Durnholde met them in the morning mist, all damp brick and salt-streaked towers. The harbor bustled like a stirred hive, gulls circling overhead as if summoned by the crack of ropes and clatter of boots hitting dock. The ship groaned its relief as it finally settled against the pier, long ropes cast to eager dockhands with cracked palms and hunched shoulders.

  Lark stood at the railing for a moment, eyes narrowed against the rising sun. Beyond the maze of cranes and stacked crates, the city bloomed in weary gray—wet cobbles, sagging shingled roofs, smoke rising in thin trails from chimneys that had burned too many bad memories into their hearths.

  The gangplank dropped and he moved. It didn’t take long to find Gus. She was waiting in the hold with the other horses, eyes bright with exhaustion, her bay coat dull but not defeated. When he opened the latch, she turned toward him and let out a snort that shook her entire body.

  “I know,” Lark muttered, running a hand down her thick neck. “I hated that trip too.”

  He led her out gently, letting her stretch her legs on the dock while he fetched her tack from the bundle wrapped in oiled canvas. A few bystanders gave them space, most glancing at Gus with a mixture of awe and caution. Warhorse was still written in every line of her, even under the faded scars and travel-hollowed ribs.

  With practiced hands, he saddled her up, adjusted the bridle, checked her hooves. Banjo had stayed behind with the woman at Velmorien’s edge—Lark had left him with a lopsided kiss on the forehead and the stern instruction not to follow this time.

  “He’ll try anyway,” he muttered under his breath, tightening the cinch.

  The tavern sat a few streets up from the harbors, tucked between a weaver’s stall and a half-burnt apothecary that looked like it hadn’t been open in awhile. The sign above the door—The Bramble Cup—swayed in the wind with a creak that echoed eerily in the stone alley.

  Inside, it smelled like damp wood, smoked herring, and spilled cider. Lark stepped through the threshold, hood drawn low, Gus tied just outside.

  A few heads turned, none lingered. The place was half-full, mostly laborers and dockhands clutching mugs with both hands. Behind the counter stood a man with a goat-like beard, stiff shoulders, and the same squint most old barkeeps eventually developed—half suspicion, half boredom.

  Lark slid onto a stool and set a few coins down.

  “Warm meal,” he said. “And a boiled egg if you’ve got it.”

  The man grunted and turned. Lark exhaled slowly, leaning forward with both elbows on the bar. Once the plate came—a chunk of dark bread, a slab of sausage, and the egg, miraculously whole—he slipped a hand into his satchel.

  The map came out first, unfolded quietly. Inked routes spidered from port to port, blotches of red drawn in jagged circles around old kingdom fronts. And tucked in the corner of the bag, folded carefully inside, was Mara’s shawl.

  The dried blood had gone dark, crusted into the weave. He ran a thumb along the fringe.

  “I need a sorceress,” he said under his breath.

  The kind who could trace bloodlines and dabble in dark magic. He thought of Mara’s eyes, what her daughter might look like. She could have been anyone by now—an adult he presumed, maybe even sitting in this very tavern.

  And then he thought of her, Eira. Sorceress and friend, a companion he and Thalen traveled with only last year. Before the war, before this mess.

  But to find Eira, he needed to find the one most likely to leave footsteps in the dirt.

  “Thalen,” he murmured, raising his eyes to the barkeep.

  The man returned to the counter, drying his hands on a frayed cloth. He studied Lark with a narrowed eye, then gave a crooked little smile.

  “Didn’t expect to see you again. You and your crew lit half the bloody coast on fire last year, didn’t you?”

  Lark stiffened. “That wasn’t—look, we helped. Mostly.”

  The man chuckled, throat rasping. “I’m not judging. Fire put out a worse rot, far as I’m concerned.” He leaned in slightly.

  “Thalen, big orc-looking fella with the spear,” Lark said, with a nod. “You seen him?”

  The barkeep scratched his beard. “Ah, he came through two, maybe three months back. Didn’t say much. Bought grain and healing salves, gave away half his food to a beggar on the way out. Kind sort.”

