By the time Ithan stepped back into the night, dawn was a pale smear over the treetops. The cave's stench clung to him—smoke, ash, and the sweet-rot odor of the Lamia's lair. He carried no trophy but a small iron urn, filled with what little remained of her ashes, sealed tight with wax. Proof enough.
The walk back to Orphene was silent, the forest yielding again to the murmur of the waking city. Merchants raised their shutters, sweeping steps clean of last night's dust. The same bards who had filled the square with song now tuned their instruments, their bright notes jarring against the weight he carried.
The mayor's building loomed ahead, its banners stirring faintly in the morning breeze. The guards at the gate straightened when they saw him. One wrinkled his nose at the smoke on Ithan's cloak, the other glanced at the urn he carried. They exchanged no words this time—just opened the gate, their silence thicker than respect.
Inside, the hall buzzed with early activity. Clerks shuffled papers, runners darted in and out with messages, all of them pausing when Ithan strode across the marble floor. His boots left faint smudges of soot behind, a trail that led him straight to the dais.
The mayor looked up from his council table, eyes widening slightly at Ithan's condition. He had the look of a man bracing for bad news.
Ithan set the urn down hard enough that it echoed through the chamber. The sound stilled the hall.
"Ashes," he said simply. "The Daimon is dead."
The mayor rose slowly, his gaze fixed on the urn as though it might open on its own. His fingers twitched at his side, but he did not reach for it. The weight of the hall's silence pressed in, all eyes on the gray-haired mercenary standing with soot on his cloak and blood dried on his hands.
The mayor swallowed once, his voice quiet but carrying. "So it is done."
Ithan's amber eyes bored into him. "You'll tell them," he said. "All of it. Not thieves. Not raiders. A Daimon. Or those bones in the cave will have been for nothing."
For a moment, the mayor hesitated, his face caught between the polished calm of a politician and the raw dread of a man staring at the consequences. But finally, he nodded. "They will know."
The mayor lingered a moment longer, staring at the urn as if its weight were enough to crush him where he stood. Then he exhaled sharply, straightening the sash across his chest, slipping the mask of authority back over his features.
"You've done what was asked," he said, his voice measured again, though still carrying the tremor of what he'd heard. "Orphene owes you its thanks… and its coin."
He gestured to the side of the hall. One of the clerks—a thin, sharp-faced man with ink stains on his fingers—stepped forward. His eyes darted between the urn and Ithan, unease plain on his face.
"My assistant," the mayor continued, "will see to your payment. The council approved a purse for the task, and it will be delivered to you in full. Take it, and whatever rest you need. Orphene will manage the rest."
The assistant gave a small bow and scuttled toward a side chamber, returning moments later with a heavy leather purse. The drawstring was tied tight, the weight of the drachma within undeniable. He held it out at arm's length, as though afraid to draw any nearer.
Ithan reached for it without a word, the coins clinking as he hooked the strap to his belt.
The mayor's eyes returned to him once more. "The city is safer now. For that, I'll not forget your service. But… leave the ashes. They are Orphene's burden to bear." His gaze slid briefly to the urn, then away, as though he couldn't stand to look too long.
Ithan gave a curt nod. "Keep your burden. I'll keep the lesson."
Without waiting for dismissal, he turned on his heel, the purse heavy at his hip, the hidden bundle heavier still beneath his cloak.
****
Ithan didn't wait for the mayor's proclamation. The moment the purse of drachma hung at his belt, he was gone—out of the hall, through the waking streets, and past the gates of Orphene before the crowd could gather to hear their truth. The road stretched before him, long and pale beneath the early sun, and with each step, the city's clamor faded into the distance.
The real weight at his side wasn't the coin. It was the bundle beneath his cloak. The corrupted mystery throbbed faintly, a heat that wasn't heat, a pulse that seemed to echo with his own.
He kept a hand against it as he walked, as though to make sure it hadn't slipped free, and found his thoughts circling the same knot: what in the hells was he supposed to do with it?
Ithan knew little of Mysteries. What he carried in knowledge was scraps—fragments gleaned in half-formed experiments, or in the rambling lessons Lason used to mutter over the fire. Enough to know Mysteries weren't trinkets. They were pieces of something higher, older.
