Not All Roads Begin Where They Should
By the third day, the Thornheart outpost began to feel like a place, not just a hiding spot.
There was warmth now, in patches. A flicker of safety. Not peace. Never peace. But moments where no one had a blade in their hand. That counted for something.
Luna had started crawling. Mostly in circles. Sometimes directly into piles of warding ash or the perimeter sigils Grim had etched into the floor with a muttering prayer and three types of chalk. She didn't cry when she got soot in her eyes. She blinked once, furrowed her brow, and tried again.
"She's either fearless," Grim said, watching her, "or too young to know what she should be afraid of."
Ashkore grunted. "That's how they get you."
The mornings were slow now. Strange. The war felt distant, like a storm someone else was dying in. But the Veil cracked in different places every hour, and when it did, the world... twitched.
Once, they watched a stag walk through the trees on fire. Not screaming. Just burning, quiet and slow. Its eyes were gone. Its shadow moved a full three seconds after it did.
Ashkore made a mental note to avoid that glade.
Lyara had stayed. Not without tension.
She hadn't said the words, not out loud. No declaration of allegiance. No apology.
But she hadn't drawn steel. She hadn't left.
Ashkore watched her clean her weapons with ritualistic care each night. It wasn't just habit. It was grief maintenance. A way to keep herself from thinking too long about what it meant to be here, with them, when she was supposed to be killing what they represented.
She didn't speak much to Grim. And he didn't try. Old Boneclaws and Silver Dawn champions didn't usually have long chats.
She did speak to Luna, though.
At first it was muttered warnings. "Don't touch that." "Stay near the fire." "Put the beetle down."
Then, without realizing, the tone softened. Names began to stick. "Ashkore," she'd call over her shoulder, "she's got your knife again." Or, "Grim, I think she's trying to eat the bone ward."
And Luna? She followed Lyara like she was gravity.
Ashkore noticed it first.
He was on second watch, leaning against a twisted support beam, eyes on the tree line, when he heard it.
A word.
Not a babble. Not mimicry.
A word.
"Vire."
Soft. Curious. Spoken like it was her name.
He turned.
Luna sat in the center of the floor, playing with the broken edge of a Thornheart seedpod. She said it again, not looking at him.
"Vire."
Ashkore stepped closer. "What did you say?"
She looked up.
And smiled.
"Vire," she whispered again.
He felt the word like a drop of cold water down his spine.
It wasn't in any human tongue. Not Common, not Rootspeech. And it sure as hell wasn't in the guttural spells the Council's archivists hoarded. It was a word, though. One he recognized. Barely.
Old Shadow. Dead dialect. Forbidden even in the deep libraries of the Voidborn.
Vire: the breath between worlds. The first inhale before creation. The last exhale before destruction.
How did she know it?
Behind him, Lyara stirred. "What is it?"
Ashkore didn't answer. Not right away.
He knelt beside Luna, gently taking the seedpod from her hand. Her smile didn't fade.
"You dream in languages you've never heard, don't you?" he whispered.
She reached for his shadow again. It twined around her fingers like it missed her.
Later that night, they got a visitor.
The wards lit up first, pale green pulse, like the heartbeat of something trying to stay asleep.
Ashkore stood before the perimeter was breached. Lyara followed, swords in both hands this time.
But it wasn't the Council. Not the Order either.
It was Pippa.
She strolled into the clearing with a grin full of cracked teeth and a satchel that clanked like stolen relics. Her Thornheart markings were faded but visible, roots curling up one side of her neck like tattooed vines. She wore a scout's armor, lightweight and mismatched. One boot was human make. The other was cobbled from Deepsworn hide.
"Don't shoot," she called. "I'm bringing bread. And gossip."
Ashkore didn't move. "You're early."
"I'm late," she corrected. "Three days ago I blew up a Council caravan and got mildly cursed. I had to shake it off in a swamp full of whisperfish. You know how it goes."
Lyara didn't lower her blades.
Pippa noticed. "Ooooh, you're the knight. The one who switches sides like coats. Love that for you."
"I could gut you in under six seconds," Lyara said flatly.
"Maybe. But you won't. Because you know bread and gossip are sacred things."
Grim stepped out of the hut then, muttering something about "insufferable weed-thieves."
"Hiya, Gramps," Pippa grinned, tossing him a bundle. "I brought dried lungmoss and a bottle of regret. Don't say I never loved you."
Pippa wasn't trustworthy. That was never in question.
But she was effective.
She'd once single-handedly poisoned a Boneclaw warbeast using fermented mushroom wine and a lullaby. She'd navigated through three territories by pretending to be a hallucination. She'd kissed an Emberfiend lieutenant just to steal his maps.
No one knew why she'd joined Ashkore's band. Least of all her.
But she stayed.
That night, they sat around the fire, slowly eating the dry bread she'd brought. It was awful, but it was warm.
Pippa pulled out a scroll and unrolled it on the floor. "Map," she said. "From a Silver Dawn convoy headed north. Shows active Gate fractures and predicted Veil collapses for the next seven days. They're planning something big."
Ashkore leaned over the parchment. It was hand-drawn, meticulous, full of notations in tactical shorthand. "Where did you get this?"
"Lied to a corpse," she said casually. "He was chatty."
Grim made a choking noise.
Ashkore traced a line with one finger. "Here. They're positioning near the Cathedral. Again."
Lyara's face darkened. "They're going to finish what they started."
Ashkore looked at her. "We can't let them."
"No. We can't."
Luna, half-asleep in Lyara's lap, murmured again.
But not "Vire."
This time, she whispered something shorter. Sharper.
"Break."