The wagons groaned to a halt, oxen snorting clouds of breath into the chill morning air. Dust hung thick, settling over armor, wood, and skin like a second layer of grime. The road itself seemed to pause, listening.
At the front, the scarred woman raised one gloved hand. Her command carried no sound, yet the guards obeyed instantly, blades lowering, but never leaving their hilts. Their discipline said more about her than her scar. She didn't need to shout. Her presence did it for her.
Her gaze never left Leo.
"Boy," she called, her voice like gravel ground under a boot, roughened by years of shouting orders and being obeyed. "Why are you standing on my road?"
Leo swallowed. His tongue felt dry as bark. "I, I wasn't-" He caught himself, forcing his shoulders to square, his voice to steady. "I was only walking."
The woman studied him in silence. The scar along her jaw caught the morning sun, a pale slash against tanned, weather-beaten skin. She did not blink. "Alone?"
"Yes."
One of the guards barked laughter, a thickset man with half his teeth missing. His grin was ugly, mocking. "Alone in the Graywood? At his age? He's lying, captain. Woods would've eaten him by now."
A few others chuckled, though their hands never left their weapons.
The shard stirred beneath Leo's bandages, hot and eager, like a beast pawing at its cage.
Tell them nothing. Or tell them enough to make them fear you. Either way, you live.
Leo curled his fist behind his back where no one could see. His knuckles ached with the pressure.
The captain nudged her mare forward, hooves crunching gravel until the beast loomed directly over him. She sat tall, her shadow falling across Leo like a drawn blade. Her eyes cut into him, weighing, testing.
"Names have weight," she said slowly. "Give me yours, or we leave you to the wolves."
Leo's throat felt tight. "Leo."
"Leo what?"
He hesitated. His village had no family names, just bonds, voices, the memory of faces. To admit that here, before these strangers, was to strip himself bare, to show them he was nothing more than a rootless outcast.
The shard's voice curled around his mind like smoke. Say no name. Say you are what walks. See how they bow.
His mouth was dry. He forced the word out. "Just… Leo."
The captain's gaze narrowed. For a heartbeat too long she studied him, eyes flicking from the small pack at his shoulder to the dulled knife at his hip. She said nothing of his answer. Instead, she asked, "Where's your village?"
"Gone," he said quickly. Then, softer, "I was told to leave."
That, at least, was true enough.
The guards traded glances. One spat into the dirt. Another smirked, shaking his head as though it were no surprise. "Another whelp with no place to sleep," one muttered. "The road's full of them."
But the captain did not smirk. She only watched him, unreadable, the silence around her stretching long and thin until it pressed against Leo's chest like a weight.
At last, she jerked her chin. "We travel west. You may walk behind the last wagon, if you wish. Keep your hands where I can see them."
Leo blinked. "You'll let me ?"
"Don't mistake my mercy for kindness." Her voice was iron, flat as stone. "Strangers vanish every day on this road. If you cause trouble, you'll be one of them."
With a pull of her reins, she turned her mare. The caravan lurched forward once more, wheels groaning, oxen grunting under the burden. Dust rose anew, choking the air.
A guard at the rear, a narrow-eyed man with a scar of his own running down his nose, jabbed his spear toward Leo, motioning sharply. "Back there, stray dog. Walk behind, keep your mouth shut."
Leo obeyed, falling in step behind the last cart. The wheels churned mud into thick clods that splattered his boots. Dust clogged his throat, coating his tongue until even the thought of Mira's stale bread seemed like a feast.
The shard chuckled low in his mind, a sound too human to be beast, too cruel to be man.
You see how she looked at you? Suspicion, yes. But interest too. She wonders what you are. People always hunger for what they don't understand. In time, she will ask. And you will show her.
Leo kept his eyes fixed on the rutted dirt path. His heart beat hard enough that he feared the guards would hear it. He wasn't sure which frightened him more, the captain's suspicion or the shard's certainty.
And so, he walked, swallowed now not by forest, but by strangers.