Jean and Misha were among the last to leave the village. Their way was littered with discarded clothing, broken carts, and too-heavy heirlooms. Misha stopped wailing only briefly as they passed through the southern gate so she could look back at their home. "They're starting fires," she said between gasps.

Jean did not reply. He kept the horse as close to the center of the road as he could while Misha dissolved back into tears. He kept moving long after it was safe to do so. Many of the other villagers had already stopped, their campfires visible off the sides of the road in the deepening gloom of the falling Void. Some would call out to them, but Jean kept going. It was too close to the village. The orcs would kill them all.

He finally pulled the cart to the side of the road when the dark got so thick that he could see embers burning in their horse's milky eyes. He fished the fire starter out of his satchel and rushed to work. "I could use some help, Misha," he said.

"Just let the Void take us," she said, voice still slurred with tears.

"Misha, please," Jean said, holding up a burning brand. The horse stared at it, unblinking. "I only have the one torch, and it won't last all night."

"Papa is dead, Jean!" Misha shouted. "How can you not—"

Whatever Misha had been going to say was interrupted by a howl from the darkness that was far too close. The two cats stared into the unbroken black in silence until their horse whinnied back to whatever had howled. "We don't have time, Misha," Jean said. "Syn will take us both."

Misha glanced at him, her tail bristling. "One of these bags should be lanterns," she said. She climbed into the back of the cart and began rummaging around. "That should be enough to keep the tent bright tonight."

"We need to get a fire going or we'll lose our horse," Jean said.

Misha growled. "Going with what?" she asked. She pulled a pair of lanterns from a bag and hopped out of the cart. "We didn't have time to pack firewood."

Jean lit one of the lanterns. "Only one," he said. "The oil has to last." Then he raised his torch and looked around. He couldn't tell where they were exactly. Without the sun to keep it at bay, the Void itself crept down from the sky and devoured everything, leaving only unbroken darkness behind. Syn itself, the Eternal Nightmare, god of darkness and monsters, wandered the black looking for those foolish enough to stray from the light, to pull them back up into the endless night of the Void with it.

But any firewood was out in the darkness, and without a sizable source of light that would last through the night, their half-feral horse was unlikely to resist the Nightmare's call. Jean hissed. "There's a forest along the east side of the south road," he said. "I'll be able to find wood there."

Misha swatted him. "You can't go into the forest at night!" she said.

"The torch will keep me safe," Jean said. "And I don't have to go in far. I can collect branches along the fringes."

"Jean!" Misha shouted.

"Misha, please," Jean said. "The only other way is to burn the cart." The two stared at each other unblinking. The striped fur of Misha's face was wet and matted. Jean felt his own tears begin to rise and looked away before they could. "It can't be far," he said, looking out into the darkness. "You'll be able to see my torch the entire time."

Misha took a shuddering breath. "Fine," she said. "I'll start getting our beds set up. But don't you dare let that torch go out, Jean Le Roux."

Jean scurried away before she could change her mind. The trees beside the road quickly came into view in the flickering light of his torch, which did not go out as he gathered several piles of fallen twigs and branches. Twice he heard something large rustling deeper within the trees, but when he raised his light, there was nothing there. It took him several trips to carry back what he hoped would be enough fuel to last through the night. Soon, their smoky campfire flickered in the weak breeze of the night.

"Get some sleep," Jean said. "I'll take the first firewatch." Misha whined a challenge, but Jean shook his head. "I won't be able to sleep, Misha. Not after those trips into the dark. You can take over after you get some sleep."

She stared at him a moment longer before she shook her head. "Fine," she said. She crawled over to the makeshift lean-to she had set up against the side of the cart, taking the lantern with her. Jean watched the lamplight dim once she was out of sight and listened to her settle into her bedroll. He also listened to her weep again before her breathing evened and slowed.

Jean still did not cry. He fed the fire another branch and watched it dance. Within the flames, he could see Wulfgar driving a spear through his father. Or was it a sheep? Or was there a difference? If he looked to the north, he could see the glow of his burning home behind the rolling hills. Was Wulfgar watching those flames the way Jean watched his own? What did he see? Did Jean or his slain father occupy as much of the orc's mind as the orc did of Jean's?

Misha did not stir through the night, and Jean did not wake her. He stared into the flames until the sun began as always to rise behind the trees to the east. Only once he could see enough to know that Syn's children no longer stalked the countryside did he crawl into the lean-to, nudge Misha awake, and pass out atop his thin bedroll.

