The sky was the color of cooled iron, bruised with the orange smear of a coming dusk. The trees stood thin and leafless against the dying light, brittle like bones left too long in the cold. Smoke curled weakly above the treeline ahead.
Elijah walked quietly behind the others, boots crunching through patches of dead grass and frostbitten earth. His shoulders still ached from the fall the day before, and the bandage Mara had wrapped around his ribs was damp with sweat. The silence between them was not cold, but fragile. Like something that could crack if anyone spoke too loudly.
Kell had tried once—just after sunrise—to start conversation again.
"So… you really don't remember anything?"
Elijah hadn't answered.
Now, hours later, even Kell had stopped asking.
They'd passed no villages. Only wreckage. Burned-out huts, broken carts, scattered belongings half-buried in the mud. At one point, they passed what might've once been a small chapel, now collapsed into a mound of splinters and ash. A rusted symbol hung crooked from its roofbeam—a crude carving of a flame surrounded by three circles. Kell stared at it a long time before walking on.
No one explained. Elijah didn't ask.
The road bent sharply downhill, and they emerged into a clearing where smoke drifted from a ring of stone huts. A settlement. Not large—maybe eight or ten homes, most with cracked walls or sagging roofs. People were here, though. He could hear it. Voices. The ring of metal on metal. A dog barking in the distance.
"Keep your hood up," Derin muttered over his shoulder to Elijah. "And don't talk unless spoken to."
Mara led the way down, staff in hand, her gait smooth and confident. Elijah had seen how the others looked to her—like she was the thread keeping them stitched together. Even Derin, with his sharp tongue and sharper eyes, didn't challenge her.
A woman stood at the edge of the village, stirring a pot over an open flame. Her face was hard. Her eyes, harder.
"Mercenaries again?" she said flatly. "You know there's no coin left in this place."
"We're not here for coin," Mara replied.
"Then leave before trouble finds you."
Mara didn't move. "We heard a Wound opened west of the cliffs. We're tracking it."
The woman snorted. "So are a dozen other fools. Nothing left there but death."
"Still," Mara said, her voice even, "we'll be staying the night. Just until the storm passes."
At that, the woman looked up sharply. Her gaze flicked to Elijah.
"That one's not from here."
Mara stepped forward, calm. "He's mute. Took a bad blow to the head two nights past."
The woman narrowed her eyes. For a heartbeat, Elijah felt the full weight of her stare, like she was peeling back his skin, looking for what didn't belong.
Then she nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"You can take the far hut," she said. "Don't expect food. Don't draw attention."
The hut was little more than a shell. Cold air slipped through cracks in the walls. Elijah sat near the hearth, where the others had lit a small fire, though it gave more smoke than heat.
Derin checked his sword. Kell cleaned his staff with an old rag. Mara sat with her back to the door, staring into the flickering flame.
Outside, wind stirred the trees. Distant thunder rolled low against the hills.
Elijah leaned his head against the wall, listening.
"You ever think about leaving?" Kell asked quietly. "Like… leaving all of it behind? Going to one of the old cities. Or the coast."
Derin scoffed. "There is no coast anymore."
"There is," Kell insisted. "Just—no one gets there. They say the roads twist too much. Maps change. But I heard someone reached it once. Said the sea was still there, just… wrong."
Mara didn't speak.
Elijah opened his mouth, then closed it.
He didn't want them to hear the accent in his voice. He didn't want to explain what he didn't understand himself.
But something in Kell's words stirred a memory.
Not of the sea—but of light on water. The feel of wind. The sound of something enormous, something alive and endless.
He gripped his knees.
Mara looked over at him, then slowly stood.
"I'm going to speak to the elder," she said. "See if there's any truth to the rumors."
Derin glanced at her. "Want backup?"
She shook her head. "You three stay here. Rest."
When she left, the silence returned like fog. Elijah leaned forward, staring at the flame.
Kell finally broke it.
"You're not mute, are you?"
Elijah looked at him.
"I mean, it's fine if you are," Kell added quickly. "Just—your eyes don't look broken. They're too… awake."
Elijah hesitated. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
Derin didn't seem surprised.
"Hmph. Figures."
Kell smiled faintly. "Well. I won't tell. Mara probably already knows, anyway."
"Why?" Elijah asked softly.
Kell blinked.
"Why would you lie for me?"
Kell shrugged. "You look lost. And I know what it's like. When I was ten, my sister got taken by one of the Wounds. People said she died. But I know she didn't. I saw the sky change. I heard the sound. I know she went somewhere."
His voice caught.
"She might be a god now. Or a monster. Or dust. But I know she's… not here."
Elijah didn't know what to say.
He didn't even know how to begin to understand this world.
But something in Kell's voice made his throat tighten.
Before he could reply, the door creaked open. Mara stepped inside, her face grim.
"We leave before dawn," she said. "The elder's not right. I think the Wound's closer than they realize."
Derin nodded, already packing.
"What about the villagers?" Kell asked.
Mara hesitated. "They won't listen."
Outside, the wind rose. The fire sputtered.
And for a moment, Elijah thought he heard something else—deep beneath the wind. A sound like distant breathing. Slow. Immense.
That night, Elijah couldn't sleep.
He lay on a thin mat near the wall, the fire long dead. The others breathed slow and steady in their corners. But something pulled at his thoughts—something he couldn't name.
He rose quietly and stepped outside.
The village was still. No torches. No footsteps. Only the night, and the whisper of trees.
But the air smelled wrong.
He walked slowly past the huts, toward the edge of the clearing. The wind had stopped completely, yet ash drifted faintly through the air—soft, white, and constant.
And then he saw it.
Beyond the far treeline, where the woods should have been—there was only blackness.
Not night.
Not shadow.
Something else.
It was like the world had been erased. A void that swallowed sound and color and light. And it was growing.
Something shifted inside it.
A shape. Gigantic. Crawling slowly over the land like a wound in reality.
Elijah stumbled back, heart pounding.
He turned—
And Kell stood behind him.
Eyes wide. Skin pale.
"You see it too," Kell whispered.
Elijah couldn't speak.
Behind them, the sky began to hum.
They fled back to the hut. Mara and Derin were already awake, weapons drawn. The sound had woken them.
"It's here," Elijah said—his voice breaking silence for the first time.
Mara didn't ask how he knew. She looked into his face for a heartbeat and nodded.
"We move. Now."
They packed in seconds. Outside, the villagers were beginning to stir. Confused voices. Someone shouting. Someone screaming.
Then came the light.
A rip in the sky—like torn paper, glowing with violet fire. The trees bent away from it. Birds dropped from the air. And from the blackness beyond, something began to pour out.
Shapes.
Too many limbs. Eyes that bled smoke. Mouths without sound.
The Wound had opened.
Elijah ran with the others, feet barely touching the ground. Kell shouted something, but it was lost in the roar behind them.
The earth cracked. Wind screamed.
And for a moment—just a moment—Elijah felt something stir inside him.
Not power.
Not awakening.
Just a cold memory. Of silence. Of black space. Of falling.
Of the moment the black hole swallowed him.
And something had stared back.
They didn't stop until the sun rose, hours later. They reached a ridge overlooking the valley. Behind them, the sky was still wrong. The village was gone. Smoke rose in slow spirals.
Mara stood still, breathing hard.
Derin cursed under his breath.
Kell collapsed, coughing, hands shaking.
Elijah stared at the horizon.
Not at what was lost.
But at what waited ahead.
He didn't belong here.
But now—he couldn't go back.