The night deepened around them, wrapping the forest in layers of darkness pierced only by the glow of their small fire. With her belly full and her body clean, the warmth of the flames began to seep into Amriel's bones, chasing away the lingering chill. Her eyelids grew heavy as exhaustion, held at bay for too long by fear and adrenaline, finally caught up with her.
She tried to focus on Thalon's words as he spoke of their journey ahead, but his voice seemed to come from farther and farther away. The dancing flames blurred before her eyes, their orange glow melding with the shadows. Her head dipped once, twice, before she caught herself, blinking rapidly.
"Sorry," she murmured, her words slurring slightly. "What were you saying about the mountain pass?"
Meeko shifted beside her, his substantial weight leaning more heavily against her leg as if encouraging her to rest. The rhythmic rumble of his purring vibrated through her, a lullaby as ancient as the forest itself. His silver eyes reflected the firelight, giving them an otherworldly gleam that seemed almost knowing.
Thalon paused mid-sentence, studying her with those emerald eyes that seemed to miss nothing. "You're exhausted," he said, his voice gentler than she'd heard it before. For a moment, the hardened warrior's mask slipped, revealing something older, something that carried the weight of more years than his appearance suggested.
"I'm fine," Amriel protested weakly, even as her head nodded forward again. Her fingers, which had been absently stroking Meeko's fur, stilled as her hand fell limply to her side. The bone blade at her hip pressed uncomfortably against her thigh, but she lacked the energy to adjust it.
Through half-lidded eyes, she watched as Thalon rose and moved around the fire toward her. His figure seemed to waver like a mirage in the heat of the flames, tall and solid one moment, indistinct the next. She should be wary, she knew. She should keep her guard up. But her body had other ideas, surrendering to weariness against her will.
"Don't fight it," Thalon's voice came to her as if through water. "Your body needs to heal."
She felt the weight of something heavy and warm being draped around her shoulders. His cloak, she realized distantly, the fabric carrying his scent of pine and leather and something else—something like frost on a clear winter's night. The warmth of it enveloped her immediately, and she found herself leaning into it despite herself.
"Get some sleep, Amriel," he said, his voice a low rumble near her ear. "We've got a long journey ahead."
She meant to respond, to thank him perhaps, but the words dissolved before they reached her lips, lost in the growing fog of near-sleep.
As consciousness began to slip away, she was vaguely aware of strong hands guiding her to lie down on something soft—a bedroll he must have prepared while she bathed. Meeko's substantial weight settled against her back, a living barrier between her and the night.
"I'll keep watch," came Thalon's voice, now seeming to come from very far away. "You're safe."
Her last coherent thought before sleep claimed her completely was that she couldn't remember the last time anyone had told her she was safe and she had actually believed them.
The pale light of dawn filtered through the canopy, casting dappled shadows across the forest floor. Amriel woke with a start, momentarily disoriented by the softness beneath her and the weight of Meeko pressed against her side. The forest cat's rhythmic purring vibrated against her ribs, a soothing counterpoint to the sharp memories that came flooding back.
She was free. No longer in the cold, dank cell of the Dreadfort.
Across the remnants of last night's fire, Thalon crouched, methodically packing supplies into a weathered leather satchel. His movements were efficient, deliberate, each item carefully secured with the precision of someone long accustomed to life on the move. The glint of his twin blades caught the morning light as he adjusted them across his back. She noticed a faint silvery tracery on the scabbards—runes or symbols of some kind, nothing like the script from the ancient tome, but clearly not from any language she knew.
Had he slept at all? His emerald eyes showed no signs of fatigue as they flicked up to meet hers.
"You're awake," he said simply, tossing her a small bundle wrapped in cloth. "Eat. We should move soon." His voice carried an edge it hadn't the night before, a tension that made her instantly alert.
Amriel caught the bundle reflexively, unwrapping the package to find dried berries and strips of smoked meat. She hesitated only briefly before hunger overtook caution, and she began to eat with careful restraint, though her body demanded she devour it all at once.
"Something's wrong," she said between bites, noticing how Thalon's gaze repeatedly swept the tree line. "What is it?"
He paused in his packing, head tilting slightly as if listening to something beyond her hearing. "We were followed," he said at last, voice low. "They're keeping their distance for now, but we shouldn't linger."
A chill ran through her that had nothing to do with the morning air. "The Dreadfort guards?"
"No." His expression darkened. "Something else. Something that shouldn't be in these woods."
Amriel's eyes widened, Well isn't that terrifyingly cryptic.
Meeko stretched languidly beside her, his massive paws extending forward as his back arched. With a soft chirp, he sauntered toward Thalon, eyes fixed expectantly on the warrior's pack. Despite the apparent danger, the forest cat seemed unconcerned.
"Your cat expects a share," Thalon observed dryly, though he reached into his satchel and produced a small piece of dried fish, which Meeko accepted with surprising delicacy.
"He's not actually my cat," Amriel said through bites of berries. "If anything, I'm his human."
A ghost of a smile flickered across Thalon's face, there and gone so quickly she might have imagined it. "Creatures like him choose their companions with purpose," he said cryptically, securing the last of their supplies.
As she ate, the questions that had swirled in her mind before sleep overtook her resurfaced with renewed urgency. The Veil. A place she'd never heard of, yet beyond it apparently held answers about what she was.
"This Veil," she began, gathering her courage, rising to her feet as she tucked the remaining food into her pocket. The morning air was crisp against her skin, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth, along with something else—something like metal and ozone, sharp enough to make her nostrils flare. "You said it's where we'll find answers. What exactly is it?"
