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Julen’s hand brushed her sleeve briefly as a warning. As they turned to leave, Orell’s final words followed them into the dim corridor.

“Remember… The Fracture does not wait for doubt.”

The doors shut behind them with a heavy finality. Maia felt the sound of the silence that followed deep within her. Doubt, she thought, was all she had left. And at dawn, she would ride toward its source.

She followed Julen to the Agarin wing, which smelled faintly of old cedar and displaced lives. The rooms were smaller than the scribes’ quarters, furnished only with narrow beds and plain chests. Maia sat on the edge of one and stared at the few belongings she had gathered. It seemed like very little for a journey she had not asked for.

She folded her shawl carefully, the same one she had worn the night the stone fell. Fine dust still clung to its weave. She brushed it free and packed it anyway.

Ink and parchment went into her satchel first. Instinct. Record before comfort.

She paused over the small wooden comb, worn smooth at the spine from years of use, and packed it.

Tomas had given it to her. She’d long since stopped linking it to him. He’d carved it himself the winter they were courting, and there was a place where the grain had split that he’d smoothed down so carefully you’d only find it if you went looking. She always went looking. She’d kept the comb all this time not because she missed him, but because it was proof that someone had once made her something with his hands, and meant it.

He had asked her to marry him two nights before she left, and she had said no, gently, though she’d never been sure gentleness was something she did well. She had understood, watching his face, that the life he was offering was a finished one. A cottage, a season, a husband who came home; nothing in it left to wonder about. He thought he was offering her peace. What she saw was a door closing on every question she hadn’t asked yet.

She still didn’t miss him. That was the part she’d expected to feel guilty about and didn’t. What she felt, packing his comb into a satchel bound for the edge of the world, was a kind of distant tenderness; for him, and for the version of herself who had almost said yes.

Across the corridor, she heard Julen speaking quietly with Rhelas, practical things. Horses, provisions, weather on the northern road.

Julen’s voice carried confidence he did not quite possess. It reminded her, faintly, of the men from home: certain of boundaries, certain of how the world ought to behave. Only now the certainty wore finer clothing and spoke in the language of the Council. To her surprise, she did not dislike him. But she could not imagine a future shaped by him.

Meridon lay farther than she had ever travelled, and the road there ran along the cliffs. Past, perhaps, to whatever stirred beneath them. She had left the village believing she was stepping into something larger. Now the world kept widening without asking her consent.

Maia closed the satchel and tied it shut.

Beyond the narrow window, the last light drained from the sky, leaving the violet glow of the Fracture. Somewhere below, hammers struck stone as the Guardians continued the repairs through the night.

At dawn, she would ride beyond the city gates. And whatever waited on the road to Meridon, it would not care whether she was ready.

10

The Road of Shadows

The road out of Eryssan wound along the cliffs before cutting into the hills. Beyond the city walls, the air smelled different. The smell of salt was replaced with wet earth and the resin of pines stirred by the wind.

They left at the first sign of sunlight, their small party riding in a loose line.

Captain Deyar led at the front, broad-backed in chainmail dulled by years of salt and rain. His cloak, once Eryssan blue, had faded to the colour of old slate. His dark beard was streaked with iron, his jaw square as the shields he trained men to raise. He moved like a man accustomed to weight; armour, duty, and ghosts.

Behind him came Rhelas, rigid as carved stone. His coat was brushed spotless despite the dust of the road, and the first light caught the streaks of grey in his dark hair. He carried himself as though even the saddle should obey his command.

Julen followed, smaller, his satchel bumping against his hip with every nervous shift of the reins. Then Maia, her mare restless beneath her, still tasting the salt of the sea in the folds of her cloak.

The final rider kept to the rear, but Maia did not need to look to know who it was. When she did, the certainty still trickled down her back.

Caelith rode as though the horse were an afterthought, the chains at his wrists resting across the saddle.

Rhelas glanced back at him. “Tell me, Guardian, how do they greet you at Meridon’s gates? Or don’t they let you use them?”

Caelith didn’t look at him. “We do not stand at their walls. We keep to the places light avoids; the vaults beneath, the tunnels, the alleys no one dares to walk at night. The oath binds us. The Vow does not change. Meridon prefers not to see.”

Deyar snorted from the front, not turning around. “Prefers not to see. That’s one way to put it.” He shifted in his saddle, settling into the tone of a man who’d told this story before and enjoyed it every time. “Meridon swore allegiance late. Under pressure, and everyone in that city still remembers it, whether they’ll say so or not. Proud as their own cliffs, that lot. They’ll tell you their own guards keep the dark out just fine, thank you, and that ours is an insult standing at their gate.” He spat into the road. “Ask them what those guards actually do at night though, and watch how fast the conversation changes.”

“So, they still live among the people?” Maia asked, unable to keep the disbelief - or hope - from her voice. “And live normal lives?”

“Not among,” Caelith corrected. “Beside. They do not see us, until they must.”