Night refused to settle.
The house slept, but the air inside it remained alert—like something waiting for a sound that hadn't been made yet. Moonlight leaked through the shutters in narrow lines, cutting the room into pale fragments.
Voryn noticed immediately.
Rexor was awake.
Not shifting.
Not restless.
Just… staring.
Voryn didn't ask at first. He listened—to breathing, to the city outside, to the subtle rhythm of someone pretending to sleep while thinking far too clearly.
After a while, he spoke.
"Why aren't you sleeping?"
Rexor didn't turn his head. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, following a crack that ran like a fault line through the stone.
"I was thinking," Rexor said.
Voryn waited.
Rexor hesitated, then exhaled slowly. "The Saintess."
Voryn's posture didn't change. But something in him narrowed its attention.
"What about her?" he asked.
Rexor swallowed. "I keep wondering… which god she's contracted to."
Silence.
Not the empty kind.
The careful kind.
Voryn answered without hesitation.
"Creation."
The word landed too cleanly.
Rexor turned his head sharply. "What?"
Voryn was already looking away.
"How do you know that?" Rexor asked, pushing himself up slightly on one elbow. "No one said anything about—"
Voryn cut him off.
"Lie down."
Rexor blinked. "Voryn, I—"
"Lie down," Voryn repeated. Not harsh. Final.
Rexor hesitated, frustration flickering across his face. "You can't just say something like that and—"
"You're not asking the right question," Voryn said.
That stopped him.
Rexor's voice lowered. "Then what is the right question?"
Voryn didn't answer.
He moved closer instead, footsteps soundless against stone. He reached out and pressed two fingers lightly against Rexor's wrist—just enough to feel the pulse.
Fast.
Too fast.
"You're tired," Voryn said. "And you're reaching."
Rexor pulled his hand back. "Reaching for what?"
Voryn straightened. "Sleep."
That made Rexor laugh quietly. "You're avoiding it."
"Yes."
The honesty caught Rexor off guard.
Voryn met his gaze briefly—just long enough to make the next words matter.
"Some questions," Voryn said, "wake things that don't go back to sleep."
Rexor frowned. "That doesn't answer—"
"You already know the answer you want," Voryn said. "That's why you can't rest."
Rexor fell silent.
The moon shifted. One of the light-lines slipped off Rexor's face, leaving his eyes in shadow.
"Creation," Rexor repeated softly. "That's not a comforting god."
Voryn said nothing.
"Destruction would've made more sense," Rexor continued. "Or judgment. Even order. But creation…" He shook his head. "Creation doesn't stop."
No.
It doesn't.
Voryn felt the contract stir—not reacting, not activating, but listening. As if pleased the thought had been spoken aloud.
"That's why you should sleep now," Voryn said.
Rexor studied him. "You know more than you're saying."
"Yes."
"Will you tell me?"
"No."
Rexor exhaled, slow and controlled. "Not yet?"
Voryn turned away. "Not like this."
Silence returned.
After a while, Rexor lay back down. His breathing gradually evened out—not because the thoughts had left him, but because he'd learned when to stop pushing.
Just before sleep took him, he murmured, "You said it like it was obvious."
Voryn paused at the doorway.
"It is," he said quietly.
Then, softer—so softly Rexor didn't hear it—
"To those who have already seen the cost."
Voryn stayed awake long after Rexor slept.
Because curiosity had begun.
And once it did—
Creation always answered.
The day began without weight.
That alone should have been warning enough.
Aurélia hummed quietly as she worked, the sound thin but steady, threading through the house like something meant to hold it together. Rexor ate quickly, distracted, already halfway outside his own thoughts. Nothing lingered from the night before—not fear, not wonder. Just the dull residue of questions postponed.
Voryn watched.
He always did.
Maxmilian finished tightening the straps on his gauntlets and stood. "We'll be back before dusk."
Aurélia looked up. "Outer Lands?"
"Yes."
No argument followed. There rarely was. Some truths were too established to resist.
Rexor glanced between them. "I'll train."
Maxmilian nodded. "Don't overdo it."
Rexor smirked. "You always say that."
"And you never listen."
Voryn picked up his blade without ceremony.
They left the house the same way they always had—quietly, efficiently, like men who had learned that lingering invited mistakes.
The city let them go without noticing.
Beyond the walls, the air thinned.
Not colder.
Not heavier.
Just… less forgiving.
