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In Comstock, the group finds brief shelter at the Hog’s Breath Inn, where an old ballad seems to point directly at Thane and only deepens the feeling that his arrival was foretold. As they plan the journey to Salile and the Test ahead, Thane finally admits he’s been hearing a voice in his head, and the chapter ends with the unsettling discovery that his father’s watch has somehow crossed into Arbelon with him.
Chapter 13 - Backroads and Bypasses
The first light of dawn hadn’t yet crested the eastern hills as the group made their way out of the inn. A ghostly mist masked the river and clung to the village with a stillness carrying a kind of unspoken warning. Their footfalls were hushed, words few. Garrus stood in the doorway of the inn, arms crossed, his usually gruff demeanor softened by something more reserved.
“Stay off the roads,” he muttered to Kaelir as he passed. “And stick to the trail out of town that I showed you.”
Kaelir offered a curt nod. No goodbyes. Just necessity.
As they moved into the narrow alleys between houses, Thane heard something behind them—a faint scuff, a cough stifled too late. He looked back and spotted a handful of villagers lurking in the gloom, watching them go. None spoke. Their faces were unreadable, shadowed by the early morning haze, but their presence alone sent a chill up his spine. He filed it away. Another layer of paranoia to chew on.
The group left the town behind, stepping into the embrace of the Arbelonian wilds. The trees loomed close, damp leaves brushing against Thane’s shoulders. The dirt path was narrow and winding, half-swallowed by the underbrush.
Thane broke the silence first. “Would it have killed us to keep the horses? This isn’t exactly a speed-run.”
Kaelir didn’t slow. “Horses would only get in the way. We’ll be using trails even they wouldn’t dare traverse. We stay remote. Hidden. Safer.”
He gestured toward the dense forest ahead, a thicket of shadowed trees and creeping vines. The air shifted, a cool dampness laden with the smell of decomposing leaves. More alive, but more dead at the same time.
“Great,” Thane muttered. “So we’re hiking away from these Riders—on foot.”
Lirien glanced back at him with a faint smile. “You’ll manage.”
Her tone was warm—genuine even—but it needled Thane, scraping against something tender. The assumption that he was stronger than he felt. That he’d make it, just because he had before. But she didn’t really know him, that his days were already cut short. He bristled, muttering under his breath as he adjusted his pack more roughly than necessary.
With the forest swallowing their path and only the sounds of distant birds and rustling branches to guide them, the group disappeared into the shadows of Arbelon. The valley ahead held secrets, and Salile awaited.
The forest thickened as they climbed, and darkness turned to light. Towering trunks wrapped in moss flanked the trail, their canopies high and tangled, weaving a greenish gloom that swallowed the light. The path turned narrow and uneven, forcing the group to walk single file. At times, there was no clear trail at all—just stone and roots and Kaelir’s quiet confidence leading them forward.
Birdsong flitted above them, strange and echoing, as though it came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Even Thane felt the pulse of something deeper here, beneath the surface of things—a sense of age, of reverence.
Carvings marked the occasional stone along their way. Weathered sigils—not quite language, but not random either. Erynn noticed them first, tracing one lightly with her fingers as they paused to catch their breath.
“The Architects left traces,” she said, her voice low. “Not just in cities. They walked this world. They shaped it. Sometimes you find signs where you least expect them.”
“Elinath Stones,” Cael said, glancing over. “Some say they marked these stones to guide the way. Others say they were meant to ward off danger.”
“Either one will serve us well,” Erynn said, giving Cael a small smile. “But it’s good to have someone along who actually believes in the old ways,” she said, smirking as she bumped shoulders with Kaelir, hinting at something more.
“Alright, alright,” Kaelir said, exhaling a half-laugh. “You know me—I’ll leave the past to your dusty pages. What matters to me is what’s in front of us.”
Thane didn’t comment, but he looked a little closer at the next boulder they passed, reaching out to touch one of the sigils.
The path crested a final hill—and the trees fell away.
Thane stepped into the light… and stopped.
Before him stretched a vast valley, unlike anything he’d ever seen. He recalled seeing it on the map the night before—the Hallowed Vale. The light sketches on the map didn’t really reveal its true grandeur.
In the distance, cliffs rose like titans on both sides of the valley, sheer and ancient, as if cleaved by the hand of something divine. Sunlight flooded the basin below, catching on the river that wound like polished thread, on fields of gold-green brush. From the cliff walls, magnificent waterfalls crashed out over jagged outcroppings, sparkling the air as if dusted with powdered crystal. Even from this distance, it was breathtaking—a place so impossibly vast and pure, it felt like a dream carved into the bones of the world.
