Aurora walked alone.

  The road that wound away from the Academy wasn’t truly a road anymore, just a suggestion of travel, pressed into overgrown grass and fading aether markers.

  Every now and then, the compass pulsed at her hip, steady, like a heartbeat reminding her to keep going.

  The Shard above her heart, however, had begun to warm with a quiet frequency. But responsive.

  The further she walked, the more the world seemed to resist definition. Trees blurred at the edges. Roots curved in ways that memory couldn’t track. Once, she passed a patch of ground where her footstep echoed before she took it.

  She stopped. Stepped back. The echo reversed again. Aether warping, she noted. More frequent now. The Veinline below the world was flexing.

  Once, a fallen bird lay across the path, not dead, paused, mid-breath, wings lifted as if frozen in the moment before flight. When she blinked, it was gone.

  The Shard pulsed again. Recognition.

  The river was quiet, wide, slow-moving, thick with silt and age. Its surface reflected little light, only the shifting gray clouds and the silhouettes of bare branches hanging above like mourners. This was not a river of life but a river of memory. The river stretched from one side of the outlands to the other. It stretched across the world like a scar.

  From the outer reaches of the old cities to the shattered edges of the new, the River of Old marked the end of what had been and the silence of what would never return. Most stayed on their side out of reverence and the knowing that nothing crossed unchanged. The bridge had fallen long ago, crumbled during the first Rift war, and was buried under collapse and time.

  No one had rebuilt it. No one dared.

  Aurora stood alone on its bank, her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders, damp with mist and time. Her boots sank in the dark earth as if she belonged to it. With Starfall planted in the mud beside her like a headstone. She had not slept in weeks, not since Ymir. Not since he’d been torn from her, his voice screaming her name across the void. That sound did not fade.

  It lived in her spine, coiled behind her ribs, and erupted in her dreams.

  Her staff at her side, wrapped in blackened leather, pulsed faintly with ancient tension. Each time it throbbed, she felt Ymir’s name behind her teeth. She had followed its whisper to this place, the River of Old, where time lapped against the banks in echoes instead of water.

  The wind shifted, and Aurora froze. Something moved behind her. A whisper, light as falling ash, a presence sliding along the edge of perception, not quite seen or heard. She turned fast, ready for battle, her cloak snapping behind her; she reached for the dagger at her hip with one hand, keeping her other hand empty to grab her staff.

  The river didn’t move, but something else did.

  “Show yourself,” she whispered, her voice steady, low.

  Alora stepped from the shadows between two dead trees, her silver hair catching the low light reflecting ashy undertones, a cold glint against the gray sky. She was tall and slender, almost fragile-looking. Her heart-shaped face had a narrow chin. Her dark cloak rippling behind her like smoke drifting, as if memory itself wove the fabric. Her pale violet grey eyes were large and pointed, giving her a feline appearance, and looked almost translucent when she looked at Aurora, silent, and raised a brow in question.

  Aurora instinctively lifted Starfall, though she kept it outpointed. Wary and tired, she spoke: “You walk too quietly.”

  Alora tilted her head. “Someone taught me to.”

  They stood for a long moment. The rivers' hush filled the space between them, not hostile. Just the sound of everything that had been lost. Finally, Alora stepped forward. Each footfall pressed soundlessly into the damp soil, as if the ground itself welcomed her.

  “I’m here,” she said, “because the dead told me to come.”

  Aurora narrowed her eyes, her grip on her staff tightening. “And what, do you do whatever they tell you?”

  Alora didn’t flinch. Her face unreadable, like stone.

  “When the voices of the Veil rise in unison? Yes,” she replied calmly

  She paused. The kind that carried a weight just beneath it.

  “They said you would try to walk through death and that someone should guide you.”

  Aurora let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I don’t need a guide through the shadows.”

  Alora’s voice remained calm. “You will.”

  That landed like a closed door between them.

  “I’m not summoning ghosts,” Aurora said, her voice low now, teeth clenched. I’m bringing someone back.”

  “And you think that’s not the same path?”

  For a moment, the wind carried no answer. Only the sound of the river brushing against itself, the memory of water folding back into water. Aurora didn’t speak. She stared across the river, jaw locked, grief churning just beneath the surface. Alora didn’t press. She simply stood, present, like a sentinel planted in sorrow.

