The journey to Riverholt took five days, and it was the strangest five days of my life.
We weren't in the wilderness. We were in the world. We passed through established trading posts, cultivated farmland, and small, peaceful settlements where the biggest concerncorrelation seemed to be the price of grain. It was a jarring, profound reminder that most of the continent was just... living. Normal people, living normal lives, completely unaware that a war for the very fabric of reality was being fought in the margins, by children. It made me feel, for the first time, not just special, but like a complete and utter alien.
We traveled as merchants, Dren's preferred cover. He was a natural, haggling over feed for the horses and sharing bland, harmless gossip. Kaela and I were the "guards," which meant we just had to look tough and keep quiet—not a stretch for Kaela. Lysara, of course, was in heaven. She posed as a scholar's apprentice, and her notebooks filled with everything—settlement layouts, local militia numbers, defensive blind spots, and local attitudes.
"They're complacent," she observed on the third night, her pen scratching furiously by the firelight. "Utterly, dangerously complacent. They treat void corruption as a distant problem, like a plague in a foreign land. Something that happens to other people."
"For them, it is," Master Dren said, not looking up from cleaning his sword. "For most of the continent, it's a localized phenomenon, a bad rumor. Our entire region, Verdwood included, is an anomaly."
"Why?" I asked, the question that had been burning in me for months. "What makes us so special?"
"Ley lines," Lysara said, her voice vibrating with the energy of a theory finally proven. She pulled out a map. It was covered in her precise, spider-web notations. "Verdwood sits at the intersection of three major ley lines. It's a beacon. A natural focal point for magical energy. That includes void corruption... and it includes us."
I followed her finger on the map. "We're drawn to them. Convergence-marked children."
"Exactly," she confirmed, a grim excitement in her eyes. "Which means Riverholt, if this isn't a trap, *must* be on a convergence." She pointed. "And it is. A two-line intersection. Not as strong as Verdwood, but significant. It's not random, Ren. The cult isn't just finding children. They're finding locations. And we need to do the same. Faster."
That conversation with Lysara just made me more paranoid. I was on last watch, the night before we were due to arrive, staring into the dark, when Kaela came to sit with me. She didn't say anything, just settled. She never had to.
"It's a trap," I said, just to hear the words in the air. "The timing is too perfect. We cry for help, and immediately a settlement just happens to have a void-touched kid they're willing to talk about? The cult is playing us."
Kaela poked the fire with a stick, sending a small shower of sparks into the night. "Lysara thinks it's legitimate."
"Lysara thinks it's seventy-three percent likely to be legitimate," I shot back, the number feeling absurd. "That leaves a twenty-seven percent chance that we're walking in to get our heads cut off."
"So, a normal Tuesday," she said. It wasn't a joke. "If it's a trap, we fight our way out. We adapt. We improvise. It's what we do."
Her certainty was a shield, but I was just... tired. The weight of Torren, of Zara, of Verdwood's expectations... it was heavy. "What if we can't this time, Kae? What if it's... bigger? What if we're not equipped for this? If we don't go back, who..."
I didn't finish. I couldn't. I just felt her look at me in the dark. Then, her hand found mine. Her grip was warm, solid, the callouses on her palm grounding.
"You're not alone in this, Ren," she reminded me, her voice low. "Stop trying to be. Whatever is in that town, we face it. Together. The three of us. Always."
Her words had to be enough. We arrived at Riverholt the next morning, and it was immediately clear that we were out of our league. Verdwood was a village. This was a town. Two thousand residents, at least. Proper stone walls, a professional military, not just scouts. A bustling market that smelled of river fish and money.
But underneath the prosperity, it felt... wrong. The tension was a coiled spring. The guards at the gate were too alert, their eyes too sharp for a simple trade hub. The civilians in the market moved with a hurried, sideways-glancing awareness. This was a town expecting trouble.
We were met at the gates by an official escort, four soldiers in professional armor, led by a captain with a face like carved stone. "Master Dren of Verdwood?" she asked. It wasn't a question. They were waiting.
"Confirmed," Dren said. "In response to your council's communication."
"Follow me," was all she said. "The council is expecting you."
As we walked, I felt the stares. They were more intense than simple curiosity. They were fear. They knew, or at least suspected, why we were there. We weren't merchants. We were the "void-touched" specialists. We were the freaks they had called for.
Riverholt's council chamber was worse than I imagined—not a rustic hall like Verdwood's, but a formal, opulent room with high windows and a suffocating, bureaucratic air. The council itself was seven older, softer-looking people who looked more like bankers than survivors.
Their head, a man named Aldrich, addressed us with a cold, careful diplomacy. "Verdwood's situation... has come to our attention," he began. "Your settlement's decision to harbor convergence-marked individuals... it represents a significant strategic development."
I couldn't help it. The word harbor... as if we were hiding criminals. "We don't 'harbor' them," I said, my voice cutting through the polite air. The whole room turned to me. "We provide sanctuary. To children. Children who need protection."
