Chapter 7: Chapter 6-Embers Beneath the Stone

The wind coming off the coast was gentler than it had any right to be. Shade stood on the crest of the eastern road, her back to Faeyren’s distant towers, silhouetted like dream-needles against the sea-kissed morning. The air still smelled of spiced bread and sea-brine, of soot and lavender from the merchant quarter. But those smells were already growing distant — memories dissolving in motion. The city, for all its contradictions, had softened her. Even if she wouldn’t admit it aloud.

She adjusted the strap of the travel bag across her shoulder and stepped forward. The path ahead curved southeast, away from the sea, away from warmth, toward the cold stone embrace of Containe. Her hood was pulled up. Her dagger rested beneath her coat. The potion she had hidden—hidden with care, with purpose—was gone from her person. Left behind in trust. She did not look back.

The merchant caravan met her an hour beyond the Faeyren outskirts, two wagons of sealed crates marked with the Gellric crest — one for general trade, the other a decoy with nothing of value save eyes watching. She was not the only escort, though the others gave her distance once her role was explained. A beastkin girl with cold eyes and a Hollow Vow air was not the kind of company most mercenaries chose to pry into.

Shade preferred it that way. They traveled in silence at first, wheels crunching over gravel, crows crying overhead. The land grew flatter and harsher the further they went. Trees gave way to dry reeds and cracked stone. Even the birds grew quiet, as though the land ahead demanded reverence. One of the guards, a wiry man with twin axes and more scars than teeth, offered her a canteen on the second day. She took it, nodded once, and said nothing. The gesture lingered in her chest longer than she expected. She did not give it back empty.

**

By the third day, the towers of Containe were ghosts in the heat haze. Taller than they should be. Straighter than nature allowed. Walls like swordblades rising from the red earth. The Hollow was near now. She could feel it, not with her body, but with the crystal embedded deep inside her. It stirred faintly, like something half-waking, and somewhere far behind her, the warmth of a child’s hand was still ghosting over her own.

***

By the fourth day, the haze rolled over the hills like a low, lazy fog — dry and shimmering, heat rising off the road like the breath of some slumbering beast. The wheels of the caravan creaked in rhythm, a low groan like a heartbeat. Shade walked beside the rear wagon, her eyes scanning the horizon with the instinctive rhythm of someone trained to kill, not converse. Still, one of the guards couldn’t help himself.

"You know," he said, falling into step beside her, "most folks would’ve claimed the kill on Varrek. Big name. Bigger bounty. Would’ve made you famous overnight."

Shade said nothing at first. She tilted her head just enough to signal she’d heard him, but her expression didn’t change.

The man, rugged, tan-skinned, a worn spear strapped to his back, didn’t take offense. “Just curious,” he added. “I’ve seen bodies left for less.”

"He wasn’t a mark," Shade said quietly.

The guard raised a brow. “So, personal?”

She shook her head once. “He and his men were going to kidnap a merchant and his wife. I was there. It was... a necessity.”

The guard was silent for a few paces.

“Heard the Galviran gang didn’t take prisoners,” he said eventually. “Heard they liked to make examples.”

“They tried,” she said, her voice low.

That shut him up for a while.

Finally, he said, “Still. You could’ve taken the bounty. Would’ve cleared easily. Most folks crave a little recognition.”

"I don’t," Shade replied.

There was no pride in the way she said it — only finality. The guard nodded once and didn’t press further. Sometimes silence carried more weight than any story.

***

The sun had just begun to lean westward when the air shifted. The caravan was winding through a narrow stretch of road hemmed in by tall brush and broken stone. The breeze that had haunted them all morning died in an instant, replaced by a stillness that made even the horses uneasy. The kind of silence that preceded blood. Then came the chirrup. High-pitched. Clicking. Not avian — reptilian. Wrong.

“Hold,” one of the guards whispered. His hand drifted to his axe. “Everyone halt.”

