Dawn slid in as a pale seam along the reed-tops. Mist clung low; camp broke down in the usual quiet way: buckles, straps, a few soft coughs; small sounds that felt familiar to all of them by now.

“We keep a close up formation,” Aldryn said. “Same order as yesterday.” He tested the ground with his staff: mud, then a dull knock, like stone under wet skin. “Watch your footing. We’ll take the higher road through the arches.”

They filed off the knuckle of dry earth and into a channel where roots arched overhead, black fungus lacquered along their undersides. The air had that cold-iron smell of a forge before it’s lit.

Kestel left Jaxson’s glove, climbed, then stalled under the first arch as if he’d hit a ceiling, screeched once in surprise and frustration, and dropped back down to Jaxson’s arm. Eira refused to fly altogether, pacing Kiera’s pack and shoulders with a low hoot. Thorne shadowed Boaz’s knee, whiskers forward; Mika’s hackles stood. Tink crept into Theo’s hood and stayed there, fingers flexing.

Boaz felt the Sigil like a warmed coin at his chest: steady, not bright. It had burned hotter for less. They slid under the first arch. Thin rims of fungus ringed the wood; when Shaye’s scabbard brushed one, it unraveled into lace without a sound. The silence that followed wasn’t blank; it felt deliberate, like a room that had just been tidied.

“Left edge is soft,” Aldryn said.

“I see it,” Boaz answered, and heard the bluntness in his own voice. He let it go and tried again, quieter. “I’ve got it.” That didn’t sound much better.

Theo tested ahead with the butt of a hand axe. “Firm here.”

“Looks slick,” Jaxson said.

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Theo said, and it was: a dry plate under the muck, but the word landed wrong, and both of them knew it.

They moved on. The glade listened. Not with birds or frogs, those were elsewhere, but with a small echo that didn’t belong, and seemed to have no source. More than once, when someone spoke, the last word came back to them a finger’s width out of time, like a whisper repeating it badly.

Kiera pointed at a narrow seam where root met black water. “Mind this. It drops off quick.”

“I know,” Shaye said, stepping long to avoid it. Telen followed and gave Kiera a short nod. Ordinary words, ordinary moves. Still, each thanks, each warning, landed off by a hair, as if the space between them had been rubbed with grit.

Lyra touched the damp bark with two fingers and pulled away at once. “Feels charged,” she said. “Like before a storm.” The pressure was there if you paid attention: a steady, low hum under normal sound, same pitch as the hush in old churches.

They ducked under the second arch. Here the fungus drew back from faint lines in the bark, leaving thin, clean paths as if it respected some old marks on it. Elsewhere it hung thickly in hems and skirts. In a shallow, cupped place where water had puddled, then dried, the stuff leaned toward the path the way grass leans toward the sun.

“Hold your spacing,” Boaz said. “Keep the same pace as we head through this.”

“I am, no need to remind me,” Jaxson said. He tripped a little, clipped his bow tip on a root, and muttered.

They came to a pool no bigger than a door. A ripple crossed it without wind. Boaz glanced down and didn’t trust what he saw in the water: a pale trunk bending at an angle that didn’t exist, a narrow silhouette that wasn’t theirs. When he looked straight on, the reflection corrected itself like a caught lie. He put a hand to his shirt and touched the Sigil. Still warm. Watching. Waiting.

“Arches thin ahead,” Aldryn said. “Once we see grass again, we turn southeast.” They went on. The hum pressed closer whenever anyone tried to be kind. When Kiera offered Shaye her canteen, the gesture felt like pity. When Telen lifted a low branch for Lyra, her “thanks” sounded sarcastic in her own mouth. Even small courtesies slid a little off true.

A measured twig-snap came from somewhere behind, too clean for an animal. Everyone heard it. No one turned. The arches thinned. Reeds fell away in a pale fringe. Wind found the crowns of pale-barked trees: the first honest sound they’d heard in days. The ground lifted half a hand and held. By rights, tempers should have eased with the daylight and the firmer footing.

They didn’t.

Whatever had climbed aboard in the arches climbed off the marsh with them and stayed close. Boaz kept his eyes on Aldryn’s staff, on the steady left-right tap. He could feel the right words stack up in his chest and come out flat or a shade too hard. It wasn’t just tiredness. It wasn’t just nerves. Something had its thumb on the scale.

He didn’t name it. He didn’t have to. The others felt it too. They stepped toward the lighter ground. The marsh watched them go.

