The company left Kolma at midmorning, the village already shrinking behind them as gulls wheeled overhead. The road clung to the coast, winding between jagged cliffs and narrow strips of rocky beach where waves battered endlessly against black stone. The sea here was a brooding thing, its surface streaked with gray, as though ash itself had seeped into the water.
They rode single file, hooves striking sparks from the uneven path. Salt spray stung their faces whenever the wind shifted, and the air carried a faint bitterness, a mingling of brine and old smoke. Diana kept her hood drawn, her gaze fixed on the horizon, where ruined watchtowers dotted the cliffs like broken teeth.
"Old Imperial outposts," Alaric said, pointing to one of the towers leaning precariously over the sea. "Built in the Heroic Age to watch for Dionian sails. Abandoned for a century now."
Diana's eyes lingered on the crumbling stone. Ivy had claimed its battlements, and gulls nested where signal fires once burned. She thought of the senate in Arkanis, fattening themselves in the Curia Solis while these relics of vigilance rotted.
They passed other villages along the way—some no more than clusters of huts tucked into inlets, others perched high on cliffs, their roofs lashed down against the storms. In most, the people gave only wary glances as Diana's company rode through, faces pinched with suspicion. Twice they found doors slammed before they reached them.
At one cove, the company reined in to let fishermen pass. Their nets dragged behind them, tangled with weeds and empty of fish. One of the men muttered something as he passed, spitting into the dirt. Diana caught only fragments carried by the wind: Perithia… flames… shadows…
The road grew harsher the further they went. In places, the cliffs narrowed so tightly the company had to ride single file with the sea roaring hungrily below. Twice they passed wrecks of ships lodged between rocks—hulks stripped bare by tide and scavenger alike, their timbers blackened as though scorched from within.
By the second night, they camped near a headland where the land jutted into the sea. The fire they built sputtered in the wind, and the guards muttered prayers as they sharpened their blades. Diana stood apart, her cloak whipping around her, staring southward. The tug of her fate-sense had grown stronger with every mile, the threads tightening like a storm drawing in.
"Perithia lies just beyond that ridge," Alaric said, stepping beside her. His voice was low, as though unwilling to wake whatever waited there.
Diana did not answer immediately. She watched the dark line of the coast bending south, where no lamps burned and no smoke rose from hearths. At last, she said, "Tomorrow, we'll see for ourselves what kind of silence devours a village whole."
The road south narrowed into a winding cut of stone and scrub, the air heavy with salt and the steady hiss of waves against the cliffs. By the time Diana's company crested the ridge, the sun had begun its descent. The light spilled red across the horizon, dyeing the sea the color of blood. Shadows stretched long and crooked across the land.
Perithia lay in the hollow below.
From a distance, it looked whole—its rows of houses still standing, its fishing wharf still jutting into the water. But no smoke rose from hearths, no nets hung drying on racks. The streets were bare. The place seemed to breathe with stillness, as if the sea itself had swallowed its life.
Alaric reined in, his horse stamping nervously. "It looks… untouched." His voice carried no conviction.
Diana's gaze swept the village, sharp beneath her hood. "Untouched doesn't mean unbroken."
They descended slowly, hooves crunching against gravel. The nearer they came, the stronger the silence pressed down. It was not the quiet of absence—it was the heavy, waiting quiet of a room that should echo with voices but did not.
At the edge of the village, Diana dismounted. Her boots sank into dust that should have been churned by footsteps but lay undisturbed. She crouched, letting the wind coil around her fingers. It carried the faintest scent of char, though no wood burned nearby.
Her men fanned out, checking houses one by one. Doors hung open, swaying slightly in the breeze. Inside, tables were set but abandoned mid-meal. A clay bowl had cracked where it had fallen to the floor. Beds remained made, blankets tucked as if waiting for sleepers who never returned.
Alaric emerged from one of the houses, his jaw set. He held a child's toy in his gauntleted hand, a wooden horse with one leg broken. "No bodies. No blood. Nothing."
Diana's eyes narrowed. The threads of fate in her chest hummed, drawn taut until her breath felt shallow. She stepped into the main square, where the last rays of sun struck the shrine stone at the center. Its carvings, once bright, were blackened as though by fire, though no flame touched the buildings around it. The anvil mark of a smith's hand had been scratched across its surface—fresh, ugly, deliberate.
The shadows crept deeper as the sun bled into the horizon, stretching long fingers through doorways and alleys. Empty windows stared back like darkened eyes. Down by the wharf, the sea shifted and groaned against the pilings, its waves stained crimson as though it mirrored the silence swallowing Perithia.
