The trail narrowed into a thin ribbon of packed earth, hemmed in by trees whose branches swayed lazily in the morning breeze. Somewhere ahead, Nyra's steady stride set the pace, Valen and Luken at the front with her. Behind them walked Neo, his steps light but measured, Tar shadowing him like a wall of horn and muscle. At the rear, Thal kept pace with Alinda, both silent save for the occasional crunch of gravel underfoot.
It was Alinda who broke away first, moving up the line with the quiet precision of someone who had walked battlefields. She passed Tar without looking, her gaze fixed forward, and Neo gave her a side glance as she drew up beside him.
"You're not walking into Lions Gate as you are," she said without preamble.
Neo's brow furrowed, the set of his jaw tightening. "And why not?"
"Because the moment they see your eyes, your horns, they'll mark you for what you are. Kruul. That's enough for most people in that city to want you in chains."
He let out a short, sharp laugh, not out of amusement but disbelief. "You're telling me I have to hide? Again?"
"I'm telling you that you won't make it past the gates otherwise," she replied evenly.
He looked away, jaw shifting as he worked through the irritation that bubbled in his chest. She was right, and that only made it worse. The thought of smothering who he was of covering the proof of what blood ran through his veins scraped against every instinct he had but the image of the gates slammed in his face… of Thal dragging him back like a child… of his own people's history in that city… That cooled the heat a little.
Alinda, watching the play of thought across his expression, pressed on. "Luken's working on something now. A spell. Illusion magic bound into a vessel so you can pass for human. No staring, no questions."
Neo's gaze returned to her, narrowed but calmer. "And what is this 'vessel'?"
"A gem," she said simply. "Once he's finished, it'll sit on you like a second skin."
He walked in silence for a few paces, chewing on that. "How long will it hold?"
"As long as it needs to," she replied, though there was no telling whether she meant it as reassurance or command.
Neo exhaled slowly through his nose. The annoyance hadn't fully gone but it was tempered now, dulled into something he could work with. "Fine but I'm not doing this to disappear. I'm doing it so I can walk in there and see for myself."
Her mouth twitched into the faintest smirk. "Good. Then we understand each other."
Up at the head of the group, Luken adjusted his grip on the staff slung over his shoulder. Valen had been watching him since he'd returned from speaking with Alinda, the rogue's curiosity only thinly masked by idle banter.
"You're walking like you're carrying something fragile," Valen said.
"I am," Luken replied, fishing into his cloak and drawing out the darkwood box.
The clasp gave with a soft click, revealing the red gem inside. Even in the dappled sunlight, it drank the light instead of reflecting it, its glow a slow, steady pulse that seemed to sync with Luken's own heartbeat.
Valen whistled low. "That's no market bauble."
Luken ignored him, focusing on the gem. He rested the box on a low branch at the edge of the trail, planted the butt of his staff in the dirt, and pressed both palms flat over the stone. The moment his skin touched it, he felt the pull a faint, insistent draw that tugged at him in ways magic rarely did.
He opened himself to it.
It began in the smallest ways. His pores loosened, beads of sweat gathering across his palms but the sweat wasn't falling it was moving, drawn deliberately into the gem's surface. Every drop carried more than saltwater it carried the threads of his magic, woven into the fluid like dye into cloth.
Valen tilted his head, eyebrows lifting. "That's new."
Luken didn't answer. He had to keep the flow steady, the rhythm unbroken. Magic fed into the gem alongside the moisture, the heat of his body bleeding into the crystalline core. With each breath, the illusion he wore the one that masked his own heritage began to falter. First, the faint shimmer at the edges of his form where light bent imperfectly. Then, the subtle shift in his eyes as the false colour dulled, revealing the deeper hue beneath. A flicker of something alien traced along the ridges of his cheek, vanishing again as the magic fluctuated.
Valen, to his credit, didn't comment. His eyes narrowed but he kept his mouth shut, watching in the same way a man might watch a storm forming on the horizon.