  Lark’s chest clenched. Of course he did.

  “Where was he headed?”

  “Didn’t say. But heard talk from refugees—about some savin’ going on up east, might be your guy.”

  Lark looked back down at the map, tracing his finger toward the coast’s ridges, following the towns posted that way. He folded the map again, tucked away the shawl, and tossed another coin on the bar.

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  “Thanks,” he said.

  The man nodded once. “Good luck, Bard.”

  Lark followed the coast road north, cutting inland when the cliffs grew too steep and the wind too sharp. The trails were brittle with frost in the morning and slick with thaw by dusk, and more than once, he and Gus had to detour around shattered bridges or burned-out wagons rotting in ditches. Everywhere he passed bore scars—blackened trees, collapsed houses with doors flapping open like tongues, strange symbols scorched into wooden planks. Some were prayers. Others were warnings.

  The war had taken hold here. Velmorien’s banner still flew in some towns, fluttering limply beside hollow-eyed militia posts, but Selara’s mark—the Phoenix, rising in red—had been smeared across more walls than he could count.

  People were afraid to talk, or tired of it. In either case, silence became Lark’s traveling companion. It was half the day before he came to the homestead.

  The house stood crooked at the edge of a long, ragged pasture, half-hidden behind a line of leafless birch. Smoke drifted from a lopsided chimney. A scarecrow had slumped in the field, straw leaking from its gut. He rode in slow, hand raised in a show of peace. Gus let out a huff as they crossed the muddy yard.

  A woman answered the knock. Pale, sharp-shouldered, with the raw look of someone who hadn’t slept through the night in months. Her black hair was shot through with silver, and her mouth looked like it had been stitched into a line long ago.

  “I don’t have much,” she said before he even opened his mouth.

  “I don’t need much,” Lark said gently. “Just shelter for the night. I can pay.”

  She squinted past him at Gus. “She can stay in the lean-to. You—barn’s yours.”

  Lark nodded. “Fair.”

  She didn’t smile, closing the door slowly.

  The barn was half-collapsed on one side, but dry enough, and the hay hadn’t gone completely sour. Lark set out his bedroll beside an old cart axle and let Gus settle nearby, blanketing her with what canvas he could spare. He peeled off his gloves, checked the bruises still mottling his ribs, and unstrapped his satchel.

  He didn’t light a lantern. Just leaned back into the dark, wrapped his coat tighter around his shoulders, and let his eyes drift shut.

  He managed maybe twenty minutes of uneasy rest, then, a soft creak at the large barn door.

  Lark tensed. He turned over just enough to glimpse the silhouette—a woman’s. Still. Watching.

  “Everything alright?” he asked softly.

  A pause. Then: “Just checkin’. Making sure you didn’t die.”

  He let out a faint, tired chuckle. “Still breathing. Unfortunately.”

  She lingered a moment longer before stepping away.

  He waited for the sound of retreating footsteps against the gravely terrain, but heard only the wind hissing through the rusting pipes.

  An hour passed. Then another. She came back.

  No creak, this time—just a shift in the air, the faint scrape of boots across dirt. Lark opened one eye, saw her shadow between the boards.

  “I told you,” he said, “I’m still alive.”

  “You talk in your sleep,” she said.

  His blood ran cold, how had she heard him from the house?

  “Didn’t know that.”

  He could feel her watching him. Like a hawk watches a mouse not worth eating—yet. “I’m leaving first light,” he said evenly. “Won’t bother you further.”

  Another silence. Then she stepped back, the barn door easing shut behind her.

  Lark didn’t sleep the rest of the night. He sat with his back to the barn wall. He kept Mara’s shawl in his lap, fingers tracing the edge in steady loops to keep his pulse from skipping.

  The war wasn’t the only thing burning out here. Something older walked these roads too, driving people mad. And Lark—once again, ventured blindly into it.

  The morning broke thin and pale, brittle like old bone. Mist clung to the ground in silver nets, and frost curled at the corners of Lark’s coat as he tacked up Gus in silence. The barn creaked behind him, stiff with cold, and every motion felt like it tugged against muscle that hadn’t mended right.

