Chapter 18 - Travel

POV: Eirian

The road into town looked like a wound.

The ruts were deep from too many carts fleeing in the same direction, the muddy edges frozen into jagged ridges. A week of walking had hollowed everyone out—mud-crusted boots, wind-burned cheeks, cracked lips. Even the horse that pulled the empty cart they’d bartered for two towns ago walked with its head low, breath steaming in the cold.

The settlement they found was larger than their village, but no more alive. Smoke hung low in the air, thin and sour, and people moved in the streets like startled deer—quick glances over shoulders, sharp turns into alleys, no one lingering anywhere for long. The clack of shutters closing followed them down the main road.

“Like a wounded animal,” Orlen muttered from the driver’s bench. His voice was low enough that only Eirian heard it. She didn’t disagree.

The inn’s sign creaked on its chain when they reached it, but the door opened easily enough. Inside, the heat from the hearth didn’t make the place feel warmer. The common room was crowded but hushed, every table full of travelers who spoke in sharp, clipped fragments:

“…caravan ambushed west…”

“…field black overnight, nothing left…”

“…children gone… no screams…”

Eirian’s skin prickled. The words rolled over each other like stones in a river, bits of broken stories that didn’t need finishing.

In the corner, Orlen sat with a small cloth pouch open in front of him, counting the coins one by one. His hands were steady, but there was something in the way his jaw tightened after each clink that made Eirian’s stomach knot. She’d seen that look before—on a farmer watching hail crush a field he couldn’t protect.

When the count was done, he rose without a word and spoke to the innkeeper. By the time he returned, he’d spent nearly everything on a battered carriage and a single tired horse.

“Enough to move,” he told her. “Not enough to stop.”

It wasn’t just the cost. It was the quiet way he said it, as if he knew they wouldn’t find anywhere worth stopping.

They weren’t the only ones who’d arrived here. Four other families from their village had made the trip with them. Now, most were already deciding to stay.

“We’ll be safe here,” said Mara, a stout woman who had always had the loudest voice at the harvest festivals. She said it with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Eirian didn’t bother hiding her skepticism. “You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know that we won’t,” Mara snapped.

But Eirian could see it—see the way the woman’s hands twisted in her apron, the way her eyes darted to the windows every time a cart rumbled past outside. They weren’t staying because they believed they’d be safe. They were staying because it was easier than running again.

Only Tomas stood apart from the rest, his expression tight and unreadable.

Later, as Eirian lay on her narrow cot in the room she shared with Sera, she heard soft footsteps in the hallway. A pause. Then a quiet knock on Orlen’s door.

She cracked the door just enough to see.

Tomas stood there, his back straight, his jaw set like a man who’d already made the decision and just needed it confirmed.

“We’re leaving at dawn,” he said. “My family’s coming with you.”

Orlen studied him for a long moment before nodding once. No questions. No surprise.

When Tomas turned, Eirian caught the shadow on his face—not fear, but the weight of something heavier.

She didn’t see him again until the common room was almost empty. He was kneeling by the hearth, holding a folded letter between his fingers. The paper caught quickly, curling black at the edges before crumbling into ash.

The smoke rose in thin spirals, vanishing into the chimney.

Eirian didn’t ask what it said. She didn’t need to.

Some truths were too dangerous to carry.

***

The first days blurred into a gray rhythm—cold breath, crunch of frost under hooves, and the wooden groan of the carriage with every rut in the road. The trees along the roadside stood bare and skeletal, branches clutching at a pale sky.

At night, frost crept over the wheels and axles. In the mornings, Orlen would break it away with the flat of his knife before they could move.

The villages they passed through each had their own face.

The first was almost cheerful—smoke rising from chimneys, children chasing a half-deflated ball between the houses. Men leaned on fence posts and waved at the carriage as it passed, calling out greetings as though nothing beyond their pastures mattered.

“The forest?” one of them repeated when Orlen warned them. “We’ve been here forty years. It’s the same as it’s always been.”

He laughed like Orlen had told him the punchline to a joke. Eirian looked at the children again and felt her jaw tighten.

The second village didn’t wave. It didn’t speak. Windows were shuttered before the carriage reached the first house. Dogs barked from behind gates, their voices sharp and urgent. Eirian could feel eyes watching from the cracks.

“They’re not listening either,” she muttered.

“They heard,” Orlen said quietly. “They just think if they keep still enough, danger won’t reach them, you saw how the closer villages to the forest were in a panic, now that we have put some distance, people think they are safe.”

On the seventh day, they reached a market town. The scent of fresh bread and roasting meat should have been welcome after so many days of hard biscuits and dried apples. But the air was thick with tension, the kind that settles into a place like a bruise.

News moved faster than the carts—three outer villages had gone silent. No messengers had returned.

Then came the words that made Eirian’s chest tighten until she could barely draw breath.