Aldrich's gaze shifted, zeroing in on me. Assessing. "You must be Ren. The 'First Anchor,' as the cult calls you."
"Just Ren," I snapped. "Your letter. You said you have your own void-touched individual?"
"We do," Aldrich confirmed, steepling his fingers. "A young woman named Elara. She... manifested... about two years ago. We've been... managing the situation since then."
That word. Managing. It made my skin crawl.
"Where is she?" Lysara asked, stepping forward, all business. "We'd like to meet her. We need to assess her integration levels and share our training protocols."
The council members exchanged those tight, uncomfortable looks. The ones that tell you the real, ugly truth is about to come out.
"Elara is currently in protective custody," another councilor said, his voice careful. "For everyone's safety, you understand. Including her own."
"Protective custody," Kaela repeated. Her voice was flat, devoid of all emotion, which is when she's most dangerous. "You mean imprisoned."
"We mean protected," Aldrich insisted, his diplomatic mask cracking. "Her... manifestations... have been difficult. She hurt people. Accidentally, we assume. We couldn't allow her to remain in the general population."
"Because you didn't know how to train her," I said, the ugly realization flooding through me. "You didn't know how to help her, so you got scared. And you locked her in a cage."
The defensive, angry silence in that stuffy room was all the confirmation I needed.
Master Dren stepped in before I could say something else, something that would end this fragile alliance. "We are here to help," he said, his voice a low growl. "But to do that, we need to see her. Assess her condition. Determine what is actually possible."
After a tense, whispered debate, the council agreed. They would let us see the "problem" we'd been called to fix.
The "holding facility" was beneath the administrative building. It was a dungeon. A cold, stone cell, reinforced with the same void-dampening metals we were now using in our walls. The air felt dead.
And in the corner, on a straw-thin cot, sat a young woman. The sight of her... it just... it broke something in me.
She was maybe sixteen. Thin. Pale. Her hair lank and dirty. But her marks. They were... advanced. Far more than mine. Dark, web-like veins of corruption pulsed with a faint, violet light, crawling up her neck, across her visible skin. Her eyes glowed with that same, constant luminescence. Her shadow was a separate, twitching entity in the dim light.
But the worst part, the part that made my stomach clench, was her expression. It was empty. There was no hope. No fight. Just... resignation. She had given up.
She looked up when we entered, her gaze sliding over Dren, Kaela, and Lysara. But when her eyes landed on me, on my hands, on the marks I couldn't hide... a flicker. Something.
"You're... like me," she whispered. Her voice was rough, hoarse from disuse.
"Yes," I said, moving forward, ignoring the nervous gesture from the guard. "I'm Ren. From Verdwood. We... we heard you needed help."
"Help," she repeated, the word a bitter, dry cough. "They've kept me in this... this box... for eighteen months. No training. No contact. Just... guards. They said it was for everyone's safety."
"It was wrong," I said, my voice thick. "We can help you. If you'll let us. We can teach you to control it. To... integrate it."
She just stared at me, like I was speaking a language she'd forgotten. "You can... control it?"
"Mostly," I admitted. "Some days are better than others. But yes. With training. With support. It's possible."
I held out my hand. Not to her. Just... open. I let my own shadow move, peel away from my heels. Her shadow responded instantly. It didn't twitch; it flew across the floor, stretching toward mine with a desperate, starving hunger.
The moment our shadows touched, the resonance effect was a physical blow.
It wasn't the gentle, reinforcing hum I had with Torren and Zara. This was a storm. It was eighteen months of pure, agonizing loneliness. Rage. Despair. And underneath it all, the void's song, no longer a whisper, but a roar, promising escape, promising power, promising release.
"You're not alone," I said, forcing the words through the connection, pouring my own anchors into the storm. "There are others. Like us. We're building a place..."
Her composure cracked. She pulled her shadow back, curled in on herself, and began to sob. Dry, harsh, painful sounds that echoed in the stone cell.
Lysara was already taking measurements, her voice tight with a kind of horrified, academic awe. "Ren. Her integration level... it's dangerously high. Ninety-one percent. She is... she is closer to full void transformation than anyone I've ever documented."
"Can she be stabilized?" Master Dren's voice was a low growl.
"Theoretically," Lysara said, her hand trembling slightly. "But it would require... intensive, constant support. From other convergence-marked. She's too far advanced. She can't be alone. Ever."
I looked at Dren. There was no other choice. "We bring her to Verdwood. She trains with us. We stabilize her."
"That's a significant risk," Dren said, his eyes on Elara. "At ninety-one percent... any loss of control would be catastrophic. She could corrupt the others. She could shatter our defenses. She could be the bomb that destroys us all."
"Or," I countered, my voice shaking but firm, "she could be the most powerful, most knowledgeable ally we have. But only if we're brave enough to help her, instead of caging her like they did."
It was the same choice. Zara. Torren. Elara. Fear, or risk.
It took hours. Hours of negotiation between Dren and the Riverholt council. They were, predictably, terrified of her, but also terrified of losing a "strategic asset." Master Dren was unmovable. He wasn't leaving a convergence-marked child in a cage.
