Dawn always crept into Eseria's deepest night like a timid messenger, bearing faint yet undeniable light. But on the plains beyond the city walls, this radiance was diluted by persistent grayness—pale and weak. The icy morning wind whipped dust against Lian Morningstar's face, its biting chill cutting through his sleepless daze.
They'd just emerged from the hidden crack in the city wall. Behind them loomed the slumbering, oppressive silhouette of civilization; an endless, silent wilderness stretched ahead—the gravity from Karion's workshop is now magnified by the desolate expanse, weighing heavily on each heart.
Taking shelter behind a windbreak of low rocks, they paused—less a rest than a silent declaration. The city of familiar dangers was now firmly behind them.
Lian fidgeted endlessly, adjusting his pack, fingers compulsively tracing the cold dwarven talisman inside his coat—the Starfall Fragment's vision—real or not—lashed at his nerves like an invisible whip. Every moment's delay felt like another step toward his sister's peril (or so he believed). He burned to advance, to cross this wasteland and reach that legendary forbidden forest immediately.
"We should move faster," he blurted, voice tight with cold and tension. "Full daylight makes us more visible."
Selya Nightsong stood silhouetted against the sickly dawn light atop a slightly higher rock, gazing eastward. Her dark travel clothes merged seamlessly with the wilderness' shadows. At Lian's words, she turned slowly, those ice-blue eyes glowing preternaturally in the nascent light—holding depths more mysterious than the night sky itself. She didn't address his urgency directly, but her assessing glance spoke volumes: curiosity about his diluted Starborn blood warring with deep-seated wariness.
"Haste breeds missteps, boy," she said evenly, her voice carrying an ageless calm. "This is no paved road. Conserving strength and moving carefully outweighs blind charging into the unknown."
Karion Anvil crouched nearby, polishing his massive axe with a rough cloth. The blade gleamed dully. He looked up, baring uneven teeth in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Easy there, lad. No need to scurry like a goblin with its arse aflame. The witch is right. Besides—" he rummaged in his pack, "—no dwarf marches on an empty stomach. Who wants rockbread? Hard enough to brain a rabbit, but it'll fill your belly if your teeth hold out."
His ill-timed jest fell flatter than the plains around them. Lian frowned, ignoring the offer. Selya merely tilted her head away.
Karion shrugged and returned to his axe.
Discussions about routes and supplies quickly revealed their underlying discord. Lian advocated straight-line speed; Karion insisted on a safer, winding path avoiding known hazards like bandit valleys and quagmires, stressing the need for reliable water sources. Selya seemed indifferent to the path itself but adamantly vetoed any areas with residual magic—even if it meant significant detours. Her reasons remained vague: "To avoid unnecessary complications."
Outvoted, Lian acquiesced to the longer route. His frustration simmered beneath the surface, stoked by these invisible restraints. Watching Selya's retreating, he wondered anew: What did this enigmatic shadow-witch truly want? Was her interest in his Starborn heritage mere covetousness, or something more?
The brief respite ended. Their resumed march was heavier with silence than their packs with supplies. Unspoken questions and suspicions coiled between them like adders.
The land they traversed mirrored Eseria's decline. Once-fertile fields lay cracked and dead, studded with withered crop stumps like earth's own scars. Skeletal trees clawed at the ashen sky, their curled leaves whispering of life extinguished. The air carried dust and decay, occasionally tainted by a sickly-sweet tang—the Corrupted Woods' breath, a grim harbinger of their destination.
Karion took point, his dwarven stamina and wilderness savvy evident. He read animal tracks like books, found water in barren cracks, and even dug up barely edible tubers from seemingly lifeless shrubs.
"Here," he pointed to faint hoofprints, "antelope. Three or five, fleeing something hours ago. No blood scent though... odd."
Selya, meanwhile, tracked magical residues invisible to others. She'd pause to touch seemingly ordinary stones or stare into empty air, her pale eyes narrowed in concentration.
"The elemental flow here is... wrong," she murmured once by a dry creekbed. "Drained of life. Only hunger and resentment remain."
Lian followed silently, absorbing their lessons while his unease grew. Gripping his sword hilt, he focused on his surroundings—knowing himself the least experienced in survival or combat. The talisman's chill against his chest was a constant reminder: Stay alert.
Then, at the sun's zenith (a pallid disc behind thick clouds), danger struck.
