VIII

He woke to the sharp sting of sterile air in his nose, the dim hum of machines around him. His body felt sluggish, weighed down, but something was wrong—something beyond the haze of sleep. He tried to move, and a sickening absence sent panic clawing up his throat. His right leg was gone. His breath hitched. His hands trembled as they traced the empty space where his leg should have been, fingertips brushing against tightly wrapped bandages. His heart pounded against his ribs. The world tilted, the walls pressing in as his breath came faster, sharper— A hand touched his arm. Firm but gentle. “Breathe,” a voice instructed. He blinked up at a woman in a faded white uniform. A nurse. Her eyes, lined with exhaustion, studied him with something like practiced patience. “I know it’s a shock, but you need to stay calm.” Kael swallowed, his mouth dry. “W-what—?” “You’ve been in a coma for a few weeks,” she said. “We had to amputate your leg. The infection was spreading too fast.” Infection. The word rang hollow, meaningless in the face of everything else. His fingers curled against the sheets, his nails digging in.

“Where did you pick up the disease?” the nurse asked. Kael didn’t answer. His mind latched onto something else, something more urgent. “Where’s Lysandra?” The nurse exhaled, shifting slightly. “You mean the girl who brought you in? She was sick, too, but…” The woman frowned, as if trying to make sense of something. “She healed. Quicker than we expected. Then one night, she disappeared. Stole several vials of the vaccine and vanished.” Kael’s chest tightened. “She left?” The nurse gave him a look like she wasn’t sure if he was slow or just refusing to believe it. “That’s what I said. We’ve been getting more and more cases of this illness recently. She must’ve had her reasons for stealing the vaccine, but I don’t know what they were. It really sets us back though.” Kael barely heard the last part. His thoughts were already racing, piecing together fragments of memory, fear, and something darker—the feeling that none of this made sense.”No,” he rasped. “No, no, no—this isn’t—” The nurse placed a firm hand on his shoulder, her expression unreadable. “You need to stay calm.” He shoved her hand away and swung his remaining leg off the cot, his body lurching forward before he realized how unsteady he was. The world tilted violently. His arms flailed for balance, but there was nothing to catch him. He collapsed onto the cold floor, a shock of pain ricocheting up his side. “Stop—” The nurse was suddenly at his side, trying to lift him, but Kael fought her off with whatever strength he had left. His vision blurred at the edges, his body betraying him as sweat slicked his skin. He had to leave. Had to find Lysandra. Had to fix this— “Sir, please.” Her voice softened, almost pleading. “You’re hurting yourself. Just breathe.” He wasn’t listening. Couldn’t. His fingers clawed at the floor as he tried to

drag himself toward the door. The nurse sighed. A moment later, he felt a sharp prick at his neck. “No—” he croaked, already feeling the edges of the world slip away. His limbs went slack, darkness seeping in as his body betrayed him once more. The last thing he saw was the nurse watching him, her face drawn with something that almost looked like pity. Then, there was nothing. When he awoke again, his body felt heavy, his thoughts sluggish, but this time, the panic had settled into something quieter, something sharper. His breath came evenly, his mind no longer caught in the frantic blur of before. The dim light filtering through the infirmary shutters cast long shadows along the walls. Something caught his eye—a slip of paper on the table beside his cot. His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for it. The paper was thin, creased at the edges as if it had been folded and unfolded too many times. The handwriting was neat, deliberate. He traced the letters with his eyes, his heart thudding against his ribs. “I'll find you.” His grip tightened around the note. He could see it now—her slipping out into the night, barely recovered, moving with purpose. She had stolen the vaccine. Not for herself. She was going back to the Lorath’eeni.

The crutches had been easy enough to steal—left leaning against the wall in a supply room. He adjusted them under his arms, wincing as he put weight on them, then maneuvered to the window. To his surprise, it was unbarred. Either they trusted their patients to stay put or never expected them to be desperate enough to leave. They were wrong. He hoisted himself onto the ledge, the muscles in his arms burning as he braced for the drop. It wasn’t far, but the landing was rough. His body hit the cold ground harder than expected, sending a sharp jolt through his spine. He bit back a curse, dragging himself upright and pulling the crutches under him again. No time to hesitate. He moved fast, keeping to the broken edges of the Strand—a long stretch of ruined road, half-swallowed by time and neglect. It was foolish to travel this way, exposed and vulnerable, but he had little choice. His head throbbed, his body still weak from weeks of stillness. Every mile felt heavier than the last. Eventually, headlights appeared in the distance. He hesitated. Hitchhiking was a risk. He had nothing to bargain with, no way to defend himself if this went wrong. But walking wasn’t an option, not like this. He raised his arm.

