Alistair Stirling | The savior of this world.

The wheels of the carriage groaned against the uneven dirt road, a low, repetitive scrape that had been the soundtrack of the past four days. Inside the cabin, the air was thick with the scent of warm leather, expensive sandalwood, and Rainer Eberhard’s simmering aristocratic frustration. The interior was lined with deep burgundy silk - a luxury that did absolutely nothing to soften the brutal jolts of the road. Every rock the wheels struck sent a vibration through Rainer’s spine, and his jaw tightened with each one.

Rainer sat with his arms folded tightly across his broad chest, his white hair pulled back into a strict, low ponytail. His golden, topaz-set eyes were fixed on the small window, watching the dense, gnarled treeline of the Evergreen Forest approach. He looked utterly miserable.

"This is absurd," Rainer finally muttered, his voice low and edged with a sharp, clipped tone, "Four days in this rolling tin can. My back hasn't forgiven me, and frankly, neither have I."

Across from him, sprawled on the opposite bench with practiced, lazy grace, sat Alistair. He had one knee bent, his boot resting against the carriage wall, and his worn sketchbook balanced on his thigh. He glanced up, a small, amused smirk tugging at the corner of his plump lips.

"You know, Rainer," Alistair drawled, his voice carrying that smooth, gravelly texture, "For a man who once told me he could "endure any hardship for the realm", you sure are doing a lot of complaining about a silk-lined cushion."

Rainer’s gold eyes narrowed, dissecting Alistair with the cold precision of a scalpel. "It is not the cushion, you insufferable-" he stopped himself, exhaling sharply through his nose, "It is the principle. I have a fully functional estate. A library. A bath. And yet, here I am, smelling of horse and stale bread, hunting ghosts."

"Not ghosts. Family," Alistair corrected, tapping his pencil against the paper, "Distant, magically-fused, possibly-insane family. Big difference."

Tucked snugly against Alistair’s side, half-curled into a small, content ball, was Raphael. His pink hair was slightly mussed from the journey, and his long, plush tail was draped possessively across Alistair’s lap. His large, blue eyes were wide with the kind of pure, unfiltered excitement that only a person who had spent years in a cage could possess. Flyn, the pink weasel, was nestled in the crook of his arm, snoozing softly.

"I think it’s wonderful," Raphael whispered, almost shyly, peeking up at Alistair. He pressed his cheek against Alistair’s shoulder, his rounded pink ear twitching against the silk of Alistair's shirt, "I have never seen a forest this big. Look at it. It’s like a wall of green."

Alistair’s hand instinctively moved, his long fingers carding through the soft pink strands of Raphael’s hair. He is so warm. Almost too warm. I should check his Essence levels tonight, Alistair thought, his analytical mind running in the background even as he offered a gentle smile. He let his thumb gently scratch the base of Raphael’s ear, eliciting a tiny, pleased sigh from the demi-human weasel.

"That is because it is a wall, Raphael," Rainer corrected, though his tone softened by a fraction - just a fraction - when addressing the demi-human, "The Evergreen is the lung of the western continent. The werewolves who guard it are notoriously territorial. I doubt they will be pleased to see my coat of arms."

Alistair sighed, finally closing his sketchbook. He looked at Rainer, his dark red eyes steady. "Which is why we are stopping the carriage at the treeline and walking in. The last report from the Hub said three Altars in this region went dark in the past month. The Wolves are likely already on edge. We need to look like travelers, not invaders."

Rainer scoffed. "I do not travel. I arrive."

"Today, you walk, Count." Alistair’s tone was light, but firm.

An hour later, the carriage was hidden among the foothills, and the three of them stepped onto the soft, moss-covered floor of the Evergreen Forest. The change was immediate and visceral. The dry, dusty air of the road was replaced by a heavy, damp humidity that smelled overwhelmingly of pine sap, wet earth, and something sweetly floral. The light was filtered through layers of canopy, casting everything in a strange, emerald glow. The trees were colossal—their trunks as wide as houses, their bark covered in faintly glowing moss that pulsed slowly, like a sleeping heartbeat.

Rainer immediately swatted at his neck. "By the Spirits-" he hissed, glaring at his palm, "Insects. Why are they always so attracted to me?"

"Because you smell expensive," Alistair quipped, walking ahead. The Neon Gemstone in his chest hummed faintly against his sternum, reacting to the dense Essence in the air. It was a warm, almost pleasant sensation here, unlike the cold dread it gave him in the Dead Lands, "Stay close. The path narrows up ahead."

Raphael, meanwhile, had completely transformed. His shyness evaporated as he darted between the trees, his pink tail flicking happily behind him. He stopped to touch a glowing fungus, his eyes wide with wonder. "Alistair, look! It moves when you breathe on it!"

"That is a Lung-Fungus, Raphael, do not touch-" Rainer started, but Alistair just laughed quietly, watching the demi-human boy.

But then, Raphael froze. His tail, which had been swishing happily, drooped and went stiff. His pink ears flattened against his skull. The color drained from his already-pale face, leaving him looking almost translucent.

"Alistair," he whispered, his voice small and tight.

Alistair was at his side in an instant. "What is it, sweetheart? Talk to me."

Raphael pointed a trembling finger at the soft earth beside the path. Pressed deep into the mud were tracks. Not the tracks of any normal wolf - these were massive, easily the size of a dinner plate, with five distinct claw marks. And there were many of them.

"They are watching us," Raphael breathed, his throat tight, "I can smell them. They are very close."

Rainer’s hand went immediately to the hilt of the elegant sword at his hip, his topaz eyes flashing as he scanned the treeline with predatory focus. "How many?"

"Six. Maybe seven," Raphael whispered.

Before Alistair could form a plan, the forest itself seemed to exhale. The ferns parted silently, and from the deep shadows, they emerged.

They were massive. Not the size of a normal wolf, but the size of horses. Their fur was thick, ranging from deep slate-grey to russet brown, and their eyes glowed with a dull, intelligent yellow light. The largest one, a beast with a charcoal-black pelt and a vicious scar across his snout, stepped forward, his lips peeling back to reveal teeth the length of Alistair’s fingers. A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the ground, making Raphael flinch and instinctively grab the back of Alistair’s shirt.

Rainer drew his blade halfway from its sheath, the metallic shing sounding obscenely loud.

"Don’t." Alistair said sharply, holding up a single hand toward Rainer. He did not turn his back on the wolves, "Put it back. Slowly."

"Alistair-"

"Trust me, Count."

Slowly, Rainer slid the blade back into its sheath, though his hand remained on the hilt. Alistair turned his full attention to the massive black wolf, raising both his hands, palms open. He pulled his collar down slightly, allowing the soft, cyan glow of the Neon Gemstone to pulse visibly against his fair skin.

The wolves saw it. Their growls shifted - still hostile, but now laced with confusion. The black wolf’s ears twitched forward.

"My name is Alistair Stirling," he said, his voice calm, low, and resonant - that "dangerously intimate" tone he used when he needed to be heard, "I am a Bearer. We are not here to claim your land. We are not here to hunt. We have come because we heard your Altars are dying."

The black wolf’s growl finally subsided. The creature shifted, his massive body shimmering with a wave of golden, sparking Essence. In a fluid, almost painful-looking transformation, the wolf rose onto its hind legs, fur retracting into skin, until a tall, broad-shouldered man stood in its place. He was easily Rainer’s height, with dark, wild hair, the same vicious scar now crossing his human cheek, and a body wrapped in simple leather and fur scraps. His yellow eyes remained.

