The days blur into a damp, aching rhythm.

Morning training in the wrecked square, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and char. Breakfast is a hurried, silent affair of hard bread and salted meat. Then more training, Sage's voice a steady drumbeat over their exhausted forms, drilling formations, elemental pairings, the brutal economy of a fight that doesn't end. At noon, they put theory to rubble.

They are taught the basics of construction: how to lift stone with earth, how to fuse cracks with focused heat, how to channel water to clear debris. Those with injuries sort salvageable timber or tend to the few cooking fires. Diego is everywhere. Arianda watches him one afternoon, his shirt discarded, muscles corded as he alone lifts a massive section of collapsed wall, the stone groaning as it rises. Villagers—Naturals with wary, grateful eyes—swarm around the cleared space without a word of instruction, as if they’ve done this dance with him before.

“He founded this place. That’s what Sage told me.” Simon says beside her, wiping sweat from his brow. They’re hauling broken furniture to a burn pile. “Just like the last town. And the one before that, I’d bet. He has a… thing for them. For Naturals.”

Arianda’s hands are raw from the rough wood. She looks at the villagers, at their easy, silent communication with Diego. A soft spot. The legend whispered in her mother’s kitchen surfaces: the Natural woman, the murdered child. The pieces don’t fit, but they hum against each other. That evening, after a tasteless stew, she finds Swan near their wagon, sorting medicinal herbs.

“Can I ask you something?” Arianda’s voice is quiet, almost lost in the twilight sounds of the recovering camp.

Swan looks up, her green eyes soft in the dim light. She smiles, a gentle curve of her lips. “Of course. Would you like some tea? It’s chilly.”

They sit on a low, salvaged bench, a small firepot between them. Swan prepares the tea with precise, economical movements. The steam carries the scent of mint and something earthy. Arianda wraps her hands around the offered clay cup, the heat seeping into her sore palms.

“Simon mentioned Diego founded these towns,” Arianda begins, watching the leaves swirl. “For Naturals.”

Swan nods, blowing softly on her own tea. “Yes. They hold a special place for him. A debt, he would say. Though he rarely says it.”

The firepot crackles. Arianda takes a breath, the question feeling too large for the quiet space between them. “The legend… the one about the child. Was that your child? His and yours?”

Swan’s breath catches. A faint, rosy blush spreads across her cheeks and she looks down into her cup, shaking her head. “No. Oh, no. That child… the one from the story, it was murdered. Long, long ago.” She meets Arianda’s gaze, a flustered, almost amused expression in her eyes. “Goodness, how old did you think I was?”

Arianda flushes herself. “I didn’t… I just thought…” She steadies herself. “The woman, then. In the legend. Was she a Natural?”

“Yes,” Swan says, her voice dropping into something more solemn. “That is my understanding, from what little Diego has opened up to me. She was.”

The admission hangs there. Arianda studies Swan’s face—the gentle lines, the silver curls, the kindness that seems woven into her. “Why are you so close to him, then? If it wasn’t you?”

The blush returns, deeper this time. Swan’s fingers trace the rim of her cup. “I was a tool to him, at first. A resource. He took me in because I knew more about the Quieting than anyone he’d met. I could recognize its traces, its… echo.” She pauses, choosing her words with care. “Over time, I suppose I became more than a tool. We grew close.”

“You knew more about it,” Arianda repeats. “How?”

Swan looks into the middle distance, past the firelight, into the dark ruins. “Because I did not arrive like you, Arianda. Like most. I was thirteen when I crossed into this world.” She meets Arianda’s watchful gaze. “When I woke I was older. Roughly the age you are approaching now. 18.”

Arianda’s cup stops halfway to her lips. “How?”

“Knowledge,” Swan whispers, as if the word itself is dangerous. “I experienced something, learned something, about the nature of the Vanishing and this world… before I fully arrived. That knowledge had a cost. The price was time. Years of my life, taken and applied here, before I ever stepped foot in Zoel. Apparently, the rules that govern age for us… they can be levied in advance, under certain conditions.”

A cold that has nothing to do with the night air seeps into Arianda’s bones. She thinks of the word in her notebook, the one she’s carried since home: *Listen*. “What did you learn?”

Swan’s expression closes, gentle but final. She shakes her head once. “That is a burden I cannot give you. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Knowing it… it leaves a mark. You have marks enough.” She reaches over and places a warm hand over Arianda’s. “Drink your tea. It will get cold.”

