Chapter 1 – The Compass's Secret
Dawn threaded pale gold light through crumbling stone arches as Aras stood at the windiest point of the city walls. The fires had long since died; the smell of smoke clung to the stones like an unseen veil. His frost‑blue hair lifted in the wind, a loose strand falling across his brow as if to shield the tangle of thoughts pulling him in different directions. In his palm rested a brass compass with a cracked glass face—not pointing north, but to some fracture no one had named. The only thing left from his father; both a keepsake and a pulse‑tricking puzzle.
Below, market stalls took shape in hushed rhythm. People avoided eye contact, compressing their words into whispers, moving like bells strung on an invisible wire—silent yet connected. On certain thresholds, three thin chalk lines were drawn; small borders meant to keep the unseen from crossing. Aras watched as the needle trembled—just for a heartbeat, but enough that his whole body noticed. It seemed the very stones beneath him sighed.
He counted his breaths. Three long, one short. A rhythm his father had taught him but never named. As the chill of the walls travelled up his bones, the warm point in his palm echoed the fatigue of the stone. Inside, a wire he'd never dared to name drew tight, holding a thin note that seemed to meet another, deeper note slumbering beneath the city. Veins, he thought. They were here too.
"Talking again?" came a voice that slipped into the wind's lines without disturbing them. Lira had her bow slung over one shoulder, hair tied loosely at her nape. Even in shadow her gaze was sharp, the kind of patience that watched for the right moment without flinching. She inhaled the wind's salted mould. "The city's breath is short," she murmured, as if the air itself were thinning.
"It never stops," Aras said, tapping the cracked glass lightly with a knuckle. Beneath the scratches, he caught a glimpse—just for an instant—of an old mark: a thin arc, three lines beneath it, hidden until the light hit it just so. "Sometimes it chooses its words. Then it falls silent."
"You don't have to understand," Lira said, eyes fixed on the horizon. "You just go where it leads."
From the stairway up the wall came the tread of heavy boots. Kovan emerged, the scars on his face—pale childhood fissures and darker, recent cuts—telling quieter stories than his movements. He squared his shoulders into the wind, sniffed the air. "The air smells wrong today." In his language, it meant omen. Wrong air was not just a scent; it was a weight.
Below, one door creaked, another slammed shut. A stall‑holder tapped his chest three times and thickened the chalk line at his threshold with white powder. A child clung to his mother's skirt, staring at the compass in Aras's hand before turning away like someone who'd overheard a forbidden word. Aras slid the compass into his pocket; as the metal left his skin it burned a moment longer.
"The needle's chasing a wound, not the sky," Lira said quietly. Then, without looking at him, "What city did your father find it in?"
"He didn't find it," Aras replied. "He made it."
Kovan pointed toward a plume of smoke. "Not just the smell," he said. "That smoke pushes the light back. That's not empty smoke."
As if his words were a summons, the street below went still. The wind paused. In the wall's shadow, three silhouettes emerged from the smoke, each holding a ring woven from black stone—a geometry that felt forbidden, gleaming like glass yet swallowing the light. From inside the ring, the air was being pulled away, an inhalation that emptied the square.
Lira dropped her bow into position, fingers checking the knot on the string without looking. Kovan drew his blade; the rasp of metal cut through the strange suction of the air. The inner wire in Aras pulled taut, and a silent band closed around his chest. Three long, one short. He tried to align the thin note in him with the deeper one in the stone—not too much. Measure.
"Stop!" someone cried below—a woman's eyes set in an old face but a child's fear in her voice. "Do you have the compass?" It was not a question so much as the breath before a bad announcement. She shut her door without waiting.
One silhouette dropped the ring to the ground. Dust reared up around it, curling as if to form half‑spoken words. Lira released her arrow; it slowed mid‑air as if entering water, then pushed through, striking the ring's edge. Kovan closed the gap in two strides, kicked the ring over; the stone faltered, its pull on the air cut short. The shadows wavered, retreating into the dark. Kovan's blade carved a single line through that dark, splitting the silence.
Aras lifted his hand. He wanted to bind dust, light, and cold into a small vortex—just enough to trip the ring's rhythm. The wire within him leaned into the motion, but it wasn't his to command. Veins don't obey. They accompany. He brought his hands closer, dropped his breath into a single line, drawing the stone's slow chill up into the heat at his fingertips. A small whirl formed, struck the ring, and it staggered. A thin cold trace climbed from his wrist to his elbow before the inner wire slackened. He refused the itch for more. Measure. Stay inside.
When it was over, the square smelled of stone dust and halted breath. Aras drew out the compass; the needle was fixed southeast‑by‑east. The old mark beneath it glowed and dimmed again, as though it had just taken a breath.
"We need to go there," he said. Lira narrowed her eyes at the direction. "Ash Road," she said, the word tasting of dust. Kovan sheathed his sword. "The air smells wrong," he repeated, but let the finality in the decision speak for itself.
They descended without speaking. On the road to the gate, a woman clutched chalk as if it were a weapon, drawing three new lines and scattering dry herbs across them. Her eyes found the compass but she didn't ask. Not asking was answer enough.
"Uğrak," Lira said over her shoulder. "These rings. We don't know who's opening them, but closing them is harder every time."
"They're not doors," Kovan muttered. "They're tears."
Aras turned the compass in his palm. The crack in the glass ran parallel to the needle, as if the glass carried the needle from the inside and the needle carried the glass from the outside. "Three days," he murmured. "Three days east. After that, we'll see."
"If we take the first breath of the road together, we can handle the rest," Lira said, mouth tilting in a tired smile. "Ash is generous until you arrive. Then it's stingy."
"Talk less, walk more," Kovan said, but with the kind of roughness that protects. "Shadow rings don't fall on their own."
The wind at the gate stripped away the last hesitation. Ash Road stretched ahead—grey, stubborn, unchanged at first glance, but with a rhythm that shifted underfoot. In its whispers Aras began to hear a few syllables fall in time with his own breath. Beneath the road, the deeper current of the Veins moved to another song.
"Now?" Lira asked, counting her arrows. Aras nodded. The compass's needle waited patiently in its chosen direction; in his hand, a warm point met a thin line of cold running up his forearm. He let the two sensations converse without interrupting. Accompany.
They took the first bend; the city shrank to a line behind them, and ahead came a low vibration from under the stones—not speech, but habit. "No birds," Lira said again. "This is a silence something's made." Kovan touched the hilt of his sword; the metal gave him its familiar chill.
Aras glanced back once. The stones his father had walked remained; the compass his father had made was in his hand. The old mark shone again—thin arc, three lines. Threshold. Measure. Accompany. Beneath the road, the Veins waited for another step to lengthen or shorten.
The wind lifted the road's dust, and the dust spoke one more syllable. Aras matched his breath to it. Three long, one short. The wire within him aligned with the deeper note below. He took a step. The compass clicked once—like a heartbeat. The needle pointed not just to a place, but to a decision. They walked on in shared rhythm. Behind them, the city faded; ahead, the Ash Road learned their steps.