"A Bearer," the man rumbled, his voice rough from disuse, "We have not seen one of your kind in this forest for two seasons. And you bring..." his yellow eyes flicked dismissively to Rainer’s pristine clothing, "...nobility. And a chained one," his gaze lingered on Raphael with a flash of pity that made the demi-human weasel duck his head.

"He is not chained," Alistair said, his voice suddenly cold and firm, taking a small step in front of Raphael, "Not anymore. And he is with me."

The werewolf studied Alistair for a long, heavy moment. Then, he tilted his head, a gesture distinctly canine. "The Alpha will decide. Walk. Do not stray from the path. If you do, my brothers will not ask questions."

He turned, transforming mid-stride back into his massive wolf form, and began padding deeper into the forest. The other wolves circled behind them, an escort that was unmistakably a guard.

They walked for nearly an hour. The forest grew denser, the trees taller, until they finally crested a small ridge and the village appeared below them. Alistair stopped, genuinely stunned for a moment.

The village was built into the trees. Massive wooden platforms wrapped around the colossal trunks, connected by rope bridges that swayed gently in the breeze. Smaller huts were nestled in the roots of the great trees below, their roofs covered in living moss. Smoke curled up from cooking fires, carrying the smell of roasting meat and herbs. Glowing lanterns made of woven bark and bioluminescent fungus hung from every branch, casting a soft, golden light across the entire settlement.

The inhabitants moved freely between forms. A woman walked past carrying a basket of berries - she had wolf ears and a tail, but a human body. A small child ran by them as a tumbling, fluffy pup, before stumbling and transforming back into a giggling human toddler. Two elders sat by a fire, fully in their human forms, sharpening a long spear. They all stopped what they were doing as the procession passed.

The eyes of the village settled on them. Curious. Wary. Hungry.

"By the spirits," Rainer muttered under his breath, his voice losing some of its edge for the first time in days, "It is... functional."

"It is beautiful," Raphael whispered, his blue eyes wide again, though now he stayed pressed firmly against Alistair’s back, his tail wrapped tightly around his own waist for self-comfort. Flyn poked his head out of Raphael’s satchel, sniffing the air curiously.

Alistair’s Neon Gemstone pulsed in a faster rhythm against his chest. This is it. The first stop. Don’t fuck this up, Stirling.

The scarred wolf, now human again, gestured toward the largest platform at the heart of the village, where a tall figure waited, half-shrouded in shadow.

"The Alpha will see you now."

The transition had been gradual, almost insidious. Three days ago, when they left the green outskirts of the Eberhard estate behind for the second leg of their journey, the road had still smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke. Now, on the morning of the fourth day, the world outside the carriage windows had become something else entirely. The air had thinned, taking on a metallic, dry quality that coated the back of the throat. The fields, which should have been golden with late autumn wheat, were instead a uniform shade of dusty grey-brown. The grass was brittle and snapped underfoot like old bone.

Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was no better. The silk lining seemed to have absorbed the gloom from outside, and even the warm sandalwood smell that usually clung to Alistair felt muted.

Raphael was curled into the corner of the bench, his knees pulled up to his chest. His pink tail, normally a barometer of his happiness, was wrapped tightly around his ankles, completely still. His pink ears were flattened against his skull in a way that looked almost painful. The Amethyst stone between his collarbones, usually a soft, warm purple, had dimmed to a muted, sickly violet. His face was paler than usual - a translucent, waxy white - and a faint sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead despite the chilly air.

"How are you holding up, sweetheart?" Alistair asked quietly, leaning across the cabin. He pressed the back of his hand against Raphael’s forehead. The skin was clammy and cold. Damn it. He’s reacting badly. His Essence is dropping to compensate for the surrounding void.

"I’m... I’m alright," Raphael murmured, but his voice was thin and reedy. His large blue eyes flickered up to meet Alistair’s, and the wetness in them was no longer a sign of softness but of genuine sickness, "It just smells... wrong here, Alistair. Underneath the dust. It smells like... rotten blood. Old, old blood. Can’t you smell it?"

Alistair frowned, his nose twitching. He could smell it, faintly. A sweet, copper undertone that made his stomach clench. But Raphael, with his demi-human senses, was getting the full brunt of it.

"Try to breathe through your mouth," Alistair instructed, gently. He pulled a small silk handkerchief from his vest pocket, the one he had soaked in a few drops of sandalwood oil that morning, and pressed it into Raphael’s hand, "Hold this near your face. It will help."

Raphael nodded weakly, pressing the cloth to his nose. Flyn, the pink weasel, had been unusually quiet for hours, burrowed deep into Raphael’s coat with only the tip of his nose poking out.

Across the cabin, Rainer was a portrait of barely-contained tension. He was no longer slumped in irritation as he had been in the Evergreen Forest. Now, he sat ramrod straight, his back not touching the cushion. His long, elegant sword was unsheathed, resting bare across his thighs, with one of his pale, large hands wrapped firmly around the hilt. His topaz-gold eyes were locked on the window, scanning the dead landscape with a clinical, predatory focus. Every muscle in his neck was tight.

"This is foolish," Rainer said, his voice low so as not to startle Raphael, "We should have taken the longer route around. Cutting through the Dead Lands to save two days is not worth this."

"The longer route is also dying," Alistair replied, his own voice quiet. He glanced out the window. The trees they passed were skeletal - their branches twisted into agonized shapes, devoid of any leaves, their bark peeling away in long, grey strips. The sky was a low ceiling of dark, swollen clouds that refused to break into rain, "And the reports said a Bearer was last seen heading west, toward the old Altar. This is the fastest path."

"A dead Bearer, probably."

"Rainer."

"What? I am being realistic, Alistair. No one survives in this region for long without a stone. And even with one, the Essence drain is-" Rainer’s words were cut short.

Outside, the rhythm of the horses changed.

It was a subtle thing at first. The steady, four-beat clop of the team of two stallions faltered. One of them whickered, a high, nervous sound. Then the other answered with a deeper, more aggressive snort. The carriage’s pace slowed.

Alistair sat up straight. "Tomas?" he called out, addressing the coachman through the small communication slot at the front of the cabin, "Everything alright up there?"

The coachman, a wiry man in his fifties named Tomas who had served Rainer’s family for two decades, answered back in a tight voice. "They’re spooked, m'lord. Caught a scent. Something’s in the wind."

"Can you hold them?" Rainer barked.

"Tryin’, m'lord. Tryin’. Easy, Sable. Easy, girl-"

The carriage lurched as one of the horses tried to rear. Raphael let out a small, sharp gasp, clutching the edge of his seat. Alistair immediately moved across the cabin, sliding onto the bench beside him and wrapping a firm arm around the demi-human’s shoulders, pulling him against his side.

"It is okay," Alistair murmured, though his eyes were already meeting Rainer’s.

Rainer was already moving. He shifted forward to the edge of his seat, his sword now held in a proper grip. The topaz stones in his eyes had begun to glow with a more intense gold light, a sign that he was channeling Essence into his vision, sharpening his focus beyond human capability.

"Tomas," Rainer commanded, "if they bolt, let them bolt. Do not try to stop them. Cut the harness if you must."

"M'lord, the road ahead is-"

Tomas’s sentence ended in a strangled, choked sound.

It was not a scream. It was the sound of a man whose breath had been stolen by sudden, paralyzing terror.