  Alora stood, a calm shadow waiting for permission that would never come. Aurora didn’t look at her. Couldn’t. The river held her eyes, her ghosts, her ache.

  Then, A low rumble echoed from the woods, deep and heavy. Trees cracking, birds scattering. The deep bass of something ancient is approaching. Aurora and Alora turned as the underbrush exploded outward, and a massive creature bounded into view. The underbrush exploded outward.

  A massive creature bounded into view. Larger than a warhorse, but broader, lower, wrapped in mossy, bark-thick plates. Its body bristling with curling thorned antlers that rose from its shoulders and spine like a crown of broken branches.

  Its feet were clawed, but moved with unnatural silence, the ground whispering under its weight.

  Its eyes glowed a soft amber-green, and vines twitched across its body like nerves. Sitting astride its shoulders, with reins made of flowering vines, was a small, wild-haired woman with a wide grin and dirt on her cheeks.

  “Hello!”

  A wild-haired woman waved cheerfully from her mossy perch, grinning ear to ear, dirt streaking her cheeks like war paint.

  The creature skidded slightly to a halt, sniffed the air, and then flopped into a seated position beside the river, huffing warm mist into the grass. Lili jumped down, her boots squelching into the mud.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she chirped, brushing a leaf from her hair. “Grandor took a shortcut through someone’s barn. Long story.”

  She patted the beast fondly, scratching under its chin like a spoiled dog. It rumbled happily in response.

  “You two, the ghost lady, and the heartbroken light bringer?” she asked.

  Aurora blinked in surprise while Alora raised her eyebrows in curiosity.

  “I’m Lili,” the druid said, clapping the mud off her hands. “The trees sent me.”

  Her face was alive and animated. Her eyes were large, round emeralds with bright gold flakes near her pupils that crinkled when she smiled. Freckles scattered across her face; she was shorter than both Alora and Aurora, with curves that paired well with her athletic build. Her Thick, chestnut brown curls were tangled and sticking to her face. After a brief pause, she pointed at her beast.

  “This is Grandor. Don’t feed him meat. Or dreams.”

  Aurora finally cracked a slight smile just slightly. The corner of her mouth twitched. A tiny smile so faint it might have been a breath.

  “Dreams?”

  Lili nodded solemnly.

  “He gets indigestion, and then the visions get strange.”

  Grandor let out a half-snort, half-hiccup, vines across his neck twitching like he was trying not to remember.

  Alora exhaled through her nose, the closest she came to laughing. Lili smiled brightly, hands on her hips, radiating unbothered satisfaction.

  “Well,” She announced

  We’re all here now. River of Old, check. Creepy dead lady,”

  She gestured vaguely at Alora.

  “Sad, pretty one with a world-ending grief complex, check.”

  She pointed to Aurora.

  She looked between them, then at the wide, slow-moving river. The wind stirred, but offered no answers.

  “Does anyone want to tell me what we’re doing?”

  “Raising the dead, apparently,” Alora said flatly, eyes rolling towards the clouds.

  “He’s not dead, he was taken!” Aurora snapped

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  Her voice cracked at the edge, not with uncertainty, but with how tightly she was holding the line between the two. Alora didn’t respond.

  Lili gave a long, thoughtful nod.

  “So a rescue mission.” She said brightly

  “ Oh, goody. Good thing I brought enough food for such a short, reasonable trip that definitely won’t end in metaphysical peril.”

  She reached for her satchel with a practiced flourish, pulling it open to reveal a chaotic cornucopia of tightly wrapped bundles of bread, cheese, and preserved fruit. At least three clinking jars filled with something that smelled faintly of lemon and danger.

  Aurora just stared.

  “I wasn’t under the impression this was a catered expedition,” Aurora muttered.

  “It is now,” Lili chirped, plopping onto a flat stone near the river’s edge and pulling a fig bun from her pocket, inspecting it with a critical eye.

  “You want one? They’re only slightly squashed.”

  Alora, who had been standing so still and quiet since the conversation began, she might have been carved from shadow, tilted her head slightly. Her voice was quieter than before, thoughtful.

  “A rescue mission implies there’s someone to save,” she said. “Are we sure that’s what we’re doing?”

  The words landed heavily.

  Aurora hesitated, her gaze flicking across the river. The mist clung low and silver over the surface. Somewhere beyond it, something waited. Maybe some part of Ymir’s legacy. Maybe a shard of him still lived in what had called her here.