The path lifted into scrub and old roots. The reeds dwindled behind them; the air lost its mold-sweet and took on dry leaf and bark. In the distance, pale trunks stood in loose ranks, bark peeling in long curls. A good day to make time.

“Take the high track,” Telen said, choosing the track that held firm.

Theo hitched his pack. “Strap’s rubbing. I’m going to shift…”

“Not in the path,” Jaxson said. “Fix it when we stop.”

Theo let his arms fall. “It’s a buckle, not a rebuild.”

“And it can wait,” Jaxson said. The words weren’t a shout, but they landed sharp. Kestel twitched on his glove; Jaxson blew out a breath and added, softer, “Just… five minutes.”

“Fine,” Theo said. It wasn’t.

Lyra fell in beside Kiera. “You’re humming,” she said.

Kiera blinked. “It helps.”

“Well, it’s putting my teeth on edge,” Lyra said, then grimaced, already regretting it.

“I’ll stop then,” Kiera said, short. She didn’t look at Lyra. The two of them walked close, not touching, feeling the small scrape of it like a burr in a boot.

Shaye reached to lift a thorned runner from the trail. “Mind your…”

“I see it,” Telen said, too curt. He caught himself, eased it. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” she said, and meant it, and still felt stung.

They topped a small rise where the ground showed the ghost of old stone under turf. The track widened into two wagon ruts long since softened by seasons. Jaxson took advantage, lengthened his stride, and the line stretched.

“Hold the spacing,” Boaz said. “No gaps.”

“We’re fine,” Jaxson said, eyes on the long line of trees ahead.

“Just keep us tight,” Boaz said. He kept his tone even. It still felt like a scold in his own ears.

“Plenty tight,” Jaxson said. “We’re not in the marsh anymore.”

Theo tapped the edge of a loose paving stone with his boot. “We’re not out of it either.” He kept the rest to himself.

Aldryn’s staff checked them. “Water here,” he said, nodding at a clear runnel slipping over polished rock. “Quick drink. Then we push to that stand.” He pointed through the trees to a low ring of stones mostly covered by brush. “Shelter enough to breathe.”

They drank. Eira refused to perch and paced, head bobbing in the wind; Kestel jittered and settled, jittered and settled. Thorne stayed close to Boaz’s thigh, eyes on the brush. The Sigil warmed and cooled in a slow pulse, as if matching a heartbeat that wasn’t Boaz’s.

Theo reached for his strap again. “Two seconds. It’s digging a groove.”

“Do it,” Boaz said. “Fast.”

Theo slipped the buckle, shifted weight, and snapped it home.

“Better?” Jaxson asked, without looking up. It sounded like an accusation.

“Yeah,” Theo said, then couldn’t stop himself. “Thanks for permission.”

Jaxson turned. “I said it was fine.”

“You said not to,” Theo answered. “Then you said it was fine. Pick one.”

“Both of you, enough,” Aldryn said. Even, firm. The kind of check that usually set the line right.

It didn’t. The old man’s mouth thinned. He looked at Jaxson. “You’re not twelve. Think before you snap.” He pivoted to Theo. “And you don’t need to win every small thing. Let it go.”

Kiera stared at Aldryn. Shaye did, too. The words weren’t strange on their own; what made everyone go still was the bite in them. Aldryn didn’t speak that way. Not to his own.

Aldryn seemed to hear himself a beat late. He looked down at the staff in his hand and then away. “We’re all tired,” he said. The apology was there, thin as paper.

Boaz rubbed the heel of his hand against his sternum. The Sigil felt warmer than before, not a warning, just awake. He met Jaxson’s eye. “We keep moving,” he said. “We’re close.”

“Fine,” Jaxson said. He faced forward and went, too fast.

Lyra stepped down off a root wrong, caught herself on a pale trunk, and jerked her hand back. A faint smear of black had ringed the bark at knee-height, thin as soot. Fungus, this far from the reed line. Kiera saw it too. They shared a look. Neither said anything. The smear felt like a thumbprint left on purpose.

Wind came through the pale trees and carried a curl of ash-scent. Ahead, through brush, the ring of low stones showed itself more clearly now: an old Traveler’s Rest. The kind of place roads remembered.

“We’ll be there in ten minutes, and we can stop,” Boaz said.

Behind them, in the scrub they’d just crossed, a twig snapped again the way it had in the marsh: clean, measured. The wind lifted and set the sound back down as if it had done it.