Alistair’s blood went cold. He pressed his palm against the window glass, leaning forward to see past the front of the carriage.

The road ahead was no longer empty.

A pack of them had emerged from the dead, twisted treeline, moving with a horrible, broken gait. They had been animals once. Wolves, most of them. A few large hounds. Perhaps even one or two foxes. But the Dead Lands had taken them, and what remained was a perversion of nature.

Their fur was patchy, hanging in greasy clumps from sores that had long since stopped bleeding because there was no blood left to bleed. Their ribs jutted out grotesquely beneath dry, papery skin. One of the wolves was missing its lower jaw entirely; its tongue lolled out, black and dry, between exposed, rotting teeth. Another dragged a broken back leg behind it that bent the wrong way at the joint. Their eyes were not yellow or amber, like normal predators. They were a cloudy, milky white, swimming with a faint, sickly cyan glow.

Essence-starved, Alistair’s analytical mind supplied, even as horror coiled in his stomach. They are not hunting for meat. They are hunting for what is inside us.

The Neon Gemstone in his chest gave a sudden, violent pulse, hot enough to make him hiss through his teeth. The creatures’ heads snapped in unison toward the carriage. They had felt it. They had felt him.

"By the spirits," Rainer breathed, his sword-hand tightening, "How many?"

Alistair counted quickly. "Nine. No-ten. There’s one in the back, by the tree."

A low, wet, guttural growl rose from the pack. It was not the clean, throaty sound of a healthy predator. It was the rattling, sucking noise of broken throats and rotting lungs trying to remember how to make sound. It was the worst noise Alistair had ever heard in his life.

Raphael whimpered, a small, broken sound, and pressed his face into Alistair’s collarbone. "Alistair, they smell dead. They are already dead but they are still moving-"

"I know, baby. I know. Don’t look. Keep your eyes closed," Alistair’s hand came up to cradle the back of Raphael’s head, his fingers threading into the pink hair, holding him there.

The lead creature - the one without a lower jaw - took a slow, stuttering step forward. Then another. Its milky eyes were fixed on the carriage. On Alistair, specifically. On the soft, cyan glow that pulsed beneath his shirt.

Tomas had managed to pull the team to a complete stop, but the horses were now in a full panic. Their eyes were rolling white, their flanks heaving, and white foam flew from their mouths as they yanked against the harness. One of them screamed - that terrible, almost human-sounding shriek of a horse that knows it is about to die.

Rainer stood up in the cramped carriage, his head nearly touching the ceiling. He moved with the deadly grace of a man who had trained for war since he could walk. He reached for the door handle.

"Rainer, wait-" Alistair started.

"There are ten of them and one of Tomas," Rainer’s voice was suddenly stripped of all its previous sarcasm and irritation. It was flat. Practical. Cold. The voice of a Count who had killed before, "If we wait, they will tear the horses apart, and then they will tear the carriage apart. I will engage. Alistair, you stay with Raphael. Keep him conscious. If his Essence drops any lower, this pack will be the least of our problems."

He paused, his golden eyes flicking down to Alistair’s. For just one second, beneath all the steel and command, there was something else. A flash of fear. Not for himself.

"Do not get out of this carriage," Rainer ordered, "Do you understand me, Stirling?"

Alistair’s throat felt tight. He nodded once. "Don’t die, you difficult bastard."

A ghost of a smirk - the first real one in days - touched the corner of Rainer’s pale mouth. "I would not dream of it. I have not finished yelling at you yet."

He kicked the carriage door open.

Outside, the rattling, sucking growl of the pack swelled into a frenzy, and the dead, hungry things began to run.

The wind off the open water carried a sharpness that the inland regions of Klein simply did not possess. It tasted of salt, of wet rope, of fish guts, and - underneath it all - the faintest ozone-like crackle of the unstable Essence that infused this entire region. The Raging Sea did not whisper. It groaned. The waves were enormous, the color of polished slate, and they crashed against the hull of the Eberhard family ship, The Silent Topaz, with the rhythmic insistence of a giant trying to break through a door.

The ship itself was a thing of brutal aristocratic beauty. It was a heavy, three-masted vessel with reinforced hull plating of treated darkwood, and its prow was carved into the shape of a snarling lion holding a topaz gem in its mouth. The Eberhard family crest snapped in the wind from the mainmast. Twenty-eight sailors made up the crew, all hardened men and women of the eastern coast, and they moved across the deck with the easy, sure-footed grace of people who had been born on water.

Five days into the voyage, Rainer Eberhard was not one of those people.

He was, in fact, the opposite of those people.

Rainer stood at the starboard railing in the late afternoon, his pale knuckles white where they gripped the polished wood. His magnificent white hair, usually so meticulously tended, was being whipped into a chaotic mess by the sea wind. The expensive midnight-blue coat he wore was unbuttoned at the collar - an act of disarray that, for him, was practically scandalous. His normally porcelain skin had taken on a distinct greenish-grey tint, and his topaz eyes were fixed on the horizon with the intensity of a man trying to mentally anchor the entire planet through sheer willpower.

"Breathe through the nose, m'lord. Out through the mouth," advised the ship’s First Mate, a stocky, weather-beaten woman named Greta who had served the Eberhard fleet for fifteen years. She stood a respectful distance away, her arms crossed. There was no mockery in her tone - she was a professional. But Alistair, who was leaning against the mainmast about ten paces away, could see the very faint, very amused twitch at the corner of her mouth.

"I am breathing, Greta," Rainer ground out through clenched teeth, "I am breathing exactly as I have been breathing for five days. The breathing is not the problem. The problem is the ocean."

"Aye, m'lord. The ocean is famously inconvenient."

"Do not be smart with me."

"Wouldn't dream of it, m'lord."

Alistair had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. It would have been cruel. He’s suffering. He’s really suffering. Don’t laugh, Stirling, you absolute bastard, don’t laugh. He took a sip from the small flask of ginger-and-honey tonic he had bartered for at the last port - a local cure for seasickness that the sailors swore by. He had offered it to Rainer on the first day. Rainer had refused. Rainer had also refused it on days two, three, and four. By midday today, Rainer had silently extended his hand, drunk half the flask in one go without looking at Alistair, and handed it back without a word. They had not spoken of it since.

Alistair walked over slowly, careful not to crowd him. He came to stand beside Rainer at the railing, close enough that their elbows nearly touched, but not quite. He looked out at the horizon, giving Rainer the small dignity of not being directly observed.

"Greta says we’ll see the docks within the hour," Alistair said, his voice carrying that low, easy texture, "She says the worst of the swells are behind us. The Aquapoleis sits in a natural bay. Calmer waters."

"Calmer waters," Rainer repeated flatly, "An hour."

"An hour."

There was a long pause, filled only by the crash of waves and the snap of canvas overhead.

"Alistair," Rainer said finally, his voice barely above a whisper, his pride visibly being assembled and held together with string and wax.,"If I do not survive this final hour with my dignity intact, you will tell no one. Not Raphael. Not the staff at the estate. No one. I will deny it. I will accuse you of lying. I will have your sketchbook publicly burned."

"Your secret is safe with me, Count." Alistair’s mouth twitched, "Though for the record, you’ve held up admirably. You haven’t actually thrown up once. That’s genuinely impressive."

"The day is not over."

"The day is not over," Alistair conceded gracefully.

A peal of bright, genuine laughter rang out from the other end of the ship, cutting through the wind. Both men turned their heads.

