For three days, the grasslands rolled into hills dotted with skeletal trees covered in sharp red thorns. Each dawn was a promise of another day of grinding, forward motion.

  On the flank of the Armored Dog, the two Gnomes worked on a wobbly, makeshift platform. The floor beneath their feet, a grating patchwork of scavenged god-metal and black chitin plates, was lashed to the wounded giant dog's side with thick cables woven from gristly Husk tendons that groaned with every step.

  Every lurch of the giant dog's three-legged gait sent a jarring sway through the entire construction, forcing Ezy and Zeen to constantly fight for balance.

  Zeen moved with the sway. His shoulders rolled in perfect time, his body an organic gyroscope that absorbed the chaos of the platform into the rhythm of his craft.

  He sat cross-legged, the god-bone club held steady across his lap. His small, nimble Gnomish fingers guided a fine-grit file along the weapon's head, the rhythmic swish-swish lost to the platform’s chaotic clanking.

  Across from him, Ezy had made the instability her accomplice.

  The disassembled parts of a Wolf Kin's flintlock rifle lay inside the large, round, curved plate of White Metal next to her. Assembled, the weapon had been nearly twice her height.

  She held her monstrous prosthetic between her legs and used it as a living vice. Its bony fingers were clamped around the rifle stock with immovable force.

  Meanwhile, her left hand's delicate fingers guided a small, razor-sharp carving knife, shaving thin curls from the rifle’s heavy wooden stock. Each cut was controlled, purposeful, reshaping the grip to a scale that could fit her.

  Mara's Healing Potion had sealed her wound, but it could not restore her leg, her Stomper, her Scrapper. Her eyepatch and oversized skeletal prosthetic were stark reminders of the pieces of herself she had already lost along the way.

  A sudden gust of wind, carrying the fine grit of the plains, whipped through the makeshift platform. Ezy instinctively shielded the rifle stock with her body, waiting for the dust to settle before resuming her delicate work. Zeen, however, barely flinched, his rhythm on the god-bone unwavering.

  “You’re sacrificing fifty yards of kill-range, you know,” Zeen said, his voice a low monotone that cut through the rhythm of their work. “Why not go with a tripod instead of shortening the barrel?”

  A particularly violent lurch from the Dog sent Ezy bracing against the weapon. She waited for the sway to settle before answering.

  “Range is a luxury,” she said, her carving knife resuming its steady, careful progress. “I need to be realistic. The Scrapper is gone. I… I’m going to need a prosthetic leg. I can’t carry a giant sniper rifle with a tripod.”

  Zeen grunted, a sound of professional acknowledgment. He ran his thumb over the mace’s now-flawless surface. "This stuff is… unforgiving. Every slip needs attention.”

  “It’s divine,” Ezy countered, pausing to blow a curl of wood from the stock. “Unlike this. Predictable. Honest. But it has its limits. It will never be anything more than what it is.”

  Almitad floated high above the grasslands, a silent, skeletal sentinel in the gloomy sky. The world below was a map of rolling hills and skeletal trees, but her focus was not on the path ahead. Her empty sockets were turned back, in the direction of the ruined Dam, a place she could no longer see but could feel like a phantom limb.

  She ran a bony finger over the runescribed patchwork that filled the hole in her thoracic cage. Within it, the undead Mana Bloom pulsed with a steady, rhythmic heartbeat of necrotic energy. It was missing several petals, but its light no longer failed, and its remaining blooms stood upright.

  She had safeguarded her order’s most precious heirloom. Yet she felt no relief. No joy. Only a profound, weary sorrow.

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  She remembered her purpose: to guide the spirits of her people, to protect her community against undead threats. Now, she guided a band of broken survivors on a quest of vengeance that felt both necessary and hollow.

  Just like her. Her body. Her un-life.

  Everything was necessary. Everything was hollow.

  She forced the grief down, locking it away behind a wall of faces. Every soul she had helped cross the World Between Worlds. Victims of the One-Eye. The confused, terrified faces of her people fed her resolve.

  She used her memories to fuel the only thing that mattered: vengeance.