The gem responded in kind. Its pulse quickened, drinking in the magic and heat until the red deepened to the colour of fresh-spilled blood. Luken felt the strain in his forearms, the faint tremor in his fingers as the vessel resisted, then relented, then resisted again. Somewhere deep inside, he felt it the presence. Not alive, not exactly but not gone. An echo of a will still tethered to the crystal, testing him.
He pushed on. The illusion he wove into it was delicate but strong: a mask over Neo's horns, a dulling of the unnatural light in his eyes, the subtle shaping of features into something human. A second skin that would hold under scrutiny but not forever.
Valen's voice was low when he finally spoke. "Feels like it's watching you."
"It is," Luken muttered, not looking up.
"Friendly?"
"Neutral. For now."
Valen shifted his weight, crossing his arms. "And if it changes its mind?"
"Then it breaks, and so does the disguise."
The last thread of magic sank into the gem with a faint hiss, like steam meeting cold stone. Luken exhaled, flexing his fingers to work out the stiffness. The illusion over his own features rippled and reformed, hiding the things that had slipped through while he worked.
He closed the box and slid it back into his cloak. "It's ready."
A few paces back, Alinda slowed her step until she was even with Neo again. His eyes were on the tree line but she could tell his thoughts were somewhere much further ahead past the gates, into the city, into whatever waited there.
"When it's time," she said, "you'll wear the gem. It'll feel… different at first. Like your own skin's not yours."
Neo's lip twitched in faint distaste. "I've felt worse."
"You'll be fine," she replied, not bothering with softness. "Better this than the alternative."
He glanced at her, the earlier edge to his expression softened now into something closer to resolve. "Yeah. I know."
The air between them settled into a companionable silence, the sound of boots on dirt carrying them forward. Ahead, Valen and Luken were falling back into step with Nyra, the faintest glow leaking from the seam of Luken's cloak.
Alinda's eyes lingered on it. The vessel was ready. Soon enough, Neo would vanish into a face the city wouldn't question and yet, she couldn't shake the thought maybe hiding him was just delaying the inevitable.
The forest began to thin, the trees growing sparser until the sunlight spilled more freely over the path. The air itself seemed to shift warmer, touched with the faint tang of distant smoke and something else beneath it, a scent no one could quite place.
Valen was the first to notice the change in the ground ahead. The dirt path leveled out before dropping steeply, the slope running all the way down toward an open expanse that shimmered faintly in the light.
"Ridge ahead," he called back over his shoulder, his voice low but carrying.
They closed the distance together, boots scuffing against stone now instead of soil. The trees gave way entirely, revealing the rise they stood upon a high ridge that curved like a natural wall above the land below and there, in the distance, sat Lions Gate.
From here, its twin walls gleamed pale in the sun, circles of white stone broken only by gates of black iron. The outer city spread between the walls like a living thing, streets packed tight with houses and markets. Beyond that, closer to the heart, the inner city rose with cleaner lines, taller buildings, and the glint of the palace's spires catching the light.
Even from here, the place felt alive. The faint hum of voices drifted upward, mingled with the muted clang of hammers and the ringing chime of bells. Somewhere in the streets below, streamers of red and gold cloth were being strung between rooftops, catching the wind in slow, lazy arcs.
They stopped at the ridge's edge without speaking.
For a long moment, no one moved. The city commanded attention, holding their gazes as if daring them to step forward.
Valen set his hands on his hips, eyes narrowing slightly. "Looks almost welcoming from here."
Nyra didn't answer. She was watching the city with an expression caught between curiosity and unease.
Tar lowered himself to a sitting position on a flat rock, resting his forearms on his knees, his gaze fixed somewhere on the middle wall as though measuring its height.
Luken unslung his staff, planting it in the dirt beside him as he settled to rest, the gem's faint glow still hidden deep within his cloak.
Neo stood a few steps back from the ridge, arms crossed, his eyes on the outer streets. There was no awe in him only a guarded focus, as if he was already searching for something in the tangle of streets.
Alinda was the last to move. She stepped past them, closer to the edge, her eyes tracing the lines of the walls, the gates, the ways in and out. She didn't sit but her posture eased just enough to suggest a temporary halt.
It was Valen who finally broke the quiet. "We're stopping?"