Arianda looks at their hands, then at Swan’s face—so familiar in its compassion, so alien in its experience. The blur of training days, the weight of stone, the ghost of Leo’s laugh, it all condenses into this single, chilling point: there are secrets that cost years. There are answers that age you before you can even ask the question.

She takes a sip. The tea is still warm. She holds the heat in her mouth, swallows it down, lets it sit in her stomach like a small, defiant coal. The desire to move forward, a tense wire in her chest since Leo died, pulls tighter. Not just toward the Zarinthar, or the Brood. Toward the truth. No matter the cost.

“Thank you,” Arianda says, her voice steady. “For the tea.”

Swan nods, her smile returning, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. They hold a sadness, a knowing, that makes Arianda feel very, very young. And more determined than ever not to stay that way.

The next morning feels no different. Cold air. Hard bread. Quiet. Arianda sits with Simon, Kira, and Lilith near one of the low-burning fires, a rough circle formed more out of habit than intention. No one speaks at first. The crackle of wood fills the space between them.

“Well,” Simon mutters, turning a piece of bread in his hands like it personally offended him, “if this is what rebuilding a town looks like, I’m officially retiring early.”

Lilith snorts softly. “You’ve been here, what, two weeks?”

“Long enough,” Simon shoots back. “I had a good run.”

A faint smile flickers across Arianda’s face, but it fades quickly. The thought has already returned, heavy and insistent. Swan’s words. The legend. “I asked Swan about Diego last night,” Arianda says.

That gets their attention. Kira straightens slightly, eyes sharpening. Lilith leans forward just enough to show interest. Simon pauses mid-bite.

“And?” Lilith asks.

Arianda hesitates, then commits. “The story… it’s real. Or at least parts of it are.”

Simon lowers the bread. “That’s not the comforting direction I was hoping for.”

“The woman,” Arianda continues, “she was a Natural.”

Kira nods immediately, as if that piece had already settled into place. “That aligns with his behavior. Resource allocation, settlement patterns… he prioritizes them.”

Simon glances between them. “You two are talking like he’s a math problem.”

“He kind of is,” Kira replies without missing a beat.

Lilith’s gaze stays on Arianda. “And the child?”

Arianda exhales slowly. “Also a Natural.”

The fire pops. Simon looks down at the ground, jaw tightening just slightly. “So the story got that part right.”

“Yes,” Arianda says quietly. “And… they were murdered.”

That lands. No one jokes for a moment. Lilith’s expression hardens, not with shock—but with confirmation. “That explains the Dragon Kingdom connection in the stories. It also clarifies why he can be so violent.”

Kira tilts her head. “Not just explains it. It reinforces it. If the target was a Natural family tied to someone like Diego…” She trails off, thinking. “That’s not random violence. That’s deliberate.”

Simon rubs the back of his neck. “Deliberate is worse.”

“It means motive,” Kira says.

“It means someone wanted to hurt him,” Lilith adds.

Arianda watches the fire, her fingers tightening slightly around the edge of her cup. “Swan said he doesn’t talk about it much. Just calls it a debt.”

Simon lets out a quiet breath. “That’s one way to describe it.”

“That kind of loss shapes behavior,” Kira says, almost to himself. “Explains why he builds these places. Why he protects them.”

“Or tries to,” Lilith corrects softly.

The words hang there. Simon shifts, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation is heading. He glances at Arianda, then back at the others. “So,” he says, forcing a bit of lightness back into his tone, “just to recap—our caravan leader is an ancient, super-strong merchant war legend with a tragic backstory, a personal vendetta, and a habit of founding entire towns for people who can’t defend themselves.” He pauses. “…we’re sure he’s on our side, right?”

Kira gives him a flat look. “Statistically, that seems preferable.”

Lilith shakes her head, though there’s the faintest hint of amusement at the corner of her mouth. “If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Simon considers that. “Fair. Still terrifying. But fair.”

Arianda finally looks up. “There’s more,” she says.

That pulls them back in again. Lilith’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“She was thirteen when she crossed over,” Arianda says. “But when she woke here… she was already older. Eighteen.”

Kira goes very still. “That shouldn’t be possible,” she says immediately.

Arianda meets her gaze. “Apparently, it is.”

Silence settles again, heavier this time. Lilith’s eyes narrow slightly. “What caused it?”

Arianda hesitates. “…knowledge.”

Simon lets out a quiet, incredulous laugh. “That seems a bit obscure. You are joking, right?”

