Deep beneath the scorched skin of the Osirian Desert lies the Shadow Hand's hideout.
South of Thoringard, the desert offers cover—
Brutal. Unrelenting. Patient. Heat blisters skin in minutes. Sandstorms flay flesh from bone, howling like the wails of the damned. If the weather spares you—and that's a mercy you shouldn't expect—the creatures won't. Sand vipers with venom that liquefies muscle. Dune scorpions with stingers longer than a man's arm.
Outsiders rarely make it past the first mile. The rare ones who do? I've never met one that lived long enough to speak. Joining the Shadow Hand doesn't start with a signature. You face the desert. You find the hideout—if you live. That is the test. It culls the weak before they ever see our shadows. I saw one make it to the last ridge once—skin blistered raw, crawling. He reached for the outcropping and was gone in the next sandstorm, swallowed like a secret.
I still remember my fourth day. No water. No shade. The sun broke my mind before it touched my skin. I started talking to shadows like they were people. One of them spoke back. Still not sure if that was real—or just the first time I heard him.
Inside, you learn the tunnels—
Miles of stone, coiled beneath the sand, shifting with the desert's moods. Traps wait like predators.
The walls remember when they're hungry—names disappear into them, and sometimes you hear the last thing they said echoing through the halls, twisted with regret. Sometimes, the echoes speak in footsteps that don't belong to the living.
I've walked those halls long enough to feel them breathe—
To know what it means when they hold their breath. To sense the shift before a collapse. To hear the hum of old runes in the dark—
Older than the guild. Maybe older than time itself.
A world of shadow and stone—
And it shaped me as much as Thoringard ever could.
Torglel and I surfaced through a half-buried tunnel near the city's edge, scree crumbling beneath our boots as we stepped into morning light.
Thoringard loomed. It always looms. Doesn't matter how often I see it—
The weight still presses to this day.
Mountains rose like titans—unchanged, unbothered. Peaks clawed at the sky, same as when I was a child. Faces carved into the stone—too old to name. Runes and reliefs stared down: weathered, unbroken. Eyes hollow and watching.
These weren't mountains. They were monuments.
Stone remembers every scar, every promise. Stone endures—long after we forget why.
At the heart stood Thoringard's gates—
Slabs of iron and granite, pitted by centuries of wind and war.
Two towers flanked them—
Dark. Watchful. Carved from the mountain itself.
I grew up under that gaze.
Even now, I felt small. Like the stone hadn't forgotten the boy who left. Like it was still waiting to decide if the man deserved to come back.
A shout cracked the stillness:
"LONG TIME NO SEE, LADS! WHAT BRINGS YOU HOME?"
Torglel cupped his hands and yelled back,
"WANTED TO SHOW DAD THIS GUILD HASN'T KILLED US YET!"
Laughter rolled down the wall—deep and familiar. A moment later, the gates groaned open—metal shrieking like something ancient and half-awake.
Thoringard sprawled across three carved tiers, each one tunneling deeper into the mountain's heart.
Beyond the gates, the market district roared—
A riot of smoke, steel, and sound. Stalls sagged with goods—smoked meats, forged tools, gemstones that glittered like stolen stars. Voices clashed like blades. Forges sang in the distance.
The city lived the way only stone and stubbornness can.
"Find a stakeout spot," I said. "I'll grab food."
He gave a mock salute—clasps catching the light as he melted into the crowd.
I moved through the chaos like a smoke trail. Most merchants gave me space.
Some stared. Some whispered—
Assassin. Outcast. Shadow Hand. None of them were wrong. I've carried worse than whispers.
On my way to Dwargon's stall—a ritual every time I came home. He made the best spiced buns in Thoringard, the kind you could smell halfway across the mountain, and always saved one for me even if I was weeks late. If you needed news, advice, or just a place to breathe, you started with Dwargon.
I was halfway there, threading through the morning crowds, when a flicker of silver caught my eye—a Falstarian girl. Hair like liquid silver. Skin, moon-pale. Eyes like polished moonstone—sharp. Steady.
She moved like the wind bowed out of her way. The crowd parted a breath too late—never quite fast enough to match her pace. Every step was smooth, intentional.
She didn't speak. Didn't smile. Just followed—for a breath. Then vanished into the crowd.
I kept walking. But I felt her gaze stayed, long after she was gone.
Dwargon grinned wider than a dragon's maw. "Solari, my boy—good to see you. You look well."
His beard bobbed as he spoke—streaked gray now.
Same hands: broad, calloused, quick. Hands that had outlived steel and sorrow both.
"Week's worth of the usual," I said, sliding him coins.
"Long trip ahead?" he asked, already reaching for the sack.
"Maybe. Just wanted to stock up on Thoringard's best. And don't skimp on the spiced buns this time—I still remember last winter."
He grunted, half-smiling as he counted. "One batch of spiced buns coming up. You lot keep me in business."
"That's because no one else makes them right."
