The way back to the carriage felt longer than it had ever been. Luna leaned into me heavily, one arm draped over my shoulders, her weight more emotional than physical. Shock dulled her every step. Her breathing was shallow, and her legs dragged across the uneven ground. The night was quiet now—uncomfortably so—as if the world itself was holding its breath after what we’d seen.

  By the time we reached the carriage, the first hints of dawn were painting the sky a dull gray. Luna barely made it through the door before she collapsed onto the wooden floor with a soft thud. The mage inside—our unwilling travel companion—was less than thrilled to be disturbed at such an hour. She sat up slowly, her glare sharp enough to cut steel. Her eyes were fixed on me, a venomous stare that promised pain and retribution, though she said nothing aloud. Still, her gaze held a flicker of color—a shade of blue I’d never seen before. Not anger. Not fear. Not sorrow. Something other. Something unreadable.

  I knelt beside Luna and gently spread a few worn blankets on the floor. She didn’t protest as I rolled her onto them, her small frame limp, her eyes barely fluttering before she drifted off to sleep. Her breathing steadied at last, and only then did I step back into the chill of the early morning.

  Across from the carriage was a small tent, barely more than canvas draped over a frame. I peeked inside to find Tom snoring softly, sprawled out in a tangled mess of limbs and blankets. He stirred, grumbling as I shook him awake.

  “Can you ride a horse?” I asked in a low voice, skipping any pleasantries. I wasn’t in the mood.

  Tom blinked in the darkness, still groggy. “I can,” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his face.

  “Good. I want you to ride with the supply corps tomorrow. Ask for Markus to accompany you, I doubt he’ll say no.”

  He stared at me, brows drawn together in confusion, as if trying to parse a puzzle far more complex than it was meant to be. “Why?”

  “You’re asking too many questions,” I muttered, already turning away.

  “Do I have to remind you,” he said, voice firm despite the sleep clinging to it, “that you recruited me for this?” He tapped his temple. “Not this.” He motioned toward my sword.

  I stopped, reluctantly acknowledging his point.

  “There have been murders,” I admitted, keeping my voice low. “Strange ones. Too clean. Too perfect. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. It’s unnatural. There’s no pattern—except one. None of them happened in the supply corps.”

  He was listening now, wide awake.

  “Tonight, I met someone from their ranks. Claimed to be Colonel Hannibal Smith. Knew my name. Knew Luna’s name. That’s impossible unless someone higher up is leaking information. A few minutes later, he killed himself. Drove a blade through his own skull. Didn’t say a word. No hesitation.”

  Tom winced slightly but didn’t interrupt.

  “I don’t know what he was—spy, puppet, murderer, something else. But I know what he wasn’t: ordinary. This whole thing reeks. And if there’s even a shred of a chance someone in the supply corps is involved, I need eyes there.”

  He frowned. “So you’re saying this is some organized effort? A coordinated group killing off random soldiers and vanishing without a trace? Willing to die to keep a secret?”

  “I know how it sounds,” I replied, folding my arms. “It sounds insane. But what other explanation is there? These weren’t murders for money, for revenge, for chaos. They were executions—precise, silent, clean. There’s something bigger here, and I don’t know what it is yet. But you’re smart. Observant. Maybe you’ll see something I can’t.”

  Tom was quiet for a moment, the weight of the request settling over him.

  “Alright,” he finally said. “I’ll look into it.”

  Neither of us believed it would be that easy. But it was a start.

  “One last thing,” I said, pausing just before leaving the tent. “If someone tries to approach you—don’t be a hero. Run.”

  Tom let out a low chuckle, muffled as he buried his face back into the pillow. “Your concern honours me,” he murmured, half amused, half exhausted.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I muttered, my voice dry as bone, and let the tent flap fall behind me.

  The night had deepened. The air was colder now, biting at my skin through the cloak I pulled tighter around me. A sudden gust of wind swept across the camp, whistling through tents and tugging at the edges of the canvas. I paused in my step, eyes drawn upward as a great black vulture soared past the moon, blotting it out for the briefest second before diving into the darkness beyond. A bad omen, if I believed in such things.

  And maybe tonight, I did.

  I climbed back into the carriage with slow, deliberate movements, not wanting to disturb the silence that had settled like frost. Luna was already asleep—or rather, unconscious from the weight of exhaustion and trauma. I lay down beside her, slipping under the blanket and gently pulling her closer to share warmth. She stirred slightly, instinctively curling in, but didn’t wake.