And nestled within that dream, spanning from cliff wall to cliff wall… was Salile.
It didn’t shimmer with sunlight. It absorbed it. The city lay veiled in a slow-drifting shroud, as if the world had exhaled some ancient fog to keep it hidden. Here and there, towers pierced the gloom, reaching skyward—sharp, glinting peaks like the spines of some sleeping beast. Light caught only the edges—a sliver of glass, the curve of an arched window, a slanted rooftop. The city beneath laid in shadow like a black opal in an abalone shell—dark, iridescent, and strange.
It was beautiful. And wrong. An enigma.
His eyes continued to trail downward. Near the valley’s far edge as it approached Salile, dark shapes jutted upward—monolithic, stair-like ridges half-lost in distance and haze. The scrawled words on the map had just read “The Steepes”. Something about them unsettled him. But he didn’t know why. He blinked and turned his eyes back up toward the city itself, pulled into its mystery.
No one spoke.
He heard his own breathing. The soft rustle of leaves.
A faded memory sparked and Thane swallowed hard, his eyes growing misty. For a moment, he was standing with his mother at the edge of Glacier Peak in Yosemite Valley, watching the world unfold below them. She’d said she wanted him to see everything—every wonder, every wild thing the world could offer.
This was one of those places. But his time was running out. He’d never be able to show her this place or see any of the things they used to talk about.
That truth struck deeper than he was ready for. A weight settled in his chest that he didn’t know how to displace. There was no escaping his reality. Not here. Not anywhere.
He blinked again and wiped his eyes, pretending it was the wind. When he turned his head, Lirien’s eyes were on him. She didn’t say anything. Just gave him a moment—and then looked away, letting him have it to himself.
That meant more than words ever could.
They made camp beneath a twisted canopy of bone-pale trees, not far from a rise overlooking the Hallowed Vale. The sun had dipped behind the western cliffs, and the light had gone strange—duller, more muted, as if the world was holding its breath. Even the fire Kaelir built seemed to burn lower than it should’ve, like it too understood where they were headed.
Kaelir emerged from the brush, dragging a thick, uneven log behind him. He tried to muscle it toward the fire, but his foot caught a root, and he pitched forward, the log bouncing and rolling uselessly aside as he barely caught himself before tumbling with it.
“Very dignified,” Erynn said, trying not to laugh. “Reminds me of the time you tried to wrangle a goat that got loose in the high pastures above Drenhold.”
Kaelir looked up sharply. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Oh, it absolutely does,” she grinned. “Same energy. Wild terrain, impossible odds, and you falling flat on your face while yelling at an animal that couldn’t care less.”
“I didn’t fall. I… slipped.”
“You tripped over your own sword,” she said, and Thane could hear the delight in her voice. “Twice.”
Kaelir muttered something unintelligible and returned to the mossy log, dragging it to the fire, his ears pinking slightly in the firelight.
Thane blinked, caught off guard by the familiarity in their banter. “Wait. You two know each other?”
Erynn smirked. “He’s my brother.”
Thane paused. “You’re serious?”
Kaelir let out a weary sigh. “Unfortunately.”
“He’s not so bad,” Erynn said, throwing a pine cone in Kaelir’s direction. “When he’s not trying to boss everyone around or brood like a tragic forest spirit.”
Kaelir dodged the pine cone without looking. “Says the woman who thinks trees whisper back.”
“They do,” she shot back, matter-of-fact.
Thane raised both eyebrows. “Wow. Ok. Family road trip. This just got a lot weirder.”
The fire crackled between them, laughter fading into something softer. The warmth lingered, drawing the edge off the day’s tension. For a moment, it felt like maybe—just maybe—they weren’t walking straight into a nightmare.
Thane poked at the fire with a stick, watching embers flit up and vanish.
“So… this place we’re headed. Salile. What’s the deal with it, anyway?”
And just like that, the weight returned.
Erynn looked up from across the fire. “Salile was the heart of the Architect’s empire,” she said. “A city unlike any other, built long before even the oldest records.”
Thane raised an eyebrow. “So… creepy fog city built by ancient aliens. Got it.”
“They weren’t aliens,” she said, a small smile tugging at her lips. “They were the Architects. And Salile was their masterpiece.”
“You’ve studied it,” Cael said, not quite a question, not quite disbelief.
“I’ve done more than study it,” she said. “My mother had a copy of the Codex—one of the few surviving outside the Obsidian Athenaeum. It’s mine now, but I’ve been piecing together fragments ever since I could read.”