He chuckled as he packed the food—dried meats, hard bread, a jar of spiced preserves. Rations for the road into the unknown.
"Take care out there, lad," he said, clapping my shoulder with a hand built for anvils. "If you need anything else, you know where to find me—unless it's trouble. Then tell Torglel he owes me a drink."
I nodded.
The climb was muscle memory. My boots scuffed the familiar rock, city noise fading as height took over. I found Torglel at our old hideout—a cliff ledge high above the lower tiers, overlooking the city.
Only the faintest glow from lanterns reached this high. The rest was shadow and old echoes—our kind of quiet. The air carried forge smoke and nostalgia. We used to sneak here as kids—to dream, to breathe, to hide.
"Got the food," I said, dropping the pack like it weighed more than it should.
"Dwargon?"
He smirked.
"Who else? Mom?"
He reached for the sack, digging for the spiced buns. "Long as you don't hog 'em all this time."
I nudged his hand away. "Dwargon says you still owe him a drink from last time. Told me not to let you eat the whole batch before he gets one."
Torglel snorted, already biting into a bun. "He'll get his drink when the mountain sings."
"That's what you said last time," I said, rolling my eyes.
He just grinned—crumbs in his beard, satisfaction in every line.
We ate while the day died down. Torglel told a story—bar brawl, flying chair, barkeep nearly drowned in ale. We laughed. And for a while, we were just kids again. No guild. No mission. No weight behind the eyes.
"Who's got first watch?" I asked, brushing crumbs from my gloves.
"I'll take it," he yawned, like he could sleep through siege or storm.
"Wake me when I'm up."
He nodded.
I let sleep take me. Darkness. Or something deeper. A silence that knew your name. Then light—pulsing. Beckoning. My feet moved before my mind could ask why.
Light bloomed—slow, deliberate—into a perfect circle. A spotlight in the abyss. No flicker. No flare. Just sudden presence. Clean-edged. Hung in the dark like a guillotine waiting to drop.
The void didn't ripple. It watched.
And in that silence, a stage was born.
Then a voice rose—
coiling through the void like smoke made of sharpened whispers. It scraped the inside of my ears, slow and sweet, the way a beast hums before it strikes. Not a sound. A presence wearing sound like a mask.
"Well, well. The lost Drydalis... still pretending you don't feel it? The thing crawling under your skin?"
Drydalis. The word struck something deep. Not memory. Instinct.
A laugh peeled out—high and fractured, like a hymn sung by something that had forgotten what joy ever was. It echoed, twisted by distance and darkness. And then—he stepped into the light.
He was me—but wrong. A glitch in the reflection. My shape, bent at angles nature didn't invent. The air around him hummed with old static, like a half-remembered spell.
His wings unfolded—leathery and long, like the shadow of a sin waiting to be named.
Teeth like knives. Eyes like midnight sky. His presence hit like blood on the wind.
"Of course it's me," I muttered.
He tilted his head. Giggled—high, brittle. Like joy from pulling wings off an insect. "Took you long enough."
His grin widened, like a face unhinged from bone, wearing my skin like a dare.
"I'm you. Or the part you keep locked up. The part with teeth."
The wings flexed—slow, deliberate. The void seemed to pull tighter around him.
"You called me a Drydalis. What does that mean?"
He rolled his eyes—slow, exaggerated. Mocking.
"It means you're late," waving the question away like smoke.
"Then tell me."
He leaned in, grin thinned to a blade. "Soon." His whisper slithered between us. "They're going to wake her."
I opened my mouth—
The light shattered like glass.
"Breakfast," Torglel said, handing me a bowl. "Eat up or I'm finishing yours."
He paused. Looked at me for half a second longer than usual. Then shrugged. "Guess you'll tell me when it matters."
I tried to eat, but the dream sat in my stomach like something spoiled—something that tasted of my name.
He wandered off, muttering something about a brown snake.
I shook my head. Even now, he could drag laughter from a dying room. But that's one of the many reasons why I kept him close.
The fire crackled. Wind shifted. Every hair on my neck prickled. A branch creaked. Instinct snapped me sideways—knife out, rolling off the ledge and straight into a thorn bush. Thorns scraped my arms; something squelched under my elbow.
It was her. Silver hair. Moonstone eyes. The Falstarian girl.
She blinked. Unfazed. "How'd you move like that? You a mage or something?"
"No," I said.
She tilted her head, silver hair catching the light. "What are you doing out here?"
"Trying to eat in peace." I kept my tone flat. "This is my spot, go away."
She grinned—wide, fearless. "Until next time, grumpy pants. Try not to dream yourself apart." She giggled, vanishing into the dark, silver hair flaring like a signal fire.
I sheathed my blade and exhaled. Weird girl. But something about her stuck—like a thread snagged on steel.
Torglel returned, brushing off his hands. "Oi, I'm back. Miss anything?"
I stared at the place she'd been.
"Yeah," I said. "And you're not gonna believe it..."