  The One-Eye would create no more ghosts. The Shepherd of Loss would The Shepherd of Loss would make sure of it.

  The world rose and fell in a slow, oceanic roll. Trenn sat braced on the Gem-Croc’s back, the quiet weight of Skate on his head a familiar comfort.

  His focus was a delicate balance, a constant and exhausting act. He was a warden, and his charges were the two divine tethers that pulsed in the back of his mind.

  The most powerful bond was a vast, silent ocean. The Gem-Croc’s consciousness was an alien emptiness, a simple, primal trinity of feeling that he had learned to guide: belonging, calm, security.

  “You are safe.”

  The weaker bond was a current of warmth, as familiar as his own heartbeat.

  Trenn did not need to push the Armored Dog; only maintain the link. The dutiful god had started tracking Dawn of its own will. From the moment it was able to stand, it stubbornly refused to do anything else.

  The giant dog only stopped to sleep through the night. Their meals were taken on the go, forced to move forward from sunup to sundown.

  With its twitching nose, the god sniffed the ground, sniffed the air. It moved with complete confidence. Every night, its leg healed a bit more. Every morning, it moved a little faster.

  All they had to do was keep up.

  Trenn felt Mara’s gaze on him. She was a picture of predatory stillness, her amber eyes analytical as they tracked the subtle tension in his shoulders.

  Her gaze dropped to his healed hand, to his missing fingers. “You will improve. Learning proper technique takes time.”

  Trenn gave a slow nod, his gaze fixed on the endless horizon. “We would have extra potions if I’d been careful.” A weary sigh escaped him.

  Mara’s eyes narrowed. “This isn't just about the ruined reagents, is it?” Her voice was a blade, cutting away his deflection. “I've seen Guardians break under less weight than what you're carrying.”

  He finally turned from the horizon to look at her.

  “My mother. The last time I spoke to her, her voice was faint, like a signal from a distant star. They made it to the shore, but the bridges are gone. She said Montreal is full of little Wild Mage warlords, fighting each other for control over the ruins,” he sighed again, heavily.

  “Over the people trying to survive." He looked down at his own hands—one whole, one a scarred ruin.

  Survive.

  Mara listened quietly.

  “I promised her. I promised I’d meet her at Mount Royal. Bring her back... but she's almost there, and me? I'm hunting the One-Eye.” A short, humorless laugh escaped him.

  “It’s the most insane, impossible thing. I'm not sure what's keeping me moving anymore," he admitted, the words tasting like ash. "How do you do it? How does vengeance become enough to walk on?"

  She didn’t offer a comforting touch or a soft word. She simply processed the information, her gaze turning to the vast, empty landscape before them. For a long moment, there was only the sound of the wind and the deep, rhythmic breathing of the god beneath them.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was a low, somber current.

  “Duty,” she said, her voice a low, somber current. “It’s what I’ve always known. Duty to you, to Ezy, to Zeen… to what is left of Almitad.” She stepped carefully next to him, her hands resting on his shoulders.

  “But be careful, Trenn. A promise can be a cage.” Her amber eyes met his, and for the first time, he saw a glimpse of an ancient, weary weight behind them. “Be careful what you sacrifice for them. I decided to follow you. To do that, I left my cage. I… broke a promise.”

  Mara’s words hung in the vast, open air, a confession that settled between them with the weight of ancient stone. Trenn closed the distance and took her in his arms. “Then that’s the one promise I won’t break: no matter what, we do it together.”

  A line of thorny trees rose ahead. The Gem-Croc’s path remained unwavering. Trenn lowered his body against the scales, tightening his grip on the edge of one. Across from him, Mara mirrored the motion.

  The impact came as a violent lurch that threw them against their braced arms, followed by the sharp crack of splintering timber from below.

  As the first trees splintered against the Gem-Croc’s hide, Almitad’s voice boomed from the air between them.

  "There is a fog ahead..."

  Trenn lifted his head, his gaze finding the floating skeleton above, its bones painted in the green-black reflections of its own power.

  "...and shining at its edge… That’s one of Dawn’s Tears! By the Dam… It's not a fog, it’s the Morning Mist!”

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