“I’m not.”

Kira leans forward now, fully engaged. “What kind of knowledge?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Simon mutters.

Lilith studies Arianda carefully. “But she made it clear there was a cost.”

Arianda nods. Kira’s voice drops, more focused now than before. “So the system isn’t just reactive. It can… preemptively apply age based on what someone learns.”

“Apparently,” Arianda says.

Simon looks between them again, then gestures vaguely with his bread. “Okay, I’m going to say something, and I need at least one of you to tell me I’m overthinking it.” No one responds. He sighs. “Great. Love that for me.” He points toward Arianda. “You’re chasing answers. Big ones. About the Vanishing, the Quieting, all of it.”

Arianda doesn’t look away. Simon lowers his voice slightly. “What happens if you learn something like that?”

The question settles hard. For once, he doesn’t try to soften it. Kira doesn’t answer. Lilith doesn’t either. Arianda looks down at her cup, at the faint ripple of cooling liquid inside. “…then I, maybe I find Eleanor,” she says.

Simon watches her for a long moment. Then he exhales, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah. That tracks.” He takes another bite of his bread, chewing thoughtfully. “…still going to complain about the food, though. If I’m going to age prematurely, I’d at least like better seasoning.”

That finally earns a small, reluctant smile from Lilith. Kira just sighs. And Arianda… holds onto that moment of warmth for as long as it lasts.

The morning’s training session is a blur of repetition. Sage drills them on defensive stances, on shifting earth to create cover, on using a controlled burst of flame to obscure an advance. Arianda moves through the forms, her body remembering the motions from the blur of days before. Her mind, however, is elsewhere. It’s tracing the edges of Swan’s story, the terrifying arithmetic of knowledge and years.

During a water-break, Simon nudges her shoulder with his own. He doesn’t say anything. Just passes her the waterskin. His eyes meet hers—the usual sarcasm muted, replaced by something watchful, almost protective. It’s a silent question. *You okay?* Arianda takes the skin, drinks, and gives a small, firm nod. Not okay. But resolved. He seems to accept that, turning his attention back to where Kira is demonstrating a precise earth-shift to Lilith.

At noon, they return to the ruins. The work is less frantic now, more deliberate. They are clearing a foundation for a new hall. Arianda is paired with Simon, using focused heat to weaken mortar so he can pry stones loose with a crowbar and earth magic. The rhythm is meditative. Lift, heat, pry, clear. Her hands ache, but the pain is a grounding thing.

She looks across the site. Diego is there, of course. He’s not lifting a wall today, but directing a group of Natural villagers in setting a massive central beam. His voice is a low rumble, his gestures concise. The villagers listen, their faces showing trust, not fear. A debt, Swan called it. Arianda sees it now, etched in the way he stands between them and the open sky, in the careful way he checks each joint and brace.

Simon follows her gaze. He works the crowbar into a crack, grunting with effort. “He really does have a type, doesn’t he?”

Arianda doesn’t answer. She thinks of a story about a merchant, a woman, and a child. A story that ended in murder. She thinks of the quieting, of hollowed-out eyes in Fallow’s Gate. The pieces are jagged, but they are connecting. Forming a picture of a war so old its roots are legend.

Her fire gathers at her fingertips, not in a burst, but in a steady, penetrating warmth that seeps into the stone. The mortar crumbles to dust. Simon pulls the block free. They work in silence for a long time after that, the only sounds their breathing, the scrape of stone, and the distant calls of others rebuilding a world, piece by painful piece.

The fire burns low, more ember than flame.

Most of the camp has already settled into a quiet rhythm—tools put away, voices lowered, movement slowing as the day gives way to night. The work is done. For now.

Diego stands at the edge of the gathered group, the firelight catching along the lines of his face. He doesn’t raise his voice.

He doesn’t need to.

“We leave at first light,” he says.

That’s all.

A few heads turn. A few nod. No one argues.

Diego’s gaze sweeps over them once—not lingering, not softening—then he turns and walks off into the dark, already moving on from the moment.

The silence he leaves behind is heavier than before.

Simon exhales through his nose. “You know, where I’m from, people usually give a little more notice before uprooting your entire existence.”

Kira doesn’t look up from the small piece of wood she’s been turning in her hands. “We’ve had notice. You just didn’t like it.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Simon mutters.

Lilith shifts slightly closer to the fire, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “It was always temporary. We knew that.”