The Outer Lands stretched ahead in familiar ugliness—scarred earth, warped stone, the remains of things that had once decided to stand their ground. Maxmilian adjusted his pace automatically, scanning ahead, counting distance by habit.
Voryn walked slightly behind him.
Not because he was slower.
Because he watched better from there.
They reached the ravine by midmorning.
It hadn't been there last season.
That was normal.
Land broke out here the way bones did—sudden, final, without apology. A narrow crossing remained where stone had collapsed inward, forming a natural bridge no wider than a wagon.
Maxmilian tested it with his boot.
Solid.
They crossed.
The first sign of trouble was silence.
No wind through the cracks.
No scavengers.
No distant movement.
Voryn slowed. "Something's wrong."
Maxmilian nodded. "I know."
They didn't turn back.
They never did.
The creature didn't announce itself.
It tore upward from beneath the bridge, not leaping but rising, its body unfolding like a mistake being corrected. Stone shattered. The bridge groaned. Maxmilian reacted instantly—blade out, stance set, weight forward.
Too forward.
The thing struck with its mass rather than precision. Maxmilian's left arm disappeared into its reach before pain had time to arrive.
There was no scream.
There was a sound—wet, final—and then weightlessness.
Maxmilian staggered back.
His sword fell from his left hand.
Because there was no longer a left hand.
Blood followed a half-second later, arterial and violent, splashing dark against pale stone. Maxmilian gritted his teeth, body locking down around shock before it could take him.
Voryn moved.
He did not shout.
He did not hesitate.
He drove his blade into the creature's lower joint, then twisted—not to kill, but to destabilize. The thing recoiled, shrieking, its mass tearing free chunks of the bridge as it retreated back into the ravine.
Silence returned.
Wrong again.
Maxmilian dropped to one knee.
Voryn was already there, tearing fabric, binding, pressing hard enough to crack bone if needed. His hands were steady. Too steady for someone his age.
"Stay with me," Voryn said.
Maxmilian laughed once—short, breathless. "I am."
"You're bleeding too much."
"I know."
Voryn tightened the tourniquet until the bleeding slowed to a brutal seep. He did not look at the stump longer than necessary.
There was nothing to learn from it.
Maxmilian inhaled sharply, then exhaled through clenched teeth.
"We're leaving."
"Yes."
"No detours."
"Yes."
Voryn rose and braced him without question. Together, they moved—slowly, carefully—away from the ravine. Each step cost more than the last. Maxmilian's face had gone pale, jaw locked so tight it trembled.
He did not complain.
He did not ask why.
That was how you knew it was bad.
They reached the wall before noon.
The guards saw the blood first.
Shouting followed. Then hands. Then weight being taken off Maxmilian's legs as strength finally abandoned him. The world narrowed to sound and pressure and the distant, irrelevant shock on strangers' faces.
Voryn walked beside him the entire way.
He did not let go.
By the time they reached the house, Aurélia was already at the door.
She didn't scream.
She didn't freeze.
She moved.
Cloth. Water. Hands shaking only once before stilling. Her eyes found the wound, then Maxmilian's face.
"You're alive," she said.
"Yes," Maxmilian replied.
That was when Rexor arrived.
He stopped dead in the doorway.
The blood was everywhere—on Voryn's clothes, on the floor, on Maxmilian's chest where it didn't belong. His gaze locked on the space where his father's arm should have been.
It took him a moment to understand.
When he did, his breath left him like something stolen.
"What—" His voice broke. He swallowed hard. "What happened?"
Maxmilian met his eyes. "A mistake."
Rexor shook his head. "That's not—"
"It is," Maxmilian said firmly. "I misjudged distance."
Rexor's fists clenched. "You never misjudge."
Maxmilian looked away. "Today I did."
Silence fell heavy.
Voryn stood near the wall, blood drying dark on his sleeves. Rexor turned toward him.
"You were there."
"Yes."
"You didn't stop it."
Voryn didn't flinch. "I stopped it from killing him."
Rexor stared at him, something raw and dangerous flickering behind his eyes.
"Voryn ! I want to beat yo-"
Aurélia stepped between them. "Enough."
The room obeyed her.
Maxmilian lay back as the pain finally arrived in full, crushing waves. His breath stuttered. Aurélia held his remaining hand tightly, grounding him.
Rexor stood frozen.
This wasn't a lesson.
This wasn't training.
This was consequence.
That night, Rexor did not sleep.
Neither did Maxmilian.
Voryn sat outside the room, listening to the house settle around loss.
The Outer Lands had taken something.
And this time—
It had not asked permission.