Misha tried to let him sleep, but the other cats on the road were less considerate. All the groups they had passed the night before were now passing them. The travelers would call greetings or warnings, and from a half-awake daze, Jean could hear Misha try to shush them. "My family's sleeping," she would say. "We'll start moving soon." But it wasn't the loud voices that ended up waking Jean. It was the quiet ones.

Jean's pricked up his ears, trying to hear something that had pierced his restless and dreamless sleep. Misha was talking to somebody in a low murmur, and he could not make out what she was saying. The voice that replied was also too quiet to understand, but Jean could still make out its owner. Jean crawled out of the lean-to, blinking in the light of the risen sun.

René spotted Jean before Misha, but the orange tom said nothing as she continued to fuss over his arm. He'd removed his loose shirt, and Misha was tearing it up to fashion a sling and bandages. Jean and René stared at each other, tails twitching, until Misha noticed Jean.

"Oh!" she said. "I'm sorry. Did we wake you?"

"No," Jean lied. "René."

"Jean," René replied.

"Don't," Misha said. "Not now. I know you don't like each other, but I can't…" Her voice broke, and she shook her head.

Jean looked down. "Sorry," he said.

"We'll behave," René told Misha. "And I'll be on my way once you're done."

Misha didn't reply, but her ears drooped. Jean sighed. "You can ride with us," he said. René blinked at him. "It's your cart," Jean went on. "And it doesn't look like you still have a flock of sheep."

René chuckled. "Not one of my better deals, I'll admit," he said.

"The firewatch will be easier with more than two people too," Misha said.

"Two?" René asked. "What about—" He cut himself off and his ears flattened. Misha took several shuddering breaths, and Jean stared at the ground, thrashing his tail. René looked at Misha. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Misha shook her head. "Strays are bad luck," she said, her voice trembling. "I was afraid you'd leave."

René's tail bristled. "I've been a stray for ten years," he said with a hiss. "I'm not going to pretend you don't exist just because you don't have parents."

A covered wagon, pulled by a pair of blindfolded oxen, crested the hill to the north, and the three young cats waited in silence while it rumbled towards them. Jean recognized the driver as M. Brun, the local butcher. His daughter, Coral, sat on the seat beside him. Jean often sold them sheep, and they always paid him well. But as the wagon approached, the two of them barely looked at Jean and the others. Jean flexed his claws. He knew that they'd seen René and had not seen Jean and Misha's father. Jean watched Coral as they passed. She glanced at him once, saw him staring, and quickly looked back down into her lap. Jean shook his head and, without a word, began to strike their lean-to.

----------------------------------------

The survivors of the attack on Champ-sur-Branche stuck mostly together for the first three days in a giant caravan stretching for miles through the mountains of northeastern Amin. Jean would watch the other families sometimes when he, Misha, and René rested atop one of the foothills the road climbed. The other cats seemed to be treating their march west as something akin to a road trip. The orcs had, intentionally or not, telegraphed their attack well in advance, so nobody else that Jean could see had lost family members. Which meant that everybody else stayed well away from the band of strays at the back of the line.

There were only two main roads leading out of Champ-sur-Branche. Since the orcs were coming in on the western road along the north coast of the continent, the refugees followed the road leading south and west to Lac-Azur, a trading post along the banks of its eponymous lake. Lac-Azur was much smaller than Champ-sur-Branche, serving mostly as a rest stop and supply station for settlers or traders heading farther east. From what Jean could gather as they tried to find a place to stay in the now-overcrowded village, the locals were not pleased to learn that "East" now meant "Orcs."

"No luck," René said, coming out of the only other hostel in the village. "They're full too."

Misha sighed. "Another night on the ground won't kill us," she said.

Jean was only half listening. He'd spotted a group of the councilors from Champ-sur-Branche speaking with some older cats Jean didn't recognize across the town plaza. Their conversation seemed heated.

"Can you hear what they're saying?" René asked.

Jean shook his head. "There's too much noise," he said. He gestured around at all the other cats crowding the plaza. "But we could head that way to look for a place to camp."

"We shouldn't eavesdrop on the council," Misha said.

"Why not?" René asked.

Jean flattened his ears. He hated agreeing with René. "Normally you'd be right, Misha," he said. "But it could be important. And they're not going to make a point to tell the three of us anything." Misha wrung her tail but didn't protest further as Jean began leading the horse across the plaza.