They stepped off the rise toward the stone ring. The ground was firm underfoot. The air felt wider. Their words should have eased with the distance from the water.

Instead, every small thing wanted to catch fire. Boaz kept the line tight. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. Whatever had put its hand on them at dawn had not taken it away.

The track should have helped. It ran clean along the spine of a low rise, dry underfoot, pale trunks in loose ranks on either side. Wind moved through the curls of bark and made a plain, steady sound. The marsh lay behind them.

The irritation between them didn’t fade. Instead, it got worse.

Jaxson quickened at the front, hungry to be done with bad ground. His bow bumped the butt of Theo’s crossbow with a hollow knock.

“Keep that tight,” Jaxson said without turning. “You’re swinging it around.”

“It’s lashed,” Theo said. “You bumped it.”

“You walked in front of me,” Jaxson shot back.

“So go around,” Theo said. He meant it like a shrug. It landed like a shove.

Kestel twitched on Jaxson’s glove and lifted, then settled again. Tink’s small hands worked at the edge of Theo’s hood, twisting a thread.

Boaz brought them in. “Let’s keep two paces between: no rushing, and no crowding. We’ll all get there at the same time.”

“Sure. Got it,” Jaxson said, and swung his arms in a bowing gesture. The gesture was bigger than it needed to be.

Lyra and Kiera came off a side-slope together where loose stone showed under grass. Kiera put a hand out. “Watch your right.”

“I see it,” Lyra said, stepping clean. “I don’t need a nurse.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Kiera said. She kept her voice level. “You slipped back there, and you were likely to do it again.”

“I caught myself,” Lyra said. “I usually do.” She tried to soften it and failed. The day had trimmed everything down to the blade.

Shaye held aloft a low-hanging branch from the trail so Telen could pass. “Left is clear.”

“I have eyes,” he said; too curt.

Aldryn’s staff ticked once against stone, then resumed its pace. He frowned at the ground as if reading something there. They topped a little shoulder and the faint curve of low stones showed more plainly through brush ahead, a ring half-swallowed by turf: Travelers’ Rest. The air held a curl of ash-scent, the kind you get from a fire that had burned a day ago.

“Five minutes more,” Boaz said. “Then we stop there.”

Lyra rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Pressure’s worse out here.”

Kiera glanced up. “Headache?”

“Not yet. It’s like the thought is already decided and I’m just catching up.”

Kiera didn’t laugh. “Same.”

They dropped into a shallow dip where a trickle worked over polished stones. Jaxson stepped from stone to stone and turned without thinking to give Theo a hand across.

“I don’t need your help,” Theo said, too fast. He made the jump and stumbled anyway. His boot clipped Jaxson’s heel.

Jaxson wheeled. “Mind your feet.”

“I said I had it,” Theo snapped. “If you’d stop cutting in…”

“If you’d stop tinkering with everything, we’d move,” Jaxson said. “Every mile is a project.”

“My project kept you alive in the marsh,” Theo said.

“And got you stuck in the causeway,” Jaxson said. “I dragged you out.”

“That’s not how it…” Theo stopped. He heard himself. His jaw worked. “Forget it.”

Aldryn set his staff across the path. “Enough. Save it for whatever is setting us against each other.” The line halted. The words were simple. The sting in them wasn’t. Aldryn rarely planted his staff like a bar.

Kiera looked at him. “You feel it too.”

“Yes,” he said. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

They went on.

The further they walked, the clearer their memories of the marsh became, as if someone kept turning up the contrast: the moment Kiera refused a canteen she’d wanted, the way Shaye’s thanks had sounded like a flinch, the tone Boaz had used when he thought he’d spoken gently. Each remembered scrape arrived polished, sharper than it had been when it happened.

A patch of bark to their left wore a faint smear of black at knee-height, thin as soot, a ring with a notch in it. It shouldn’t have been there this far from water. Kiera slowed. Lyra saw it too. They didn’t speak, but both of them tightened their grip on nothing.

The wind shifted against itself, a short wrong turn that lifted the hair on Boaz’s arms. Thorne’s whiskers hunted the air. Eira refused a perch again and paced, head cocked, as if listening for a sound the rest of them couldn’t catch. Kestel’s head tracked a gap between trunks where nothing moved. For a blink, Boaz thought he saw a tall shape standing still in the trees. He blinked again and it was a pale trunk, ordinary as the rest. He told himself the same thing he’d been telling himself all day. It felt thin.

