The fire had reduced to smoldering embers, casting a soft light while the smell of smoke lingered tenaciously on their clothing. Morning crept softly over the destroyed village walls, light cutting through the cracks of torn roofs and fractured stone.
Ashen rubbed his eyes. He hadn't rested. Neither had Talia.
Marrec woke up first, muttering curses as he strained his back. "We cannot delay here. The stench of this place will draw scavengers. And if the fog hasn't."
Ashen shut his notebook. "Leaving solves nothing. The tower's still there. The spiral still there. If we turn away now, we'll learn nothing."
"Learning," he sneered the word as if it was foul, "will not keep her alive." His gaze darted at Talia, sitting next to embers, her cloak wrapped tight around her. She avoided staring at either of their eyes.
Ashen's tone grew harsher. "You think walking blind is safer?"
"I think pulling a half-poisoned girl towards the thing that scarred her is suicide."
The silence afterward was stifling. Talia's hands clutched at her cloak, knuckles pale. "Don't—" She got out, after a moment, her voice breaking. "Don't talk as if I'm dead."
They both froze. She sat up then, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. "If this… curse is within me, running will not alter it. Staying will not alter it. But perhaps understanding what it desires will."
Although her words quaked, the resolve behind them was unmistakable.
Ashen stepped closer, whispering almost. "You do not have to carry this burden."
She gave a pale smile, which never became larger than it was. "You brought me here. Perhaps I do."
The words stung worse than she intended. Ashen's throat tightened, but he suppressed the twinge. Marrec shattered the stillness, rising with a grunt. "So here's the choice before us. We either return to the tower, or we abandon this cursed expanse of land entirely. There is no third option."
The Ashen stood up, too. "There is a third option. We search for one who knows more. It's no accident, no arbitrary spell work. There's someone out there who's seen it before."
Marrec snorted. "And who would that be? Broken-barn farmers? Old women spinning ghost tales?"
Ashen remained silent. His hand went involuntarily to the wrinkled invite carried in his pack—the very same paper which had led him here. You were there last time a deity succumbed.
The paper was thicker than it was originally, now that he'd read it.
Talia watched, then got up, even though her knees shook beneath her. She stood tall, though. "If we're deciding, then ahead, I vote. Not away. Not now. If this thing hurt me, then I'm not letting it define me without understanding why."
Marrec's jaw clenched, but he didn't protest. He only grumbled, "You'll rue that courage, girl.
Ashen touched her shoulder. She didn't draw back this time. "Then forward it is."
The embers hissed as the wind scattered them. Ahead, the tower loomed faint against the horizon, waiting.
Waiting for them.