He remembered Lason's voice, rough and matter-of-fact: Mysteries are truths, boy. Fragments of the divine law. When the gods vanished, that's all they left us—shards of their order scattered through the world.
Divine truths. Shards of vanished gods. And now, one of them—broken, corrupted—rested at his hip.
The wind pressed against him, tugging his cloak, carrying the faint scent of pine from the hills. Still, he couldn't shake the thought. Mysteries weren't something that one could just wield. Those who claimed them, those who dared to shape them, were called Mystai in the old tongue. Mystiques. People who stood apart, blessed or cursed, depending on who told the story.
Ithan snorted under his breath, amber eyes narrowing on the horizon. Mystique. He'd grown up hearing that word as if it belonged to legends carved in marble or heroes gilded in song. Never to someone like him—a curseborn from a village everyone wanted to forget. And yet, the bundle pulsed against his side like it knew him. The bundle pulsed again against his ribs, a faint vibration that seemed to echo his heartbeat. Ithan tugged his cloak tighter around him, jaw tightening as memories rose unbidden.
Mystiques. The word had been spoken with awe in some places, venom in others. In Ravenstone, where superstition was thick as mud, they were whispered about like wandering saints or accursed witches. In the bigger towns, they were courted when needed, feared when not. Always apart, always set above or below, never among.
He remembered being a boy, hearing the village elders talk when they thought he wasn't listening. Mystiques touch the divine, one had muttered, voice reverent. But it burns them hollow, another spat back. They're half men, half curse. They bring nothing but ruin.
For most of his life, Ithan had thought those words had nothing to do with him. He was already marked—gray hair, amber eyes, a curseborn. That alone had been enough to make neighbors spit at his shadow, to keep children from playing near him. What was one more stain?
But then the sparks had come. Fire at his fingertips. Flickers of something bigger than him. He hadn't known it then, but Lason had. The young man back then had told him plainly one night over a cracked jug of wine. You're a Mystique, boy. The fire listens because you've got a fragment in you. The curse and the mystery tangled together. Makes you dangerous.
Dangerous. That was the word they always landed on. To be curseborn was to be feared. To be a Mystique was to be envied and feared in equal measure. To be both? That was to be a reminder that the world could produce monsters and gods in the same breath.
He had seen it in the eyes of mercenaries who shared his firelight, in the way they gripped their blades when he sparked flames from his palms. He had seen it in the sneers of villagers who called him twice-tainted. And he had seen it, most sharply, in himself—when he realized how much easier it was to burn than to build.
The road stretched before him, winding into the hills. Ithan kept walking, the purse heavy at his belt, the corrupted mystery heavier still. For the first time in a long while, he found himself wondering not whether he could master the power in his blood, but whether the world would ever let him.
The bundle pulsed again against his ribs, a faint vibration that seemed to echo his heartbeat. Ithan tugged his cloak tighter around it, jaw tightening as memories rose unbidden.
Mystiques. The word had been spoken with awe in some places, venom in others. In Ravenstone, where superstition was thick as mud, they were whispered about like wandering saints or accursed witches. In the bigger towns, they were courted when needed, feared when not. Always apart, always set above or below, never among.
He remembered being a boy, hearing the village elders talk when they thought he wasn't listening. Mystiques touch the divine, one had muttered, voice reverent. But it burns them hollow, another spat back. They're half men, half curse. They bring nothing but ruin.
For most of his life, Ithan had thought those words had nothing to do with him. He was already marked—gray hair, amber eyes, a curseborn. That alone had been enough to make neighbors spit at his shadow, to keep children from playing near him. What was one more stain?
But then the sparks had come. Fire at his fingertips. Flickers of something bigger than him. He hadn't known it then, but Lason had. The old man had told him plainly one night over a cracked jug of wine. You're a Mystique, boy. The fire listens because you've got a fragment in you. The curse and the mystery tangled together. Makes you dangerous.
Dangerous. That was the word they always landed on. To be curseborn was to be feared. To be a Mystique was to be envied and feared in equal measure. To be both? That was to be a reminder that the world could produce monsters and gods in the same breath.
He had seen it in the eyes of mercenaries who shared his firelight, in the way they gripped their blades when he sparked flames from his palms. He had seen it in the sneers of villagers who called him twice-tainted. And he had seen it, most sharply, in himself—when he realized how much easier it was to burn than to build.
