By the third day on the road, Kaelen had stopped asking how much farther.
The path wound through a flat plain where the grass grew thin and gray, each blade tipped with frost that never seemed to melt. Lantern posts stood at irregular intervals, most cold and dark, their glass shattered or clouded by soot.
Aethryn walked ahead with the steady rhythm of a man who could do this for weeks without rest. His lantern hung low at his side, swaying gently, casting a moving island of gold in the otherwise colorless world.
Kaelen's boots crunched on brittle soil. "You said the Capital was… safe," he finally said.
"It's safer," Aethryn replied without turning. "Safe is a lie people tell so they can sleep at night."
They passed a cluster of ruins, the skeletal remains of a village. Roof beams sagged inward, blackened and warped. Lantern cradles lined the main street, every one of them dark. The air carried a faint, bitter smell, like burnt oil left too long in a lamp.
Kaelen slowed, scanning the shadows between the houses. "What happened here?"
"Lantern chain failed. Gloom didn't waste the opportunity."
He swallowed hard. "How often does that happen?"
"Often enough that I've stopped counting." Aethryn's voice was even, but Kaelen could hear the weight behind it.
By late afternoon, they crested a low hill, and there it was.
The Inner Wall.
It rose out of the plain like a horizon of stone and silver, towering higher than any building Kaelen had ever seen. Massive mirror panels were set into its face, catching and scattering the light of the Beacon Towers spaced along its length. The glow was so bright it almost looked like daylight pooling at the base of the wall.
Kaelen stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide. "That's… all one wall?"
"All one wall," Aethryn confirmed. "The first and last line of defense for the Capital. Took three generations to build. And if the Gloom ever pushes past it, the Capital falls."
Kaelen tore his eyes from the structure to glance at Aethryn. "Has it ever been breached?"
"Not yet." The answer came too fast, like he didn't want to think about the possibility.
As they drew closer, the ground changed from frost-bitten soil to cobblestone, and the air felt different, warmer, touched by the reflected light from the wall. For the first time in days, Kaelen realized his shoulders weren't hunched against an invisible weight.
But that relief didn't last.
At the base of the wall, dozens of travelers, merchants, and caravans were queued up before a towering gate of steel and mirrored glass. Light spilled from slits in the structure, and guards in polished armor, lanterns clipped to their breastplates, moved among the crowd.
Aethryn stepped into the line without hesitation, but Kaelen hesitated, scanning the people around them. Most looked ordinary, tired from travel. But every so often, a pair of eyes would flick toward him and linger, not with curiosity, but with unease.
He pulled his hood a little lower.
"Keep your head up," Aethryn said without looking back. "If they smell fear, they'll invent reasons to treat you like a threat."
"Is that what you did when you found me?"
Aethryn's mouth twitched, almost a smile, almost not. "I didn't need to invent anything."
The line moved slowly. Each traveler had to pass beneath a glowing arch, their belongings searched while their faces were studied by guards with flat, professional stares. The air smelled faintly of oil and ozone, the scent of freshly fueled lanterns.
Kaelen's turn came faster than he expected.
"Name," a guard barked.
"Kaelen."
The guard's eyes slid to Aethryn, who handed over a metal insignia stamped with the sigil of the Lightkeepers. At once, the guard straightened. "Dawnbringer Vale. You could have come through the east gate, sir."
"Didn't want to," Aethryn replied flatly.
The guard glanced at Kaelen again, this time with something sharper in his gaze. "He with you?"
"He's with me."
That was enough. No more questions. The gates opened in a slow, grinding sweep, spilling light onto them like a physical thing.
Kaelen stepped through, and stopped.
The Capital wasn't like the villages in the Outer Ring, where lantern light fought to keep the dark at bay. Here, light reigned. Wide streets glistened as if polished, the cobblestones inlaid with thin silver lines that reflected the glow of hundreds of suspended lanterns. Towers rose into the air, their windows glimmering like constellations. The air was warmer, humming faintly, as though the entire city was one great lantern, burning in defiance of the Gloom beyond.
Kaelen's eyes darted from stall to stall, alley to alley. He'd never seen so many people in one place. Merchants shouted over each other to advertise glowing wares, children darted between their parents' legs clutching paper lanterns shaped like animals, and high above, a mirrored spire caught the light and sent it cascading across the city.
"This is…" He searched for the right word and gave up. "It's like the sun came back."
"It's not the sun," Aethryn said. "Remember that."
They cut through the crowd toward a broad, ascending avenue that led to a cluster of tall, uniform buildings, the Lightkeeper Citadel. People noticed them now, whispers rising in their wake. Kaelen caught fragments: Outer Ring… breach survivor… cursed boy…
He felt his jaw tighten. "They don't even know me."
"They know enough to invent the rest," Aethryn said. "The Citadel's worse. Keep walking."
They reached the Citadel gates just as a patrol of Lightkeepers emerged, armor gleaming, their lanterns burning in perfect unison. One of them, a tall woman with a braided silver cord across her chest, stopped when she saw Aethryn.
"Vale," she said coolly. "Word is you brought something back from the dark."
"Someone," Aethryn corrected.
Her gaze shifted to Kaelen, studying him with the same expression the guards had used, weighing, measuring, as if deciding whether he was a man or a threat.
"Try not to burn the place down," she said, and moved on.
Kaelen watched her go, then glanced up at the towering Citadel. Its mirrored windows caught his reflection for an instant, but the light was so bright it almost burned the image away.
For the first time since the breach, he wondered if stepping into this place had been the right choice.