They ran.
The pain in Roen's ribs was a constant companion now, flaring with every breath. Behind
them, they could hear shouting—the clatter of armored boots on cobblestones, the barked
orders of soldiers.
The stone house appeared out of the fog, its red door vivid against the gray. Roen pounded
on it with his fist.
"Open up! We need passage!"
Nothing. He hammered again. Behind them, the sounds of pursuit were getting closer.
"Roen." Mirelle's voice was tense. "They're coming."
He could see them now. Five figures in crimson uniforms, moving through the fog. One of
them pointed in their direction.
"Open the fucking door!" Roen slammed his shoulder against it. The wood was solid,
unyielding. "Please!"
The door opened.
Roen stumbled inside, Mirelle close behind. The room was dark, lit only by a single candle.
And standing in the doorway, holding the candle, was a man unlike any Roen had seen
before.
He was tall and gaunt, with pale skin stretched over sharp bones. His hair was white, his
eyes a pale blue that seemed to glow in the dim light. But what made Roen's breath catch
was the absence of any shimmer around him. No threads. No Weave.
Thread-blind. The man was thread-blind.
"You're loud," the man said. His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. "And you're
followed."
"We need to get into the Severed Lands." Roen kept his voice steady despite his pounding
heart. "We can pay."
"Everyone says that." The man—Verant—studied them with those pale, glowing eyes. "Few
do."
"We have money. And we have this." Roen pulled out the sphere. He didn't know why, but
something told him this was what the man needed to see.
Verant's eyes widened. For a moment, his composure cracked, revealing something
underneath. Fear? Recognition? It was gone before Roen could tell.
"Where did you get that?"
"A woman gave it to me. Said to take it to the Pale Mountain monastery."
"Sable." Verant breathed the name like a curse. "She found one. After all these years."
"Found one what?"
"Get inside. Quickly." Verant stepped back, allowing them entry. "We don't have much time."
The door closed behind them. Through the thick wood, Roen could hear the soldiers arriving
outside, hammering on other doors, demanding answers.
"They'll search every house," Mirelle said. "They'll find us."
"Not if we're gone." Verant moved to a trapdoor in the floor. "There's a tunnel. Leads to the
edge of the Severed Lands. After that, you're on your own."
"You're not coming?"
"Into the dead lands?" Verant's smile was thin and bitter. "I guide people to the edge. I don't
go in. No one who values their life does."
"Then why help us at all?"
Verant looked at the sphere again, and something shifted in his expression.
"Because I know what that is. And I know what it means if it falls into the wrong hands." He
opened the trapdoor, revealing a ladder leading down into darkness. "Go. North and west.
Stay on the old roads. Don't trust the lights."
"What lights?"
"You'll see." He paused. "Or maybe you won't. The Severed Lands show different things to
different people." He pushed them toward the ladder. "Now go. And boy?"
"What?"
"Don't open that sphere. Whatever you do, don't open it."
Then he was closing the trapdoor, and they were descending into darkness.
The tunnel was narrow and damp, smelling of earth and old stone. Roen moved carefully, his
ribs protesting every step. Behind him, Mirelle was silent, her breathing steady.
They emerged an hour later, climbing out through a collapsed wall into a landscape that
made Roen's skin crawl.
The Severed Lands stretched before them, a vast expanse of gray and black. The ground
was cracked and barren, the remains of ancient battles scattered everywhere—broken
weapons, crumbling walls, the bones of creatures long dead. The sky above was darker than
it should have been, the sun a pale disk behind thick clouds.
And the silence. It pressed down on them, heavy and absolute. No birds. No insects. No
wind. Just the sound of their own breathing.
"This is it," Roen said. "The dead lands."
"And we have to cross it." Mirelle's voice was barely a whisper. "Three weeks of this."
"Maybe less. The old roads are straight." He looked back. Somewhere behind them, the
Imperial soldiers were searching. Dessa was tracking. Both would eventually find Verant's
tunnel.
"We don't have a choice."