Kiran tightened a girth strap and the mule shifted like a complaint.
Saddle creaked; the pack ropes squealed as men made last adjustments.
His fingers left a dark smear on the leather where the scar on his palm still itched.
"Stretch the ropes," Elias said, voice low and businesslike.
He moved with the economy of a man who could ready a caravan with half a thought.
"We leave at first light."
Kael stood off to the side with a small bundle, cheeks flushed from the kitchen fire.
He held the parcel out awkwardly, as if offering a coin to a stranger.
"Bread," he said. "Extra. For the road."
Kiran took it without ceremony.
The bread smelled of smoke and molasses; it fit in his hand like a thing to be consumed later.
"Thanks," he managed.
Elias checked the mule's teeth as if ensuring a compass.
"Bind the spare filter here," he said, pointing to a loop. "Keep the mirror padded. If the trail goes quiet, it will be because the air is telling you to stop listening."
Kiran blinked at the metaphor and slid the filter into place.
The mule snorted and blew a gust that tasted faintly of old hay and the city's coal.
The canyon behind the walls exhaled in low sympathy.
Kael hesitated.
"Write to me," he said suddenly, voice small. "Tell me if you come back in one piece."
Kiran's throat worked.
He had no letterhead to promise with.
He tapped the amulet at his throat without thinking and the motion looked like a vow anyway.
"I will," he said.
"Good," Kael said, relief thin as a wafer.
He scuffed his foot.
"And don't let the prospector get his hands on that—"
He coughed and finished, "—your things."
Sylas's name was a small knife through the air.
Kiran did not answer.
He folded the day down into tasks the way a man folds maps: strap, water, needle, report.
A guard from the Eastern Post approached with an inspection leash and a bored expression.
He flicked through Elias's ledger and then toward Kiran's bag.
"Relic manifest?" the guard asked, eyes sliding to the sword's wrinkled silhouette under oilcloth.
Elias produced a document with a steady hand.
"Field reconnaissance. Non-combative instruments. Standard issue."
The guard squinted at the ink like a man trying to read weather.
"You two alone?" he asked. "No escort?"
Elias's answer was a glance that suggested experience.
"Small teams make less fuss," he said.
An older guard, knuckled and sun-browned, stepped forward and peered at the wrapped sword.
His fingers hovered a second over the leather, then he frowned.
"That rust pattern," he muttered more to himself than anyone else. "Seen it once in Before-City digs. Not a pattern for amateurs."
Kiran's hands stilled.
The words hung like a thrown pebble.
The older guard did not expand.
He only handed back the manifest and barked a curt dismissal.
"Good luck," the young guard said, more as farewell than caution.
The mule shifted its weight and the rope sang.
Elias set the last bundle and squared his shoulders.
"We head north-east around the dry bend," he said. "Expect feedback pockets. Watch the ground for torn air. If you hear a song not from a throat, mark it and step away."
Kiran tied his scarf tighter against the chill, the seam at his throat catching the cord.
He felt the map of the city fold behind him like a closed book.
Meira's face rose, then slipped under memory; she had not come to the gate.
"She'll be all right," Elias said, reading faint worry from the set of Kiran's jaw. "She keeps her own ledger."
Kiran's mouth stayed closed.
The decision not to have Meira there sat like a missing coin in his pocket—noticeable enough to matter.
They swung out through the gate.
The world's edge unfolded: trimmed fields, hedgerows gone wild, the Terraplaneta rolling in irregular ribs to the rim.
The road narrowed to a dust-slick trail, a ribbon for those who dared maps without guarantee.
"Look at that," Kiran whispered, the word carrying more awe than he intended.
The horizon was a blade of color where forest and sky argued.
Elias gave a small chuckle that did not reach his eyes.
"The map grows unreliable out here. The land makes its own margins."
Kiran stared at the path ahead as if the dirt itself might contain answers.
The amulet under his shirt pressed like a hidden stitch.
They kept a slow, steady pace.
The mule's hoofs made a metronome against the packed earth.
Elias spoke of practicalities in short phrases:
"Water ration—half now, half noon. Rest at shade. Test the meter every hour."