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"I'm telling you," Mayor Cartier was saying. "It will be safest if we all travel together."

"You can't expect everybody to just leave," said an older cat Jean didn't recognize.

"Do you think we wanted to?" M. Brun asked.

"Look," said Mayor Cartier. "We went over this. The Horde is in Champ-sur-Branhe. You know they're not just going to stop there. And there's only one way they can go."

"They might stay closer to the coast," said the old cat. "Lac-Azur is well inland. And there's nothing here. They want the dragons, not us."

"They didn't seem picky to me," said another councilor.

M. Brun spotted Jean and glared at him while the other adults continued to argue. Jean glared back, eyes wide and tail twitching, until they passed the group. Jean and René were silent as they walked through the village. Misha began to cry again. They still weren't safe. The orcs would come here too.

They kept walking, aimless and silent, until they reached the shore of Lac Azur. There they found a flat spot above the rocky beach and began to make camp. "Is this it?" Misha asked. "Are the orcs really going to get us?"

"Of course not," René said. "There are plenty of places we can go."

"Where?" Misha asked. "Where can we go that the orcs won't come?"

"They've never managed to take Purrí," René said.

"Purrí?" Misha asked.

"Have you ever been to Purrí?" Jean asked.

René shook his head. "I'd always wanted to go. I even—" He paused briefly and glanced at Misha. "…acquired a map of the continent from some of the Unsatisfied Architect's cultists that passed through. I never made it farther than Le Col-de-Colonne out west, though."

"Do you still have the map?" Jean asked.

René went to the cart and grabbed his satchel. "I always keep it with me," he said.

They all crowded around the cracking parchment. The coast of Amin was sketched out in fine detail. "It looks like the side of someone's head," Misha said.

"The nose is too long," Jean said. "And where are the ears?"

René pointed to the northeast corner at the back of the head. "This is Champ-sur-Branche," he said.

Jean spotted a large, inland lake not far from there and pointed it out. "This must be Lac Azur then," he said.

"Oh!" Misha said, pointing towards the center of the continent. "Purrí is marked!"

"That's not too far," Jean said.

"Ah," René said. "But see this?" He pointed out a wide, jagged line running north and south between Lac Azur and Purrí. "The Spine of Amin."

Jean groaned. "Are those void mountains?" he asked.

René nodded. "They stretch past the air and scrape the Void itself," he said. He pointed out two more marks on the map. "The only ways through are north at Le Col-de-Colonne or south through Al Naar."

"The north way looks shorter," Jean said.

"It is," said René. "By almost an entire round. The stories say the Al Naar Forest is haunted too."

"Really?" Misha asked.

"It's one of the Revelations of Nilamaak," René said. He closed his eyes and began to recite. "As I neared the completion of my work creating Serinor, the Eternal Nightmare became enraged and began to tear apart what I had made. The Eldritch One was forced to turn its attention away from aiding me in my work of creation to lead the fight against the unending swarms of the Children of the Nightmare. And so, the raw power of creation bequeathed to me by the Eldritch One remains uneven throughout Serinor, even to this day. Let the places where this power pools be known as Wild, for there the rules that govern Serinor grow thin." René opened his eyes. "The Architect cultists kept a list of the wild zones they'd found, but the only one I recognized was Al Naar."

"You're a very good storyteller," Misha said.

"Thanks," said René. "The cults were the only ones that would take me in when I couldn't fend for myself. Their stories were all I had for a very long time."

"Cults?" Jean asked. "As in more than one?"

René pulled his ears back. "Yes," he said. "And yes, even the Shadow cult, if that's what you're asking. Syn is a god too."

"It's fine," Misha said, glaring at Jean. "Can you tell us another story while we make camp?"

René told them of the creation of Serinor as told by the Eldritch cult. It began with the endless nothingness of the Void, where dwelt Syn, the Eternal Nightmare. Then came the Eldritch One, god of time and fate, along with its followers: Nilamaak, the Unsatisfied Architect, and the Abriasha, the Unnumbered Ancestors. Syn sensed them immediately and came to devour them. But the Eldritch One fought back to defend its followers, for it alone was a match for the Eternal Nightmare. For years they fought, and the force of their battle gave rise to a mighty flame within the Void. Thus was created the sun.