Raphael was up near the bow, and he was a completely different creature than he had been in the Dead Lands. The fresh sea air and high Essence of the Raging Sea had restored him completely. His Amethyst stone was glowing a vivid, healthy purple, almost humming. His pink hair was wild from the wind, his cheeks were flushed a healthy rose color, and his blue eyes were sparkling. He had stripped off his outer coat and was wearing only a loose linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows.

He was helping.

A young sailor named Bram, a boy of maybe eighteen with sun-bleached hair, was patiently teaching Raphael how to properly coil a length of heavy rope. Raphael’s tongue was poking slightly out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Flyn, the pink weasel, was perched on top of a barrel nearby, supervising with the dignity of a sea captain inspecting a new recruit.

"No, no, like this, Master Raphael, you let it spool through your hand. Don’t fight it. Let the rope do the work."

"Oh! Oh, I see. Like this?"

"Aye, that’s it. You’ve got it."

Raphael’s entire face lit up. He looked over his shoulder, immediately seeking out Alistair, and when he found him watching, he beamed and held up the perfectly coiled rope like a child showing off a drawing.

Alistair raised his hand and gave him a slow, approving thumbs-up, his expression softening completely. Look at him. Just look at him. Three days ago he was barely conscious. Now he’s the ship’s mascot.

Rainer, beside him, exhaled slowly. "He has been like this for the entire voyage. Does he ever tire?"

"He’s making up for lost time," Alistair said quietly, "He spent years in a cage, Rainer. He never got to be useful to anyone. He never got to be good at something. Look at him now. He’s good at coiling rope. He thinks it’s the most important thing in the world right now."

Rainer was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its strained quality. "The crew likes him."

"Everyone likes him."

"Hmm."

Alistair leaned his forearms on the railing and let his eyes drift across the horizon. He had been quietly thrilled by this entire region from the moment they had boarded. He had grown up in a city of concrete and iron back in his old world; the closest he had ever come to a "ship" was a paddle boat at a public lake on a third-grade school trip. Now he was on an actual three-masted ship with actual sailors, sailing toward an actual floating city. The designer in him kept cataloging every detail—the way the rigging was tensioned, the engineering of the hull, the practical genius of the reinforced topaz-glass portholes that could withstand wave pressure.

But what really fascinated him was what was waiting at the docks.

He had spent the voyage reading every book Rainer had brought on the region. The Aquapoleis was unique on the entire continent. It was one of the few places where humans and demi-humans did not just coexist—they were genuinely interdependent. The shark-people, the squid-folk, the various aquatic demi-humans, they all needed the floating platforms and the human-made trade networks to survive comfortably. The humans, in turn, needed the demi-humans to fish the deep, to repair underwater hull damage, to navigate the unstable Essence currents below the waves. Centuries ago, they had stopped fighting and started building together. The result was, by all accounts, one of the few peaceful societies left on Klein.

Raphael is going to love this place, Alistair thought, watching the demi-human laugh at something Bram said, He’s going to see other demi-humans treated like people. Maybe for the first time in his life.

"Land, m'lord!" came a shout from the crow’s nest, "Aquapoleis, dead ahead!"

Rainer’s entire body sagged with a relief so profound it was almost spiritual.

The Aquapoleis was a sight that even Alistair’s vast mental library of architectural designs could not have prepared him for.

The city did not sit on land. There was no land. The natural bay was protected by a massive ring of jagged reefs that broke the worst of the sea’s fury, and within that calm inner basin, an entire civilization had been built directly on the water. Hundreds - no, thousands - of interconnected wooden platforms floated on enormous, treated-wood pontoons. Buildings rose two and three stories high on these platforms, painted in bright, weatherproofed colors: deep blues, sun-faded reds, salt-washed yellows. Rope bridges and wider plank walkways connected everything into a vast, sprawling, gently-swaying web. Smaller boats moved through the canals between platforms like carriages on city streets. Lanterns made of luminescent jellyfish, suspended in glass orbs, hung from every dock - not yet lit in the afternoon sun, but ready for evening.

And the people. Alistair could already see them from the deck. Humans hauling nets alongside tall, lean demi-humans with translucent fins running down their forearms. A child with a shark’s dorsal fin protruding from his back was running across a bridge, chased by a fully-human little girl, both of them laughing. An octopus-woman with four arms was hanging fresh laundry on a line, gossiping with a human neighbor.

The Silent Topaz was guided by two smaller pilot boats into a deepwater berth at the largest dock. The mooring ropes were thrown, the gangplank was lowered, and the moment it was secured.

Rainer Eberhard moved with a speed Alistair had not seen since the Dead Lands.

He did not run. A Count does not run. But he walked with such absolute, focused, undisguised purpose that he was off the ship and onto the wide wooden walkway of the dock before the gangplank had even fully stopped vibrating. He took six full steps onto the wood, stopped, planted both his feet firmly, and just - stood there. He closed his topaz-gold eyes. He inhaled. He exhaled.

The wooden dock beneath him swayed gently, because everything in the Aquapoleis swayed gently. But compared to a ship at sea, it was, to him, a glorious, blessed, unmoving paradise of solid ground.

"By every spirit," Rainer breathed, mostly to himself, "By every single spirit. I will never complain about a carriage again. I will kiss the next carriage I see."

"I’m going to hold you to that," Alistair called down from the ship, his eyes twinkling, "Greta is my witness."

"Aye, m'lord, I heard it clear as a bell," Greta confirmed from the deck, deadpan.

Rainer’s shoulders shook slightly, possibly with a laugh, possibly with the lingering nausea. He simply held up one hand - a gesture that was somewhere between a wave and a dismissal - and refused to turn around. He was not yet ready to face anyone. He needed his moment with the dock.

Alistair turned to Raphael, who had bounded up beside him, breathless and grinning, with Flyn tucked safely back into his satchel.

"Ready?" Alistair asked.

"Look at it, Alistair," Raphael whispered, his eyes huge, "Just look at it."

"I know, sweetheart. I see it."

They walked down the gangplank together, Alistair’s hand resting lightly on the small of Raphael’s back - not because Raphael needed steadying, but because he wanted the contact. The moment they stepped onto the dock, Raphael’s tail gave a happy, involuntary flick.

The dockmaster, a barrel-chested human man with a thick grey beard, had been speaking with Greta. He approached Alistair with a polite, professional nod. "First time in the Aquapoleis, m'lord?"

"For all of us," Alistair confirmed, "We are looking for information. We have heard the shark-folk handle most of the deep-water survey work. We need to speak to someone who would know about the local Altars. And about any... unusual persons who might have passed through recently."

The dockmaster scratched his beard. "Aye. That’d be the Vorenna family. They run the deepwater contracts out of the third platform, the one with the blue-painted shutters. Ask for Kael Vorenna. He’s the eldest. Big fellow. You can’t miss him- looks like a man wearing a shark." He gave a small, knowing chuckle at his own joke.

"Much appreciated."

Alistair glanced at Rainer, who was now leaning against a piling, looking only marginally less green. "Will you be alright here, Count? We won’t be long."

Rainer waved one hand without lifting his head. "Go. I am communing with the dock. We are getting reacquainted with the concept of stability. Do not bother us."

"Take your time."

Alistair smirked, and with Raphael half-bouncing beside him, they set off across the swaying wooden walkway toward the third platform with the blue-painted shutters. The afternoon sun was warm on their backs, the air smelled of salt and grilled fish and something sweet - maybe baking bread - and somewhere overhead, a gull let out a long, lazy cry.