His tone made the list into a code to keep breathing.
"Tell me again about your parents' post," Kiran asked at one point, voice quiet, because the road encouraged small questions.
Elias's jaw set.
"East Observation was a relay post. It monitored resonance seams between spheres. Your parents used those seams to trace corridors. The post fell into disuse before the last winter."
"Why send us there?"
Kiran's words were simple inventory of risk.
Elias answered with the practicalness of a man who knew how to parse orders.
"They want the object tested against a known anomaly. They want results offsite."
"You think they want to get rid of me," Kiran said.
Elias's hand brushed the strap of Kiran's pack.
"Possibly," he replied. "But I won't let them throw you away without reading the page first."
Kiran let the reassurance sit like a small stone.
He focused on checking the ropes as if that could anchor fate.
Midday heat hit like a lid.
They paused at the lip of a shallow ravine where scrub cast thin shadows.
Elias produced a field meter and set it on a flat rock.
"Baseline," he said.
He handed Kiran the device and watched his fingers take it with the same kind of attention he had shown the mule's teeth.
"Read," Elias urged.
Kiran obeyed.
The needle flirted with steady and dipped.
A thin vibration threaded through the ground and matched a memory of the Redemoinho.
He tightened his grip on the meter until his knuckles blanched.
"Good," Elias said after a moment, then his face changed to something narrower.
He crouched and pressed his palm to the soil.
The dirt under his hand was cold enough to pull at the skin even in the sun.
Elias's fingers stilled on that cold patch and he drew a breath that tasted like old coal.
"Someone passed here," Elias whispered, voice low enough that the mule barely twitched. "Not long ago."
Kiran crouched beside him and touched the same spot.
The soil gave like sleep; its chill seemed to soak up the sun's heat.
He found no footprints, no broken twig, no sign that anything heavy had gone by.
"Tracks?" he asked.
Elias rubbed at the dirt with his thumb and found nothing to lift.
"No. Nothing physical. Only the absence."
His gaze fixed on the line where the cold met the warm.
"They left a hollow like a breath taken from the land."
Kiran's stomach tightened.
The canyon's fog shivered in memory—the Redemoinho breaking, faces that mouthed names his dreams supplied.
The amulet at his throat felt colder than ever.
"Could be a beast," Kiran offered, though the suggestion landed weak.
Elias's eyes met his.
"Beasts leave marks," he said. "This is deliberate. Someone—or something—with technique."
Kiran's fingers curled around the meter so hard it squealed.
"Technique?"
Elias did not smile.
He pointed at the soil again.
"They moved without disturbing matter. They took warmth and left silence."
Kiran's mind braided the phrase to the festival's dead lantern, the Redemoinho's fracturing, the non-reflective strip on the sword.
Threads tightened until they hummed like steel.
"What if they come back?" Kiran asked, the question small and precise.
"Then we will see whose footsteps they prefer to erase," Elias said.
He rose and slung a spare rope over his shoulder.
"Pack. We move on."
They chose a route that hugged the ridge, keeping the ravine at their left.
The day folded into a slow, watchful march.
Conversation dwindled into the economy of survival: meters checked, water sipped, knots retied.
After an hour the trail narrowed to a single track printed by rain and old hooves.
The land opened into a bowl below, and Kiran found himself measuring distance in breaths.
The vastness pressed both like an invitation and a threat.
Elias rode at his side with the quiet motion of a man who had spent too many nights reading stars.
"Keep the meter near your shoulder tonight," he said. "If silence falls wrong, the needle will wobble before you will."
Kiran looked down at the device and then at the sword, heavy in its oilcloth.
He touched the cord where his parents' amulet sat knotted to the hilt.
The knot felt like a promise and a question.
They stepped forward.
The path grew thinner.
The sun angled low and the air tasted like old pages.
Elias halted abruptly and the mule shied.
He knelt with a swift motion and laid his palm flat on the ground.
"The earth is cold," Elias said, voice small and precise.
He did not look up.
Kiran leaned in and felt the chill that did not belong to the hour.
"Someone... or something... passed through here recently. And left no tracks. Only... cold."