About half a watch had passed since leaving Volga Outpost when the mist still lingered on the mountain path. The road stretching along the southern foothills of the Carnadoom Range was a simple one of laid stone. Wheel ruts pressed deep into the earth marked the passage of countless carts, and coniferous trees stood in rows on either side of the path. Mist seeped from the tips of the branches and flowed down to their feet. Kael Brightblade followed Aldric Ironheart's back, still dragging the stale air of yesterday's ruins with him. Aldric's gait never changed. Iron staff for smithing in his left hand, pack across his shoulders, his feet fell in a steady rhythm. Neither fast nor slow. It was a trained pace that belied his aged body. Kael continued several steps behind, watching the old man's back absently. Yesterday at the ruins—that moment when the old man had stopped at the rotted wooden fence before the fort, his expression had seemed to be looking at something beyond. The gesture of pressing the cloth wrapped around his left arm with his fingertips. A motion that came from long habit, whether conscious or not. Kael had seen it and tried to ask something, then stopped. Yesterday and this morning both, he had chosen his words carefully, only to keep them locked away. The road began to undulate slightly. At a bend skirting the base of a small hill, a cart sat tilted in the ruts, its driver nowhere to be seen. The bed was stacked with bundles of firewood, but the right wheel had sunk deep into the mud, leaving it immobile. Kael stopped. "Should I push it?" Kael asked. Aldric stopped without turning around. Only his gaze turned toward the cart. Kael moved behind the bed and placed both hands against it. He put his weight into it. The cart moved slightly, then stopped. Mud clung around the wheel, resisting. "One more time—" Kael said. He threw his full weight into it. The bed lurched, and bundles of firewood began to collapse. One rolled off and bounced on the ground. The next moment, the entire load shifted dangerously. Kael braced himself in panic, but about a third of the cargo tumbled down. Bundles of firewood scattered across the road. A small silence fell. Aldric walked over to the cart and looked at the ground right beside the wheel. Inside the rut, a fist-sized stone lay half-buried in the earth. The old man nudged it with his foot, moving it away from the wheel's pivot point. That was all. "Try pulling it," Aldric said. When Kael grabbed the crossbar of the bed and pulled, the cart moved easily. It came free from the rut and rolled to the edge of the road. Kael gathered the scattered firewood, laughing ruefully. His strength should absolutely be superior. From the resistance he'd felt when pushing, his arm strength was greater than the old man's. Yet a single pebble had rendered all his brute force useless. "...A pivot point, then," Kael said. Aldric was already walking. There was no answer. Perhaps he thought it wasn't worth explaining. Kael restacked the firewood on the bed and hurried after him. —— The road began a gentle descent sometime after midday. The density of trees thinned, and the slope of an open hillside began to spread before them. Beyond it, the outline of a village appeared. Or rather—"appeared" wasn't quite accurate. It would be better to say: what had been a village. The abandoned village of Eirn. A settlement's remains spread beside the road. Kael stopped. It was too quiet. A mountain village in daylight should have the sound of splitting wood, the voices of livestock, the footsteps of children running about. There was nothing. Even the wind seemed to have stopped, and it felt as though only their breathing existed—a silence like that. As they entered the village, the wrongness became immediately apparent. The hinges of the wooden gates had turned black and were crumbling. It was the color of a century's worth of rust erupting in a single night. The dried grass along the path was so desiccated that touching it would turn it to powder; it crumbled to dust beneath their feet. One of the earthen-walled houses had part of its roof collapsed inward. Not rotted away, but aged to ruin—that was the impression the collapse gave. Kael stopped before a livestock shed. A cow stood there, still tethered. Or rather, "stood" wasn't accurate either. It was nothing but bone and hide. Only the trace of its coat remained—the corpse of something aged beyond measure. The rope was still tied to the stake. Had it not had time to flee, or had it lacked even the strength to try? Not the claw marks of a magical beast. Not the traces of plague. An enemy that couldn't be cut down with a sword—that sensation reached Kael not as knowledge but as something etched directly onto his skin. The Void Vine—the materialized consciousness of Castian, which consumed the time of any living thing it touched, causing rapid aging—he finally understood its nature not as hearsay but as lived experience. He'd heard the stories. It was written in the reports of the Ashiron Knight Monastery. But seeing the corpse of the cow before him, he finally felt it in his gut. Aldric stood at the center of the village, surveying all directions. Kael recognized the way the old man's gaze moved—the same way he read ruins. It had been the same at yesterday's fort. His eyes moved as though measuring the priority of damaged buildings, confirming the extent of damage, stacking only facts without emotion. A trained stillness. That gaze flickered once toward his left arm. It returned quickly. Kael was far enough away that he didn't notice the movement. As they walked through the village, traces of people gradually became visible. Dishes remained on shelves, hastily wrapped. Clothing lay scattered, drawers left open. The signs of hurried packing. "They evacuated a few days ago, didn't they?" Kael said. Aldric nodded. That was all. Kael felt relief. There were survivors. People had