Chapter 24 – Silent March to Emberfen
The road wound like a scar through the hills.
Dry grass whispered underfoot. The trees leaned too far in, as if listening. Even the wind held its breath.
They'd been walking for hours.
The five chosen disciples moved in silence, boots crunching dirt, cloaks shifting in rhythm. No one spoke—not out of discipline, but something closer to instinct.
Something about the path ahead felt... wrong.
Kael kept to the rear.
He liked it there.
It gave him space to watch, to think.
To feel.
The bottle pressed faintly against his ribs beneath the leather pouch. It hadn't stirred. Not once since they left the Hollow.
He wasn't sure if that comforted him—or made things worse.
Ahead, Mero walked with his usual stride—loose, unhurried, as if the world had yet to prove it deserved his attention. Once a loudmouth and braggart back in the herb yards, he now moved like someone with something to protect.
Kael hadn't spoken to him yet.
Not since the incident with Riven.
The others were newer.
Sariel, thin and sharp-eyed, carried herself like a blade half-drawn. She'd come from Flintfall, a border town with a reputation for hard winters and harder tempers.
And then there was Vetch, assigned last-minute, a quiet boy with quick hands and a gaze that darted like a bird scanning for hawks. No one knew much about him.
That made Kael uneasy.
By midday, they reached the lower rim of Emberfen.
From a distance, it looked like a place gone to seed.
Charcoal rooftops, half-submerged in fog. Ash-covered gardens. A field of drying herbs that no longer moved with the wind.
There were people, yes.
But they moved slowly. Carefully.
Like they expected the ground to shift beneath them at any moment.
A tall man in maroon robes waited at the entrance, flanked by two guards. His face was lean, beard trimmed to a fine point, and his eyes were the gray of old iron.
"Council sends them earlier every year," he muttered as they approached.
Kael felt a prickle behind his neck.
This wasn't surprise.
This was routine.
"I am Marshal Herin, assigned liaison from the western spine. You're the Hollow's children?"
No one answered.
Mero stepped forward. "We've come as instructed. Assignment file—"
"I know the assignment," Herin snapped. "Help, observe, report. Don't make trouble."
He looked them over one by one.
His eyes paused on Kael a second longer than necessary.
Then moved on.
They were housed in an abandoned healer's loft at the village edge.
No beds. Just floor mats and empty cupboards.
Dried redleaf herbs still hung from the rafters, shriveled into shadows of their former selves.
Vetch opened a window.
A bird, already dead, fell off the sill and crumpled into the dirt.
No one said anything.
That evening, Kael slipped away from the group and stood beneath a crooked elm near the boundary stones.
The fog hung low. Thicker now. And green.
Not truly, but...
Almost.
He narrowed his eyes.
The earth here wasn't just sick—it was quiet.
Too quiet.
No insects.
No decay.
Just waiting.
He reached into his pouch.
The bottle remained cool.
Still.
But he could feel it now.
Not moving.
Not speaking.
Watching.
He looked out at Emberfen again.
Lights flickered in the windows.
Shadows moved behind cracked glass.
The village was alive.
But it didn't feel awake.
More like... something was puppeting it.
Kael returned to the loft just after dusk.
Sariel glanced up, but said nothing.
Mero sat cross-legged, staring at the wall.
Vetch was already asleep, or pretending to be.
Kael lay down without a word.
And for a long time, listened to the village breathe.
Or tried to.
Because he wasn't sure it was breathing at all.