  “No,” she said softly. “We’re not sure. But I have to try.”

  That silenced them both.

  Even Lili, whose grin had been ever-present, let it dim slightly. She looked down at the fig bun still warm in her hand, then quietly tucked it back into her pocket.

  “Well, I’m in,” she said after a beat. “Obviously.”

  Alora gave her a sideways look. “You just got here.”

  “Yeah, and the river’s gross, so I might as well follow someone with a plan.”

  “I don’t think we have a plan,” Aurora said.

  “We have snacks,” Lili countered.

  Alora Sighed, a long, silent exhale, and lowered herself cross-legged to the damn ground, Gravebloom resting across her knees like a blade between battles. Her voice was calm and clear.

  “We have three paths forward,” she said.

  “North, toward the outposts, where the Rift’s pulse has grown loudest. South, along the river, where the Veil is thinnest. Or we stay here and wait for something to find us.”

  The compass in Aurora’s hand spun slowly, a lazy drift in every direction, an endless motion.

  “It wants us to move,” she said. “South. Toward the hollow hills.”

  Alora nodded once. Lili stood with a grunt, brushing dirt and moss from her pants.

  “Then it’s decided. We follow the pulsing death crystal into unknown Veil-sick terrain. Cool. Can’t wait.”

  “Shard,” Aurora corrected. “Not a crystal.”

  “Oh, well then,” Lili said brightly, slinging her satchel over her shoulder, “That changes everything.”

  They began walking an hour before the full sunset. The river slid beside them like a sheet of cold metal, and the trees grew thinner, sparser, like the land itself didn’t want to witness what lay beyond.

  For a while, no one spoke. And in the silence, the shape of the Rift, its memory, its promise, hung just behind their steps.

  The river lost its voice after dusk.

  No frogs. No birds. Just the slow hush of water curling past the bank and the faint groan of tree branches above. Mist pooled low around their boots as they moved,vein-thick and clinging, brushing their legs like it had hands.

  They stopped for the night at the edge of a slope littered with half-rotted birch husks. The ground here was too soft for a fire pit, so Lili whispered to the soil, coaxing up a circle of dry-root fungus and flat cap stones. When she snapped her fingers, the roots caught flame like they’d been waiting for it.

  Aurora watched from the edge of the glow. She hadn’t sat down yet. She didn’t know why.

  Alora unpacked in silence. Her movements were methodical: satchel, rations, ward tokens, the ever-present Gravebloom staff placed just within reach. She never looked up as she worked.

  Lili, by contrast, had immediately made herself very much at home. She sat cross-legged by the fire, legs muddy, hair full of leaves, pulling bundles from her bottomless bag of minor chaos.

  “I brought honeyed root chips, sour thistle jerky, three dried apricot halves, a jar of emergency tea leaves, and a small collection of edible bugs.”

  She paused, then grinned.

  “Don’t ask where the bugs came from. They’re still crunchy, though.”

  Aurora blinked, uncertain whether to be disturbed or impressed. “That’s not reassuring.”

  Lili handed her a strip of jerky, anyway-worn, slightly sticky, and very fragrant.

  “You’re grieving. You need protein.”

  Alora finally spoke then, her voice like gravel wrapped in velvet. “You don’t know she’s grieving.”

  Lili tilted her head. Curious.

  “Everyone who gets called to the Rift is grieving something.”

  That landed like a stone in the circle. Aurora sat down. Not because the statement hurt. Because it didn’t, and that was the worst part.

  The fire cracked. A small vine-creature with luminous eyes ambled out of the underbrush, curled up beside Lili’s boot, and dozed off without permission. Lili didn’t react; she simply leaned down and adjusted its ear.

  Aurora stared into the flames and finally asked,

  “Why did you follow me?”

  Lili shrugged. “The trees told me to.”

  Aurora turned toward her, serious now.

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.” She plucked a tiny yellow flower from her braid.

  “One of the old trees woke up. It said, ‘Aurora walks alone.’ Figured that meant you.”

  Alora didn’t lift her eyes. She added.

  “The dead whispered your name. In multiple tongues. And one of them was mine.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you came,” Aurora said quietly.

  The firelight caught on the edge of Alora’s jaw, but her eyes remained shadowed.

  “I go where the balance breaks. The spirits speak.”