The sound came again. This time from the opposite side. Then another. Shade’s hand was already resting on her hip when the first Veloc broke from the brush. It was lean and low-slung, six feet from snout to tail. Scaled skin the color of stone glistened in the sun, and its forward-jutting eyes narrowed over a hooked beak lined with dagger-like teeth. Clawed forearms flexed close to its body, while its feet, three-toed, taloned, left gouges in the dry earth as it stalked forward. Then two more burst from either side, moving fast. Velocs. Pack Predators with vicious jagged teeth. Level 4 threat. Too smart. Too fast. Too damned hungry. The guards backed toward the wagons, weapons shaking. One of them was already muttering a prayer. The lead Veloc hissed — a guttural rasp that triggered instinct more than thought. Then it charged. But Shade was faster. She vanished from her spot, a blur of motion as she crossed the distance with terrifying precision. One dagger slid free from the void into her left hand — a ripple of shadow solidifying into curved steel. She ducked under the raptor’s leap, pivoted, and slashed up beneath its ribcage. It shrieked — a blood-screech — but she was already moving, her second dagger forming in her right hand mid-motion. The second Veloc had leapt high, trying to flank her — smart. Trained. But not enough. Shade dropped into a slide, twisted her hips, and let her momentum carry the blade clean across its gut. It collapsed mid-pounce, screaming, skidding across the dust in a trail of its own dark blood. The third raptor lunged from behind. She spun, barely ducking a claw swipe meant to remove her face, and drove both daggers upward in a brutal X through its throat. Blood sprayed as it spasmed, twitching against her before collapsing.

Silence followed, broken only by panting. And it wasn’t hers. The guards stared — weapons half-raised, eyes wide. Shade stood slowly, flicked the blood from her blades, and let them dissolve into black mist.

“She... took down all three,” one of them muttered. “Alone.”

The man with the spear just stared, shaking his head slowly. “That ain’t a girl,” he whispered. “That’s a ghost.”

Shade said nothing. She walked past the corpses without a word, brushing a few specks of blood off her sleeve, before digging into her bag and pulling out a butchering knife, taking the time to set up camp for a rest before dismantling. The guards didn’t speak to her again for a long time. She preferred it that way.

She walked ahead of the wagons, a half-step out of formation, boots sinking into dust and memory. The wind returned, cool and dry, brushing the blood from her collar. Her expression didn’t change, but inside, something throbbed — not with pain, not quite — with a pressure she couldn’t name. This is how it’s supposed to be, she told herself. Quick, decisive, clean. She had killed faster, and she had killed worse. There were no questions. No alternatives. It was survival. Just as it had always been.

I’m no hero.

That word meant nothing in the Hollow Vows. Heroes died young. Heroes disobeyed orders. Heroes left gaps in their technique because they were too busy trying to save something.

I’m a weapon.

Forged. Sharpened. Used.

The words echoed like a litany in her mind — not comfort, but armor. Still, the look in the guards’ eyes lingered longer than she liked. Not fear, not exactly. Something close to reverence. Or worse — curiosity. She adjusted the strap across her chest and walked faster, pushing herself ahead of their words. Let them stay behind. The campfire burned low as dusk crawled over the hills. The caravan had stopped in a narrow hollow where cracked stone bowed into shallow ridges. The guards kept to themselves, sharpening blades and muttering in low tones, throwing the occasional glance toward Shade, who sat apart from them near the edge of the brush. Watching. Listening. That's when she heard it. A shift. A subtle crunch. Too small for a raptor. Too careful for a scavenger. Shade turned her head just slightly and caught the movement — a pair of wide, glowing eyes low to the ground, half-hidden behind a crooked log. She didn’t move. Then the figure emerged. Crawling. Cautious. A child, beastkin, maybe eight or nine, covered in grime and blood. Thin, malnourished. A small white tail with muddy tips dragged behind him, and the fur on his ears was matted where something — shackles or claws — had torn it. His breathing was shallow and too fast, and he clutched something sharp in his hand: a rock, maybe. A pitiful defense. He froze when their eyes met. Shade rose slowly to her feet. He bolted—but only for a few steps before he tripped over a tree root and fell hard, crying out, landing face-first in the dirt. Then he curled up. Not crying. Not screaming. Just shaking. Shade approached, careful, her hands open at her sides. The boy tried to crawl backward, but his limbs were too weak.

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“Don’t hurt me,” he gasped. “Please. Please, don’t—don’t tell them I’m here.”