The town they’d first stopped in—where the other families from their village had stayed—was gone. Burned in a single night.

“No survivors,” said the woman who told them. She said it without inflection, like she’d already run out of ways to react to bad news.

Eirian stared at the cobblestones until her vision blurred. She had tried to warn them. She had pushed—hadn’t she? But her protests had been too quiet, too short. She’d let them believe safety was just a word you could choose to believe in.

That night, the common room’s fire threw long shadows across Orlen’s face as he held something small in his palm. It gleamed even in the dim light—a silver seal set in black obsidian, etched with the crest of his noble house.

He stared at it for a long time before closing his hand.

When he opened it again, it was only to place the seal on the table between him and the buyer. The man turned it over once, twice, his eyes weighing it as if the past it carried meant nothing. When the coins came, they clinked dully into Orlen’s palm, far too few for what the seal had once been worth.

It was enough for two sacks of flour, a few wheels of cheese, and some dried meat. Enough to keep them moving.

Eirian watched him afterward as he sat in the quiet corner of the inn, staring at his empty hand like he could still feel the weight of it.

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No one spoke.

The next morning, they left before the town was fully awake.

The road beyond was quieter. Too quiet. The wind moved the branches, but there were no birds in them. Even the horse seemed to sense it, pulling against the reins with a restless twitch of its head.

They passed two more villages in the following days—one empty except for a single cart left in the street, the other busy with the noise of hammers and saws as if they were building for spring. Orlen warned both.

The first ignored him entirely. The second laughed, a little too loudly, and said the creatures “wouldn’t bother them here.”

By the time they left, Eirian had stopped looking back at the houses. She didn’t want to know if someone was standing in the doorway, watching them leave with the same resigned certainty she’d seen before.

When night fell, the frost came earlier and heavier. The stars were bright and sharp, the kind of cold light that made the dark between them feel deeper.

Somewhere behind them, in all those villages, life went on.

For now.

***

It happened on the twelfth day.

The road narrowed between two sloping hills, the trees on either side leaning in like they were listening. The air was still—no birdcall, no rustle—only the creak of the carriage and the dull, rhythmic thump of the horse’s hooves on frozen ground.

Eirian felt it before she saw anything: the prickling up her spine, the subtle weight of being watched. She shifted on the bench beside Orlen, scanning the trees.

Then the first arrow struck.

It hit the carriage wheel with a splintering crack, the shaft quivering as it pinned the spoke in place. The horse screamed and reared, the carriage jerking to a halt.

Figures stepped from the treeline—five, then six, then more. Leather armor patched with mismatched hides, blades notched and rusted but still deadly. Hunger in their eyes, the kind that made men do worse than kill.

“Out,” the leader said. His voice was calm, practiced. This wasn’t his first ambush. He carried a spear, but his eyes were on Tomas. “And you—step away from the wagon.”

Orlen’s hand was already on his sword. But Tomas was faster, stepping forward with a confidence Eirian hadn’t seen before. His hands came together, and fire bloomed between them like dry straw catching light.

The leader’s mouth twitched. He lifted one hand, palm outward.

The fire in Tomas’s hands guttered and died.

A ripple went through the robbers. Their leader gave a small, smug smile. “Not the only one who knows tricks.”

Tomas didn’t move. The air between them seemed to tighten. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Two of the robbers rushed him. The first swung a short sword, the second a club. Tomas ducked the sword’s arc, slammed his palm into the man’s chest, and fire burst point-blank, sending the attacker sprawling. But the second’s club connected with his shoulder, spinning him sideways.

Eirian was already moving. She grabbed the nearest length of wood—an old fence post from the roadside—and swung it into a man charging for the carriage. The impact jarred up her arms, and he went down hard, cursing.

Another robber made for Sera, who was half-hidden behind the cart. Orlen intercepted him, sword flashing in a hard diagonal cut that caught the man’s forearm. The robber screamed and dropped his weapon. Orlen didn’t stop moving, pivoting to parry another blow.

Tomas staggered back from the blow to his shoulder, his fire sparking erratically in his palm as the leader stepped in, spear leveled. The man thrust—not to kill, but to drive Tomas off balance.

Eirian’s pulse roared in her ears. She knew she could end this—pull the threads, choke the fight out of them—but the Weaver’s warning was still fresh in her mind. If she revealed herself here, even robbers might talk.

The leader’s hand flicked again, and Tomas’s fire died a second time. The man smirked. “Guess your teacher didn’t tell you—there’s always someone better.”

Tomas bared his teeth. “We’ll see.”

He dropped low, scooped a handful of dirt and frost from the road, and flung it into the man’s eyes. The leader snarled and stumbled back, wiping at his face. Tomas’s fire roared back to life, this time bursting from both hands in a sweeping arc.

The robbers closest to him flinched away, the heat rippling the air. One man wasn’t fast enough—the flames caught his sleeve, and he tore it off with a scream.