“Correction. She’s been obsessed since we were kids,” Kaelir added offhandedly as he poured water into a pot to boil.
“Let’s hear what you know,” Cael said, leaning forward, the doubt in his voice clear.
Erynn met his gaze, steady. “I know what I’ve read. What I’ve studied. What I’ve lived with.” Then her voice softened, like she was sharing a secret with the dark.
“Salile was the center of the Architect’s empire—built into the bones of the valley itself, guarded by the Steepes. They say it’s older than memory. Beautiful, yes… but cursed. It fell during the Rending—when something broke that was never meant to. What happened inside the city that day… no one agrees on. Some say the magic twisted. Others say the city turned on itself.”
Thane squinted into the fire. “And what’s in there now?”
Erynn hesitated.
“They’re called the Unseen,” Cael answered stoically.
“No one knows what they are—not exactly,” Erynn said, picking up the thread, her voice low. “Some say they are guardians. Others, executioners.”
The fire popped, startling Thane, as an awkward silence held the camp.
Cael cleared his throat, his voice still hoarse when he spoke again. “There are those that believe the Unseen are the Architects themselves, lingering spirits of their kind.”
“No,” Erynn said, shaking her head. “The Codex does not support that.”
“I happen to agree with you,” Cael replied. “The truth is not written. Many secrets of Salile remain hidden.”
“Perhaps from some,” she said now standing and turning away. “But not from me.”
She stood, back to the fire for a moment too long, deep in thought.
“What do you mean?” Lirien asked, no longer able to keep her silence.
Erynn turned back, settling quietly in her seat once again. “These Unseen—they don’t walk. They don’t speak. But if you draw their attention…”
She trailed off.
“Then what?” Thane asked. “They kill you? Or just whisper creepy stuff until you run away?”
Her eyes met his. “They take you. And no one ever sees you again.”
“She speaks the truth,” Cael said, Lirien and Kaelir nodded in agreement. “None who have entered the city have ever left it.”
Thane’s face had gone still. “What? Why the hell—”
“But things have been written,” Erynn said, speaking over him. She turned her eyes to meet Cael’s. “The Codex says that you can enter Salile and survive. Silence is the only way through. No spoken word, no name, no song. Speak, and the Unseen wake.”
“That can’t be right,” Cael said slowly. “I’ve read the Codex too. I’ve never seen that passage.”
“It’s not in the public transcriptions. My mother’s copy was… less edited. She said the truth was kept hidden to stop people from plundering the city. If everyone knew silence kept them safe, they’d flood in with empty pockets and greedy hands.”
Cael leaned forward, his voice cracking. “Why was I not told of this?”
“Like I said,” Erynn shrugged. “It was a closely held secret that few know even to this day.”
Cael considered that—and then, to Erynn’s quiet satisfaction, gave a small nod.
Thane stared into the fire, the crackle of embers now distant beneath the weight of what he’d just heard. “So… this city,” he said quietly, “people go in, and they just… don’t come back?”
Erynn didn’t answer right away. She studied him for a moment, her expression gentler than usual. Then she reached across the space between them and laid a hand on his shoulder—steady, warm.
“If we’re careful, we’ll make it through,” she said. “You’re not alone in this.”
The contact was brief, but it lingered—enough that Lirien’s gaze sharpened from across the fire. She didn’t say anything, but the way her jaw tensed was hard to miss.
Thane looked down at Erynn’s hand, then up at her, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.
“I didn’t ask for backup,” he muttered, voice lower now. “But… thanks.”
She gave him a nod, then withdrew her hand, her eyes returning to the flames.
The fire popped. The silence crept back in.
One by one, the others drifted off—Kaelir doing a final check of the perimeter, Lirien rolling into her blanket without a word, Erynn curled up near her pack, the Codex at her side. The fire had burned low, more glow than flame now.
Thane remained where he was, poking absently at the embers. Cael settled beside him with a quiet grunt, not looking at him at first.
“I know you think all of this is just a waste of time,” Cael said, his voice low, meant only for the space between them. “That it’s some story you’re caught up in.”
Thane stiffened. He didn’t respond—eyes fixed on the fire.
“But sometimes, stories are all we have,” Cael continued. “They’re what keep us going. And maybe, just maybe… they’re true enough to matter.”
Thane glanced sideways at him, something flickering behind his eyes—not trust, not yet, but the first hints of it. A crack in the wall.
Cael didn’t press. He stood, brushing the ash from his hands. “Get some sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow won’t be easy.”
Thane didn’t answer. But he didn’t look away either.
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