Finally, we had a deal. A garbage deal, but a deal. Elara would be "transferred" to Verdwood for training. We had to provide regular reports. She had to be returned "if she demonstrates uncontrollable corruption." And Riverholt maintained a "formal claim" on her. It wasn't freedom. It was a trade.
I went back to her cell alone while they drafted the papers. She was sitting in the same spot, but her head was up. There was... something. A spark.
"Are you really... taking me out of here?" she asked.
"If you want to come," I said, sitting on the floor, a few feet away. "But you need to understand what you're agreeing to. Verdwood isn't freedom. It's... it's training. Hard discipline. Constant work. It's harder than this, in a lot of ways. You'll have to fight the curse, every day, not just... exist with it."
She looked at the stone wall. "Is it better than this?"
"Yes," I said, without hesitation. "Because you won't be alone. You'll have people who understand. People who can help. People who believe you're worth saving."
"The council here... they gave up on me," she whispered. "They decided I was too dangerous. Why... why should I trust you? Why are you different?"
It was a fair question. "Because we're convergence-marked, too," I said. "We know what it's like. To be feared. To be seen as a monster. We're building a place... well, we're trying to. It's not perfect. It's dangerous. The cult attacks us because of it. But it's better than giving up."
She looked at me for a long, long time. Then she nodded, a small, jerky motion. "Okay. Okay. I'll come with you. I'll... I'll try."
The journey back was a new kind of nightmare. Elara was physically weak from imprisonment, and her curse control was non-existent. She was a walking, 91%-integrated storm. The first day, a merchant cart startled her, and her shadow lashed out, solidifying and shattering a nearby tree into splinters. I had to physically tackle her, forcing the resonance connection, pouring my own stability into her just to calm the surge. It was like trying to wrestle lightning.
But... slowly... she adapted. By the fourth day, she was walking without us hovering. By the fifth, she was in a deep, technical, and frankly terrifying conversation with Lysara, who was in a state of academic bliss.
"Your theoretical framework is sophisticated," Elara was saying, her voice still rough but now sharp, "but you're missing the variable integration between curse manifestation and non-threat-based emotional states. The curse doesn't just respond to fear. It responds to joy just as violently, which you've miscategorized as 'erratic'..."
Lysara was scribbling so fast her hand was a blur. Seeing Elara think, seeing her be a person and not just a bomb, validated everything.
On that final night, Kaela pulled me aside as I took watch. She looked exhausted.
"We're collecting broken children," she said, her voice a low, rough whisper. "First Torren. Then Zara. Now Elara. Each one is more damaged, more dangerous than the last. Are we helping them, Ren? Or are we just... building a fortress of trauma? An arsenal of broken weapons?"
"Maybe both," I admitted, the honest words heavy in the air. "But what's the alternative, Kae? Leave them? Leave them for the cult, or to rot in a cell? At least with us, they have a chance."
"A chance at what?" she demanded, her voice rising. "We're teenagers. We're fighting a continental war. We're building a network of void-touched kids that might blow up in our faces. What is the endgame?"
It was the question. The one I'd been pushing away. What does victory look like, when you're fighting a part of reality itself?
"I don't know," I said, and the admission hung in the cold night air. "I don't. But I know doing nothing is worse. I know abandoning Elara is wrong. So we keep going. We keep building. We save who we can. And we... we figure out the endgame as we go."
Kaela looked at me with an expression I couldn't read—a mix of total exasperation, a strange admiration, and pure, cold fear.
"You're going to get us all killed," she said.
"Probably," I agreed.
"That's not as comforting as you think it is," she shot back. But she took my hand, and we stood there, two kids carrying a general's weight, staring into the dark.
When we brought Elara through the gates of Verdwood, the reaction was... mixed. Fear, from the villagers. Suspicion. But when Torren and Zara saw her... they didn't see a 91%-integrated threat. They saw family. They saw themselves. They ran to her, a welcoming committee of fellow survivors.
That night, there were six of us on the rooftop. Me, Kaela, Lysara, Torren, Zara, and now Elara. The energy was... staggering. It was a physical hum in the air.
"Four," Lysara said, her voice awed and terrified. "Four convergence-marked in one settlement. The resonance signature... it must be a bonfire. Detectable for leagues. The cult... they'll know."
"Good," Elara said. Her voice was quiet, but it had an intensity that silenced us all. "Let them know. Let them understand that we're not just running anymore. We're not just hiding. We're building something."
"You barely know us," Kaela pointed out, not unkindly. "Why are you so... 'in'?"
"Because for eighteen months," Elara said, her violet eyes meeting each of ours, "I thought I was a monster. I thought I was the only one in the world. I thought 'convergence-marked' meant being alone, in a cage, forever. Then you came. You showed me I was wrong. If you're building a network that stops even one more kid from going through what I did... then I'm committed. Whatever it costs."
Below us, Verdwood slept. The cult was out there, planning. But on this rooftop, we were six. A network. A resistance. A family. It wasn't enough to win the war. But it was enough to keep fighting.