“Yeah,” Simon says. “Didn’t mean I had to enjoy knowing it.”

Arianda watches the embers shift, glowing and dimming in uneven rhythm. The town behind them is quieter now. Not fixed. Not whole. But standing.

Swan approaches without announcement, settling onto the edge of the circle with a soft rustle of fabric. She carries a small kettle, already warm.

“I thought you all might want something before the night settles in,” she says gently.

Simon brightens slightly. “Please tell me it’s better than whatever we’ve been calling tea the past few days.”

Swan smiles faintly. “It is, I assure you.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

She begins pouring, handing each of them a cup. The familiar scent of mint and something deeper—rooted, steady—drifts into the air.

Sherief steps into the edge of the firelight a moment later, as if he had always been there and simply chose to be seen now. His green robes shift softly with the breeze that never quite seems to touch anyone else.

He lowers himself to sit without a word.

Simon glances at him. “You always do that on purpose, don’t you?”

Sherief’s expression doesn’t change. “Do what?”

“Appear like some kind of… I don’t know. Thought.”

A faint pause.

“Most thoughts are quieter,” Sherief replies.

Lilith lets out a small breath that might have been a laugh.

For a while, they sit in silence, each holding their cup, watching the fire.

Kira is the first to break it.

“My world had noise,” she says, almost absently. “Constant noise. Machines, voices, movement. Even when it was quiet, it wasn’t really quiet.”

Simon nods immediately. “Yeah. Traffic. People yelling for no reason. Phones going off every five seconds.” He pauses. “…I kind of miss it.”

Lilith tilts her head slightly. “You miss people yelling?”

“I miss… knowing what things were,” Simon says. “You wake up, you know what your day is. School, work, whatever. There’s a… structure to it.”

Kira glances at him. “Predictability.”

“Yeah,” Simon says. “That.”

Swan listens, her hands wrapped loosely around her cup. “That certainty can be comforting.”

“And boring,” Lilith adds.

Simon points at her. “Exactly. Thank you. Boring. Which I would now very much like back.”

Arianda finally speaks, her voice quieter than the others. “I miss small things.”

They look at her.

“The way my house sounded in the morning,” she continues. “The same creaks in the floor. The same light through the window. Things that didn’t change.”

Her fingers tighten slightly around the cup. “Here… everything changes. Even when it looks the same.”

Sherief’s gaze shifts toward her, sharp but not unkind. “That is because here, nothing is held in place by time.”

Kira nods slowly. “It’s held in place by understanding.”

Simon leans back slightly. “I liked time better.”

“That is because time asks nothing of you,” Sherief says.

That lands more heavily than expected.

Simon frowns. “It definitely asked things of me.”

“Not like this,” Sherief replies.

The fire cracks softly between them.

Lilith looks into the flames. “So what happens when we go back?”

“To Zarinthar?” Simon asks.

Lilith shakes her head slightly. “No. After that.”

No one answers immediately.

Swan is the one who finally does.

“That,” she says gently, “depends on what each of you is willing to give.”

Simon lets out a quiet breath. “That’s not ominous at all.”

“It is honest,” Sherief says.

Kira’s grip tightens slightly around her cup. “Everything here seems to come back to that.”

“Because it does,” Swan replies.

Arianda watches the fire, the shifting light reflecting in her eyes.

Simon glances around the group, then shakes his head lightly. “You know, I used to worry about things like missing assignments. Being late. Forgetting to charge my phone.” He huffs a quiet laugh. “Now I’m sitting around a fire, talking about what I’m willing to give up to survive in a world that doesn’t even use clocks.”

Lilith’s lips curve faintly. “Perspective.”

“Terrible perspective,” Simon says. “Would not recommend.”

Kira exhales softly. “And yet, here you are.”

“Yeah,” Simon mutters. “…here I am.”

The fire settles lower.

No one rushes to fill the silence this time.

It isn’t as heavy as before.

Not lighter, exactly—but steadier. Shared.

Swan rises first, gathering the empty cups. “Get some rest,” she says softly. “Morning will come quickly.”

Simon groans under his breath. “It always does.”

Sherief stands as well, the faintest stir of air following him. “It always will.”

He steps away, disappearing into the dim beyond the firelight as quietly as he arrived.

One by one, the others begin to shift, to stand, to drift back toward their places for the night.

Arianda lingers a moment longer, watching the last of the embers glow.

Then she stands.

And follows.