“I won’t,” Shade said.

He blinked up at her, mistrust wild in his eyes. “You’re with them, aren’t you?”

“No,” she said.

“You’re not… You’re not like the guards?”

“No.”

She knelt a few feet away, not reaching for him. Letting the silence settle.

He swallowed. “They said they’d sell me. Said… said I wasn’t good enough to keep.”

His voice cracked. His lip trembled.

“I ran. I didn’t mean to... I just… I didn’t wanna go where they said.”

Shade looked at the shackles, too big for his wrists. Old blood crusted around the edges. The way he held himself — more animal than child — screamed of beatings and long nights locked in something cold.

This was me.

Not in face. Not in fur. But in silence. In how he flinched at kindness.

Shade reached into her bag and produced a ration packet. Soft bread, dried meats, and fruit. She set it down on the dirt between them.

The boy stared at it.

“It’s not poisoned,” she said flatly.

His lip quivered. “You’ll catch me if I eat it.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

Still, he didn’t move. Not until her gaze dropped and she turned slightly away. Only then did he inch forward, snatch the ration with his teeth, and retreat again like a wounded animal. He tore into it quickly, all survival and no trust. When he finished, his eyes met hers again, uncertain. Grateful. Terrified.

“…Are you a slave too?” he asked.

Shade didn’t answer. The boy stared at her. Still crouched. Still trembling. But his hands had loosened, just slightly, around the ration. He hadn’t eaten in days, maybe longer. His knees buckled when he tried to stand. Shade moved forward — not fast, but not slow either — and caught him before he hit the dirt again. He flinched under her hands, breath sharp in his throat, but she didn’t grip hard. She just steadied him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, her voice quieter than the wind.

His small frame leaned into her without meaning to. Exhaustion had no pride. She reached into her cloak again and pulled out a sealed canteen — not hers, one she’d been given by a guard days ago and never returned. She uncorked it, then offered it. He sniffed it once, cautious, then drank like he’d been under the sun for days.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

The boy nodded, though the motion wobbled. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, smearing dirt across his cheek.

“I don’t know where to go,” he admitted.

Shade looked toward the hills. The faint rise of trees beyond the cliffs. No firelight. No roads. Just wilderness.

“There’s a ravine about a half mile east,” she said. “A cave near its base. Small, but dry. There’s water there, if you follow the sound.”

He blinked at her.

“Hide there,” she said. “For a few days. Don’t go to any villages. Avoid patrols.”

His eyes were wet now. He tried not to cry. Shade looked away to give him that dignity.

She pulled out a bag from her belt before putting rations in it and wrapping it, then one of the smaller knives tucked inside her boot — a short one, dull but usable. She handed both to him.

“This will help,” she said.

The boy took them, barely able to close his fingers around the hilt. He looked up at her, his voice barely a whisper.

“…Why?”

She didn’t answer for a moment.

Then: “Because I wish someone had.”

He stared at her like she was a story he hadn’t heard before. Then he nodded, quiet and fierce, and turned. She watched him limp toward the brush, slow but steady. When he vanished, she stood there for a while. One last act of her own. Before she went back to being something else.

***

By the fifth day, the air changed again. Not in scent, but in weight. It thickened, like smoke pressing against the throat. Like metal ground too fine to see. The kind of air that never quite leaves your lungs, no matter how far you walk from it. The road bent upward through a barren ridge before descending into a valley carved more by industry than time. And then they saw it: Containe. Where Faeyren had shimmered with soft curves and flowing banners, Containe stabbed upward — stone and iron, wall upon wall, smoke rising like mourning veils from a dozen towering stacks. Chimneys choked the skyline. Forge fires burned day and night. You could hear the hammers even from outside the gates, clanging in rhythm like a nation’s heartbeat: cold, constant, mechanical. It smelled of soot, blood, and hot oil. Blackened buildings crowded the streets like squat predators. The outer walls were double-thick, armed with repeating crossbow turrets and iron braces enchanted to resist dama-fire. Ward glyphs — cruel and angular — marked every stone.