Even as the battle raged, the Eldritch One used its power over time to give to its followers its own essence and bade them create. Nilamaak, the god of places, used his power to create a world, setting about it the seas and skies, the forests and the mountains. The Eldritch One called it good and named it Serinor. The Abriasha, the gods of peoples, took one of the Unsatisfied Architect's forests and used their power to wake the trees, giving them sentience and song. The Eldritch One called them good and named them Kinohi. Then Syn, the god of darkness and monsters, felt the new world in the void and grew yet more furious. It sent its children to destroy the new world and its people, since Syn itself could not disengage from its fight with the Eldritch One. But the Eldritch One used its power over fate to twist the minds of the greatest of the Children of Nightmare so that no longer would they be bound to their master. The Eldritch One called them good and named them dragons.

René's stories made the work go quickly, and soon they were able to settle in for the day. Misha had René tell story after story straight up until the sun began to set. Jean volunteered for the first firewatch, and Misha and René crawled into the lean-to against the cart. Then, when the Void had fallen and the others were asleep, Jean rose and walked to the edge of the black. He knew he should not. But tonight, he found he didn't care. He could see the glow of scattered campfires, but nothing else. Without the sun, there was nothing to cast light by which he could see. He shivered. It was called the Void for a reason. It felt as though there were nothing left to see, as if the darkness truly had devoured the entire world, leaving nothing for the sun to illuminate the next morning. The night had a weight that pressed in on him.

Then something large brushed against him, knocking him to his knees. A sharp, warm wind blew him over, and the fire behind him went out, its embers scattering to the sky.

Jean gasped and scrambled back to his feet. He cast around in the darkness, but he could not find his bearings. Even the distant fires he'd seen earlier had vanished. "Misha!" he called out. He spun around, trying to find purchase on something, anything, and froze. The embers of his fire had become thousands of points of light, twinkling in the distance. He'd never seen anything like it. It was beautiful.

But the dark laughter that rolled through the night was not. Jean's blood ran cold. The stories had been true.

"You're a brave one," the shadowy voice said. Jean looked around, trying to find its source. He found himself surrounded by the distant lights on all sides, but there was nobody in sight. "I don't often see the Abriashas' children away from their pitiful lights."

Something raw inside of Jean began to throb. For some reason, he realized then that he hadn't cried since they left Champ-sur-Branche. "Have you come to take me then?" Jean shouted into the night. He continued a slow turn, trying to challenge each light individually.

He was not expecting to see a dragon behind him. He cried out and fell over backwards when its enormous head snaked down to look him in the eye. It was black, a color he didn't know dragons came in. Though it was difficult to see in the darkness of the Void, he could pick it out its movements by the hole it left among the points of light.

"You really are a brave one, aren't you?" it said, bringing its face close to Jean's. Jean scrabbled backwards across the rough ground. Its head had to be twice as big as he was. "I could take you now. I do so enjoy unmaking the Abriashas' work." It smiled, and its alabaster teeth seemed to gleam in the darkness.

"Do it!" Jean shouted. "Just take me away."

The dark laughter rolled again through the night. "I will not," the dragon said. Its jaws did not move when it spoke, and its voice came not from its throat but from all around. "If you are so eager to end your meaningless existence, then head west tomorrow. My children will be waiting for you at Ekas Ildum. You and the rest of your people." Laughing a final time, the dragon beat its great wings and took to the air.

The wind from its wings kicked up a choking cloud of dust, and Jean covered his face and coughed until it was over. When he opened his eyes, the distant lights were gone, and he could see the faint glow of the embers from his fire scattered about the ground.

Jean put his hands to his face. He felt his muzzle, his whiskers, his ears. It was still his face. His hands. But whoever had faced down the Eternal Nightmare in the darkness had not been him. It had been somebody tortured. Somebody broken. Somebody who felt guilty for leaving their home. For abandoning their father's body. For trusting the orcs. Somebody who wanted to cry. Who wanted to mourn. Who just wanted it to end.

Jean rebuilt the fire but didn't wake either Misha or René the rest of the night. René woke when the sun began to crest the horizon. The orange tom crawled out of the lean-to and frowned at Jean. "Why didn't you wake us?" he asked.

Jean looked at him then glanced at the lean-to. "Is she still asleep?" he whispered.

René's eye's narrowed. "Yes," he replied, also in a whisper. He took a seat beside the fire with Jean.