The vehicle rumbled to a stop—a cargo hauler, old but sturdy. The driver was a broad-shouldered man, his face weathered from years on the road. He leaned over, squinting at Kael through the dim light. “You look like hell,” the man muttered. Kael grunted. “Feel like it too.” The driver exhaled through his nose, considering. “Where you headed?” Kael gripped the doorframe, forcing himself to meet the man's gaze. “As far north as this trail will take me.”

The cargo hauler’s brakes hissed as it rolled to a stop outside a squat building hunched at the edge of a skeletal pine forest. A flickering neon sign buzzed overhead: The Frostline. Through the grimy windows, shadows moved like sluggish fish in murky water. He shouldered the door open, the bite of northern air sharp against his sweat-damp skin. His crutches slipped on icy gravel as he climbed out. The driver muttered something about “suicide runs” before the hauler rumbled away, taillights dissolving into the dusk. Inside, the bar reeked of woodsmoke and sour mash. A handful of patrons

hunched over drinks—miners with dirt ground into their knuckles, trappers in frayed pelts, a mercenary type cleaning a rifle at the back table. He ignored the stares, making for the bar where a grizzled woman with a scar splitting her eyebrow was polishing a glass with deliberate disinterest. “I need a guide,” he said, voice low. “To The Echoing Expanse.” She leaned forward, her breath reeking of gin. “Look at you. Half-dead, half-legged. Whatever you’re paying, it’s not enough to drag a sane soul out there this time of year.” A trapper at the bar swiveled toward Kael, eyes bloodshot. “Heard the Basin’s crawling with Lorath’eeni these days. That why you’re in such a hurry? Got a death wish?” Kael’s jaw tightened. “I’m looking for someone. A girl.” “A girl, eh? Aren’t we all?” He laughed a hearty laugh. Kael turned to leave, but the mercenary spoke. “Here’s some free advice,” he said. “Go home. If the cold doesn’t kill you, the things in the fog will.” The bartender slammed her glass down. “Ryn, you’re a damn plague—” Kael didn’t stay to hear the rest. He stumbled back into the cold. The first snowflakes were falling, the sky a roiling bruise. He moved through the days like a man damned. The crutches carving grooves into his shoulders. The stump gone purple with cold. He dragged himself into hovels and outposts where the wind screamed through the walls and the men who lingered there studied him with eyes like stone. At a crossroads storefront slouched in the shadow of a dead volcano the proprietor squinted at him through smoke. He wore a necklace of bear teeth and spat into a tin cup. “You won’t find no guide here,” he said. “What’s out there ain’t for men with two legs let alone one.” East was a cracked alkali pan where the suns hung white and lidless. A cabin crouched in the scree. A woman splitting wood with a rusted axe paused to wipe her brow. Her children peered from the doorway. Ghostfaces. Snot frozen to

their lips. “Now why would you want to go that way?” The woman asked. The icefields were a shattered plain. Wind-scoured and scabrous. A chapel of sorts stood lashed together with wire and driftwood. Inside a man in a rotting cassock blessed him with hands blackened by frostbite. “The Weaver’s mercy ain’t for the likes of you, son. By the looks of it.” The wind gnawed at the ruins of the waystation. A roofless shack. A dead firepit. A figure crouched there, turning a spit of charred hare over the coals. His face was a topography of scars, one ear sheared clean off, his hands gloved in old burns. Kael’s crutches sank into the ash-streaked snow as he approached. He recognized the man, back when he had adorned wings, as a member of the Nomad Drifters. The man did not look up. “Jerek,” Kael said. The wind creaked through the dead pines. The hare’s fat hissed. “What happened to the Drifters? Did you make it?” Jerek’s knife paused mid-carve. His remaining eye flicked to Kael’s missing leg. A muscle in his jaw pulsed. He stared into the coals. The scars along his neck gleamed slick in the firelight, keloid and cruel. “They walked into that fog and it changed ’em. Started clawin’ at their own skins. Sayin’ they heard voices in the ice. Then they just… stopped. All of ’em. Sat down in the snow and let the cold take ’em. All ’cept me.” He touched his missing ear. “Why?” His breath reeked of rot and gin. “Ain’t no answers out there. Just the thing that wears the dark like a coat.”

