“I— I need to finish the order,” Ronyn groans, appearing the devoted, committed smith. He reaches for Orrin who only pulls back, mouth curling in disgust.
“Get outta here! We don’t need the whole forge going down!” He raises his arms to stop Ronyn from moving any closer, and then covers his mouth like he’s evading the plague.
“No, I need to finish?—”
“Go! Now!” Orrin snaps, shoving Ronyn away with the thick tread of his boot.
Ronyn nods, groaning like a dying animal.
But he can’t fight the smile sneaking through his expression. He transforms it into a grimace, and stumbles away, down the line of crates, and around the corner of the building where Commander Calira slipped away.
He rounds the corner, ripping a cloak from the nail hooks on the side of the storeroom, and pulls it over his shoulders, and covers his face with the fabric, pulling it low over his eyes.
He stands up straight, dropping the act, and strides forward like a tracker hunting prey.
Fucking idiots.
Ronyn might be clever, but he’s not above using bowel distress to his advantage if the circumstances call for it.
Nothing gets a crowd running quite like a grown man announcing he’s about to shit himself.
Each step is calculated, considered—practiced in a way that only the streets of Virellin can teach. The kind of steps that turn prey into predator, hunted into hunter, slummer into raider.
He slips between shadows.
Darts between alleys.
Crouches behind discarded barrels.
Until the glint of steel in the Vyrhalian sun refracts, catching his eye.
Calira.
Her gait is steady and predictable, but it’s her neck swiveling in a coordinated rhythm that grabs his attention—eyes tracking movement like an outsider who knows she’s going somewhere she shouldn’t.
The scattered townsfolk don’t look up. Don’t pull their eyes away from the mundane rhythm of daily life in the thick, ash-drenched air of Vyrhal.
Calira keeps walking.
So Ronyn catalogs her.
A small dagger tucked in her palm, hidden beneath the sleeve of her cloak.
A vial hanging from a chain around her neck. Venomshade alchemy, no doubt.
A strong, athletic gait. The gait of someone trained in the art of violence. But it’s the helmet his mind loops and snags on. No one else wears them.Why her?She either likes the anonymity for strategic reasons, she’s someone of importance, or… she doesn’t want to be identified.
But why, he has no idea.
Beyond the last line of buildings, Vyrhal gives way to ruin. Not empty land—wounded land.
The earth stretches out in blackened sheets of old lava and ash, cracked open in places where heat still breathes from beneath the surface. Sparse, half-burnt scrub clings stubbornly to life between the fractures, twisted and brittle.
And beyond it all—the volcanoes. Towering. Smoking. Watching.
Ronyn’s gaze tracks the path she’s taken, the direction of her steps unmistakable. She’s not wandering. She’s heading straight for them.
Ronyn doesn’t follow—he lets her head for the volcanoes unhindered.
