snake uncoiling, his shoulder slipping past the blade, one hand grabbing the wrist, the other crashing into the man's throat with a crunch that sounded like glass and marrow.
The man hit the ground. His legs kicked once. Then stilled.
The woman loosed.
The arrow never found its mark.
The girl watched it all — too fast to shout, too slow to help. The Ashwalker snatched the arrow mid-air, spun, and flung it like a thrown nail. It hit her in the shoulder, just below the collarbone.
She screamed.
The boy dropped to his knees, hands raised high. "I didn't— I didn't know— please—!"
The girl stood now, dagger raised toward the woman, blood seeping from her own cut where she'd scraped her arm rolling to safety.
But the Ashwalker didn't look at her.
He stared at the boy.
"Was it your idea?" he asked.
The boy shook his head violently.
"Did you know?"
A pause.
The boy dropped his gaze.
"Yes," he whispered.
The silence that followed was so thick the girl could hear her own heart thudding in her ears.
The Ashwalker stepped forward. Sword unsheathed.
The boy flinched.
And then — the blade stopped.
Not at the neck. At the stone beside it.
The Ashwalker sheathed it again.
"Run," he said.
The boy scrambled to his feet, didn't look back.
The girl watched him vanish into the trees. "Why let him go?"
"He didn't draw blood."
"And the woman?"
"She tried to."
He turned to the archer, who had slumped against the ruined wall, bleeding but conscious.
She bared her teeth. "Get it over with."
"No," he said.
She frowned. "You're sparing me?"
"I want you to tell them."
"Tell who?"
"Everyone."
He crouched beside her, low enough that their faces were almost level.
"Tell them I'm walking east."
They buried the man before midday. No prayers. No name.
The girl watched the flames of the makeshift pyre dance against the stone.
She didn't speak again until they'd packed their gear and left the ruins behind.
"You could've killed her," she said. "You've killed for less."
"Yes," he replied.
"But you didn't."
"No."
She glanced at him. "Why?"
He didn't answer.
She frowned. "You were trying to make her afraid."
Still, no response.
She stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop. "You want them to know you're coming."
"Yes," he said.
"Why?"
"Because fear moves faster than footsteps."
He didn't want them to.