"Just for a moment," Nyra said, still watching the city.
The wind carried the smell of cooking fires and blooming flowers up the slope, wrapping around them like an invitation but beneath it all was something fainter a weight in the air, the kind that never came from weather.
From behind, Thal's voice came, deep and steady. "Rest. It'll be the last chance before we step inside."
No one argued.
They found places along the ridge stones, stumps, bare patches of earth worn smooth by old rain and let the quiet settle in around them. The city waited below, brilliant in the morning light, its walls hiding whatever truths lay inside.
And for a little while, they simply looked.
Thal crouched near the edge of the ridge, the wind tugging at the tattered edge of his kilt, strands of ash-blackened fabric shifting like loose embers. His bare feet gripped the stone as he leaned forward, studying the sweep of land that rolled down toward Lions Gate. The city sat in a shallow basin, its twin walls stark against the morning light, the outer one already dotted with movement from merchants and guards.
Tar sat beside him, massive legs dangling over the drop. The Minotaur's tail flicked idly against the cliff face, though his gaze never left the gates below. A low, rumbling sound escaped him half sigh, half thought that carried easily in the still air.
A few steps back, the rest of the group had settled on scattered rocks and stumps. Alinda took a seat on a smooth boulder, her crimson eyes scanning the city's sprawl without expression. Neo perched on a low stump, elbows braced on his knees, watching the narrow streets that led away from the gate as if already plotting paths.
Luken leaned his staff against a leaning trunk, lowering himself onto it with care, while Valen sprawled nearby on a flat rock, one leg stretched out, the other propped so his arm could rest over his knee. Both looked down at the city like men sizing up an opponent quietly measuring its reach.
Nyra had chosen a place a little apart from the others, her axe across her lap, fingers idly tracing the worn leather grip. She wasn't watching the city so much as watching for it her gaze skimming rooftops, alley mouths, the shadows between buildings.
The air was cool up here, touched with the faint tang of woodsmoke and salt from far-off trade wagons returning from the coast. Every so often, the wind shifted, carrying up the distant din of bells and market chatter.
Tar's ear twitched at a faint clang from the outer gate. Thal's gaze stayed fixed ahead, unreadable, though one hand rested loosely on his thigh, fingers flexing slightly with thought.
No one broke the quiet. They were close enough now that the city seemed alive before them, yet far enough that its noise and colour felt unreal like a story being told from another life.
They sat long enough for the wind to scrape the heat from their march. The city breathed below them bells, distant voices, a smear of colour inside white walls while the ridge held their silence like a bowl.
Alinda didn't let it stretch. She stood, dusted grit from her palm, and held her hand out to Luken. "Gem."
He slid it from inside his cloak without argument. The darkwood lid clicked the red stone inside pulsed once like a slow heartbeat. Luken's fingertips hovered a fraction longer than necessary over the box before he let her take it. Whatever he'd poured into it had settled a heat that wasn't heat, a shape of a spell waiting to be worn.
Alinda turned toward Neo. "Up."
He rose from the stump, eyes flicking once to the city, then back to her. No questions. He'd already had his arguments with himself on the walk. He stopped in front of her, shoulders squared out of habit, not confidence.
"Shirt," she said.
He blinked at her, taken aback. "Shirt?"
"It has to embed into your flesh," she replied, tone matter-of-fact. "Through the skin. It won't work otherwise."
He hesitated only a heartbeat, then tugged the hem up and over his horns with practiced annoyance, folding the shirt in one hand. Cold air slid over him. Up close, the Kruu'voth in him was impossible to mistake black sclera framing the faint glow of violet irises smooth lines of muscle under ash-pale skin faint, too-symmetrical scars that looked more like decisions than accidents.
Nyra glanced over and immediately looked away again, heat pricking her ears. She adjusted the strap on her bracer like it needed it, eyes stubbornly on the dirt. Valen didn't bother to hide his look but it wasn't leering it was cataloguing. Luken pretended interest in a very uninteresting rock. Tar simply watched, head tilted, unreadable. Thal didn't turn. He stared down at Lions Gate as though it were the only thing left on the world's map.