made it out. Yet he couldn't look away from the traces of time left behind—they were too terrible. As they reached the outer edge of the abandoned village, Kael spoke of something he'd remembered. "Information came from Saint Clairvaux. The Ashiron Knight Monastery—a militant monastic order formed by some former kingdom knights after the Void Annihilation War—their leader, Balden Grave, has begun dispatching knights to investigate the Void Vine. They should be coming along this road as well," Kael said. Something crossed the old man's profile. His brow didn't move. His mouth didn't change. But for just a moment—his face became the face of someone seeing something clearly. Kael couldn't tell if it was tension, wariness, or nostalgia. The subtle changes in an aged face were difficult for the young to read. "...The movements of the Ashiron Knight Monastery are similar, you said once," Aldric said. "What?" Kael asked. "Your way of moving. Solo investigations, confirming damage along the road. It's similar to the Ashiron Knight Monastery's methods. Do you know their techniques?" Aldric asked. Kael was caught off guard for a moment. This was the first time Aldric had initiated a question. Since they'd begun walking together, the old man had always avoided probing. He answered when asked, but never pushed further himself. And now— "I have an acquaintance who's a member. I learned their methods from them," Kael said. Aldric nodded. He didn't dig deeper. He simply asked. That single question changed the air between them slightly. For Kael, it was a change he couldn't quite put into words. —— As the sun touched the mountain's edge, the two sat down on a small rise beside the road. They built a fire. They were fortunate to find dry branches. Aldric produced tinder and lit it with practiced hands. As the first flames rose, orange light began to illuminate both their faces. They distributed dried rations from their packs to each other. Hard wheat biscuits and salted dried meat. They washed it down with water from their flasks. There was no conversation. Only the crackling of the fire and the distant sound of trees swaying in the wind. Kael hugged his knees and watched the flames. The sight of the abandoned village Eirn overlapped with another memory. Five years ago. Night. Volga Outpost. The sound of magical beasts beyond the wooden walls. His companions' breathing. His master's profile—Velt Crofne's face. Kael's mouth moved. He hadn't intended to speak to anyone. It was simply that the rotted time of that abandoned village and the night at the fort overlapped, and he couldn't bear the silence any longer. "Can I tell you about what happened five years ago?" Kael asked. Aldric watched the fire. He didn't answer. He didn't refuse either. To Kael, that sounded like permission to continue. "Volga Outpost—the ruins we passed yesterday. My master and three companions died there," Kael said. His voice was flat. At first. "There were five of us. Before dawn, a herd of stone-armored beasts came. Three times the number we expected," Kael said. Stone-armored beasts—the iron-gray-skinned magical creatures they'd slain yesterday. A single one was formidable; a herd was devastating. Kael laid out the facts methodically. His master's name, the fort's structure, the darkness before dawn, the sound of beasts pressing forward. But as he spoke, his voice began to crack. "When we were fighting the last one—" Kael said. He stopped. His hands gripping his knees tightened. "My master went out as a decoy. He said he'd draw the last beast's attention so I could escape the fort. I didn't stop him. There was time when I could have, but I couldn't move. While my master drew the beast away, I got out," Kael said. His voice wavered. Once it wavered, it wouldn't stop. "My master died after I left. If I'd stopped him—or if I'd gone out as the decoy—or if there'd been some other way—" Kael said. The words wouldn't come. "I survived because my master died. There's no other reason," Kael said. He finished and buried his face in his knees, falling silent. The fire crackled. A few red sparks rose and dissolved into the night sky. A long silence fell. Kael couldn't tell how long. A minute, perhaps, or more. Kael lifted his gaze. Aldric's profile was there in the firelight. An aged outline. A deep scar running vertically down his left cheek. As the firelight flickered, the line of the scar grew darker and lighter. Something lay in the depths of his tired eyes. Thirty years of something. Looking at that expression, Kael felt something nameless taking shape in his chest—something different from respect for his master or fear. Kael noticed and quickly turned his gaze back to the fire. His cheeks were slightly warm. It was the fire, he told himself. Aldric's mouth moved slightly. There was a span of seconds where something was being swallowed. From the quality of the silence, Kael could tell the old man was measuring something within himself. "Don't be ashamed of surviving," Aldric said. His voice was low and brief. "But don't forget that pain," Aldric said. That was all. Kael looked up. Aldric still watched the fire. He wasn't facing him. Whether the words were a teaching for Kael or something the old man was telling himself—Kael couldn't determine. The old man's words reached Kael as instruction. Permission to live while carrying his master's death. That's how it reached him. But the way Aldric's eyes spoke as he continued watching the fire—where those words had seeped from—told a deeper story. Thirty years. The number of nights spent counting what was lost in the Void Annihilation War beneath the moon. The words of someone who had carried the weight of surviving for thirty years. The two sat in silence, watching the fire for a long time. Eventually Aldric rose, drew his outer coat around himself, and lay down a short distance from the fire, his back turned. Kael lay down after a while. There we