The horse was, technically, a very good horse. Her name was Honey. She was a sturdy chestnut mare with a calm temperament, a thick winter coat, and the patient, philosophical eyes of an animal who had clearly decided, somewhere in her career, that humans were a problem she could simply outwait. The stable master at the last outpost had handed her reins to Alistair with a kind of grim sympathy.

"She’s the gentlest we’ve got, m'lord. Just don’t fight her. She’ll find her own pace. Mostly. Just-" the stable master had paused, choosing his words carefully, "Don’t do anything sudden. Or, ah. Loud. Or assertive."

"I have never done anything assertive on a horse in my life," Alistair had assured him.

That had been three hours ago. Now, six hours into the day’s ride across the white, endless expanse of the Snowy Plains, Alistair was beginning to understand that horses were a profoundly stupid form of transportation that humanity had collectively agreed to lie about for thousands of years.

His thighs hurt. His lower back hurt. His ass had passed through pain and into a state of philosophical numbness. The wind was biting through three layers of wool. There was snow inside his boots - how? How had snow gotten into his boots? He had been wearing the boots. The boots had been on. And yet.

If anyone had told me, three years ago, that I would be horseback in a fantasy snowstorm pining for a Big Mac, I would have asked what they were smoking, Alistair thought, his teeth chattering slightly, I would kill a man for a phone right now. Not even for anything useful. Just so I could check the weather. Just so I could know how cold it actually is. Is it minus fifteen? Minus twenty? I have no idea. I just know it’s the kind of cold that makes you stupid.

Behind him on Honey’s saddle, wrapped in a thick fur-lined cloak and pressed flush against Alistair’s back, Raphael shifted slightly. His arms were locked around Alistair’s waist, his cheek resting between Alistair’s shoulder blades. Flyn was tucked into the front of Raphael’s coat, with only his pink nose visible. Raphael had been quiet for the last mile, but his weight against Alistair’s back was warm and steady, and Alistair was deeply grateful for it.

"Are you cold, sweetheart?" Alistair asked over his shoulder, keeping his voice low.

"A little. But you are warm." Raphael’s voice was muffled against Alistair’s coat, "Are you cold?"

"I am, in fact, somewhere between cold and a fossil. But I’m managing."

"Your back is tight. You are gripping the reins too hard."

"I am gripping the reins exactly as hard as I want to grip the reins, thank you."

Raphael made a small, soft noise of disagreement and adjusted his arms, sliding one of his gloved hands up to gently rub at the tight muscle between Alistair’s shoulder blades through the cloak. The pressure was small, but Alistair felt himself exhale, his shoulders dropping at least an inch.

God, this kid is going to undo me one day.

Ahead of them, perhaps fifteen paces, Rainer Eberhard rode his black stallion, Wraith, with the kind of effortless, born-to-it grace that Alistair was beginning to find personally offensive. Wraith was an enormous animal—seventeen hands, all black, with a thick winter coat and breath that steamed from his nostrils in great clouds. He picked his way through the snow as if it were merely a personal inconvenience. Rainer rode him with the loose-reined ease of a man who had been put on horseback before he could walk. He wore a deep charcoal greatcoat trimmed with white fur, his white hair pulled back in a tight braid down his back, and he sat perfectly straight in the saddle despite five hours of riding. His topaz-gold eyes were scanning the horizon ahead, narrowed against the brightness of the snow.

He was, Alistair noted bitterly, not even cold. Or if he was, he was refusing to acknowledge it on principle.

Honey, for her part, had decided that her sole life purpose was to walk exactly three paces behind Wraith at exactly Wraith’s pace, and she would not be persuaded otherwise. Alistair had stopped trying to influence her decisions about an hour into the ride. He was now a passenger on his own horse. Honey knew what she was doing. Alistair did not. They had reached an understanding.

"Rainer," Alistair called out. His voice carried oddly in the cold, dampened by the snow, "How far to the next settlement?"

Rainer turned slightly in the saddle. "By the map, four hours. By the weather-" he glanced up. "-we are not making it."

Alistair followed his gaze. The sky, which had been a pale, hazy grey for most of the day, had shifted in the last twenty minutes. The clouds in the north had thickened into a dense, dark grey wall, and the wind had picked up. The snow on the ground was starting to lift in small, swirling eddies. The temperature, which had been merely brutal, was now beginning to drop into the kind of cold that genuinely killed people.

"How long until it hits?" Alistair asked.

"Thirty minutes. Maybe less."

"And we have not seen a single soul. No villages, no traveling parties, no smoke on the horizon. Nothing."

"This region is sparsely populated," Rainer said, his tone flat, "The demi-humans who live here keep their settlements hidden. We will not find them. They will find us, if they choose to. Which they have not."

"So what do we do?"

Rainer was already turning Wraith slightly, his sharp golden eyes scanning the terrain. "There." He pointed.

Alistair squinted. About half a mile away, partly hidden behind a ridge of wind-sculpted snow and a small copse of skeletal black pines, was a low, dark shape. A hut. Just one. No smoke from the chimney, no light in the windows.

"It looks abandoned."

"It looks like shelter," Rainer corrected, "We will assess it when we arrive. If it is occupied, we will pay for the hospitality. If it is not, we will use it and leave it as we found it. Either way, we are not riding through that storm."

He did not wait for Alistair to agree. He nudged Wraith into a slightly faster pace, and Honey, ever loyal to her chosen leader, immediately matched the change in stride without any input from Alistair whatsoever.

"Good girl, Honey," Alistair muttered, "Good, smart girl. You know what you’re doing. I appreciate you."

"Are you talking to the horse?" Raphael asked, his voice slightly amused.

"I am bonding with the horse, yes. She is the only one here who has not made me suffer."

The hut was, by every available indication, abandoned.

It was small - a single rectangular room maybe four paces by five, built of dark, weathered pine logs with thick layers of insulating moss packed between them. The roof was steeply pitched to shed snow, and a stone chimney rose from one end. The single small window was shuttered from the outside, and the heavy door was barred with a simple wooden latch, not locked. There was a small lean-to attached to one side - a rough shelter for animals, currently empty but with old hay still scattered on the dirt floor and a half-full water trough crusted with ice.

Rainer dismounted first, his boots crunching through the snow. He approached the hut with his hand resting near his sword, knocked firmly on the door, waited, knocked again. No answer. He lifted the latch and pushed the door open.

"Empty," he called back, "Old. No one has been here in at least a month. Maybe more. Bring the horses to the lean-to."

The next twenty minutes were a flurry of efficient work as the storm’s leading edge began to reach them. The wind picked up sharply, and the first heavy flakes began to fall sideways. Alistair, after a brief and graceless dismount during which his entire lower body protested loudly, helped Rainer get the horses into the lean-to. They unsaddled both animals, rubbed them down with handfuls of dry straw, broke the ice on the trough, and threw the saddle blankets over their backs for warmth. Honey gave Alistair a long, appraising look as he worked, and then deliberately leaned her enormous head against his chest. He stood there for a moment, holding her face.

"You are the only one in this country who has been kind to me," Alistair informed her solemnly, "I will not forget this."

Honey snorted gently into his coat.

Raphael, meanwhile, had already gone inside the hut and was making himself useful. By the time Alistair and Rainer stamped the snow off their boots and came in, Raphael had unbarred the shutters from inside, found a small store of dry kindling and split logs stacked beside the iron stove, and was kneeling in front of the cold hearth with a piece of flint, his pink ears twitching with concentration. Flyn was perched on the small wooden table in the center of the room, supervising.