With Faeyren's gates evoking the feeling of being open wide to merchants, bards, and pilgrims alike, Containe's gates were narrower, sunken, and watched in comparison. Guards stood in full plate, their spears stamped with the sigil of House Valtrasse— Containe's ruling power. No music. No laughter. Only the grinding of carts and the cries of overseers. Shade's hood remained pulled low, her posture rigid. Even the guards who had watched her cut down the Velocs fell silent at the sight of the capital.

“By the gods,” one of them murmured. “Forgot how loud it is here.”

Shade hadn't. She remembered this place, even if her memories came in pieces. Even if most of them had been bled from her long ago. This city had never had color. It had only ever had chains. And deep beneath its stone belly, the Hollow Vows waited. She adjusted the strap on her cloak and stepped forward, following the caravan as it was waved through the checkpoint. Gellric’s seal did its work — none questioned her presence. But every footfall echoed louder than it should have. Every breath carried the scent of a world that had no room for mercy. The streets of Containe were a machine that never stopped moving. Wagons creaked across iron-slab roads reinforced with black stone. The clang of hammers echoed from every direction — from open foundries where shirtless workers pounded damastyl into weapons, to clockwork workshops where automaton limbs jerked and sparked under arcane torchlight. Smoke never truly cleared here; it just changed flavors — charcoal, oil, molten steel, sweat.

Shade passed through it all, silent and hooded. Signs were posted in every district: laws about magic regulation, guild dues, and slave auctions. Most ignored them — they were reminders, not protections. Beastkin walked with heads lowered here, shackled or closely watched. Humans carried themselves like apex predators. Guards wore blackened plate armor with no house crests, only numbers — property of the military state, not of any noble. Even the architecture felt cruel. No grace. No artistry. Everything is sharp and pointed. Efficient. Walls climbed high enough to blot out the setting sun, casting long, angular shadows like teeth. This place had no time for beauty. Only function. She moved deeper through the city’s veins, toward the old quarter, where the roads narrowed and the walls sweated moisture instead of heat. Crowds thinned here. Not because it was dangerous, but because it was forgotten. Or avoided.

She came to a crumbling archway tucked behind a sealed blacksmith’s hall. A rusted grate marked the entrance to the lower canals, half-concealed by crates and gutter slop. A symbol had been carved into the stone near the edge — invisible to most, but familiar to Shade. A single line bisecting a crescent. The mark of the Hollow Vows. She knelt, pressed her palm to the carving, and whispered something. A name. Not hers. The stone trembled. The grate clicked and groaned open — a hidden lock disarming with the sound of old gears grinding awake. She stepped inside. The air changed again, this time to something thicker. Algae and rot, wet brick and rusted iron. The sewers of Containe weren’t narrow — they were catacombs. Built as much for waste as for secrets. Torchlight was rare here. The stone walls shimmered with faint moss and warding runes that blinked weakly, long faded from full power. Every few dozen steps, she passed another marking — some etched, some painted in blood long dried. The deeper she went, the quieter the city above became. Until it was just her. And the sound of water moving somewhere far away.

Eventually, the passage gave way to a round stone gate — larger than any sewer grate, inscribed with blackened runes. Four glyphs pulsed softly as she approached. They recognized her, even after all this time. The gate opened with a hiss. Welcome back, it seemed to say. But it never said it kindly. She stood before the gate. Its blackened stone radiated no warmth. Just weight. As though it pressed not only on the air, but on her bones — her thoughts. The runes pulsed faintly, reacting to the mark that still lived beneath her skin. The door was open now. Waiting. Behind her, the tunnels stretched like veins, thin and dark and silent. Ahead… silence too. But thicker. Ancient. A stillness that remembered her even if she didn’t remember herself. Shade didn’t move at first. Her hands trembled — just once — before she made them still. Her heart thudded faster than she allowed it to. It wasn’t fear exactly. It wasn’t even pain. It was the echo of a self she’d buried deep. The memory of cold stone. Of screaming not in voice, but in thought. The dark room. The carving.

Step forward, and lose yourself again.

But she didn’t step back. She never did. Her fists tightened. Her breath leveled. And the words came again, whispered in her own voice:

I am not a girl.

I am not a child.

I am a weapon.

A lie so often spoken it had nearly become the truth. She stepped forward. The gate closed behind her. And the Hollow took her in.