The road stretched before him, winding into the hills. Ithan kept walking, the purse heavy at his belt, the corrupted mystery heavier still.
For the first time in a long while, he found himself wondering not whether he could master the power in his blood, but whether the world would ever let him.
****
"Are you sure about it?"
The question came from Antipater, Captain of the Blue Orca. His voice was low but carried weight, the kind born of long years spent shouting orders over clashing steel. He leaned forward on the tavern's table, scarred hands clasped around a tankard that looked too small for his grip. His armor bore the faded azure crest of his company—an orca leaping across waves—its paint chipped and dulled by campaigns fought from the Aurelion League to the northern coasts.
Across from him, Lason didn't flinch. He tilted his cup back and swallowed a mouthful of wine, the sharp burn sliding down his throat. When he set the cup down, the wood rang against the table with a soft, deliberate thud. His eyes, tired but steady, met Antipater's without wavering.
"I'm sure," Lason said. His voice was calm, the kind of calm that left no room for persuasion.
The Blue Orca captain frowned, lines deepening across his weathered face. "It isn't a bad offer. Three contracts in one season, steady pay, provisions for your men. Not every company gets a hand extended to them from the League. Most would kill for it."
"Most," Lason agreed, reaching for the flask at his hip to refill his cup. The wine splashed crimson under the tavern's lantern light, pooling for a moment before he lifted it again. "But I'm not most."
He drank deep this time, letting the silence stretch before he set the cup aside. He stood slowly, pushing the chair back with a scrape against the floorboards, and rested one hand on the worn edge of the table.
Two years. That was how long it had been since he had walked away from other captains, other banners, to form his own company. Two years since he'd chosen to plant himself here in Volos, a frontier town clinging to the edge of the Ashen Fields. Where the Iron March bled into wilderness, and raiders or worse crossed out of the dark to test the Imperium's strength.
Antipater studied him, eyes narrowing. "Volos is no place for glory. Just smoke from the fields and blood in the mud. You'll bleed your men out here for scraps."
"Maybe." Lason's lips twitched into a thin smile that held no humor. "But the scraps are ours. No master pulling the strings, no coin flowing through someone else's purse before it reaches our hands. Just the work we take, and the work we finish."
He glanced toward the tavern's shuttered window. Outside, the faint wind carried the smell of iron-rich soil and woodsmoke from Volos' chimneys. Beyond the walls lay the March, endless and restless, and beyond that—the gray wastes of the Ashen Fields, where the horizon itself seemed to choke under a pall of ash.
"That's why I came here," Lason continued, his voice quieter now but no less firm. "Because this is where the real fights are. Not city squabbles dressed up as wars. Out here, people vanish if no one stands in their way. And if it has to be my company that stands, then so be it."
Antipater leaned back in his chair, eyes hard. He took a long pull from his tankard, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grunted. "Stubborn bastard."
Lason's answer was simple. "Always."
The two men held each other's gaze for a moment longer, a quiet war of wills passing between them. Then Antipater barked a laugh—low, grudging, but edged with respect—and shoved his chair back. The wooden legs scraped loud against the floorboards. As he rose, the tavern's lantern light slid across the faded crest painted on his breastplate: the Blue Orca, its flukes frozen mid-leap.
Behind him, his men shifted. They had been silent until now, but the air thickened with their hostility. Rough hands tightened around cups, boots scuffed against the floor, and their eyes burned into Lason like drawn blades. Their captain might have laughed, but they hadn't. To them, Lason's refusal wasn't stubborn—it was an insult.
Lason ignored them. Mostly.
All except one.
One man at the rear hadn't scowled or muttered. He just sat there, smiling. It wasn't the broad grin of a drunkard or the wolfish leer of a cutthroat; it was quieter, thinner. The sort of smile that didn't move the rest of the face, that stayed stretched there as if painted on.
Something about him snagged at Lason's thoughts.
The ash-gray hair. It caught the lamplight in a way that was too familiar. The color was rare, cursed by superstition, and Lason had only known one man who bore it naturally: Ithan. His brother-in-arms, with eyes like burning amber.
