The morning air was thick with humidity, coiling low around the gnarled roots and slick moss of the forest floor. A mist clung to everything, stirred only by the faint breeze that filtered through the high canopy. Shafts of muted light broke through the tangled branches in pale streaks, not so much illuminating as suggesting a direction. Despite the eerie beauty, there was a weight to the silence—a tension that pressed in from all sides.

  Kaelith sat on a fallen log, her posture composed, a cloth running methodically along the edge of her sword. The metal caught what little light there was, glinting in short flashes. The only sound was the rasp of steel being cleaned. Zyren, still stretching his sore muscles from the rough night’s sleep, couldn’t take his eyes off her. His legs still ached from the long walk the day before, but the weight in his chest was heavier. The image of the torn soldier haunted him—the grotesque violence of it, the way the body looked like something discarded, not slain. Kaelith, on the other hand, seemed over it. Too collected. Too unfazed. He had seen fear in her before—he knew what it looked like. The way she had tensed when they first came across the bloodied remains. The stiffness in her posture when she thought he wasn’t looking. But this morning, as she calmly cleaned her weapon, her face gave nothing away.

  “An old habit from training,” she finally said, as if sensing his gaze. “Every morning, I clean my weapons. Keeps them ready. Keeps me ready.” She turned the cloth over, her motion as smooth as her tone. “You never know when you’ll need to fight.”

  Zyren studied her, searching for something beneath the practiced ease of her movements. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A crack, perhaps—a sign that she wasn’t as unaffected as she seemed.

  She slid the sword back into its sheath in one fluid motion and met his gaze. “Shall we?”

  He hesitated. “You really want to keep going? Shouldn’t we head back to Thornhold?”

  Kaelith’s lips curved in the faintest smirk. “They don’t care about a single dead soldier And we don’t know what did that to him—or why he was even there. We need to keep moving.”

  It was all so rational. But the way she said it—like she’d rehearsed the lines—made his gut tighten.

  “Besides,” she said more lightly, “we didn’t come here for a handful of coin. We’re here to find something—whether it’s about that soldier or something bigger.”

  She rose, brushed moss from her trousers, and slung her pack over one shoulder. “This is why I recruited you.”

  Zyren huffed. “You have too much faith in me.”

  Kaelith shrugged, smiling. “I prefer to think I read people well.”

  Without another word, she turned and started walking. Zyren followed.

  The forest under daylight—if it could be called that—was a different creature. Where the night was oppressive and cold, the day brought a low, wet heat. The ground squelched beneath their boots. Fog twisted between knotted roots, curling like smoke around the base of the trees. The air was heavy with the scent of bark, moss, and something faintly sweet drifting from unseen blossoms overhead.

  They moved downhill toward the soft gurgle of running water. Birds chirped high above, but their sounds were distant, swallowed by the thickness of the canopy. Zyren dug into his pouch and pulled out a handful of berries, passing them to Kaelith.

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  “So, what now?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “We get water. Food. Then we track that soldier back to where he came from.”

  Zyren glanced at her. Her confidence was steady, but there was something just beneath it. He frowned. “Last night… I heard voices.”

  Kaelith didn’t even pause. “Dreams will do that.”

  “I don’t think it was a dream.”

  She turned just enough to meet his eyes. “Did you understand anything they said?”

  “No. It was distant.”

  “There you go.” She brushed aside a low branch and stepped into a small clearing. “Trick of the mind.”

  It wasn’t the words that unsettled him—it was the finality in her tone. As if there was no room left to ask more.

  ---

  The creek lay ahead, cutting through the underbrush like a silver wound. Its surface shimmered faintly, scattered with lily pads and green film, but it was clear enough to drink. They knelt in silence, filling waterskins.

  Zyren straightened first, his eyes scanning the far bank. “Looks like a rabbit trail.”

  Kaelith followed his gaze and nodded. “I’ll set a trap. You check the banks. Let’s regroup here soon.”

  She was already moving, pulling twine from her pack. Zyren gave a nod but stayed crouched a moment longer, watching her go.

  Then he turned, quietly slipping back into the trees—away from her.

  The voices. He hadn’t imagined them. And something about her easy dismissal—it didn’t sit right.

  He retraced his steps up the slope, moving cautiously between pools and hanging vines. It didn’t take long.

  In a shallow depression veiled by thornbush, he found the body.

  A soldier. Not torn. Not mangled.

  Dead from a single, clean strike through the ribs. Sword work.

  Zyren crouched beside the corpse. Blood had soaked into the moss, the wound almost surgical in its precision. The blade had gone straight through the armour’s seam. No sign of a struggle. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.

  His jaw tensed as the implications settled in his mind. A soldier, killed with surgical precision—not torn apart like the other. This wasn't random violence or a beast's hunger. This was execution.

  The clean strike through the armour’s seam required knowledge, skill—the kind that came from training. The kind Kaelith seemed to possess.

  For a moment, he considered confronting her immediately. But something held him back. If she had killed this soldier—if she knew more than she was telling—revealing his discovery now might close more doors than it opened. Better to watch, to wait, to learn what game she was truly playing.

  He stood and carefully backed away, making sure to leave no trace of his presence. Only when he was certain he'd covered his tracks did he turn back toward their meeting point.

  Kaelith was already at the meeting point when he arrived. She looked up as he emerged—and Zyren froze.

  Her face was pale. Not composed. Not unreadable. Pale.

  Before he could speak, she said, “I found something.” Her voice was low, almost hollow. “Big.”

  Whatever he’d been about to ask died in his throat.

  They followed the trail in silence.

  At first, it seemed like any other—a worn path through damp underbrush, footprints distorted by time and moisture. But then the trail widened, revealing deep ruts in the ground. Grooves. Wheels.

  And the air shifted.

  It grew heavier. Still. The birdsong was gone.

  The scent hit Zyren first.

  Rot. Sweet and metallic, like rusted sugar. The kind of scent that clung to the back of your throat.

  The trees opened into a clearing.

  Tracks scored the earth where a caravan had once passed. A large iron cage lay tipped on its side. Its bars weren’t bent, just… open. The lock hung from the latch, still intact. Abandoned.

  A soldier lay nearby, limbs twisted unnaturally. His armour was dented, blood rusted to a dark brown.

  Crows circled overhead, one swooping to tear into the flesh. They didn’t scatter as Zyren and Kaelith approached.

  But it wasn’t the body that made Zyren stop.

  It was the head.

  Crushed. Not sliced. Not torn. Pulverized—as if something massive had brought its weight down with precision and violence.

  Kaelith stared at it, unmoving.

  “This wasn’t an ambush,” she murmured.

  Zyren’s eyes slid back to the open cage.

  “No,” he said softly. “Someone let it out.”