The road into Embershade looked like it had given up.

  Soot clung to everything: stone, wood, even the air. The sky was a permanent bruise of orange-grey, as if the sun itself had been smothered under the weight of industry. Water ran in thin streams along the gutters, but even the rain felt dirty. It carried the stink of metal and smoke.

  Sir Sael stepped over a puddle and grimaced when it stained the edge of his boot darker.

  “Gods,” he muttered. “It’s like breathing through wet wool.”

  Beside him, Sir Valen didn’t react. His pace was steady, his posture straight, despite the grime doing its best to cling to him. The golden sunburst stitched over his chest caught what little light bled through the smog.

  “It’s a mining town,” Valen said evenly. “Not a palace.”

  Sael snorted. He tapped the butt of his long spear against the stone road with a dull clack. “I’ve been to mining towns. They still had air.”

  Valen’s gaze swept the street. People watched from doorways. Some stared openly, wide-eyed at the sight of knights. Others looked away too quickly.

  “They’re nervous,” Valen murmured.

  “They should be,” Sael replied. “Two knights don’t come down here to drink tea and admire the smokestacks.”

  Valen didn’t deny it. He only said, “Not all missions are glorious.”

  Sael glanced at him sideways. “You practicing that speech for someone, Goldcrest?”

  Valen’s expression remained disciplined, but there was the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I’m reminding you. This place has been mana-dead for centuries. The fact that anything magical is showing up here is off.”

  Sael let his spear rest on his shoulder. “That’s one way to put it.”

  They continued down the main road toward the central square, where a small knot of town guards stood in a cluster. They were not knights, just local hires with cheap armor and eyes that kept darting like they expected something to crawl out of the smoke.

  The guards straightened when they saw them.

  Valen raised a hand in greeting, calm and authoritative. “Sir Valen Goldcrest. Sir Sael Riftpiercer. We’re here under Guildhaven authority.”

  The guards captain looked like he’d been regretting his entire life for the past week. “Y-yes, sirs. We heard. Uh. We weren’t expecting…”

  “Then you haven’t been paying attention,” Sael said bluntly.

  Valen gave Sael a look, a quiet warning.

  Sael ignored it.

  Valen continued smoothly. “Our assignment is simple. Investigate the reports of magical aberrations. Calm rumors. Maintain order.”

  The captain nodded far too fast. “Yes, sir. We, we’ve been trying. People are on edge. There’s talk of monsters, curses, disappearances…”

  Sael’s eyes sharpened. “Disappearing where?”

  The captain hesitated. “Mostly… around the edges. Some say the woods.”

  Valen’s voice didn’t change, but it got colder. “Rumors are not evidence.”

  “No, sir,” the captain said quickly. “No evidence. Just talk. Folk here spook easy.”

  Sael glanced at Valen. “And we’re here because ‘folk spook easy’?”

  Valen didn’t answer that. He only asked, “Any names mentioned repeatedly?”

  The captain swallowed. “Yes, sir. A boy.”

  Sael leaned forward slightly. “Go on.”

  “Audree,” the captain said. “Audree… something. Lives on the edge of town. His family runs a potion shop.”

  Sael’s gaze flicked toward the outer streets, like he could see the whole town’s outline through the smog. “Potion shop,” he repeated. “In a mana-dead pit.”

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  Valen nodded once, as if placing the information into a mental ledger. “We’ll handle it.”

  The captain looked relieved, until Sael added, “And the woods?”

  The captain’s relief faltered. “Uh… sir?”

  Sael stared him down. “You said the rumors point there. Do they?”

  The captain’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked at Valen instead of Sael, like Valen was safer.

  Valen’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Answer him.”

  “Yes,” the captain admitted, voice low. “They do. But… we’ve been told not to send people in there. Not even patrols.”

  Sael’s grip tightened on his spear. “Told by who?”

  The captain looked like he wished the ground would swallow him. “I, I don’t know. It came down the chain. Just… don’t.”

  Valen’s jaw set. “Understood.”

  Sael turned sharply to Valen. “Understood? That’s it? ‘Understood’?”

  Valen stepped away from the guards, lowering his voice so only Sael could hear. “Not here.”

  Sael followed him a few paces, irritation rolling off him in waves. “We’re knights, Valen. Not errand boys. If there’s something in those woods…”

  “If we were meant to handle it, it would be in our orders,” Valen said.

  Sael scoffed. “And you never wonder why it isn’t?”

  Valen held Sael’s stare, unwavering. “No. Because higher-ups handle bigger truths. Our task is clear.”

  Sael’s expression twisted. “Clear,” he echoed. “Funny word for ‘don’t ask questions.’”

  Valen didn’t rise to the bait. “We investigate the town. We calm the rumors. We keep the peace.”