The bar crouched at the edge of the wastes like a scavenger picking at carrion. Its walls leaned under centuries of grit, the windows filmed with dust that glowed amber in the failing light. He sat hunched at a corner table, his crutches propped against the wall like accusatory fingers. The barkeep had long ceased offering him rotgut. Even the flies avoided the pool of stale beer at his elbow. The wind began first—a low, keening moan that pried at the doorframe. Candles guttered. Ash hissed in the hearth. A hum seeped through the walls, a vibration that set Kael’s teeth on edge. Then—a knock. Once. Twice. Delicate, almost playful. The door creaked open. Dust swirled in the sudden draft. He smelled it then: ozone and burnt sugar. The shadow fell across his table. Not a man’s shadow. Something older. When Kael finally looked up, his pulse hammered in his throat. Marek stood there, his silhouette sharp against the dim, backlit by the dying sun as if the light itself recoiled from him. The wings were gone, but their ghost lingered—in the way his shoulders arched faintly, in the unnatural stillness of the air around him. His face was a blade honed by cruel grins, eyes like shards of obsidian reflecting a hundred fractured versions of Kael’s own face. “Heard there was a man,” Marek said, sliding into the chair opposite. His

voice was gravel wrapped in silk. “Asking after savages in the deep.” Kael’s beer had gone ice-cold in his hand. Marek leaned back. He tilted his head, a jackal considering carrion. “They ever tell you their tale of the Scorpion and the Rain? No?” His smile split, revealing teeth too sharp for comfort. “Lorath’eeni mothers whisper it to brats who stray too far from campfire light. Goes like this—” A calloused hand flattened on the table, fingers splayed like legs. “Scorpion crawls into a dry riverbed. Prayin’ to the Rainmaker. ‘Drown the world,’ it says. ‘Drown it ‘til the sands sing.’ Rainmaker laughs. ‘You’ll drown too.’ Scorpion doesn’t care. Stings its own heart, pumps venom into the dirt. Clouds swell. Rivers boil. Rain falls black.” Marek leaned close, his breath reeking of juniper and iron. “Whole valley floods. Scorpion floats on its back, tail curled in prayer. Watches the drownin’ world. Smiles.” He paused, eyes glinting. “Lorath’eeni loved that story. Thought it meant faith. But it’s not about that. It’s about what happens when you let poison things want.” He sat back, fingers drumming the table. “Their camp stank of burnt sage and rot. Children drew that scorpion in the dirt while I torched their shrines. Shamans chanted it like a hymn when I pegged their skins to the trees.” He tilted his head, birdlike. “They fought. For a time.” A shrug, effortless as a landslide. “They wanted their flood. I just brought the rain.” The barkeep vanished into the back. The other patrons studied their drinks. The air thickened. Kael’s missing leg throbbed. “Lysandra—” Marek stilled, his head cocking like a hound catching new scent. “Lysandra,” he repeated, tasting the name. “What’s she to them?” Kael said nothing. His hands tightened on the crutch, knuckles bleaching to bone. Marek watched him, eyes narrowing, the slow unfurling of a smile. “Ah,” Marek breathed, the syllable curling like smoke. “She was supposed to be there.” He leaned back. “Lucky girl.”