Alinda stepped close enough that her breath fogged faintly against his chest. "Centre," she said, tapping the sternum. "It'll sit here."
Neo swallowed. "How bad?"
"Quick," she said. Then, because that wasn't quite true: "Mostly."
"That's reassuring," he muttered but he held still.
She opened the box and pinched the gem between two fingers. Even in daylight it drank light rather than threw it, a small red wound in the air. The etched rune along its edge the one Luken had threaded glowed a hair brighter as Alinda lifted it. Neo's eyes followed it on instinct, then forced themselves shut.
"Breathe," she said. "Don't fight it when it pulls."
"That's a sentence I hate," he said through his teeth.
Alinda placed the gem to his sternum.
It didn't press so much as bite.
Heat flared sharp, surgical, precise. The stone's surface went from cool to furnace in a blink, and Neo's breath jerked as if someone had smothered him and waited. The gem didn't slide under skin it burrowed, a clean, relentless pressure that found the seam of flesh and made one where none was. His muscles flinched on instinct. He didn't move.
The smell hit first: hot iron, singed skin. Then the sound soft, almost obscene, like wet ash dragged across bone. The gem sank by degrees, burning a path the size of a coin, a ring of red brightening around its edge. Neo's hands clenched at his sides. A low, involuntary sound pushed up his throat and died there.
"Keep breathing," Alinda said, voice flat, steady. "In. Out."
He obeyed, hissing the air through his teeth.
Nyra's gaze snapped back despite herself. The burn ring had become a small, angry halo as the gem disappeared flush with his sternum. Another breath and it was gone no stone left to see, only a red circle with a thin black line running through its centre, like a slit eye closed in sleep.
Below that just above his ribs half-hidden by the fresh flush of heat, was an older mark. A brand. Not raised like a scar, not entirely recessed either. It had been done with care, which made it worse. Two hooked lines and a bar, simple, brutal, designed to be read at a glance by men who didn't read.
Valen's jaw tightened, the lazy mask slipping a fraction. He knew that sign. He'd seen it on wrists, on backs, on the inside of forearms in back rooms where guards didn't walk and doors didn't lock from the inside. He said nothing. He fixed his face back into something comfortable and looked at the horizon.
The last bite of the gem passed. Neo's shoulders loosened a fraction, then tensed again as something else moved cool now, not heat. A spreading. The illusion unrolled from the embedded stone like ink in water: subtle, feather-fine, a veil settling beneath the skin and over it at once. The violet in his eyes dulled to a darker brown. The black sclera thinned to deep shadow at the edges. The faint texture over his temples where horn met flesh smoothed, not gone but uninteresting, the mind skipping over it like a smudge on glass. Even his silhouette softened by a breath, angles traded for a gentler human geometry.
"Again," Alinda said. "Breathe."
Neo took a long inhale, let it go slow. The burn ebbed to a deep ache. He opened his eyes. The world looked the same. He looked different.
Luken rose from his stump and came closer, staff used for balance more than show, eyes narrowed in concentration. He didn't touch Neo. He didn't need to. The thread he'd laid into the gem hummed in him like a remembered song.
"How's it feel?" Luken asked.
"Like someone slid an ember under my ribs," Neo said, wincing as the ache twinged. "And put a wet blanket over my face."
"That means it's working," Luken said. "Don't let your own magic flare unless you have to. If it spikes, the veil might cough."
"Cough?"
"Show its lungs," Luken said, deadpan.
Neo gave him a look that said he appreciated the attempt and hated it.
Alinda stepped back just enough to see his face at a distance. "Walk," she said.
Neo blinked. "What."
"Walk. Few paces. Give the spell your motion. Let it learn you."
He did, pacing a small arc along the ridge: three steps, turn, three back. The illusion settled further, picking up the rhythm of him the way his shoulders rolled, the way his weight sat on the balls of his feet, a predator's economy made nondescript. To the eye, nothing extraordinary. To the part of the mind that hunted differences, less to bite.
Tar watched with mild interest, nostrils flaring once. He rumbled a single approval that sounded like stone agreeing to be a wall.
