The sun began its slow descent beyond the horizon, draping the rolling hills in an ever-deepening shade of night. The warmth of the day bled away, leaving only the whisper of wind and the muted crunch of our boots on the dirt road.
Aric: "My feet hurt."
I blinked out of my daze and turned toward him.
Kareth: "...Wha?"
Aric: "You heard me. My feet hurt. We've been walking forever."
A deep sigh escaped me, heavy as the pack on my back.
Kareth: "You think I didn't notice? We've been walking nearly a week straight."
He let out a short laugh at that. Half amused, half exasperated. Before looking ahead again. His energy flickered like a candle in the wind, but it never truly went out.
Aric: "Hey… look. A wagon."
I lifted my gaze. A wagon rolled toward us, its wheels whispering against the packed earth. A white horse, coat mottled with dirt around its hooves, pulled the weight without hurry or care. On the driver's bench sat a man with a weathered face, reins loose in his hands. His eyes widened briefly when he saw us, two strangers at this hour, but he raised a hand in greeting.
Aric waved back, grinning like an idiot. His optimism was… something I'd never fully understood.
The wagon passed, the tinted windows on its doors leaking only a faint glow of light from within. Silent. Probably just supplies bound for a village.
When it disappeared down the road, so did Aric's smile, and the silence between us stretched long and thin. We walked on. Two figures swallowed by the growing dark, speaking little, content with the sound of our footsteps and the occasional whisper of wind.
More wagons came and went over the next two hours, some laden with guards, others carrying laughing passengers whose voices faded like smoke behind us.
Aric had gone quiet. He walked a step ahead, head tilted down, hands stuffed into his cloak pockets. I could almost hear his thoughts racing, though his lips didn't dare move.
Then, faint ahead of us, an orange flicker, bending and twisting against the darkness. Firelight. Shadows stretched across the road as we veered to the side to let them pass.
We didn't speak, but their voices carried, fragments of conversation torn loose by the night wind:
"She tore through all those men like it was nothing."
"With only one arm, too… It was incredible."
"That spear—cracked the earth like thunder."
Aric's gaze flicked toward me. Neither of us said a word. We didn't need to. Their voices lingered long after they passed, like smoke curling in the mind.
The woman again. The one we'd heard about before. A storm with a single arm and a weapon like a thunderclap. The kind of story that always sounds like myth. Until it doesn't.
Hours bled together. The night stretched thin and brittle, and though dawn had not yet come, the sky softened, as though tired of its own darkness. Mist began to creep along the ground, curling low and cold, brushing against our boots.
Aric broke the silence first. His voice was low, almost lost in the hush of our steps.
Aric: "Think they'll let us in?"
I turned, brow furrowed.
Kareth: "Why wouldn't they?"
He shrugged without meeting my eyes.
Aric: "Overheard some talk back in that village. Said big cities don't like strangers. Esmourne's one of the Five, right? Probably a mile-long list of rules to get through the gate."
A weight settled in my chest. I hadn't thought of that. Not once. He was right, it could take days. Weeks.
He chuckled softly when he saw the realization hit me.
Aric: "Let's just worry about that when we get there."
The road widened as we walked, flattening out, the stones set with deliberate care. Shrines began to appear at the roadside. Small things at first, humble markers crowned with bowls of dried flowers and burnt-out candles. Offerings to something I didn't know.
The further we went, the fresher they became. Flowers still clung to color. Some candles still burned, their flames quivering in the mist. Every sign pointed the same way, closer.
Then, as the mist thickened around our ankles, Aric stopped dead. His eyes caught something on the stone beneath us, a crest carved deep into the surface. A golden crescent, its arc traced with intricate swirling lines like vines frozen mid-growth, a single vertical slash cutting clean through its center.
He crouched, brushing his fingers across it, voice hushed.
Aric: "Esmourne's crest… We're close."
Closer than we thought. By the markers, we should've been hours away. Guess we walk faster than whoever set the sign.
The mist began to thin, and then I saw it.
At first, I thought it was a mountain. But mountains don't run straight. They don't bend into walls that swallow the horizon.
Stone. Sheer and endless, towering higher than anything I'd ever imagined. The walls of Esmourne.
I stopped. My breath did too. Aric's face mirrored my own awe.
The walls seemed to stretch beyond sight, vanishing into fog and distance. Silent. Immovable. Eternal.
Then the mist peeled back one final layer, and the gate revealed itself.
A gate carved for giants. Taller than any tree I'd ever seen, wide enough to swallow whole caravans without pause. Its frame shimmered faintly in the bleeding dawn light, runes etched into every inch like veins of power frozen in stone.
Neither of us spoke. What words could measure something like this?
Aric's voice came at last, no louder than a breath:
Aric: "The gate…"
We had made it. To Esmourne.