The camp disperses into pockets of shadow and muted movement, the fire’s light shrinking to a faint, pulsing heart. Arianda watches Simon trudge toward the makeshift barracks, his shoulders slumped in theatrical defeat. Kira and Lilith walk side by side, speaking in low tones that don’t carry. Swan has vanished with the kettle.

Arianda stands alone for a full minute, the cool night air sharp against her warmed skin. The resolve from earlier is a solid, cold weight in her chest, but it doesn’t tell her what to do next. It just is.

She finds Swan by the herb wagon, its shelves lined with dark bottles and bundled plants. Swan is wiping down a mortar with a clean cloth, her movements slow and precise. Salem, the green rabbit, dozes in a woven basket nearby.

“You stayed,” Swan says without looking up. Her voice is soft, unsurprised.

“I have questions,” Arianda says.

Swan sets the mortar aside. She turns, her curly silver hair catching stray threads of moonlight. Her green eyes are patient. “About the crossing.”

“About the cost.”

A faint tension passes over Swan’s face, there and gone. She gestures to a stone bench set against the wagon’s wheel. “Sit.”

Arianda sits. The stone is cold through her trousers. Swan settles beside her, not quite touching. The night is quiet, the sounds of the camp now just the rustle of canvas and the distant call of a night bird.

“You said you paid in advance,” Arianda begins. “For knowledge.”

“I did.”

“How?”

Swan looks out into the dark. “When you cross, there is… a moment. A threshold. You can feel the possibilities. Like doors. Most children stumble through the nearest one, frightened, confused. They arrive as they are.” She pauses. “I crossed, consciously. I looked. And I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“A truth,” Swan says simply. “A terrible, necessary truth about why the crossings happen. About the war on the other side. To see it clearly, to carry it with me and not go mad… required a price. The system took five years of age. I woke in the Rabbit Kingdom, shortly before Sherief.”

Arianda’s throat feels tight. “You were alone?”

“Yes.”

“And Diego?”

Swan’s expression softens, becomes something private and pained. “He found us. Nearly two years later. I was… not well. The knowledge was a storm inside me. He didn’t ask. He just… stayed. Built a wall between me and the world until the storm passed.”

“And it helped?” Arianda whispers, understanding dawning. “Did he already know what you knew?”

Swan nods, a single, slow dip of her chin. “He had come across rumors. Merchants among his servants who heard of the abnormal girl. The one with white hair, whom they claimed she knew, the quieting.”

They sit in silence. Arianda traces the rough grain of the wood on the wagon beside her. “The knowledge you carry… is it about the Brood? The quieting?”

Swan’s gaze sharpens, turns inward. “It is about the source. The first theft. The reason our world bleeds children here every 121 years.” Her hands clasp in her lap, knuckles white. “I cannot tell you, Arianda. The price for speaking it is not mine to pay. It would be yours. And you are not ready.”

“How will I know when I am?”

“You will stop asking the question,” Swan says, her voice barely a breath. “You will already know the answer. And you will be willing to pay for it.”

A chill that has nothing to do with the night settles over Arianda. She thinks of her notebook, of the single word ‘Listen’. She thinks of Leo’s empty eyes, of the hollowed victims in Fallow’s Gate. The pieces are not just connecting. They are forming a chain. And she is holding one end.

Swan reaches over then. She doesn’t touch Arianda’s hand. Instead, her fingers brush a strand of dark hair back from Arianda’s temple, the gesture so maternal it makes Arianda’s chest ache. “You are so brave,” Swan murmurs. “And so young. I wish neither of those things had to be true.”

Arianda studies her—the silver hair, the green eyes, the calm that seems to steady everything around her. She recalls the dream, Swan holding a notebook. That familiar notebook.

The Notebook with the words ‘Listen’ inscribed in it. She looks harder at Swan.

Not Eleanor.

Eleanor had red hair.

Her grandmother had remembered that clearly.

“You’ve heard me mention Eleanor before,” Arianda says. “Did you know her?”

Swan’s hand stills. Her eyes close for a long moment. When they open, her gaze looks distant. “Yes,” she says, the word a surrender. “I knew her.”

Arianda doesn’t breathe. The night holds still.

Swan stands abruptly, the moment shattering. “Sleep, Arianda. The road at first light is long, and it leads toward answers, not away from them.” She turns, her figure blending into the shadow of the wagon. “And Arianda, I am proud of the growth you have shown these last two weeks.”