"I have done this before," Raphael said, before either of them could ask. He struck the flint. A spark caught on the dry moss he had bundled, "In the circus. We made our own fires when the master would not pay for charcoal."

He said it with no self-pity. Just fact.

Alistair’s chest tightened, but he kept his voice light. "Then you’re officially in charge of fire, sweetheart. Don’t let either of us mess it up."

The hut itself was simple but practical. A single small bed against the far wall with a straw mattress and folded woolen blankets. A wooden table with two short benches. A few shelves containing dried herbs, a clay jar of salt, a small sack of dried beans, and - Raphael had already spotted this - a tin of cocoa powder, packed for travelers and clearly forgotten. An iron stove with a kettle on top. A small wash basin. A trunk against one wall containing a few spare blankets and an old, threadbare fur cloak. Whoever had built this place had built it to be found and used by travelers in trouble. It was a courtesy of the Snowy Plains.

By the time Raphael had the fire going - a real, crackling, growing fire in the stove that began to fill the room with blessed warmth within minutes - Rainer was already at the table, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his long white hair pulled forward over one shoulder. He had laid out the rabbit on a flat plank of wood. He had killed it that morning, a clean shot through the eye with a small hunting bow at fifty paces, and Alistair had been forced to admit, quietly, that it was the most impressive thing he had ever seen.

"You hunt and you dress your own kills?" Alistair had asked at the time, somewhat incredulously.

"I am a Count, Alistair. Not a parasite. I do not require a peasant to clean my dinner for me."

Now, in the warmth of the hut, Rainer worked with the same calm efficiency. His pale, large hands handled the small knife with surgical precision - a clean slit, a careful peel, no waste, no mess. The hands of a man who had done this a thousand times and considered it as natural as breathing. The topaz in his eyes glowed faintly, sharpening his focus.

Alistair, who had ordering food through an app on a glass rectangle, had to make a conscious effort not to stare.

Raphael, meanwhile, was filling the kettle with clean snow he had gathered from the doorstep. "Cocoa! Alistair, they have cocoa! Can you believe it? In a hut?"

"It is a generous hut," Alistair agreed, settling onto one of the benches across from Rainer at the table. The warmth of the fire was beginning to bring feeling back into his fingers in painful pins-and-needles waves.

"It is a Plains hut," Rainer corrected without looking up from his work, "Cocoa is medicinal here. Sugar and warmth. It keeps people alive. There will be honey somewhere too. Check the second shelf."

Raphael lit up and immediately went to check. He found the honey jar within seconds and made a small, triumphant sound.

Alistair watched him for a moment, then looked back at Rainer’s hands, working steadily on the rabbit. The stove popped and crackled. The wind outside was now a steady, low howl against the shuttered window. He could feel his Neon Gemstone humming pleasantly against his sternum - calmer now, in the warmth, with both his people close to him. He pulled his cloak off his shoulders and let it hang over the back of the bench.

Raphael set the kettle on the stove, then came back to the table and settled onto the bench right beside Alistair, pressing his side against him from shoulder to hip. He did not ask. He just sat. His tail, freed from his cloak, draped itself over Alistair’s thigh. Flyn jumped down from the table and went to investigate the warmth of the stove.

"Alistair," Raphael said, his voice quiet but bright with curiosity. He was watching Rainer work with mild interest, but his attention was clearly on Alistair, "Can I ask you something?"

"You can always ask me something."

"What was it like? Where you came from."

Alistair’s hand, which had been idly stroking Raphael’s tail where it lay across his leg, paused for just a beat. Then he resumed, "That’s a big question, sweetheart."

"You do not have to answer. I just-" Raphael’s pink ears flattened slightly, suddenly shy, "You sometimes make jokes I do not understand. And you said this morning, very quietly to your horse, something about a "phone". And I do not know what a phone is. And I would like to know."

Across the table, Rainer had not looked up. But his hands had slowed, just barely. He was listening.

Alistair leaned back against the wall behind the bench, considering. "Okay. Okay. Where do I start." He exhaled. "My world is called Earth. The part of it I lived in was a city. Imagine the biggest city you’ve ever seen, Raphael. The Aquapoleis."

"Yes."

"Now imagine that, but made of stone and metal, and at least a hundred times bigger. Buildings as tall as mountains. Real mountains. You could not see the top of some of them from the street. They had glass windows on every floor. And there were millions of people in this one city. Millions. Not the whole continent. Just one city."

Raphael’s eyes had gone huge. "That cannot be possible."

"It was. And we did not ride horses, sweetheart. We had-" he paused, searching for words Raphael would understand, "Metal carriages. They moved by themselves. No horses. They moved by burning a kind of oil inside them, very fast, very precisely. You could sit inside one and go from one side of the city to the other in less than an hour. Faster than any horse alive."

"By the spirits."

"And a phone-" Alistair held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger spread to about the size of his palm, "Was a small, flat piece of glass and metal, about this big. You carried it in your pocket. And with it, Raphael, you could speak to anyone in the world. Not just nearby. Anyone. If my friend was on the other side of the planet, I could press a few buttons, and I could see her face and hear her voice as clearly as I am speaking to you right now."

Raphael was completely still, his mouth slightly open.

Rainer’s hands had completely stopped now. He was looking at Alistair across the table, his golden eyes narrowed not in suspicion but in a kind of analytical fascination. He had heard pieces of this before, but never laid out like this.

"That sounds like magic," Raphael whispered.

"It was not magic. It was just... machines. Very small, very clever machines. And we had food, Raphael. We could press a few buttons on the phone, and a man on a bicycle would arrive at our door, in less than thirty minutes, with hot food. Any kind of food. Anything you wanted. There was this place called McDonald’s-" Alistair’s voice took on a faintly aching, nostalgic quality, "That sold these things called hamburgers. A piece of cooked beef in a soft round bread, with cheese melted on top, and a sauce, and pickles, and- God, I would give a kidney for one right now. I really would."

"What is a kidney?" Raphael asked, with utter sincerity.

"Internal organ. You have two. It is a figure of speech," Alistair laughed, a quiet, tired sound, "I would not actually trade my kidney. Probably."

Rainer made a small sound that could have been a snort. He had returned to his work, the rabbit nearly ready for the pot. But the corner of his mouth was tilted up by the smallest fraction.

"So you-" Raphael’s voice was small, careful, "You had so many things. You had food whenever you wanted. You had a way to speak to anyone you knew. You had these moving carriages. You had..." he gestured around the hut, "You must have had warmth always. And clean clothes. And medicine."

"We did. Most of us. Not everyone - there were still poor people, sweetheart. The world wasn’t fair. But yes. I had those things."

"And you came here," Raphael said it slowly, "And you are not constantly angry that you lost all of that."

Alistair was quiet for a moment. His thumb stroked along the soft fur of Raphael’s tail. The kettle began to whistle softly on the stove. Outside, the wind howled against the shutters.

"I miss it," he said finally, honestly, "Every day. I miss being able to look something up when I don’t know it. I miss hot showers... I really miss hot showers, you have no idea. I miss music. I miss being able to call my best friend and complain about my day. And yes, I miss McDonald’s. I miss it stupidly."

He looked down at Raphael’s pink head against his shoulder. He looked across the table at Rainer’s bent neck, at the long white braid lying over one shoulder.