  Lili leaned back and sighed.

  “I go where I’m not supposed to.”

  The fire snapped again. A pocket of air hissed through the root structure. Silence fell. And stayed. Until Aurora said, without looking at either of them.

  “I didn’t ask you to come.”

  Aurora's voice was low, controlled, but sharp enough to draw blood if pressed.

  Lili blinked. Alora didn’t react. Not immediately.

  Aurora ran her thumb along the edge of the shard in her lap. It was still glowing softly, like a heartbeat she hadn’t earned.

  “You’re not part of this. You don’t know what Ymir meant to me. You didn’t see what the Rift did to him. You didn’t hold what was left of him.”

  Alora finally met her eyes. No judgment, just the stillness of someone who had walked beside death too many times to flinch.

  “But we’re here now,” she said.

  “Because the Veil told you to?” Aurora asked.

  “No,” Alora replied, “Because we chose to.”

  Lili stood abruptly, brushing dirt from her knees.

  “Well, I’m going to check the perimeter for murder flowers or territorial moths.”

  “Moths?” Aurora asked, half-grasping for the distraction.

  Lili pointed a serious finger into the mist.

  “Don’t laugh. Rift-touched moths steal warmth and compliments. I lost a sock and most of my self-esteem to one last spring.”

  She vanished into the mist. Aurora sighed. Alora didn’t move. The fire burned low, casting long shadows behind them.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Aurora admitted quietly.

  The admission fell into the flame, raw truth.

  “I would be more concerned if you did,” Alora replied. “No one walks toward the Rift with certainty. Only resolve.”

  A few minutes passed in silence. Then Lili returned.

  “No moths,” she announced as she reemerged, brushing mist from her shoulders,

  “But I did find an owl skull tied to a tree with red thread. So that’s festive.”

  Aurora looked up. “Any symbols?”

  Lili frowned, thinking.

  “Nope. Just the thread, old and frayed, knotted five times.”

  She glanced at both of them, her usual levity muted.

  “Someone tied it as a warning, not a ward.”

  “Terrible,” Alora muttered.

  Lili dropped down beside the fire. “Well, if we’re all going to die, we might as well do it together. Preferably after breakfast.”

  None of them smiled. But they didn’t break either. And that was something.

  Lili settled again, dropping cross-legged into the moss beside the fire. The vine-creature curled tighter against her boot, exhaling a squeaky snore.

  “If anyone wakes up with their socks missing,” She said

  “It wasn’t me, it was the beastie. He's got opinions about footwear hierarchy.”

  Aurora didn’t respond; she stared at the flame, the shard was pulsing in her lap.

  “The thread was red,” Lili added after a moment, more serious now.

  “Five knots. That's a warning for the unknowing.”

  Alora nodded slightly, still facing the fire.

  “An old burial practice,” she murmured.

  “Used when there was no body to bury.”

  Aurora’s throat tightened, her hands clenched. The words came sharp and fragile.

  “There was a body, but it wasn’t him anymore.”

  The fire crackled, a log shifting with a pop. No one interrupted the silence that followed. Just letting it exist.

  “He used to hum when he read,” Aurora said quietly, her voice barely above the flames.

  “Like a song only he could hear. Drove me insane.”

  Lili looked up, her grin faded, but was not gone.

  “What kind of song?”

  Aurora shrugged. “Something old. I think it was his mother’s, I never asked.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “I thought there would be time.”

  Alora’s gaze dropped to the flame.

  “My sisters at the Citadel used to burn rosemary over our lanterns; the smoke made the ancestors listen better.”

  Aurora turned to her.

  “Did it?”

  Alora didn't smile, “We buried them without one, so I hope so.”

  Lili leaned back against a fallen log, arms folded behind her head.

  “I tried to keep a spirit deer as a pet once.”

  Both Aurora and Alora blinked at her.

  “You what?” Aurora asked.

  “Named him Button, sweet little guy. Antlers like moonlight, he ate my spellbook and vanished into the fog. I miss him.” Lili sighed

  The smallest smile tugged at the corner of Aurora’s mouth.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Grief usually is,” Lili said.

  Then she winked.

  “But hey- if Button shows up and starts glowing ominously, you’ll know I’ve been cursed by affection.”

  They fell into silence again, but it was different this time; it was the kind of quiet that lives after the worst parts of a storm.