But this man's eyes weren't amber. They were silver—flat, empty, like polished metal with nothing behind it. Cold.
The difference struck harder the longer Lason looked. Where Ithan wore his scowl like armor, this man's lips stretched into that perpetual smile. But in those silver eyes, there was no mirth, no spark of warmth. Only an abyss that refused to blink.
It unsettled him.
Ithan's eyes, curseborn though they were, still carried something human: kindness, even when tempered with grief. This man's gaze promised nothing but darkness, as if he smiled only to disguise the void inside.
The man noticed Lason's stare and, without breaking his smile, tilted his head slightly—as though acknowledging the recognition Lason himself didn't fully understand.
Lason forced himself to look away, jaw tightening. Whatever that man was, he wasn't Ithan. He was a shadow cut from the same cloth, stitched with something colder.
Antipater's men filed out behind their captain, their glares lingering a moment longer before vanishing into the night air. The smiling man was the last to leave, his silver eyes flicking back once more, the smile never fading.
Lason let out a slow breath. The tavern seemed colder without the fire of Antipater's presence, yet somehow darker after the silver-eyed man's departure.
"Captain."
The voice came from the corner of the tavern. Lason turned his head just enough to see Lyra standing there, bow slung across her shoulder, one hand resting on her hip. The lanternlight caught in her auburn hair, glinting off the small steel rings woven into her leather bracers. She tilted her head toward the door where Antipater's men had vanished, one eyebrow arched in question.
"Lyra," Lason said, his tone flat with fatigue.
"They didn't take it well, did they?" Her lips quirked into the faintest smirk, though her eyes were sharp, assessing.
"Do they ever?" He passed her with a sigh, his boots heavy against the tavern's old boards. Each step carried him to the stairway at the back, the one that wound upward into the office he had claimed as his own when they first made Volos their base.
Lyra watched him go, her expression unreadable, then turned back to the empty tables where the Blue Orca had sat. The air still seemed to hold their weight, thick with unspoken threat.
Lason climbed slowly, his hand dragging along the railing. His bones ached as though the years had pressed harder on him than they had any right to. Five years—five long years since Ravenstone, since he'd taken Ithan on the road.
A ghost of a smile touched his lips as the memories stirred: the boy's stubborn scowl, his relentless questions about mercenary life, his eagerness to learn Garrick's code. Lason had passed the lessons down as they'd been given to him—never cheat your companions, never abandon a contract, take the coin but never forget the cost. Ithan had soaked it in like parched earth drinking rain.
But teaching the boy hadn't been the marvel. Watching him fight had. Ithan's blade had grown sharper with every battle, his instincts honed into something uncanny. And then there was the mystery he had gained an insight into while journeying with Ithan.
The thought drew a heaviness into Lason's chest. Mysteries gave power, yes, but they demanded a price. Always. Every time he had reached into his own—every time he had let the divine fragment hum through his veins—he had felt something tear away inside him. A sliver of his years shaved off, gone forever.
That was the way of Mysteries. They weren't gifts. They were bargains struck in silence.
At the landing, Lason paused, fingers tightening around the railing until the wood creaked. His breath felt older than his body should have allowed. He pushed into his office anyway, shutting the door behind him with a dull thud.
The tavern below hummed faintly with life—laughter, clatter, Lyra's voice calling for a drink. But up here, alone with his thoughts, Lason felt the weight of time pressing harder, as if the Ashen Fields themselves had left their ash inside his lungs.
****
The carriage rattled off down the road, vanishing into a cloud of dust. Ithan's horse shifted beneath him, sensing his tension. He pulled the reins, forcing his gaze back to the gate. Whatever had sat inside that carriage, it wasn't his concern. Not yet.
But the feeling clung to him. A weight between his shoulder blades, a whisper at the edge of thought. He'd learned not to ignore such things, and though he rode on, the image of that silver glint behind the curtain refused to leave him.
The guards barely spared him a glance as he passed through the gates, one giving a half-hearted grunt of recognition. Volos smelled of woodsmoke and iron, of livestock penned too close to homes. The streets were narrow, crooked things, crowded with the chaos of frontier life. Blacksmiths hammered in open forges, their sparks flying like fireflies into the dusk; children darted between carts piled with timber and grain; traders shouted prices above the din.