The sack of Looms hit the table with a leaden clatter. Marek nudged it forward, coins spilling like scales from a gutted fish. “Your cut from the fights. Spend it on whiskey. A whore. A wooden leg.” Kael stared at the coins. They glinted cold, indifferent. “Why?” Marek stood. “You bled in my arena. This is what it bought.” He turned, his coat slicing the air like a scythe, and strode toward the door. The bar’s patrons shrunk back, eyes averted, as if his shadow carried a contagion. The door slammed behind him, its echo lingering like a gunshot. Kael sat. The Looms glinted on the table, their edges sharp enough to draw blood. He traced the grooves of the coin under his thumb, the metal cold as a dead man’s stare. The barkeep mopped a glass, the rag squeaking. A fly circled the spilled whiskey, drowning slowly. The bar door groaned shut behind him, its echo swallowed by the wind. Kael stood in the street, the crutches biting into his palms, the Looms a leaden sin in his coat. The town hunched around him, its buildings leaning like tombstones in the dust. Somewhere, a shutter clapped. Somewhere, a dog howled. He did not turn to look. He walked. The gravel road unspooled beneath him, each step a reckoning. The crutches slipped on loose stone. The stump burned. He did not stop. A wagon passed, driver hunched under a frayed tarp. Kael raised a hand. The man spat into the dirt and cracked his reins. The wheels churned dust to smoke. The stationmaster’s booth leaned like a drunkard against the rails, its timbers warped by decades of grit and sun. Kael slid thirty Looms across the counter, their serrated edges catching the lamplight. The clerk squinted, weighing them in his palm as if they might be teeth plucked from some nameless thing. Kael added thirty more. The clerk spat on them, polished the blood tarnish with his sleeve, and slid a ticket through the grille. “Last car. Don’t talk to no one.”

The train hunched on the tracks, its boiler coughing black phlegm. Kael boarded, his crutches echoing in the empty car. He chose a seat flecked with old vomit, the remaining Looms a cold weight in his coat. The whistle screamed. The wheels churned. Somewhere, the train’s rhythm whispered coward.

The hovel stood as a wound in the earth, its door hanging slack on rusted hinges. Kael shouldered it open, the crutches slipping on grit. Inside, the air hung thick and tomb-still. Sunlight pierced the grime-choked window, cutting the dust into jagged shards. His father’s chair sat vacant by the hearth—cold ash pooled in its belly, the iron grate spiderwebbed with rust. No boots by the door. No pipe smoldering in the clay dish. The table bore a plate furred with mold, a fork still embedded in its leathery remains.

Kael limped to the hearth, his shadow lurching across the walls. He touched the ashes. Cold as the coins in his pocket. A bottle lay toppled nearby, its contents long evaporated, leaving only a stain like old blood on the stones. He dragged a finger through the dust on the table, revealing the wood beneath—a scar in the gray. Somewhere, a beam groaned. Somewhere, the wind pried at the walls. Calvaron baked under the twin suns, its bones bleached and brittle. Kael limped past the well, its bucket rotted to lace. The same salt-crusted faces nodded from porches, but their eyes slid away too quick. The wind carried no clang of hammers, no gossip, only the dry rasp of dead grass. Orlan’s shop was gone. In its place squatted a lean-to of warped planks and tarpaper, its gaps stuffed with burlap. A sign hung crooked: Sundries & Salvage. Through the slats, Kael glimpsed empty shelves, a chair splintered to kindling. The ground where the boulder had crushed the old storefront lay bald and seared, as if fire had licked it clean. He moved on, crutches kicking up dust-devils. The tavern’s doors gaped, stools upturned on tables. A flyblown ham swung from a hook. At the end of the street, the temple loomed. Its doors stood open, the threshold strewn with ash and wilted sage. From within, a murmur rose and fell, the cadence of a chant older than the town itself.

He found himself at the bottom of the largest cliff by the sea. There, sitting against the jagged stone, was a small hovel. Its silhouette barely discernible against the night, but a faint light within flickered like a firefly caught in a jar. With a deep breath, Kael stepped into the hovel. Inside, the air was tinged with the scent of burning wood and the sea. He saw Jorin sprawled across the rough-hewn floor. An old, worn book lay open across his body, pages yellowed and curled at the edges, rising and falling with his steady breaths. His face was obscured by a thick, dirty beard, one that made him appear older and more weathered than Kael remembered. His skin had taken on the same rugged, salt-kissed look as the cliffs themselves. Time had been kind to neither of them. Kael knelt beside him, his hand brushing against Jorin’s shoulder, nudging him gently. He stirred, his eyes fluttering open, bleary with sleep. He squinted up at Kael, a look of disbelief crossing his face, as though his mind struggled to make sense of the figure before him. His gaze traveled across Kael’s features, searching, unsure, as if the very presence of his old friend was something too impossible to

