Serel Vann – Daigen Hollow, Southern Gate
The smoke lingered too long.
Ashroot and sparkpowder—clever. But not clever enough.
Serel didn't cough. She didn't blink. Whisper-born lungs filtered toxins better than most masks ever could. She stood still in the swirling grey bloom, watching the outlines shift, then vanish.
Gone.
The moment stretched. Somewhere behind her, a hound whined. She didn't call it.
Instead, she knelt and placed two fingers to the dirt where the foreigner's boot had landed. The ground still trembled faintly with his fear.
Not fear, exactly.
Conviction.
She hated that.
From the folds of her cloak, she pulled a crystal—milky with veins of something darker. Whisperstone. It vibrated in her palm as she held it over the soil.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Then bled black ink from its edges.
"False origin. Temporal displacement. Unaligned soulprint confirmed."
Earth-born.
She closed her fingers around the stone and exhaled through her teeth.
Not a rumor, then. Not another dead trail.
A real one.
"And he has allies," she muttered, turning her gaze east. "Curious."
The pen. It hadn't moved when she passed him earlier, but now…
It bled on its own.
She let the wind speak to her cloak and stood, brushing off the soot.
They would run.
And she would follow.
But not yet.
First, she would burn the echoes.
The boarding house.
The wall.
The well.
She drew her blade—not metal, not quite bone—and walked back toward the center of Daigen Hollow.
Behind her, the trees began to whisper.
Ren and Zarno – The Eastern Wilds
They ran until the smoke in their lungs became sharp enough to make them stop.
Ren stumbled against a fallen log, coughing. Zarno dropped beside him, chest heaving, eyes still wide and laughing. Dirt smudged her cheek like war paint.
"We're alive," she whispered, giddy.
"For now," Ren muttered.
He checked the sky—still no stars. Just a smear of clouds like a bruise on the world.
"She's going to hunt us."
"I know," Zarno said. She didn't sound afraid.
Ren unslung his satchel and pulled out the pen. The pages it had bled on were still damp. He flipped through them carefully.
"Do not trust the stars east of Khorvayne."
That was new.
He blinked. "Great. Even the sky lies out here."
Zarno leaned over, peering at the writing. "You think it's warning us?"
"I think the pen's scared."
They sat in silence for a moment, surrounded by the groaning of old trees and the occasional rustle of unseen creatures.
Then Ren asked, "Why didn't you run sooner? Before I ever met you?"
Zarno tilted her head. "Because no one else would've listened to the stars for me."
He frowned. "I don't—"
"You ask questions," she interrupted. "That's rare here. Most people just… adapt. Swallow the rules. You argue with them. That means something."
Ren didn't respond immediately.
He watched the trees.
"I don't know how to fix this world," he admitted. "I'm not even sure I'm supposed to."
"You're not," Zarno said simply. "You're supposed to watch. But that's the cruel part, isn't it?"
She reached out and touched the pen in his hand.
"It makes you feel. And that's what'll break you."
He didn't pull away.
Instead, he whispered, "We keep moving east. But we take a longer path—zigzag. False trails. Sleep by day. Move by fog."
Zarno nodded. "Like ghosts."
He stood. "No. Like auditors."