"But," Alistair said quietly, "I didn’t have you. Either of you. I didn’t have anyone, really. I worked all the time. I went home alone. I ate alone. I had nice things and an empty apartment, and I told myself I was fine. So," he let out a small breath, "If the trade for one of you sitting next to me by a warm fire in a snowstorm is a hamburger, then. Fine. I’ll take the trade. Most days."

Raphael’s face turned, and he pressed it firmly into Alistair’s shoulder, and his arms came up to hold Alistair’s waist again, the way he had on the horse.

Rainer cleared his throat. He did not look up. "The rabbit is ready," he said, his voice slightly rougher than usual. "Raphael, the kettle. Before it boils dry."

Raphael sniffed once, lifted his head, and beamed at both of them with watery eyes. "Yes! Yes, the cocoa. I have it."

He hopped up. Alistair caught Rainer’s gaze across the table for just a moment. Rainer’s golden eyes held his, and there was something there - something soft and unspoken and entirely uncharacteristic - before the Count looked deliberately back down at the rabbit and gathered it up to take to the stove.

The fire crackled. The wind howled. The cocoa began to bloom in the kettle, filling the small hut with a rich, dark, impossible sweetness.

They had not been looking for the town. That was the strange part.

They had been riding south for two days after the snowstorm in the hut, trying to cut around the worst of the Snowy Plains and rejoin the main trade road that led toward the Topaz Hub. The map - an old vellum thing Rainer kept rolled in a leather tube - showed nothing in this area. No settlement. No outpost. No road. Just a stretch of low foothills, a thin river, and unmarked wilderness all the way to the next labeled village forty miles east.

And yet, when they crested the small ridge that morning at a little past ten, there it was, sitting in a shallow valley below them like a painting.

Alistair pulled Honey to a halt. Beside him, Rainer did the same with Wraith. For a long moment, none of them spoke.

"That is not on the map," Rainer said finally, his golden eyes narrowed.

"No. It is not."

"And it is, what, four hundred houses? Five?"

"At least."

Raphael, perched behind Alistair as always, peeked around his shoulder. His pink ears twitched forward with curiosity. "It is beautiful."

That was the thing. It really, genuinely was.

The town below them sat in a shallow green valley - green, in late autumn, when every other place they had passed in the last week had been grey, brown, or white. The grass in the valley was a vivid, almost spring-like emerald. A small river curled gently through the middle of the town, crossed by three small stone bridges that were intact and well-maintained. The houses were not the typical medieval shacks of mud and wattle that Alistair had grown wearily used to seeing in the rural regions of Klein. These were proper stone-and-timber cottages with neat thatched roofs, painted shutters, and - he could see even from this distance - actual glass windows. Real glass. Not the cheap, wavy, bubble-filled stuff of poor villages, but clean, clear panes.

Flowerboxes hung from many of the windows. Flowers. In autumn. In a region where they should not have been blooming.

The central square was visible from the ridge, paved in pale stone and dominated by a large, ornate fountain. Even from this distance, Alistair could see that the water in the fountain caught the morning light strangely - too brightly, too cleanly. At the far end of the town, sitting on a slight rise opposite the square, was a single white building with a tall, narrow spire. A chapel. A small one, but freshly painted, with a brass bell visible at the top of the spire.

"By the spirits," Rainer murmured.

"Yeah," Alistair said quietly, "Yeah, exactly."

He had spent enough time now in Klein’s rural regions to know what they were supposed to look like. He knew the smell of human poverty - the woodsmoke layered over the sourness of unwashed bodies and lean-meat broth, the eternal mud, the wary, hollow-cheeked faces. He knew that a settlement of this size, in this region, should have at least one drunk passed out in the street at midmorning, several beggars at the gates, a few thin children with bare feet, and a general background hum of hard, scrabbling survival.

This place looked like an illustration in a children’s storybook.

"We are going down there," Alistair said.

"Of course we are," Rainer agreed dryly, "Because nothing about that is alarming at all."

"Two of the last three Bearers we found were in places that looked normal. Maybe this time it’s the opposite."

"Hmm."

They nudged the horses forward and began the slow descent into the valley.

There were no gates. There was no wall.

That was the first thing Alistair noticed. A town this prosperous - and it was, plainly, prosperous - should have at least a low defensive wall. Some kind of palisade. A watchman’s tower. Something. This place had nothing. The road simply widened, became cobblestoned, and they were in the town. No one stopped them. No one even seemed to notice their arrival, which was strange in itself; three armed travelers on horseback, one of them obviously a noble, was the kind of thing that should have drawn at least a few stares.

The town smelled wrong.

Alistair could not place it at first. He kept inhaling, trying to identify it. It was not bad. That was the problem. The air smelled of woodsmoke and fresh bread and the faint sweetness of late-blooming flowers and something else - something he could not name. A faint, warm, slightly sweet undertone, like honey left too long in the sun. It was pleasant. It was too pleasant. It was the kind of smell that an air freshener company would manufacture and call "Cozy Cottage."

The Neon Gemstone in his chest gave a single, sharp pulse against his sternum.

"Alistair," Rainer said quietly, riding close enough now that their boots nearly touched, "Are you feeling that?"

"The stone? Yes."

"What is it telling you?"

"Nothing good," Alistair’s eyes were scanning the streets, "It’s not warning me, exactly. It’s reacting. There is Essence here. A lot of it. But it’s flowing wrong. Like a river dammed in the wrong place."

Raphael had gone very still behind him. "Alistair," he whispered, "Why is everyone smiling?"

Alistair’s gaze swept the street.

Raphael was right. Every single person they passed was smiling. Not the polite, distracted smile of a stranger nodding at travelers. A small, gentle, slightly unfocused smile. The kind of smile someone wears when they are remembering something pleasant in private. A young woman drawing water from a public well looked up as they passed, smiled vaguely in their direction, and went back to her bucket. An old man sitting on a bench in front of a shop was smiling at nothing in particular. Two children playing with a wooden hoop in the street smiled as they ran past. A baker, visible through the open door of his shop, was kneading dough and smiling to himself.

No one looked tired. No one looked stressed. No one looked annoyed, hurried, frustrated, bored, or upset. No one was haggling loudly in the street. No one was yelling at a child. No one was drunk. No dogs were fighting. No one was hauling anything heavy.

The square, when they reached it, was the worst of it.

The fountain at its center was indeed crystal-clear, but the water within it was moving slightly wrong - it sloshed against the basin walls with a faint, melodic chime, as if the water were not quite water. Around the square, perhaps twenty or thirty people were simply... there. Sitting on benches. Standing in small groups, talking quietly. Eating fruit from a public basket that seemed to be just - there, for anyone to take. A young couple was lying on the grass beside the fountain, watching the clouds. A middle-aged man in a clean apron was painting at an easel he had set up beside one of the bridges. He was painting the chapel. He had clearly been painting the chapel for some time. His brushstrokes were dreamy and slow.

No one was working.

That was what struck Alistair finally, all at once, hard. No one was working. There were no farmers in the fields they had passed coming in. No merchants hawking goods. No blacksmiths’ hammers ringing. The shops were open, but their proprietors were sitting on stools by their doors, watching the street with that same soft, contented smile. There was nothing to buy, because nothing seemed to need to be bought.

"Rainer," Alistair said, very quietly, "Stay on the horse. Both of you. I am going to talk to someone."

"Alistair-"

"I will be careful. Just stay visible. Stay alert. Keep your hand on the sword."