The last bite of the gem passed. Neo's shoulders loosened a fraction, then tensed again as something else began to move cool now, not heat. It spread out from the embedded stone like frost crawling under glass, thin veins of shadow and light chasing one another through his skin.
It began at his horns. At first, the ivory roots looked unchanged then the white began to thin, fading like paint washed by slow rain. It bled upward, the pale vanishing inch by inch until the black base swallowed it whole. The darkness crawled toward the tips in steady pulses, deliberate, inescapable, until each horn was the gone.
The change reached his eyes next. The black in them receded, not in a blink but as though the sclera were being repainted from the inside out deep shadow draining away into clean, human white. Only the violet irises remained untouched, burning brighter against the new contrast.
Even his hair changed under the illusion's weight. From the roots outward, the stark white strands dulled, dark pigment seeping in like ink. The transformation ran along each lock until the black overtook the length, leaving only faint streaks like ghosts of what had been there.
The shift wasn't abrupt it was patient. A quiet, creeping redefinition of him, stripping away the marks that named him Kruul and replacing them with something the world would glance past.
Nyra kept her face pointed at the ground but her eyes cut up as Neo passed. The brand drew her back more than the gem had. Her fingers tightened around the haft of her axe until her knuckles went white. She didn't ask. Not here. Not now. Her throat hurt with it.
Valen stood and stretched like a cat, hiding the way his hands had clenched at his sides. "Well," he said lightly, "you look profoundly boring."
Neo snorted. "Finally, my dream aesthetic."
Luken exhaled, tension leaving his shoulders in a measured trickle. "It'll hold," he said, more to Alinda than anyone. "So long as he doesn't start throwing shadow around."
"I'll try not to set the city on fire," Neo said.
"Please do," Valen muttered. "It wouldn't match the bunting."
Alinda closed the empty box and slid it back into her pouch. Her eyes stayed on Neo a heartbeat longer than necessary, confirming what her gut already knew: the veil was good. Not perfect she didn't believe in perfect but good enough to get him through a gate without someone screaming.
"Keep your hood up when we're close," she said. "If a priest looks too long at you, cough. Look bored. People see what they expect to see."
"Bored I can do," Neo said.
Luken tapped his staff twice in the dirt. "One more thing. Don't touch ironwork if you can help it. Old wards like to cling to doors and fences. If the gem snags on one, it'll buzz."
Neo glanced down at the faint, closed-eye mark on his sternum. "Buzz how?"
"Annoying," Luken said. "Like a conscience."
Neo sighed. "Fantastic."
He reached for his shirt, and Nyra who had very purposefully not been looking turned her head even further away. The blush sat high in her cheeks, hot and helpless. She hated that she couldn't school it away, hated that it had chosen now of all moments, hated that a part of her brain had decided to notice the way Neo's scars curved like crescent moons.
Cloth slid over horn, over shoulders, the hem falling back into place. The illusion hummed once and settled. Neo rolled his shoulders to test the give. The ache in his chest answered. He made no sound.
Valen drifted a step closer to Nyra, voice pitched low for her. "You alright?"
She didn't trust her mouth, so she nodded. Then, after a beat, "Did you see " She stopped herself, jaw locking.
Valen's gaze stayed on the city. "Yeah."
"What is it?"
"You don't want the answer now," he said, soft as thread.
She closed her eyes for a moment. "Later, then."
"Later," he said.
At the ridge's lip, Thal shifted his weight. He hadn't turned once during the whole thing but something in him eased a breath he hadn't admitted he'd been holding. His voice reached them without effort, deep, steady, offering nothing of what he didn't want to share.
"We go on the half-hour," he said. "Finish what you need."
No one argued. They used the time the way soldiers do before stepping into a place that will change them by doing small things that pretended at control. Valen retied a bootlace that didn't need it. Luken rewrapped leather around the midpoint of his staff. Nyra checked the edge of her axe with a thumb and found it already sharp. Tar leaned forward and let the wind comb through his mane. Alinda stood still and listened for a sound only she could hear.
