The camp was silent. No laughter, no crackling fire, no whispered prayers—just the hollow wind carrying the scent of blood and burnt wood.
Lucian knelt beside the two shrouded bodies—Elara and Jasen, wrapped in white cloth torn from the remnants of their own tents. His fingers trembled as he brushed a strand of hair from Elara's lifeless face, her expression finally peaceful.
Dante stood motionless, his usual fiery bravado extinguished. His skeletal form, now fully flesh and blood in his grief, loomed over Jasen's small body. The boy who had called him friend. The boy who had hugged his leg and asked stupid questions about horse poop.
"Stupid kid," Dante muttered, voice cracking. "You were supposed to run."
Kael, barely conscious, leaned against a broken cart, his body a map of bruises and burns. His breath came in shallow gasps, his feverish skin slick with sweat. The Shock Impact had drained him—his muscles screamed, his bones felt like shattered glass. But the real pain wasn't physical.
It was the weight of failure.
Lucian struck the flint. Once. Twice.
The pyre ignited.
Flames licked at the cloth, then consumed it, rising in a slow, mournful dance. Dante didn't look away. He watched as the fire took them—the mother who had slapped Kael for failing her, the boy who had believed in fairy tales of emperors and heroes.
"We should've been faster," Dante said, voice raw.
Kael's fists clenched. He wanted to speak, to say something, but his throat was too tight.
Lucian, ever the silent mourner, reached into his coat and pulled out a small, frayed doll—Jasen's stuffed rabbit, salvaged from the wreckage. He placed it gently into the flames.
"Rest in Willowbrook," he whispered.
The fire roared in response.
Hours passed. The ashes cooled.
Lucian scooped them into a small urn—a clay vessel Durnik had given them, etched with the Dromen family crest. He tied it securely to Dante's saddle.
Kael tried to stand. His legs buckled.
Dante, without a word, nudged him up with his muzzle. "Get on. You're in no shape to walk."
Kael didn't argue. He slumped onto Dante's back, his body trembling with exhaustion and fever.
Lucian scanned the horizon. "We need to move. Ignatius will send more."
At the edge of the ruined camp, half-buried in snow, stood a small, weathered chariot.
From the outside, it looked unremarkable—barely large enough for one person, its wooden frame cracked with age, its wheels chipped from long disuse. A relic of some forgotten battle, left to rot.
But when Lucian pulled open the door—
—the inside defied reason.
A vast, shadowed chamber stretched before them, far larger than the exterior suggested. The walls were lined with shelves of ancient tomes, their spines cracked with age. A single oil lamp hung from the ceiling, casting flickering light over a worn map table, a cot draped in furs, and a chest of supplies.
Dante's ears flicked. "...The hell?"
Lucian exhaled sharply. "Enchanted."
Kael didn't question it. He stumbled inside, collapsing onto the cot with a groan. The moment he crossed the threshold, the pain lessened, as if the air itself was numbing his wounds.
Dante hesitated, then stepped in—his massive skeletal form somehow fitting through the small doorway without issue. The moment he was inside, his flames flickered back to life, casting eerie blue light across the chamber.
"This isn't natural," he muttered.
Lucian ran a hand along the wall, where carvings of forgotten runes shimmered faintly. "No. It's something older."
Kael's fevered mind barely registered the impossibility of it. He just knew that for the first time since the fight, he could breathe without agony.
Dante stood near the urn, his flames dim. "...They would've liked this," he said quietly. "The kid would've lost his damn mind over it."
Lucian didn't answer. He just unbuckled his coat and draped it over the urn like a shroud.
Outside, the wind howled.
Inside, the chariot carried them forward—a small, unassuming vessel on the outside, a sanctuary of secrets within.
And somewhere in the shadows of the shelves, a single, half-burned page fluttered, its faded ink reading:
"For the lost, the weary, and those who carry the dead."
Somewhere, far away, Ignatius was regrouping.