They were traversing a dense stand of dead trees amid weathered boulders when guttural snarls shattered the silence.
"Ambush!" Karion roared, hefting his axe as three gray-brown shapes lunged from the rocks—massive, hyena-like creatures with matted fur and rabid crimson eyes. Foam dripped from their jagged fangs. Not blight-twisted, but starving-mad.
"Plains dire-wolves!" Karion spat. "Damn things must be desperate!"
The fight was brief and brutal.
The wolves attacked with reckless frenzy, driven by hunger beyond fear. Lian drew his sword, heart hammering. His noble fencing lessons proved useless against these feral tactics. A thrust missed; a wolf nearly bowled him over before Karion's axe-haft sent it flying.
"Boy! Stop dancing and stab their eyes or throats!" the dwarf bellowed between sweeping blows that kept the pack at bay. His sheer strength formed an unbreakable bulwark.
Selya fought like a specter—flitting between shadows, her dagger striking tendons and arteries with surgical precision. Occasionally she'd flick powders that made wolves stagger or turn on each other. Her movements were lethally efficient and chillingly beautiful.
Gritting his teeth, Lian abandoned technique for practicality—using his sword's reach to jab at vulnerable spots behind Karion's guard. Clumsy but effective.
It ended as swiftly as it began. The last wolf fell to Selya's blade.
Silence returned, broken only by panting breaths and the coppery stench of blood. Six carcasses littered the yellowed grass.
Lian leaned on his sword, stomach churning. His first true battle had been far messier than imagined. Karion, though winded, checked his axe for nicks with practiced calm. Then there was Selya—wiping gore from her dagger with unsettling poise.
The way she'd moved... those unnatural powders... What exactly was a "shadow-witch"?
Sensing his stare, she looked up. Her eyes held no emotion—just bottomless cold. Lian's unspoken questions died on his lips.
Night fell, and temperatures plummeted. They camped in a windbreak, a small fire pushing back the dark but not the tension between them.
Karion sharpened his axe by the flames, the rhythmic scrape filling the silence. Selya cleaned her dagger with some acrid liquid, firelight carving her profile into something otherworldly.
Finally, Lian spoke.
"Selya," he tried to keep his voice steady, "the Starfall Fragment... Why attack me for it? What does it mean to... someone like you?"
Her hands stilled. "It holds power. To some, a key. To others, a curse." She didn't meet his eyes. "I merely... sought to keep it from the wrong hands."
"Wrong hands? Mine?"
At this, she looked up, firelight dancing in her glacial irises. Instead of answering, she turned the question back: "Lian Morningstar... an ancient, ill-fated name. How much do you truly know of your lineage? Of the blood in your veins?"
The query struck like a dagger to his core. His family's fall, the Starborn heritage, those fragmented ancestral memories—all mysteries he'd scarcely begun to unravel.
"I..." He faltered. "Only that we were once Starborn nobility. That the blood brings... difficulties." He gestured vaguely at his head, referencing the unstable visions and their backlash.
Selya studied him, her gaze piercing. "Difficulties? Perhaps. But the stars' gifts are never without price." Her words carried eerie weight, hinting at some ancient, dreadful pact. "Certain bloodlines bear burdens—and curses—beyond mortal ken."
She returned to her dagger, tone deceptively light but probing: "The vision of your sister... Are you certain it shows the full truth?"
Lian's stomach dropped. Her words pricked the fragile bubble of hope he'd clung to. The talisman's chill against his skin seemed to deepen.
Then—an unnatural cold slithered down his spine. Not from the night air, but something deeper, darker. The sense of countless eyes watching from the void. The fire dimmed momentarily, shadows thickening at the edge of vision.
He whirled, scanning the darkness. Only wind and swaying branches met his gaze.
"What?" Karion paused his sharpening.
"Nothing..." Lian shook his head, but the premonition lingered like a half-remembered nightmare.
Selya remained absorbed in her task, seemingly oblivious. Yet Lian sensed she knew more than she let on—about him, their path, the lurking perils ahead.
The fire crackled, casting their elongated, twisted shadows against the stone behind them—a grim portent. The wasteland night stretched endlessly cold, fraught with unseen dangers and unspoken tensions. Their journey had barely begun, yet trust between them already flickered like a dying flame. And far ahead, the light-devouring Corrupted Woods waited like a slumbering beast in the dark.