  He hadn’t slept.

  Gus looked at him once—just once—when he pulled the saddle tight and dropped his weight against her side. She exhaled deeply, and Lark gave her shoulder a pat—leading her out into the waking yard.

  The woman was already outside, arms crossed over a shawl too thin for the cold. A battered kettle hissed on a stump beside her, and the smell of burnt barley lingered in the fog.

  “You’re quiet,” she said.

  “Didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I was awake.”

  He nodded, lips pressed flat. He adjusted the straps on Gus’s girth.

  “I had a daughter,” she said after a pause. “’Bout your age. More or less. Died in spring, 6 months ago. Fever. Burned out from the war before it even reached us.”

  Lark’s throat tightened, but he kept his head down. She was definitely going mad.

  “You look like the type I’d give her to,” she added. “Quiet. Road-worn. Bad with your eyes.”

  She smiled then. Or maybe just bared her teeth.

  Lark felt it then—that flicker of something just under her voice. Something broken, something wanting.

  “I’ve got someone waiting,” he said, mounting Gus in one quick, practiced motion. “Back home. Wouldn’t be right.” He cleared his throat, nodding towards her. “Thanks for the shelter.”

  The woman blinked slowly, then gave him a nod like a blade tipping. “You ride careful, boy. It’s a dangerous place out there.”

  He didn’t look back.

  The road ahead was little more than a scar cut through scrub. Once, it had likely been a trade route—broad enough for carts, worn enough to be familiar—but now it had narrowed to a thread of mud between half-dead trees. Gus’s hooves slurped through muck with every step. Lark pulled his cloak tighter, hood low over his brow, and let the wind worry the edge of it like gnawing teeth.

  A day’s ride, the map had said.

  One day to the next town. One day to something with four walls and a roof and maybe a bowl of stew, but the miles stretched like pulled wool.

  Every bend in the trail looked like one he’d passed before. A crooked tree with its bark clawed off in long strips. A stone marker that leaned a little too sharply toward the ditch. A black bird that watched them from the fencepost and did not blink.

  Lark’s head throbbed with a rising pressure—like a drum, struck just once, echoing too long. He tried humming, just to keep the rhythm, just to keep awake.

  But his voice cracked in his throat, and the hum died like ash in his mouth.

  By noon, the clouds had thickened. No rain—just a low, heavy ceiling that pressed down on the horizon until even the hills felt hunched. Lark caught himself listing in the saddle, one hand white-knuckled in Gus’s mane.

  The road grew stranger.

  He thought he passed a body once—just a heap of blankets and a rusted sword stuck point-down in the mud beside it. He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  His heartbeat had taken on a jittery, skittering quality. Like too many hooves on stone, like something running just ahead of him…Or behind.

  He turned once—twice, nothing.

  Only trees. Empty fields. And the whistle of wind through an abandoned well just off the side of the road, sounding too much like a whistle.

  He ate while riding. Dry biscuit. Jerky too hard for his teeth. He drank sparingly from his waterskin, not trusting the creeks that crossed the path with their mossy mouths and iron-tinged smell.

  By early evening, the headache had curled behind his right eye, blooming every time he blinked too hard or let the light filter wrong through the branches.

  Gus flicked an ear back but hadn’t flattered, she kept moving—she always did. He didn’t remember dozing off, but he did. Only for a second—barely a blink. But in that blink, he saw her, Mara. Hair whipped in wind. Her eyes bore into his. Her hands red with something. Her voice saying—

  He jerked awake, nearly slipped from the saddle. “Fuck,” he hissed, and buried his face in his hands, coughing violently into a shake.

  The road kept moving. So did Gus.

  And above, in the dusk, something began to howl. Not wolves, nor dogs. Just wind, for now. The lights of the town came as more of a suggestion than a promise—little amber dots flickering through the branches like fireflies caught in glass.

  Lark’s head was swimming. His mouth tasted of copper. The satchel and tunic across his torso felt too heavy, somehow making him feel feverish and freezing all at once.