Jean took a deep breath. "The fire went out last night," Jean whispered. René's tail bushed out, and every hair on his body seemed to stand on end, but he did not make a noise. "I got it going again. Obviously. But not before…" He took another deep breath. "Not before Syn came."

René gasped. "It didn’t—" he shouted, then clapped a hand over his mouth and looked at the cart. He continued in a fierce whisper. "It didn't take you?"

"I'm still here," Jean said. He rubbed his eyes "It just talked to me."

René's jaw dropped. "You're Void-touched," he said after an uncomfortable pause.

Jean buried his face in his hands and shook his head. But still he did not cry. "A Void-touched stray," he said. "It may as well have taken me."

The two toms sat in silence for a long while. Part of Jean hoped that this would finally be what drove René away. That Jean was finally monster enough to keep René away from his sister. Eventually, René cleared his throat. "What did Syn say?" he asked.

Jean looked at him in surprise. "What?" he asked.

"What did Syn say?" René repeated.

"Why do you want to hear anything the Eternal Nightmare has to say?" Jean asked.

René chuckled and stared into the dying campfire. "I told you, I spent time with the Shadow cult too," he said. "Not long. The cost for what they were offering was too high." He glanced sideways at Jean. "But you've already paid it, and Syn is a god too."

Jean began to laugh but stopped himself with a choked cough. He sounded too much like the dark laughter in the Void. "It said it wouldn't take me," he said. "And that if I wanted to get taken, to go west. Its children would be waiting at…" Jean shook his head. "I didn't recognize the name. Or even the language."

"That's a good thing," René said. "Only Syn's Chosen can understand the language of the monsters. It means the Eternal Nightmare didn't get its fangs too deep into you."

"Maybe," Jean said. "But it doesn't matter. We can't trust Syn."

"I don't know," René said. "Even the Ancestor cult agrees that Syn never lies. 'What use has a nightmare for lies?'" he recited. "'It knows our fears, and truth bites deeper than falsehood.'"

"You're saying I should listen to it?" Jean asked. "But what if it was telling the truth? It said its children would take everybody who goes west."

"I guess we should head to Al Naar then," René said.

Jean stood up. "But we have to warn the others," he said. "They'll die if they go west!"

René shushed him. "Warn them how?" he asked in a hissing whisper. "That the Eternal Nightmare told you to tell them to go south?"

Jean turned away. The scattered campfires he'd watched the night before were gone now. He could instead see the campsites themselves and the cats in them going about their morning business. They already hated him because he had no parents. How much more would they hate him if they learned he was on speaking terms with Syn? How would M. Brun glare at him knowing he was Void-touched? Jean leaned his head back to stare into the brightening sky. M. Brun wouldn't just glare. He'd come after Jean with his cleaver while his daughter watched.

But thinking of Coral brought Jean back to the ground. He shook his head. "We have to do something," he said.

"Yes," René agreed. "We have to go south."

"But we can keep them from walking into Syn's maw," Jean said.

"No," said René. "We can't. They have to do that on their own."

"We have to do something!" Jean said.

René sighed and scratched between his ears. "I might be able to start some rumors," he said. "They won't believe me if I tell them not to head west, but if I mention in passing that I heard some travelers say there's monsters around Le Col-de-Colonne, maybe it'll convince at least some of them to take the longer route. Especially if they see us heading out that way first."

Jean let out a huge breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Thank you," he said.

René shook his head. "I don't know that it'll do much," he said.

"It's better than nothing," Jean said. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the dragonforged gold Wulfgar had given him. "Here," he said, giving the gold to René. "You can use this to buy supplies in town. It'll give you a chance to talk to people."

René stared at the gold, eyes wide. "Where did you get this?" he asked.

Jean clenched a fist. Images of an impaled sheep and an impaled cat flashed through his mind. "From an orc," he said. "He bought some sheep."

René gaped at him. "You…" he said, then shook his head. "You are something else, Jean Le Roux." René stood and stretched. "Get everything packed up. I'd like to be on the road by midday."

Jean watched René saunter back towards Lac-Azur. "Something else, huh?" he muttered. He looked down at his hands, extending and retracting his claws. He still looked Purrisien. But Wulfgar had looked small. So the small could be deadly too. And Wulfgar didn't bear the touch of the Void.

Jean laughed again, and again cut himself off at the memory of Syn's laughter in the dark. With a shuddering breath and a shake of his hands, he turned to wake Misha and begin striking camp.