believe. For a moment, Jorin didn’t speak. His breath was slow, as though he was trying to catch up to the world. Then his lips parted, and a hoarse whisper escaped. “Kael?” His voice cracked like old wood, but there was something else in it—an unspoken question, a wariness that hung between them like the fog of a half-remembered dream. “You’re... here?” “Good to see you, Jorin.” The embrace was rough, urgent, Jorin’s hands gripping Kael’s coat like a man clinging to driftwood. When they broke apart, Jorin’s eyes narrowed, then dropped. His gaze snagged on the crutch, traced the void where Kael’s leg should’ve been. “Weaver’s Loom, man—where’ve you been?” Jorin’s voice frayed, his throat working. “Just left me to rot here?” “I had to.” “Had to?” Jorin spat into the fire. The flames recoiled. “Your father vanished the day after you did. We all thought he’d gone after you.” Kael shifted his weight, the crutch groaning against the floorboards. Jorin’s eyes flickered to the sound, his jaw tightening. “With me?” “Aye.” Jorin leaned back, his face half-lit by the embers. “Then Dorian Valenwood rode in. Asking after you. After his wife.” His gaze sharpened, lingering on Kael’s stump. “What were you doing with her anyway? And what in Weaver’s name happened to your leg?” Kael stared at the fire. “He wasn’t with me.” Jorin’s hand froze mid-reach for the whiskey jug. The rag he’d been using to wipe the bottle hung limp in his grip. “Great Weaver,” he muttered, his voice sandpapered thin. “Then where…?” The question died in the salt-stung air. Outside, the sea roared, relentless. Jorin tossed the rag into the flames. It blackened, curled, vanished.

Kael sat up, cradling a steaming cup of some foreign hot liquid that Jorin had poured for him. The aroma was unfamiliar, yet oddly comforting, as the steam curled into his nostrils. He watched Jorin intently, waiting as his friend absorbed the weight of his story. Jorin took a long time to respond, his face etched with disbelief and concern. He saw the forlorn look in his friend’s eyes, felt a pang of empathy. He realized how much Kael had endured, how much he had lost. He took a sip from his cup and looked at his friend. “I’m sorry about Lysandra, Kael,” Jorin said softly, his voice thick with emotion. He reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. For a moment, they sat in silence, the weight of their thoughts lingering in the cool night air. “Why’d you go with her? After everything… why her?” Kael’s thumb traced the rim of his cup. The steam had stopped rising. “She… reminded me of her,” he said finally, his voice fraying at the edges. “Of my

mother. The way she’d tilt her head when she talked. The way she walked.” He swallowed hard. “A part of me wanted The Nexus to be real. That maybe she’d be there… ” Jorin listened as the fire popped. Embers spiraled upward, dying before they reached the rafters. “And you never found it?” “I don’t know. I don’t suppose we did.” He took a sip from his mug. “Dorian said The Nexus was a lie. A wasteland.” “Do you believe him?” Kael stared into the dregs of his drink. “He said we were abandoned here. That there may be life out there, but they don’t care to make contact with us.” Jorin studied Kael with quiet concern, his eyes tracing the lines of weariness etched deep, as if searching for something still unbroken beneath the burden he carried. “What are you going to do about your father? About… Lysandra?” A hollow laugh escaped Kael. He leaned back against the rough wall, the firelight carving gaunt shadows under his eyes. “I don’t know what I can do.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m so tired, Jorin. Not just a normal tired either. A deep tired. The kind you can’t sleep off.” He pressed a fist to his sternum, knuckles white. “It’s in the marrow. Like I’ve been carrying that wasteland inside me long before I ever saw it.” Jorin shifted, resting his forearms on his knees. “Yeah,” he replied softly, his gaze distant, as though searching for meaning in the dancing flames. Kael turned to look at him. “You don’t have any wise words for me?” Jorin shook his head, a sad smile touching his lips. “Not tonight.”