They threaded a narrow place where the track ran between old stump and a spill of stone. Theo bumped the stump with his hip; it shed a crumble of punky wood and a spray of black dust that shouldn’t have been there. He coughed, turned his head, and spit.

Jaxson waved it away. “Watch it.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Theo snapped.

“I didn’t say you did,” Jaxson said. “Just, watch it.”

“Both of you, let it go,” Boaz said. He kept his tone flat, a carpenter’s level. It still sounded like a clamp.

Shaye brushed past a low branch and it snagged her sleeve. She tugged, impatient, and the cloth gave with a sharp little rip.

Telen reached for the tear. “Hold. I can…”

“Don’t,” she said, taking her arm back. “It’s a sleeve.”

“It will catch again,” he said. “Let me pin it.”

“It’s fine,” she said, and then, because it felt like a door closing, added quieter, “Later.”

He nodded. Neither felt better.

The echo came back then, the one they’d started noticing under the arches: just enough late to be wrong. Theo said “Later,” a breath after Shaye. Lyra flinched, head turning.

“Did you…” she began.

“Yeah,” Theo said. He didn’t want to talk about it.

Aldryn’s hand tightened on the staff. “Keep moving.”

“Almost there,” Boaz said. He kept his eyes on the ring ahead. A low place in the brush showed a dark line of stones, each shoulder-high to a child, set with the care of hands that had known what they were doing.

The ground rose one last time. Boaz lifted his hand to slow them and realized his palm was damp. The Sigil had warmed without flaring: heat with nowhere to go. He didn’t like the way that felt.

“Jax,” he said, using the shorter name he saved for when he needed Jaxson to hear him as a friend and not a lead. “Ease up. We go in together.”

Jaxson’s shoulders stayed high for a step, two, then loosened a notch. “Together,” he said. It was an agreement. It sounded grudging.

Theo let a breath out, the kind you don’t realize you’ve been holding. “Just get under that stone,” he said.

They crested the rise.

The Traveler’s Rest waited in a shallow bowl: a simple ring of stones in the grass, ash faint in the dirt between them as if fires had burned there long and often. Someone had cleared it once; someone had kept it.

The circle should have felt like a relief.

It didn’t. Not yet.

The ring had very low walls and no roof. Just a place people had agreed, long ago, to stop being strangers.

It should have been relief.

Jaxson cut straight through the gap in the stones and stepped onto the ash.

“Jax,” Theo said, catching. “We bring these to life the same way every time.”

“It’s stones,” Jaxson said. “Not a shrine.”

“It matters,” Theo said.

“Only because you need it to,” Jaxson said, already regretting the bite in it and unable to remove it.

Shaye pointed at a thin soot ring on the near stone: almost a circle, notched at one side. “This mark again.”

“Too far from water for fungus,” Telen said. The words came out hard. He didn’t mean them to.

Aldryn set his staff on the lip of the ash and went still, palms open, as if feeling for a pulse. The air felt heavy with unsaid things.

“The lantern posts fell away on the north and south,” Boaz said, mostly to just call out how it must’ve been arranged. “Keep the center clear until…”

“Until you touch it,” Lyra said, too flat. “And the world rearranges itself to suit your purposes.”

Kiera flinched. “That isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t,” Lyra said, massaging her brow. “I know. I don’t know why I’m…”

Theo unlashed his crossbow; Jaxson stepped into the same space. The butt knocked Jaxson’s knee; his elbow caught Theo’s strap and jerked it.

“Watch it,” Jaxson snapped.

“You walked into me,” Theo shot back.

“Stop,” Boaz said, the word tasting like iron. The hum that had haunted the morning pressed close, layering a thin, ugly copy on top of every sentence. Even apologies scraped.

Jaxson’s thumb found a sword hilt; Theo’s fingers closed on an axe-haft. Lyra’s mouth opened on something she wasn’t going to mean. Kiera’s hand rose half an inch toward Boaz, then stopped as if the air had weight.

Boaz didn’t think. He seized the Sigil.

Heat took him like metal remembering it was fire. Not a blaze, but pressure, bright and clean as new-forged steel. Light ran from his palm and rushed low along the ground, then up through the stones as if the place had been thirsting.

The ring of stones answered.

