By the third day, Kaelen had learned the rhythm of the Veil's drift—just enough to realize they didn't want him learning it at all.
Whenever he lingered too long at the front of the column, someone would find a reason to pull him back. A curt word. A shove. Once, a masked youth named Vel braced a knife against his ribs and said,
"You follow. Not lead."
It wasn't just hostility. It was containment.
Meals became quieter. They spoke in a coded tongue, syllables bent in ways that slipped past his understanding. Once or twice, he caught Iryndra watching him again—not with suspicion, but with calculation, as though weighing how much longer he'd be worth the risk.
The path narrowed that evening, curling along the rim of a sky-chasm so deep the mist below looked like a churning sea. Rope bridges swayed between the cliffs, each one frayed enough to make his palms sweat. The Veil crossed without hesitation, their movements sharp and precise. Kaelen's steps were slower, the bone shard under his skin throbbing harder with each sway of the planks.
Halfway across, Vel paused ahead of him.
"You're slowing us down."
Kaelen almost replied, but a different voice cut in—dry and amused.
"Let him breathe. He'll need it."
It was the old woman they called Thread-Keeper, her hair a silver spill beneath her mask. She stood on the far side, leaning on a staff capped with a twist of glass that shimmered faintly in the dying light.
When Kaelen reached her, she tapped the staff against his forearm.
"The Knots don't like strangers. But they… tolerate vessels."
Her gaze slid to the bone-shard burn on his skin, then back to his face.
"You'll see soon enough. When we meet the Bone Mask, you'll understand why we carry smoke."
Before he could ask, she turned away, drifting back into the Veil's shadow.
That night, they camped without fire, the only light coming from embermoss braziers guttering low. The silence felt heavier than the mist below. Somewhere in the darkness, a long, dry rattle echoed—too steady to be wind.
And Kaelen began to wonder if the Knotted Veil feared the Bone Mask…
…or if they feared what it might do to him.