Orlen drove his sword into the gap, forcing the robbers back from the carriage. “Eirian!” he barked, pointing toward the wagon’s side. She understood—if they could keep the attackers in front, they wouldn’t be surrounded.

She shoved the fence post under the wheel, bracing it, then darted back to Orlen’s side.

The leader came again, spear spinning in a blur. Tomas blocked with a burst of flame, but the weapon punched through the heat, grazing his side. He hissed and dropped back, clutching the wound.

Eirian’s restraint snapped.

She reached inward, to the Soul Lantern. The threads shimmered into view, bright against the dark—hundreds of them, connecting every movement, every breath. The robbers’ threads burned a sickly green.

She seized one—then another. They thrashed in her grip, resisting like live eels. She pulled.

Three robbers froze, clutching at their throats. Another dropped his weapon entirely, falling to his knees.

The leader’s thread burned brighter than the rest, thicker, and when she pulled, he didn’t choke—he jerked, his head snapping toward her. His eyes widened as if he could see the strand between them.

And then he smiled.

Something cold slid along the thread, back toward her, a sensation like ice water pouring into her veins. Her vision swam, and she almost lost her grip.

*Careful,* Askariel whispered in her mind, voice low and amused. *That one’s more dangerous than he looks.*

The leader lunged—not for Tomas, but for her. Orlen intercepted, blade sparking against the spearhead. The two men locked, strength against strength.

Tomas surged in from the side, his fire boiling the air. The leader twisted free of Orlen’s guard, but too late—Tomas’s flame caught the edge of his armor. Leather blackened, the smell of burning hide filling the air.

The leader cursed, retreating toward the treeline. His surviving men followed, some limping, some still gasping for air.

The fight was over in less than two minutes, but every heartbeat of it felt like a minute on its own.

Tomas stood breathing hard, a red mark on his side where the spear had grazed him. His eyes kept flicking to the bodies on the road, as if expecting them to rise again.

Eirian released the threads. The green light winked out, leaving only the cold, dark night. Her knees buckled, and she barely registered Orlen catching her.

In the distance, the sound of retreating footsteps faded into the trees.

The silence that followed was heavier than before.

***

They saw the city long before they reached it—walls like a cliff face, the stone pale and cold against the sky. Watchtowers rose at regular intervals, their windows like dark eyes.

Closer, the air was thick with smoke from hundreds of cooking fires, the tang of unwashed bodies, and the restless murmur of voices. The road swelled into a churning mass of people: carts overloaded with furniture, families with nothing but bundles of clothes, merchants clutching papers as if they were shields.

The line to the gate stretched so far it bent out of sight.

Soldiers moved along its length in pairs, their halberds gleaming even under the gray light. Their faces were hidden behind open-faced helms, eyes scanning the crowd with a precision that made Eirian’s skin crawl.

As they edged closer, the noise became a wall: merchants shouting about wares that would buy their way in, children crying, a man in a tattered coat arguing with a soldier until the butt of a halberd sent him sprawling.

Word passed from mouth to mouth, quick and bitter.

“The gates are closed.”

“Only papers or coin get you through.”

“Everyone else is getting sent to the south road.”

The south road led nowhere safe. Everyone knew that.

In the crush of bodies, Eirian felt it—the faintest tug in the back of her mind, like a thread being plucked. The Weaver’s voice followed, curling into her thoughts like smoke under a door.

*Do not enter.*

The words were quiet, but they wrapped tight around her chest.

*Cities have sharper teeth than the creatures you flee. Your power would draw them, and you would not leave again, you can only enter when you master your abilities.*

The voice faded, but the pressure didn’t. She looked up at the wall again, at the black slits of the murder holes, at the soldiers whose eyes swept over her as if they could sense something hidden under her skin.

Tomas’s family stood huddled by their cart, his mother clutching her younger children close. His father’s face was pale, jaw clenched.

“We can’t keep running,” his mother said, voice pitched low but firm. “There are soldiers here, an even stone walls. It’s safe here.”

Tomas’s gaze flicked to Eirian, then back to his mother. “It’s not safe enough.”

“Safe enough is all we have left.”

Eirian turned away, not wanting to hear more. The city loomed over them, unyielding. She could almost imagine those walls leaning down to swallow her whole.

That night, they camped beyond the torchlight of the gates, on frozen ground already trampled flat by dozens of other would-be refugees. Fires dotted the dark like scattered stars, each one surrounded by the shadows of huddled families.

Tomas’s family stayed close to their cart, the children wrapped in blankets, their eyes reflecting the firelight. His mother never looked toward Eirian’s group again.

When it was clear they weren’t coming, Orlen stood, brushing frost from his cloak.

“We leave at first light,” he said.

The torchlight from the city walls stretched long over the frost, but as they walked away, it shrank, fading behind them until only the night remained.