The rain fell in a soft, persistent mist, turning the grey stone of Aethelgard dark and slick. For three days we had moved through the city's corpse, and in that time, the compass in my chest had become the most real thing I knew. It was a constant, low thrum, a pull that had shifted from a general draw toward the city's heart to a specific, insistent tugging toward the east. Our time here was ending.
The night before, sheltered in the shell of a potter's workshop, I had discovered the full extent of my changed sight. The darkness was no longer an obstacle. I could see the grain in the wooden beams overhead as clearly as if it were noon. When I stepped into the deepest shadows of the room, a strange thing happened: I felt myself grow insubstantial, blending into the darkness until I was little more than a shifting patch of deeper night. It was unsettling, but it felt as natural as breathing. Furthermore, a faint, silver light clung to Croft, outlining his form and pulsing with a slow, steady rhythm.
This new awareness shaped our search the next morning. "We cannot stay," I told Croft, watching the drizzle from the workshop's doorway. "But we cannot leave empty-handed. The map showed there's nothing but wilderness out there."
"Then we must be thorough," Croft replied, shaking the damp from his feathers. "The empire's bones may yet provide for us."
We began in the district nearest the eastern wall, a sector that had housed the city's support services. My sight allowed me to peer into collapsed root cellars and behind fallen shelves where others would have seen only rubble. In the remains of a chandler's shop, I found a clay amphora, its wax seal still intact. I shook it; liquid sloshed heavily within. Lamp oil. A small treasure. In a tanner's shed, I discovered a heavy wool cloak, thick and moth-eaten in places, but far better than the thin tunic I wore. I swapped them immediately, the coarse wool a welcome barrier against the damp chill.
The most significant find came later that afternoon. The building was marked by a carved stone scroll over its entrance. Inside, dust lay thick on stone tables, and the skeletal remains of high stools lay toppled on the floor. A single cabinet of darkwood stood against the far wall, its doors sealed tight. I used my new knife to pry them open.
Within lay a map, drawn on a single, vast sheet of treated vellum. It was a thing of beauty and heartbreaking detail. The Aethelian Empire was laid bare, from the capital of Aethelgard in the southwest to the distant, jagged mountains labeled "The Spires" in the far east. My eyes traced the "Dawn Road" as it left the city, following the winding path of the "Silverthread River." It passed through named cities—Stonehaven, Rivercross, Eastwatch—and dozens of smaller villages. Beyond Eastwatch, the road skirted the edge of a massive forest called "The Verdant Wastes" before seemingly ending at the feet of the Spires. Other roads spiderwebbed north to the coast and south into what looked like farmlands. It was the ghost of a nation.
As I carefully rolled the map, my strange sight caught a faint, steady, blue-white glow from a small chest on a high shelf. Croft, perched nearby, showed no reaction.
"Do you see that?" I asked, pointing. "The light around that box?"
Croft cocked his head. "I see a container. There is no light."
"It has a glow. A soft, blue-white one."
"Sorcery, then," he concluded. "The Aethelians were masters of it. They wove enchantments into everyday objects. That was likely a food container, meant to preserve its contents for a very long time."
I retrieved the chest. It was light, made of a smooth, cool material I couldn't identify. Inside, on a bed of faded fabric, were several pale, dense cakes. They emitted the same sorcerous glow. I packed the chest away; it was hope, made tangible.
With the map secured, the silence of the guild hall felt heavier. I looked at Croft. "The war," I began, the word feeling too small. "What happened to the Death God? To his allies?"
Croft was quiet for a long time. "The knowledge I possess... it says they perished" he said, his voice low. "The conflict was too vast. The Death God, the God of Smithing... they were broken. Their power was shattered and cast to the winds." He looked out the door at the rain. "As for the gods who opposed them... I do not know. They vanished. The world was left silent."
The finality of it was a weight in my chest. I was picking up the pieces of a deity who had already lost.
Our packs were as ready as they would ever be. We navigated the empty streets to the Eastern Gate. It was a scene of devastation. The massive, bronze-reinforced doors had been blasted from their hinges, lying broken in the mud beyond the wall. The stone around the archway was scarred and blackened.
Stepping through the gate felt like crossing into another world. The oppressive, curated silence of the city was replaced by the whisper of wind over rolling, grey hills. The Dawn Road was a broken spine of paving stones, choked with hardy, grey-green weeds. The compass pull intensified, a clear, magnetic line drawing my gaze down the road and across the hills toward the hazy, distant shapes of the Spires.
We walked for what felt like most of the afternoon, the city slowly diminishing behind us until it was just a dark smudge on the horizon. The landscape was barren, the sky a sheet of unbroken grey. I was about to suggest we look for shelter for the night when Croft suddenly went still on my shoulder.
"Cassian." His voice was a sharp, urgent whisper.
I followed his gaze. A few hundred yards ahead, the road dipped into a shallow valley. There, something was moving. It was a horror of shifting stone, torn earth, and wet, glistening black flesh. It was massive, the size of a barn, with several limb-like appendages that scraped and dug at the ground. At its center was a single, large eye that burned with a sickly, intelligent green light. The very sight of it made my skin crawl.
"What is that?" I breathed, my hand instinctively closing around the hilt of my knife. I had never seen anything like it. It was wrong in a way that went beyond mere ugliness; it felt like a tear in the fabric of the world.
"I don't know," Croft said, his voice tense. "But it should not be."
The creature was directly on our path. The great green eye swiveled, its malevolent light locking onto us. With a sound of grinding rock and wet friction, it began to move, pulling its monstrous bulk up the slope toward us. It was not fast, but its progress was relentless, its purpose clear. The road was the only sure way east, and it was now blocked by this impossible, advancing nightmare.