  “And if the peace is fake?” Sael shot back. “If it’s just paint slapped over rot?”

  Valen’s eyes flicked briefly, something like irritation, or maybe concern, passing through. “Then we report what we find. That is how order functions.”

  Sael muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse.

  Valen ignored it and continued walking, forcing Sael to either follow or look childish in front of the guards.

  Sael followed, because as much as he hated it, he wasn’t stupid.

  They spent the day doing exactly what Valen said.

  They questioned townsfolk in markets and alleyways. They inspected “haunted” sheds that turned out to be stray dogs. They listened to panicked claims of ghouls near the mines that ended in embarrassed silence when the supposed ghoul was revealed to be an exhausted miner covered in soot.

  False alarms. Misdirection. Fear feeding fear.

  But the pattern didn’t go away.

  Every conversation, no matter how it began, bent eventually toward the same two things.

  The woods.

  And a boy named Audree.

  “He’s got a witch for a mother,” one woman whispered.

  “They sell potions,” said a man with trembling hands. “Real ones.”

  “I heard they blew up the sky,” a child insisted, eyes wide.

  Sael kept his face blank through it all, but he felt the same itch beneath his skin every time the woods came up. It was like a note struck wrong.

  Valen wrote things down carefully and methodically. Names. Claims. Dates. He asked measured questions, never letting his voice rise.

  Sael asked fewer questions. When he did, they were sharp.

  “What exactly did you see?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Why does everyone say the same thing?”

  Most people couldn’t answer.

  That bothered him more than if they had.

  By late afternoon they had reached the edge of town again, where the buildings thinned and the smog gave way to colder fog. A strip of tree line loomed beyond the last houses, dark and still.

  Sael stopped walking.

  Valen took two more steps before noticing. “Sael.”

  Sael stared at the trees. “Feel that?”

  Valen’s eyes followed his gaze. “Feel what?”

  Sael didn’t answer right away. His hand tightened around his spear. “It’s wrong.”

  Valen sighed, long-suffering. “You hate forests. You hate towns. You hate silence. Everything is ‘wrong’ to you.”

  Sael finally looked at him, expression flat. “And you love rules so much you’ll walk into a grave if the paperwork says it’s permitted.”

  Valen’s gaze sharpened. “Careful.”

  Sael stepped closer, voice low. “Tell me you’re not curious. Tell me you don’t think it’s suspicious.”

  Valen held his stare. “It is suspicious.”

  Sael blinked, surprised.

  Valen continued, calmer than he had any right to be. “But suspicion is not permission. And we do not act outside our mandate.”

  Sael looked back at the tree line. “Then we’re blind.”

  Valen said nothing.

  For a moment, the only sound was distant hammering from the mines and the quiet rustle of leaves that didn’t move with any wind.

  Sael clicked his tongue. “Fine.”

  Valen’s shoulders eased slightly, as if he’d expected an argument to turn into a fight.

  Sael turned away from the woods. “Let’s spar.”

  Valen blinked. “Now?”

  “I’m bored,” Sael said. “And if I don’t stab something soon, I’ll start stabbing you with questions.”

  Valen looked disgusted at the phrasing, then nodded once. “Five minutes.”

  They moved to an empty patch of road behind an abandoned building. Valen set his shield aside and drew his blade. Sael spun his spear into position with practiced ease.

  Their styles clashed immediately.

  Valen was controlled. Every movement was purposeful and measured, like the world had lines and he intended to stay inside them.

  Sael was different. He didn’t waste motion, but he didn’t follow patterns either. His spear struck where Valen’s guard wasn’t, where balance faltered, where stance shifted a hair too far.

  Valen blocked. Sael redirected. Valen countered. Sael slipped away.

  They didn’t speak while they sparred.

  They didn’t need to.

  Their disagreement lived in every strike.

  When Valen finally knocked the butt of Sael’s spear aside and pressed his blade to Sael’s shoulder, Sael didn’t look annoyed.

  He looked satisfied.

  Valen stepped back first, breathing steady. “You’re distracted.”

  Sael shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Valen wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his glove. “This town is getting to you.”

  Sael snorted. “This town is a problem.”

  Valen’s gaze went distant and thoughtful. “And problems require procedure.”

  Sael looked past him, back toward the center of town. “Procedure won’t matter if the rot is underneath.”

  Valen didn’t respond. He only reached into his satchel, pulled out a small notebook, and wrote one line.

  Sael tried to peek.

  Valen snapped the book shut.

  “What?” Sael asked.

  Valen’s voice was quiet and controlled.

  “Audree,” he said. “A name to watch.”

  Sael’s expression tightened.

  “Good,” he said. “Because I don’t like patterns.”

  “And this town,” Valen added, “is starting to feel like one.”