He woke in the dark, breath ragged, sweat cold on his skin. The dream lay coiled in his mind like a serpent that refused to be shaken. He rose and stepped outside, the sand yielding beneath his feet. The beach stretched endless and pale under the brittle light of stars scattered across the heavens. After a time, he heard the soft tread of footsteps behind him. He turned to see Jorin approaching, his face shadowed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep?” Jorin asked, voice rough with drowsiness. “Couldn’t stand to dream anymore,” Kael said. They stood there beneath the endless sky, the ocean whispering in the distance, its murmur a constant in the stillness. The night was heavy, as if the weight of all things unseen pressed down upon them, waiting for something to break the silence. Jorin spoke then, his voice low, barely more than a murmur carried by the wind. “What was it?” “What?”

“The dream?” Kael reached down and picked up a small stone from the ground, feeling its cold edge in his palm as he turned it over and over. The distant waves crashed against the cliffs like the echo of his own thoughts. The stars above were the same as they’d always been, but they felt colder, more distant than they had the night before. “I dreamt that I was standing in a place, but it wasn’t a place I knew. Just dust and stone, stretching out for forever. And the sky above, it kept changing. It was like it was trying to be something it couldn’t. Red and gray, like a fire that’s burning, but it doesn't have the strength to burn right.” Jorin said nothing, just waited. “There were trees,” Kael went on, his voice distant now, like he wasn’t speaking to Jorin at all but to the darkness around them. “But they weren’t real trees. Just shadows. Like things that once were but aren’t anymore. I tried to walk towards them, but every step I took they stayed where they were. Always out of reach, always just ahead of me. No matter how far I walked.” He paused for a brief moment, letting the ocean fill the silence. “I saw a light,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “A fire, maybe. It was far off. I knew it was something, something important, but it kept moving away, like it didn’t want me to find it. And the ground was shifting under me, always changing. I couldn’t find my way. The land kept turning, like it wasn’t real either.” Kael paused again, his gaze lost in the distance. He swallowed hard, the words coming slower now, as if each one was heavier than the last. “There was a figure,” he said at last, his voice thick with something Jorin couldn’t place. “I couldn’t see its face, but I knew it was waiting for me. It didn’t move, didn’t say anything. Just stood there, watching. And then it asked me a question. It asked me, ‘What are you waiting for?’ And I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even move. The land was too still. The ground felt like it was holding me, pulling me down, and I couldn’t break free.”

He was silent for a moment, his eyes distant, his voice hollow when he spoke again. “When I turned back, the place was gone. The trees, the light, everything. And it was just shadows. Nothing but shadows stretching forever.” Kael’s eyes were fixed on something far off, but Jorin knew he wasn’t seeing it. His hand closed around the stone, and for a long while, the silence between them stretched, broken only by the distant sound of waves against the shore. And the stars above—those ancient, burning remnants of a world they would never truly know—burned on in their quiet, indifferent light, as the two men sat together, under a sky that seemed endless, but one that would eventually fade, as all things did.

The desert night was a mosaic of fractures—static stars, the jagged silhouette of dunes. She walked. Her boots found purchase where the sand stiffened, subtle as a breath. She drifted west, then south, her steps unhurried, adjusting to the tug beneath her ribs. To most, the wastes were directionless. To her, they hummed. A scar ached at her side. Old blood, older pain. She pressed a palm to it, and for a moment, the wind carried a phantom scent—sage, iron, a campfire’s resinous smoke. She did not linger on it. The sky shifted. A star blinked, faint but persistent, just above the horizon. It pulsed now, not with light, but with a quiet magnetism, like a lodestone wrapped in velvet. She followed. Not toward the star, but where the gravity pockets sighed into alignment. Her body moved instinctively, weaving through dissonance. The star kept pace, a silent companion. By dawn, the dunes gave way to hardpan, then to brittle grasses that snagged her boots. Salt stung the air. Somewhere ahead, cliffs sheared into the sea, their edges softened by mist. She paused, kneading the stiffness from her hands. The star had faded with the rising sun, but its imprint lingered—a thumbprint of heat behind her eyelids. She touched the knife at her belt, its hilt notched in a pattern she’d learned in another life, and walked on.

Veridian

“The desert does not care if you kneel. It does not notice your prayers. It remembers only the weight of your footsteps, the salt of your sweat, the way your shadow clings to the sand long after you’ve gone. And when the wind finally scours your name from the stones, even the stars will forget they ever watched you bleed. But walk anyway. Walk, and let the wasteland wonder why.” - Unknown