Diana drew her cloak tighter against her shoulders. The wind pressed close, restless, carrying no voices, no laughter—only the faint tang of ash and salt. She let her breath steady, then spoke softly, her voice a blade cutting the hush:
"This is not the work of pirates."
She stepped into the square and lowered to one knee, her palm brushing the soil where weeds had begun to crawl through cracks in the stones. The earth was cold, unnaturally so, as if the warmth of life had been leeched from it. Closing her eyes, she let her senses stretch downward. The threads of wind spiraled inward, carrying her deeper, until the world above dimmed and another rose before her.
A presence stirred. Heavy. Metallic.
Visions clawed up from the soil—iron masks, grotesque things crowned with gears and anvils, their blank eyes gleaming with a dull red glow. They loomed like statues at first, until the gears began to grind and turn, hissing steam that smelled of charred oil.
Behind them came movement. Not free, not willing. People, shackled in chains, their heads bowed as they shuffled forward in a line. Their footsteps echoed on stone, not the open air of the village but the confined, suffocating passage of a catacomb. Torches guttered in the distance, casting shadows that flickered over walls etched with symbols Diana did not recognize—sigils hammered into rock as if a forge had scarred the stone itself.
Her hand trembled against the earth. The vision pulsed sharper, forcing her to see the chains bite into wrists, hear the hiss of molten metal somewhere ahead in the dark. A weight pressed against her ribs, cold and unyielding, as though the masks themselves had turned their gaze toward her.
Diana tore her hand back with a sharp breath, her eyes snapping open. The square lay empty around her, unchanged, yet her skin prickled as though something unseen still lingered.
Alaric was watching, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "What did you see?" he asked, his voice rough with unease.
Diana rose slowly, brushing the dust from her palm. Her gaze drifted to the shrine stone, its surface scarred by the anvil mark she had seen in her vision. "Chains," she murmured. "And a forge beneath the earth."
Diana's thoughts drifted back to Kolma and the soot-stained hall with its anvil sigil above the door. An Iron Guild—here, on the fringes of Ashkara? She had never heard of such a branch operating in these provinces, much less in poor fishing villages. The smith cults of Hephaestus belonged in the great cities where forges roared, not in places like this. The memory gnawed at her. The more she thought on it, the more the silence of Perithia felt… forged, as though hammered into place by hands unseen.
Her unease thickened as they pressed deeper into the abandoned streets. The vision still lingered at the edges of her senses—the iron masks, the chained procession, the cold weight of subterranean stone. She could almost feel the catacomb beneath her feet, waiting like a hidden furnace. Whatever had consumed this village, the answer lay there.
Dusk fell fast, dragging the last light down behind the cliffs. The air chilled, and mist began to creep in from the sea. It slithered between houses and curled along the ground, soft as breath, until the whole village was veiled in a pallid haze.
The guards muttered low prayers, their torches sputtering against the damp. Diana lifted her hand, feeling the mist stir unnaturally around her fingers. This was no ordinary fog—the wind carried whispers through it, broken syllables that dissolved when she tried to catch them. Shadows flickered at the edge of vision: long-limbed shapes that vanished when the torchlight turned their way.
A gull cried once from the docks, then fell silent.
Alaric's horse stamped and snorted, refusing to go further. He swung down from the saddle in a smooth motion, his cloak snapping around him. Steel rasped as he drew his blade, the sound sharp in the muffled quiet. His stance lowered, every line of his body tense, the blade angled to catch what little light remained.
"Phantoms," he said, his voice a growl. His breath smoked in the chill as he turned slowly, scanning the veiled alleys. "They're here."
Diana stood at the center of the square, the mist swirling around her boots. She felt the tug again—threads of fate tightening, drawing her toward the shrine stone and whatever lay beneath. Her eyes narrowed, the wind gathering at her shoulders like unseen wings.
The catacomb called to her.
The mist thickened until it seemed to breathe, coiling around the company in pale, shifting veils. Then, shapes began to stir within it—shadows peeling themselves from doorways, faces half-formed and hollow-eyed, their mouths opening in voiceless screams.
The guards faltered, torches wavering. One man swore as the flame guttered out, swallowed whole by the damp.
Alaric raised his blade, the steel gleaming in what little firelight remained. "Stand fast!" he barked. His voice was steady, but the tension in his stance betrayed his unease.
The first phantom lunged, a smear of shadow wrapped in mist. Its limbs stretched unnaturally long, its claws raking at the nearest guard. Steel flashed—too late. The claws passed through shield and armor alike, carving cold lines across the man's chest. He cried out, staggering.
"Form on me!" Diana's voice cut through the chaos, sharper than steel.