Neo sat again, palm pressed flat to his chest. Beneath skin, the gem throbbed a slow agreement with his pulse. It didn't feel like his and that was the point. He looked past the ridge, past the walls, into streets he'd never walked. He pictured faces looking through him instead of at him.
He wasn't sure whether the thought made him relieved or sick.
Alinda's shadow fell over him. He looked up.
"It'll hold," she said.
"I know," he said. Then, after a beat, quieter: "Thank you."
She didn't nod. Didn't smile. The closest she got was a thinner line at the corner of her mouth. "Don't make me regret it."
"Wouldn't dare."
The last traces of the gem's glow faded beneath Neo's skin. The only sign it had ever been there was the faintly red mark curling across his chest, and even that looked like nothing more than an odd scar to most eyes.
Alinda stepped back, brushing her gloves clean. "That's it."
Neo exhaled slowly, testing the movement of his shoulders and neck like a fighter after armor removal. His hair now black shifted slightly in the wind. His horns, once the obvious curve of his heritage, were gone. Or so it seemed.
Valen gave a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were one of us now."
Luken tilted his head, studying Neo with cautious approval. "It's convincing. Very convincing."
Nyra risked another glance, her gaze flicking over his altered features before darting away again. The illusion was seamless, the kind of thing that would make passing through a city gate without a second glance almost certain.
Thal finally turned from the ridge. His eyes locked on Neo, and the shift in his expression was immediate not surprise, not approval. Something else.
"What was the point of that?" he asked flatly.
The casual tone was misleading. It wasn't a real question.
Neo frowned. "What do you mean? You…"
But Thal was already stepping forward. Before anyone could react, his massive hand shot out, gripping something in the empty air above Neo's head. Everyone saw him grab… nothing and yet Neo's boots left the ground as Thal lifted him easily until they were eye to eye.
To the rest of the group, it looked impossible Thal's palm clenched around empty space, holding weightless air, and yet Neo's body rose with the motion. His arms instinctively caught Thal's forearm for balance.
To Thal, the horns were still there. Clear as day. He could feel the hard, ridged texture beneath his fingers, the faint heat they carried.
Neo's eyes widened in understanding. "You can still see it."
Thal's grip didn't tighten but his hold was absolute. "So will others," he said quietly, the words rolling like distant thunder.
A pause, the kind that made the wind sound too loud in the background.
He lowered Neo back to the ground without ceremony, releasing him as if the demonstration alone had made the point.
Nyra's brow furrowed. "Others? You mean…?"
Thal didn't answer her directly. His gaze stayed on Neo. "You can hide from most eyes but not from all. There are things in Lions Gate that will see you as you are and some of them will want to know why you're pretending otherwise."
It wasn't said as a warning. It was closer to a fact of nature, like telling someone that the ocean is deep enough to drown in.
Valen shifted uneasily, his earlier grin fading. Luken's fingers flexed over the haft of his staff.
Alinda was the only one who didn't look unsettled. She gave the smallest shrug. "I thought you'd see through it."
"You knew I would," Thal replied without even looking her way.
Her smile was brief, almost private, before she turned her attention back to the horizon. "Doesn't change the fact it'll fool most. That's the point."
Neo rubbed the back of his neck, the mark on his chest still throbbing faintly. "So you're saying there's no point?"
"I'm saying," Thal replied, "don't mistake shadows for shelter. They don't stop arrows. Or eyes that know where to look."
The cryptic weight in his voice settled over the group, making the air feel heavier. Even the casual shuffle of Valen's boot against the dirt stopped.
Neo didn't reply right away. He looked at Thal, searching his face for some hint of reassurance but found none. Only the same unreadable resolve.
Thal finally stepped back toward the ridge, glancing once toward the city far below. "We should move. The longer we sit here, the closer the wrong kind of attention gets."
Alinda adjusted her gauntlets and moved to follow, letting the others piece together whatever they wanted from the exchange. She already knew if Thal said others could see it, then there were eyes in Lions Gate they should be worrying about far more than the human guards at the gates.
Neo, however, still felt the faint ghost of Thal's grip around his horns horns no one else could see.