  The dread still lingered in my chest. We weren’t dealing with ordinary murderers—no matter what the reports or excuses might say. These were fanatics, or worse. They were precise, controlled, and terrifyingly willing to die for whatever cause they served. I needed help—more than I had—but I had no idea where to find it. Trust was rare, and allies were rarer still.

  My gaze drifted across the carriage to the woman sitting upright on the bench, now unmistakably awake. Her posture was straight, alert—like she had never really been asleep at all.

  “Will you tell me your name now?” I asked quietly, the question floating into the hush like a fragile thread. I expected deflection. Silence. Maybe another cryptic evasion.

  But instead, she surprised me.

  “No…” she began, but then paused. Her tone shifted, softening slightly. “Wait. It is better if you know it.”

  She gave a faint smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “My name is Reruoved. I was born in the Highlands, so… forgive the oddness of my name.”

  I watched her closely. The smile looked unfamiliar on her face, like a mask that hadn’t been worn in years and no longer fit properly. She looked… wrong with it. Not deceitful—just out of practice. Rusted, maybe.

  “I’ve heard worse names,” I replied, trying to sound casual, though my mind was already working. The Highlands. That explained the accent, perhaps. The aloofness. But there was still so much I didn’t know about her. Her presence was quiet but unsettling, like a mirror you couldn’t quite look into directly.

  I glanced at her eyes again, searching for something familiar—some trace of emotion, of intent. But tonight, they shimmered with a strange shade of yellow I had never seen before. It wasn’t fear or sorrow. It wasn’t hate or joy.

  And then she said something that made my skin crawl.

  “Sleep,” she murmured, voice low and almost gentle. “It isn’t good when such a young girl stays up this late.”

  The words felt too practiced, too rehearsed—like something someone had read once in a book about how to comfort others. But there was no real concern behind them. No warmth. Just observation.

  I didn’t answer her. I just turned toward Luna again and closed my eyes, holding her a little tighter as the chill of the night settled deep into my bones while thinking about the mage.

  Was she trying to be kind? To offer comfort in her own strange way? Or had our conversation simply worn her patience so thin that she hoped I’d finally shut up and leave her in peace? I couldn’t tell. Her face had been carved from something too unreadable—too practiced. A smile, words of concern… but all delivered like a monologue from a forgotten play. Not false, exactly. Just empty.

  I let out a slow, inaudible sigh and turned my back to her, my arm instinctively curling around Luna. She was still fast asleep, breathing softly, her fingers twitching occasionally as if dreaming of something just out of reach. I closed my eyes, not because I was ready to sleep, but because there was nothing else to do—nothing that could take my mind off the storm still spinning behind my temples.

  Sleep didn’t come easily.

  I lay there, staring at the darkness behind my eyelids, my mind spinning over every detail I’d uncovered—or failed to. The murders had started just after the tent burned down. Coincidence? Or had my reckless action given these fanatics the perfect opening? The timing was just too perfect, too clean. And what of the man who had known my name? That couldn’t be ignored. He shouldn’t have known it.

  Was I connected to these deaths in a way I hadn’t yet understood?

  The thought clawed at me, tightening around my gut. I wasn’t just chasing phantoms—I was drifting closer and closer to their circle. If they weren’t already circling me.

  I tossed in place, my arm tightening briefly around Luna, who mumbled in her sleep but didn’t stir. Hours passed—or maybe just minutes; I couldn’t tell. The carriage was quiet. Too quiet. Even the world outside had dulled to a hush, broken only by the occasional wind pressing softly against the canvas.

  Eventually, the rustle of movement broke the silence.

  Reruoved shifted.

  I didn’t move. I only listened as she stood with a grace that barely made a sound. Then came the soft creak of the carriage door opening, letting in a burst of morning air tinged with dew and smoke. Sunlight cut across my face like a blade. It warmed my cheeks and lit the inside of my eyelids in a deep red.

  She was probably hungry, I thought hazily. Or simply done pretending to sleep.

  I blinked once, squinting into the brightness—but my body, weary and stretched thin by a night of tension and fruitless thinking, gave up. My mind drifted as my breath steadied. And somewhere between the scent of old blankets and the fading footsteps outside, sleep finally took me—not because I wanted it, but because I had no strength left to resist.

  And in the moments just before I surrendered to the dark, one final thought whispered through the cracks of my mind:

  If they know my name... what else do they know?