The phantoms swarmed, their bodies flowing like smoke. They struck and vanished, reappearing in bursts of fog, claws and teeth flashing. The guards fought hard but each blow seemed to land too slowly, their blades cutting only air.
Diana stepped into the square, her cloak snapping like a banner as she pulled the wind tight around her. She drew a deep breath, steadying herself, then spoke with clear, resonant force:
"Mystery of Zeus: Logoi Anemos."
The word thrummed through the air like thunder. The mist recoiled as if struck, and wind exploded outward from her, tearing the fog apart in a sudden gale. Cloaked in currents that whipped her hair and cloak, Diana advanced, spear in hand, her movements flowing with the storm she commanded.
A phantom rushed her from the side. She pivoted, her spear slicing in a tight arc, and the wind bent with it. The strike cleaved through mist and shadow alike, scattering the phantom into a wail that dissolved into the night.
Another leapt from the rooftops, descending with claws outstretched. Diana raised her hand, fingers spread, and the gale obeyed. The creature was seized midair, its body twisted and hurled into a stone wall with bone-cracking force before it vanished in a burst of vapor.
Around her, the guards regained their footing, rallying behind the storm's surge. Alaric cut down another phantom, his sword strokes heavy and precise. But even he spared a glance at Diana, awe in his eyes as the gale wrapped her in a mantle of unseen power.
The phantoms screamed as the wind tore through them, scattering their forms. The mist itself seemed to fight back, pressing in, thicker with every heartbeat. But Diana's eyes burned with focus. She spun her spear in a sweeping circle, the motion dragging the wind into a vortex. The gale howled, roaring through the square, pulling the phantoms into its spiral.
"Begone!" Her voice rose above the storm. She thrust her spear downward, the gale collapsing with it. The vortex crushed inward with explosive force, shredding the phantoms into tatters of smoke that bled away into the night.
Silence fell. The mist retreated, thinner now, slinking back toward the alleys as though beaten into submission. The square lay scattered with overturned carts, broken pottery, and the shallow cuts of phantom claws across stone.
Diana stood at the center, chest heaving, her cloak whipped ragged by the gale's passing. The wind still stirred faintly around her, restless, as if awaiting another command.
Alaric lowered his sword, scanning the shadows. "They were guarding something," he said grimly. "They wanted us gone."
Diana turned slowly toward the shrine stone at the square's heart, its surface still marred by the fresh anvil-mark. She tightened her grip on her spear, the wind hissing around the carvings.
"No," she said softly. "Not guarding. Hiding."
The square lay in uneasy silence, broken only by the labored breaths of the guards and the faint hiss of the sea against the wharf. Diana stood with her spear angled low, eyes fixed on the shrine stone. The gale had quieted, but threads of wind still curled about her fingers, tugging at her attention like hounds straining at a leash.
The anvil mark carved across the shrine seemed to glimmer faintly in the dying light. Not with fire, but with something colder—an echo of the vision she had drawn from the earth.
Diana stepped closer, her boots grinding against scattered shards of pottery. The shrine was old, its surface weathered by salt and wind, yet the new carving was deep, deliberate. She ran her fingertips along the gouged lines, feeling where steel had cut stone. The air here tasted of iron.
"Stand ready," she murmured, not turning.
Alaric motioned the men to form a loose circle, torches raised high. Their shadows flickered long against the square's walls as Diana lowered to her knees before the shrine. She pressed her palm flat against the stone, closed her eyes, and drew in a slow breath.
The wind stirred, drawn inward, spiraling around her arm. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then—the faintest vibration beneath her hand. Hollow.
Diana's eyes snapped open. "Here," she whispered.
She rose and struck the base of the shrine with the butt of her spear. A dull echo rang out, deeper than stone should sound. Alaric stepped forward, crouched, and brushed aside the weeds clinging to the foundation. His gauntlet found a seam—an outline just visible now in the torchlight.
"It's a cover," he said. "Old, but worked well. Hidden."
With effort, the men pried at the seam. The stone resisted, then gave with a grinding protest. Dust and stale air belched upward as a slab shifted, revealing a dark mouth yawning beneath the shrine. A narrow stair, hewn from rough stone, plunged into the earth. The air that rose from it was cold and metallic, tinged with the unmistakable stench of oil and scorched iron.
The guards crossed themselves. One whispered, "A catacomb…"
Diana stood at the edge, the wind tugging at her cloak as if urging her down. The threads of fate in her chest thrummed, taut as a bowstring. This was it—the place she had glimpsed in her vision.
Her spear gleamed faintly in the torchlight as she lowered its point toward the darkness. "Below," she said. Her voice was steady, though her blood quickened. "The truth waits beneath Perithia."