Chapter 14: Night on the Storm Road
Night settled over the rise like a second fog—thinner than the marsh below, but colder, quieter, and full of a tension that didn't fade with darkness.
The caravan had pulled itself into a rough crescent among the twisted trees and broken stones. Carts were half-shoved into whatever hollows they could find. People slumped beside their packs, too tired to speak above whispers, too shaken to trust sleep.
No one lit a real fire.
Just a few small, carefully shielded flames burned in cupped lanterns and shallow pits, their light swallowed quickly by the waiting dark.
Aiden couldn't sleep.
His body was exhausted—bones aching, muscles leaden, skin still humming with the ghost of lightning—but his mind wouldn't unclench.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw three things:
Myra dangling from a cracking branch over black water.
The pup howling, sparks tearing at the marsh air.
The leviathan rising from the channel like the swamp's own buried sin.
He sat with his back against a flat slab of rock, cloak wrapped tight against the chill. The rise was drier than the marsh, but the cold still crept through stone and cloth. The pup slept curled against his thigh, its small body rising and falling in soft, steady breaths. Every now and then, a faint spark danced across its fur and vanished.
Nellie lay on his other side, curled against her satchel like it was a pillow and anchor both. Her curls spilled across her cheek. In sleep, the lines of fear and tension smoothed from her face, leaving behind someone who should have been worrying about misplacing books, not leviathans and lightning wolves.
Above him, perched on the top edge of the rock, Myra kept watch.
She sat with one knee drawn up, arms draped loosely over it, cloak hanging off one shoulder. Her hair had escaped its ties, loose strands blowing in the breeze. She stared out beyond the camp, toward the faint silver smear of fog lying heavy over the marsh below.
From here, the swamp almost looked peaceful.
Aiden tilted his head back to look up at her. "You should rest."
Myra didn't look down. "So should you."
"I tried."
She huffed, the sound half a laugh, half an exhale. "Me too."
Silence settled between them, broken only by the shift of tired bodies, the soft clink of armor, a muffled cough somewhere deeper in the camp.
Finally, Myra moved. She slid off the rock and down to the ground, boots scuffing softly. She came to stand a few steps in front of him, arms now folded, gaze still turned outward.
"Earlier," she said quietly, "when that thing crawled out of the channel and you told me to run…"
Her throat worked around the memory.
"I thought we were done," she admitted. "All of us. I've seen big beasts before, but that? That wasn't a hunt. That was the marsh throwing a tantrum."
"Me too," Aiden said. "About thinking we were done, I mean. Not the tantrum image, but it fits."
"You still pushed forward," she said. "You were barely standing, and you still ran after me."
He didn't answer right away.
"You could've stayed back with Nellie," she went on, voice tightening. "You could've let Garrik go after me. He's stronger. Faster. He knows this place."
"I couldn't," Aiden said.
"Why?" she demanded softly.
He searched for the right words.
It wasn't bravery. He knew better than to think that about himself. It wasn't some noble sense of destiny. It wasn't even stubbornness, not really.
He looked at the sleeping pup, the small storm that had chosen to tie itself to him.
"Because you ran with him," Aiden said. "You could have dropped him. You could've handed him over. You could've used him as bait to draw them away and then slipped off. But you didn't. You held onto him like he mattered. How am I supposed to abandon the person who did that?"
Myra stared at him, something unsteady flickering in her grey eyes.
"You're an idiot," she whispered.
"Probably," he agreed.
"A dangerous idiot."
"That too."
She leaned her shoulder against the rock and let her gaze wander over the silhouettes of the caravanners—bundled shapes, hunched figures, a few sentries on the rim of the rise trying to look in all directions at once.
"We're going to get killed," she murmured.
"Not tonight," he said.
She didn't argue, exactly—but she didn't nod either.
A tiny spark jumped from the pup's tail, arcing lazily through the air until it brushed Myra's boot. She flinched, then relaxed as the spark fizzled without pain.
Her expression softened. "He likes you."
"No," Aiden said quietly. "He trusts you."
Myra's fingers twitched at her sides. "That's worse."
"Why?"
"Because trust is harder to protect than a body," she said. "You can throw a spear to stop claws. You can raise a shield to stop teeth. You can't block everything that wants to tear at what someone believes about you."
"You protected him," Aiden said. "He knows that."
She shook her head, jaw tightening. "I wasn't protecting him."
He frowned. "You were literally running with him in your arms while three giant murder-wolves chased you."
Her eyes finally met his, something raw sitting in them.
"I was protecting you," she said.
His breath locked in his throat.
The words hung there between them, fragile and heavy at the same time.
He opened his mouth.
"I—"
Crack.
A sharp snap sounded somewhere to their right.
Not close, not far. Just loud enough to cut through the low hum of night.
Myra straightened instantly, hand flying to the hilt of her short blade.
Aiden leaned over the pup on instinct, curling an arm around its small body. The little wolf twitched but didn't wake.
Nellie stirred, brow furrowing. "Aiden…?" she mumbled, voice thick with half-sleep.
"Stay down," he whispered.
The camp held its breath.
One of the nearby hunters lifted his head, squinting toward the treeline. Another shifted quietly, hand going to his spear.
Nothing moved.
A faint breeze stirred the branches above. Somewhere below the rise, the marsh exhaled a wet, distant gurgle.
Myra let out a slow breath. "Roots settling," she muttered. "Or a branch giving up for the night."
Aiden shook his head. "No."
She glanced back at him, brows drawing together. "No?"
"Something's out there," he said.
"How can you tell?" Myra asked.
Because death had left him with more than a second life.
Because lightning had carved a line between him and the world.
He couldn't explain it properly. But he could feel it—like a pressure at the edge of his thoughts, a faint static prickle in the air where there should have been only cold.
The System fluttered at the edge of his awareness:
[Stormline Sensory Drift: Active]
[Nearby Lifeforms: Detected]
[Distance: Very Close]
"Something's watching us," he said quietly.
Myra stepped closer to him. "Where?"
Aiden lifted a shaking hand and pointed toward the dark line of trees just beyond the farthest wagon.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then a shadow shifted there.
Not big. Not heavy. A low, fluid movement close to the ground—too deliberate to be wind, too smooth to be a loose branch.
Myra's blade cleared its sheath with barely a whisper.
Nellie pushed herself up onto her elbows, eyes going round. "What is it?" she whispered.
A nearby hunter rose to a knee, spear angled toward the same patch of dark, squinting hard.
The shadow slid further out of the trees, still half-wrapped in mist. It paused just at the edge of the lantern glow, shape still blurred, features hidden.
Myra tensed, muscles coiling.
Aiden felt the pup shift against his leg, a faint tremor running through its small body.
The shadow crawled one step closer.
"Wait," Aiden whispered.
The shape froze.
And every breath in camp seemed to stop with it.
---
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Alright, real talk for a second.
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