Moss sloughed in soft sheets as the low stones set their shoulders and rose. From each, a narrow post shouldered up, socketed into hidden mortises as if the earth had kept them ready. Lintels slid into place with the small, authoritative sounds of joints seating. Between the uprights, pale planks knit themselves from nothing Boaz could name: grain running true, seams tight, then darkened as though oiled. Window openings widened, shutters swung and latched. At the circle’s rim, two taller posts climbed higher and bent toward each other; a ridge-beam grew between them, then rafters leapt out like rib bones reclaimed. A roof shook dew from itself and settled: a skin of fitted shakes capped with a narrow vent for smoke.

Inside the ring, the ash heaved in a quiet breath and took form. An iron stove shouldered up from the dirt and sighed once as it found heat. Its stovepipe ran up and neatly into the new roof’s vent. From a waist-high stone near the door-frame, a spout of clear water pressed through, filled a shallow basin, and overflowed into a cut channel that hadn’t been there a heartbeat before. Bench-seats unfolded from the walls; pegs and shelves presented themselves; a broom leaned where a broom ought to lean. Two narrow bunks unfurled their slatted frames along the lee side with woolen rolls stacked above like a promise. Lamps kindled along hooks: steady, honey-bright, without wick or flint.

The smell changed. Cold iron thinned under clean ash and warm resin. The wrong echo cut off mid-word. So did the hum.

Jaxson’s hand came off his sword as if it weighed too much. Theo’s grip slackened. Both of them stepped back, breathless, like men who’d been leaned on by something huge and were no longer. Lyra blinked, then again, the hard edge leaving her shoulders by degrees. Kiera’s stalled hand finished its motion and hovered near Boaz’s forearm.

“Burned?” she asked.

He shook his head. His palm throbbed where the Sigil had pressed, but the skin was whole. The light thinned back to a warm coin against his chest.

Aldryn’s eyes tracked the soot-notch as it peeled from the stone and folded into nothing like frost lifting off glass. He looked older for a breath, then steadied. “Whatever it was, it was upon us,” he said, plain. “But not us.”

No one argued.

At the threshold, the air drew a line. Inside: stillness, warmth, water, the steady tick of iron finding its heat. Outside: the wind, the pale trunks, the brush keeping its secrets. Between two trees beyond the new wall, a tall shape stood too straight for this forest. The lamplight made the space honest, and the shape thinned and went out like a breath held too long.

Thorne’s ruff settled; Mika shook herself and huffed; Kestel took the new perch of a window crossbar with relief. Eira ghosted to the basin, dipped her beak, and was satisfied. Shaye ran her fingers along the inside of the wall as if to test whether it would hold. It did.

Boaz exhaled. The shelter felt like memory made present. It was built to a pattern older than any of them and perfectly sure of its purpose.

“We stay here,” he said. “Water first, food next, then we talk.”

Jaxson’s jaw unclenched. “Yeah,” he said, rough. “Yeah.”

Theo set his crossbow on a peg and put his hand out to feel the warmth of the stove as if to be certain of it. “It’s real,” he said, half to himself.

Lyra moved to a shutter and eased it closed. The wind softened to a murmur. “Better,” she said, the word at last landing the way she meant it.

Kiera laid a hand on Boaz’s sleeve. “Thank you,” she said simply.

He nodded once. The Sigil lay quiet, but awake.

Aldryn stood in the doorway, looking out into the pale trees and the ordinary wind. “Whatever set its hand on us will try again,” he said. “But not in here.” He tapped the threshold with the staff: once, a craftsman’s approval. “For now, we’re under a good roof.”

The stove ticked. Water ran. Lamps held. The place remembered them as travelers and made room, and for the first time all day the company could breathe the same air without it turning to blades.

They ate with their backs to the new walls and their faces to the stove. The iron ticked softly. Comforting steam lifted from tin cups. The shelter held the heat and turned their breath into ordinary air again.

No one hurried the first words.

Jaxson broke. “Theo,” he said, eyes on the stove door. “I was out of line. Strap, pace, all of it. I kept pushing.” He looked up and made himself hold it. “I’m sorry.”

Theo let out a breath he’d been holding since the causeway. “I make everything a project,” he said, lopsided. “And I was looking for a fight. I’m sorry.” He stuck out a hand. Jaxson took it and squeezed once, hard. The tension in the room dropped half a notch.

Lyra turned to Kiera. “I shouldn’t have snapped about the humming,” she said. “It wasn’t you. It was the day… leaning on things.”