He dismounted slowly, his stiff legs protesting. He handed Honey’s reins up to Raphael, who took them with wide, frightened blue eyes. Flyn, in Raphael’s satchel, had pulled himself fully out and was sitting on Raphael’s shoulder now, his small body taut, his black nose twitching rapidly. Even the weasel knew something was wrong.

Alistair scanned the square and settled on an old man sitting alone on a bench near the fountain. The old man was perhaps seventy, with a long white beard, plain but well-made clothes, and a half-eaten apple in his hand. He was looking at the fountain with the same gentle, vague smile as everyone else.

Alistair walked over and sat down beside him on the bench. Not too close. Not threatening.

"Beautiful morning," Alistair said.

The old man turned his head slowly. His eyes were a watery pale blue, and they took a moment to focus on Alistair’s face. When they did, his smile widened slightly. "Yes. Yes, it is. It always is."

"Always?"

"Most days, yes. Are you a traveler?"

"I am. My companions and I," Alistair gestured back toward Rainer and Raphael, who were watching from their horses about ten paces away, "We are passing through. We did not expect to find a town here. There is no town on our map."

"Oh, the maps are old, young man. The maps are very old."

"How old is your town, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?"

The old man considered this, slowly chewing his apple. "Hmm. Let me think. I was a boy when... no. No, I was already a young man, I think. My beard had come in. So. Forty years? Maybe forty-five. The town was here before, of course. Just very small. Very poor. We almost did not survive the winter that year."

"What winter?"

"The bad one," the old man smiled, but it had a different quality now - a softness around the edges that was almost sad, "The very bad winter. The crops had failed the autumn before. There was a blight on the wheat. Half the village died before the snows came. The other half started dying when the snows came. My wife died. My brother died. Three of my four children died. The oldest one lived. She has children of her own now. She is over there, in the blue dress, by the bridge."

Alistair followed his pointing finger. A woman of perhaps fifty was indeed standing by the bridge, in a clean blue dress, with two grandchildren beside her. She was smiling.

"I’m sorry," Alistair said quietly, "That sounds like a terrible time."

"It was the worst time. We were eating shoe leather. We were eating the bark off the trees. We had buried so many that we could not dig holes fast enough in the frozen ground. We were stacking the bodies in the old barn."

He said this still smiling gently. Alistair felt his Neon Gemstone pulse again, sharper this time.

"And then?" Alistair prompted.

"And then the Father came."

"The Father?"

"Yes. In the middle of the worst week. The week we knew we were all going to die. He came walking down the road from the north, in nothing but a simple white robe, in the middle of a blizzard. No cloak. No boots. Just walking. He was not cold. He was not hungry. He was the most beautiful man any of us had ever seen. I will never forget the moment I saw him. None of us will."

"Beautiful how?"

The old man’s watery eyes grew distant. "Like a painting. Like a painting of a saint. Tall. Slim. Eyes that looked at you and seemed to know you. He was kind. He went from house to house. He held the hands of the dying. He held my wife’s hand in her last hour. He was so gentle. He told her she was loved. He told her she was not alone. She died with a smile."

Alistair’s stomach was beginning to turn over slowly, but he kept his face neutral. "And what did the Father offer your town?"

"A bargain. He called us all to the square, the ones who could still walk, on the third day. He said that he loved us, and that he could not bear to see us suffer. He said that he had the power to make our land fertile. He said our wheat would grow even in winter. He said our children would not sicken. He said no one in this town would ever go hungry again."

"In exchange for?"

"Our Essence. A little of it. Just a little. He said we had so little Essence in us - we were common folk, only traces - and we used it for nothing important. We used it to dry clothes, or to sprint a few extra paces. Foolish little things. He said if we gave it to him, he could weave it into the land itself. He could change the weather. He could feed our children. He said it would not hurt at all. He said all we had to do was visit him in his chapel, and he would take only what we offered, no more."

The old man took another slow bite of his apple.

"We agreed. We all agreed. Of course we agreed. We were dying. And he saved us. He saved every single one of us who was still alive that week. The next morning, the snow stopped. By the next afternoon, the ground was green. By the next week, our wheat was growing. In December."

He chuckled softly. "We have not had a bad harvest since. We have not had a sick child since. We have not buried a healthy person under the age of ninety in forty-three years. My great-grandchildren have never known hunger. They do not know what it is."

"And you-" Alistair kept his voice very, very mild, "You still visit the chapel?"

"Every week. Or every other week. Whenever I feel I have something to give. It does not hurt. It is a beautiful feeling, actually. You go in, you kneel, you place your hand on the altar, and you feel a kind of warmth leaving you, and then you walk out, and the sun is warmer, and the bread tastes better, and you feel so deeply at peace. The Father always smiles. He always thanks each of us personally."

"He is still there? After forty-three years?"

"He has not aged a single day."

The old man’s pale blue eyes refocused on Alistair, suddenly, with a clarity that had not been there a moment before. "You are very interested, young man. Are you considering a visit yourself?"

Alistair smiled, and made the smile look small and grateful. "I might be. My friends and I have had a long road. Some peace would be welcome."

"You should go. He welcomes everyone. The chapel is at the end of the main road, just past the well. You cannot miss it. There will be others there. There is always a small line, but it moves quickly. He sees everyone."

"Thank you. I will."

Alistair stood up. The old man returned to his apple and his fountain-gazing, the soft smile already settling back over his features.

Alistair walked back to the horses slowly, his Neon Gemstone now pulsing in a steady, urgent rhythm against his sternum. By the time he reached Rainer and Raphael, his face had gone very still, and his red eyes were dark.

"What is it?" Rainer asked immediately, his voice low.

"It is a Bearer," Alistair said quietly. He did not mount up. He stood between the two horses, looking up at them, "Almost certainly. The old man described someone who has not aged in forty-three years. Beautiful. Tall. Came in a snowstorm, alone, in a robe, and made the land fertile."

"Which stone?" Rainer asked.

"I do not know yet. But the deal," Alistair’s mouth had thinned into a hard line, "The deal is the problem. They have been feeding him their Essence for forty-three years. Voluntarily. In exchange for prosperity. The entire town. Generations of it."

Raphael’s pink ears were flat against his skull. "Alistair. That is not right. Common folk only have trace Essence. If you take even a little from them, every week, for a lifetime-"

"It would not show," Alistair finished grimly, "Not in any one person. They would just be a little tired. A little vague. A little too peaceful. And after a few generations, it would be normal. They would not even know what they were missing. They would just think this was how people felt."

"And he is taking it and using it for what?" Rainer asked, "To enrich a single valley? Generations of stolen common Essence to grow flowers in autumn?"

"That is what I want to find out," Alistair looked toward the white chapel at the end of the long main street. From here, with the morning sun behind it, the building looked perfectly innocuous. A small line of townspeople was indeed visible at its door, waiting patiently. None of them looked unhappy. None of them looked coerced.

That, somehow, was the worst part.

"We are going to the chapel," Alistair said, "All three of us. But we go carefully. Rainer - do not draw your sword unless I say. Raphael - you stay behind me at all times, and if I tell you to run, you run, no arguing. Understood?"

"Understood," Rainer said tightly.

"Yes, Alistair," Raphael whispered.

Alistair swung up onto Honey’s saddle, settled Raphael behind him, and turned the mare toward the far end of the long, sun-drenched, terribly beautiful main street. The chapel’s bell, somewhere up in its narrow white spire, gave a single, soft, melodic chime in the late-morning air. As if it had been waiting for them.

Create your own scenario 🎀.