It was louder than Orphene, rougher too, but here at least no one turned their head at his gray hair or his eyes. They had seen worse.
Ithan led his horse through the press, his mind already on rest. He followed the familiar road to the tavern that doubled as his company's base—an aging timber hall with warped shutters and a hanging sign painted with a chipped, red-streaked shield.
The doors swung open before he reached them. Lyra stood in the threshold, her bow strung across her back, her dark auburn hair tied high. She scanned the street first, sharp-eyed as always, before her gaze locked onto him. Relief softened her expression.
"Took you long enough," she said, smirking faintly. "I thought maybe the Orphene job finally swallowed you."
Ithan slid off his horse with a grunt, tossing her the reins. "Not yet. You'd miss me."
Lyra's smirk widened, though she didn't deny it.
Inside the tavern, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of stewed meat. A few of the company's men lingered at tables, sharpening blades or gambling over dice. By the hearth sat Doran, his broad shoulders hunched, polishing the edge of a two-handed axe that looked more like siege equipment than a weapon a man should swing. His dark beard bristled as he glanced up, eyes narrowing until recognition set in.
"You're back," Doran rumbled, setting the axe aside. His voice was as rough as gravel, but there was an ease beneath it. "And in one piece. That's a miracle in itself."
"Depends on how you define 'in one piece,'" Ithan muttered, sliding into a chair near the fire. His body groaned in protest, the exhaustion of the road settling into his bones.
Lyra leaned against the table, watching him closely. "What happened in Orphene?" she asked.
Ithan's eyes flicked toward the flames, the unease of the carriage still gnawing at him beneath the weariness. He let the silence stretch a moment before answering.
"Work's done," Ithan said at last, his voice flat with the finality of a closed door. He leaned back in the chair, letting the fire's warmth sink into his road-stiff limbs. Then his eyes shifted, sharp again. "Where's Lason?"
"Upstairs," Doran rumbled, jerking his chin toward the stairway at the back of the tavern. He went back to stroking oil into the blade of his axe, though his ear tilted toward the conversation.
Ithan's gaze lingered on the stair for a breath, then slid back to Lyra. "I saw a carriage leaving Volos."
Her expression tightened, that quick flicker of awareness she rarely showed in front of the others. "Blue Orcas," she said. She didn't need to elaborate; everyone in the company knew the name by now. "They were here again. Some business with Lason."
Ithan's mouth curved into a humorless half-smile. "So they came in person."
Lyra crossed her arms, leaning a hip against the table. "Didn't like being ignored, I suppose. They've been circling for months—sending messengers, scribes with contracts. This time, Antipater himself. They think his voice carries more weight."
"They're right about that," Doran muttered, his axe whispering against the whetstone. "The man's fought half the wars on the western coast. When he talks, smaller companies listen."
"Lason isn't smaller," Ithan said, his tone sharpened like steel on stone. His amber eyes glowed faint in the firelight as he studied the grain of the table beneath his hand. "But he's stubborn. I know why he turned them down."
Lyra tilted her head. "Because it's the Imperium's coin behind it."
Ithan gave a slow nod.
The Imperium Arkanis—its senators fattened on taxes, its magistrates drunk on power—had been trying to pull Volos' mercenary bands under its wing for years. The Blue Orcas had already signed on, their contracts lacquered with the Imperium's seal. Now they wanted Lason's men too.
But Lason had refused. Always refused. He'd fought under the Imperium's orders once before; he'd seen what their justice meant, what their corruption bred. He would not bleed his company for their games.
"That's the kind of deal you don't come back from," Ithan said finally, his voice quiet but heavy. "Once you take their coin, you wear their chain. Lason won't do it. Not for all the drachma in Arkanis."
Silence hung for a moment, broken only by the snap of the fire.
Lyra studied him, brow furrowed. "You think the Orcas will let it go?"
Ithan shook his head. "They've already shown their teeth. Next time, it won't be a carriage."
The unease he'd felt on the road crept back into his chest, sitting heavy in his gut. He shifted in his chair, eyes flicking again to the stairway.
Whatever had passed upstairs between Lason and Antipater, he knew the weight of it hadn't left with the Blue Orcas. It was still here, pressed into the walls of Volos, waiting.