Thalon's hands stilled momentarily before he continued his work, his expression carefully neutral. He straightened, surveying the clearing one final time before turning to her.
"Walk with me," he said instead of answering. "We need to put distance between us and this place."
Frustration surged within her. "That's not—"
"You have questions. I understand that." His tone was firm but not unkind. "I'll answer what I can as we move. But right now, we need to go."
Something in his expression—a flicker of genuine concern—made her swallow her protest. She nodded reluctantly, adjusting the bone blade at her hip to a more comfortable position.
As they set off through the forest, Meeko ranging slightly ahead like a silent scout, Thalon maintained a watchful silence. The undergrowth grew denser here, ferns and wild blackberry bushes clutching at their legs as they passed. Overhead, the canopy thickened, filtering the morning light into a green-gold haze that danced across their path.
"The Veil," Thalon said at last, when they had put nearly an hour's distance between themselves and their camp, "is not easily explained to those who haven't seen it."
He stepped over a fallen tree trunk wrapped in emerald moss, its core half-decayed and teeming with life—tiny mushrooms sprouted in clusters along its length, their caps gleaming with morning dew. Pausing, he offered his hand to help Amriel over. She hesitated only briefly before accepting it, startled by the unexpected warmth of his calloused palm against hers. For someone who seemed carved from cold stone, his touch held surprising heat.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy above, dappling his face with patterns of gold and shadow that shifted with each breath of wind. In that play of light, Amriel caught something ancient in his eyes—a depth that belied his apparent age.
"It exists between this realm and the others," he continued as they walked, voice dropping to a near-whisper that somehow carried clearly to her ears despite the forest sounds surrounding them—the distant calls of forest birds, the rustle of leaves underfoot, the soft murmur of a stream somewhere beyond the trees. "I'm taking you to a place where the boundaries grow thin enough to cross, if one knows the way."
"Another realm?" Amriel's voice caught, her throat suddenly dry. "But those are just stories..."
She trailed off, memories surfacing unbidden—her mother's face illuminated by firelight on winter nights, Nythia's normally stern expression softened as she spoke of places beyond mortal sight. The stories had seemed like mere entertainment to a young Amriel who'd snuggled beneath wool blankets, eyes wide with wonder. But Nythia had never been one to waste breath on something without merit. Each tale had been delivered with the same precision with which she taught herb lore and healing—as essential knowledge, not idle fancy.
"Like the tales of someone returning from death?" Thalon countered, "The old stories often contain more truth than people realize."
With each step deeper into the forest, Amriel felt the foundations of her life crumbling beneath her. Amriel wondered what exactly her mother had been preparing her for, because it certainly wasn't coming across as the simple life of a herbalist that she'd first thought.
"Where is this place where the boundaries grow thin?" Amriel asked, though even as the words left her lips, an image formed unbidden in her mind: jagged peaks silhouetted against a violet sky, where stars seemed close enough to touch. The northern mountains—a place she'd never been yet knew of.
"The mountain passage to the north," Thalon confirmed. He glanced back, eyes catching hers with that unnerving intensity. "Beyond the Widow's Teeth, where the silver lady graces the land."
A shiver passed through Amriel that had nothing to do with the cool forest air. "My mother warned me about the northern mountains," she murmured, her fingers absently tracing the iron ring at her throat.
She could still hear Nythia's voice, unusually urgent: The mountain passage is not for mortal souls. The memory carried with it, the feeling of her mother's grip on her shoulders, too tight to be a casual concern.
"I suspected she would," Thalon said, navigating around a thicket of brambles with preternatural grace. "Nythia was always thorough in her precautions."
Amriel stumbled over an exposed root, catching herself against the rough bark of an oak, where ahead Thalon moved as if the forest welcomed him, parting branches and easing his passage.
"How do you know my mother?" she demanded, breath coming quicker now as they ascended a gentle slope. The question had been building since her mother's name had come with recognition within the castle, by the King no less. She studied him as they walked—his otherworldly grace, the ageless quality to his features despite his warrior's build. "Who are you to her?"
This time Thalon's step faltered, just for a heartbeat—a crack in his perfect composure that spoke volumes. He paused atop the rise, silhouetted against dappled sunlight, his profile sharp as a blade against the verdant backdrop.
"The Veil is guarded by those whom time has forgotten," he said finally, his voice carrying an echo of something she couldn't quite place. "Those who walked between worlds before your kingdoms were built, who maintain the balance when it threatens to tip."
"And these guardians," Amriel said slowly, the pieces shifting in her mind like a puzzle box being solved, "you know them?"
"Your mother is one of them," he answered, each word measured and heavy with implication. "As am I."
The world seemed to still around them—birds falling silent, leaves ceasing their whisper, even the air growing thick with unspoken truths. In that suspended moment, Amriel felt something fundamental shift within her understanding of reality, like a door long locked suddenly opening to reveal vistas beyond imagination.
"Then she's alive," Amriel whispered, her voice caught between hope and accusation. "All this time..."
Before Thalon could answer, Meeko suddenly froze ahead of them, his massive form going unnaturally still as his tail puffed to twice its size. A low, warning growl rumbled from his chest—a sound Amriel had heard only once before, when a starving wolf had stalked their cottage during the deepest part of winter.
Thalon's hands flew to the shorter blades at his hips, the forest too dense for the use of swords, the movement so swift Amriel barely caught it. "Get behind me," he ordered, voice hardening to the commander she'd glimpsed at court.
But before she could move, the forest ahead exploded into chaos.