Kiera’s mouth softened. “I could have let it pass,” she said. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.” She lifted the kettle, poured water into Lyra’s cup with the tea leaves, and passed it on. Small as it was, the act landed right.

Shaye looked at the tear in her sleeve, not looking at Telen. “I shouldn’t have bit,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have told you where to put your feet,” Telen said. “Old habit. I’m sorry.” He took her forearm and pinned the tear with two neat ties from his kit. It held.

Aldryn stood at the threshold a long breath, watching the wind thread the pale trunks. When he faced them, the usual dry tilt was gone from his mouth. “I spoke sharp,” he said. “That wasn’t just temper.” He tapped his temple. “Something climbed in and turned little things wrong. I felt it.” He glanced at Jaxson and Theo. “On you. On me.”

Jaxson nodded once. Theo did too.

“What was it?” Lyra asked.

“I don’t know,” Aldryn said. “Not a creature I’ve met. Not only the marsh.” He frowned. “It used those arches like a tool. Pushed on whatever space was already between our words.”

Kiera looked to Boaz. “Are you sure you didn’t burn your hand?”

“Yeah,” he said. The palm still throbbed where the Sigil had pressed, but the skin was whole. “It hurt. It stopped.” He worked the hand once and settled it on his knee. “The Rest answered fast.”

“Faster than Beltin,” Theo said, glancing around at the lamp glow and fitted joinery. He couldn’t help himself; he admired it. “Doors true. Joints tight. Like it had been here all along and forgot. When I saw it as a ring of stones, I thought it looked older and less-used than the others.”

Boaz nodded. “Feels that way.”

They let the stove talk for a while: the soft settle of iron, the faint run of water to the basin. Outside, wind worked the trees; the shelter made a sound like a house thinking.

Kestel took the window crossbar. Eira stood over the basin and blinked slow. Mika sprawled with her head on Lyra’s boot. Thorne lay along Boaz’s shins, a warm weight holding him to the floor.

“Whatever it was,” Shaye said, “it wanted us separate.”

“Then we make that harder,” Jaxson said. “Simple rules.”

Theo held up a finger. “If something feels off, say it out loud. Don’t let it grow.”

Lyra added, “If a word lands wrong, ask for the thought behind it.”

Kiera: “No finishing each other’s sentences today. Let people speak for themselves.”

Telen: “Keep the spacing on the move. Keep watch over each other, as we always do.”

Shaye thought, then: “And if we hear that late echo again, we stop. No more talking over it.”

Aldryn looked at Boaz. “And you?”

Boaz rubbed his palm on his trouser leg and met each of them in turn. “We stay together. If something leans on us, we halt before it decides the next step.” He glanced at Jaxson. “We don’t worry about getting ahead.” He glanced at Theo. “We fix the strap when it needs fixing.” He let the corner of his mouth move, just a little. “We keep it boring.”

“That I can do,” Theo said. He meant it. The room felt safer for the plainness of it.

Kiera reached into her pocket and set Tessa’s riverbone charm on the bench: a smooth white loop, polished. “Don’t lose each other,” she said, the words soft but steady. “That’s how they win.”

They all knew who “they” was and wasn’t. They let the charm sit where they could see it.

Aldryn poured water over his hands and wiped them clean, a habit from no one could say where. “We’ll sleep under this roof,” he said, “and go at first light. The Wolhaven Forlaith starts in earnest two miles on. Pale bark and wolves enough to make the name honest.” He tipped his chin toward the shutter. “Whatever set its hand on us may be waiting in there too. But not here.”

Boaz set watches anyway. No one argued. When the lamps dimmed themselves to a warm ring and the stove’s breathing leveled out, he stood at the doorway for a time and watched the trees. Twice he thought he saw a man where a trunk should be. Twice, when he focused, it was only a trunk, ordinary and pale.

He let the shutter down.

Inside, the shelter held. Ash settled. Water ran. Their words, when they traded a few more, landed the way they meant them. Before they turned in, Boaz touched the Sigil through his shirt. It lay quiet and warm. “Together,” he said, mostly to himself, and then to the room: “Together.”

“Together,” they answered, one by one, like checking a latch.

Outside, somewhere far off, a single howl lifted and fell along the treeline: thin with distance, not threat. The wind took it away. The stove ticked. The night closed its hands around the little house the road had remembered, and for a while nothing leaned on them at all.

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