There was no definitive border crossing from Ecclesia into Porta. We avoided Arx Argenta and took a more rural path. I was disappointed about not being able to see Captain Corwin's headquarters, but knowing myself, I’d get embroiled in something that wasn’t my business to sort out. Other soldiers, however, broke off routinely to continue communications with the rest of the world. The road we followed continued unbroken between the two countries, and no one was interested in questioning our motives for entry. The only real difference between Ecclesia and Porta was that towns became more spread out in Porta as the grasslands shrank, thinning into patches of dry, sun-bleached weeds. The hills around us broke apart, giving way to rugged, uneven expanses of rocky soil. Small, stubborn shrubs with thick, dark leaves began to cling to the roadside, earning my grudging and distant respect.
“Even Aurum avoids them,” I noted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen branches so gnarled and spiky at the same time. It’s almost like they’re stabbing themselves just as much as anyone else.”
“I think it helps keep them in place,” Captain Sonea replied from atop her mount. “The winter winds blow constantly through this corridor. There’s nothing much around here to stop them.” She raised her hand to shield her eyes and surveyed the expanse before us. “We’ll turn south here for a bit. There’s something you should see before we continue to Bastione Bianco on the frontlines—it won’t take long.”
After speaking with a few knights, Relias, Captain Sonea, and I broke off onto a crossroad, taking a small squad with us. While I knew I wasn’t traveling for pleasure, I had hoped that “something” would be at least a little scenic. Colorful striations cut into the rocks, a big sky—maybe even a whole lot of nothing.
Instead, it was the burnt-out husk of what was once a large village.
Blackened timbers jutted up at the entrance like skeletal fingers, their scorched edges bent inward, clawing in despair at the uncaring sky. A weak but acrid scent of charred wood and ash assaulted my nose, carried by errant gusts of wind. Debris was everywhere—broken and burned carts, shattered tools, even a twisted iron signpost leaned precariously near the entrance as though half-yanked free by a giant’s hand.
Closer to the center of the village, the destruction became more deliberate. Entire homes had been reduced to crumbling piles of rubble. Jagged fragments of clay walls still stood, their surfaces riddled with deep cracks, blackened and scorched. The skeletal frame of a lone chimney still stood amidst the wreckage, its stones cracked and stained with soot, with a dark, unholy halo of ash spreading out around its base.
After dropping from the saddle, since it felt wrong to ride through the ruins, my gaze froze on a message seared into the largest boulder near the town square. The rock’s surface was discolored and split, but the faint shimmer of sooty words read:
“Only Demons Walk the Southern Wastes.”
The letters felt almost alive, their crimson light pulsing faintly in time with the erratic gusts of wind. I took a step closer, squinting at the fiery script. The edges of the rock’s surface had melted and run away from the corners of the letters like wax, suggesting that the message had been carved with powerful, destructive magic.
“Demonic fire,” Relias murmured from behind me, anticipating my question. “It won’t fade until the caster is dead—or until the rock itself crumbles.”
Captain Sonea gestured at the ruins. “Three months ago, Wayhearth was a hub of trade. Humans, hybrids, and even the animals were wiped out overnight. No survivors.” She turned and pointed off to the northwest, where the world had broken way from the flat lands to form high cliffs. “There were some distant witnesses on the ridges up there. They said the air tore open above the town, and liquid fire poured down like molten rain from a shattered forge, consuming everything it touched before it was recalled through the rip, sealing the edges closed.”
“Recalled through the rip in the air?” I asked. “You mean the fire flowed upward, back into the portal?”
Captain Sonea nodded just twice. “Several testified as such.”
I stared at the ridge in the distance, searching for any distinct landmark. “There’s no way they saw who did it, right? I can’t even see houses from here.”
“Hollow-holds,” Sonea corrected. “Look at the shadows—see how the entrances don’t sit flush with the rockface?”
“Maybe,” I conceded, noting a few black dots in the high rock face. “Still, they weren’t able to describe the perpetrators?”
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“Captain… The fire just poured out of the portal a few minutes after it appeared. There were no physical forms to witness.”
“Understood…” I turned away to help hold back a sigh, only to freeze.
A wave of Animus pulsed from the squad that had accompanied us, shimmering like heat off stone.
“Relias… Do you see that?” I pointed at the group of about two dozen riders, most armed with a crossbow. A few in the middle, however, bore swords at their hips. “I can’t tell which one is producing it, but…”
“Animus?” he squinted, then sighed. “A slight haze is all I can discern, and even then, no clear source.”
“Maybe we should get out of here,” I murmured. Every soldier’s face was twisted in rage and pain as they stared at the wreckage, and I was quite certain that the longer we stayed, the more likely someone would snap. “We’ve seen what we needed to see, right, Captain?”
Captain Sonea nodded as she mounted her horse once more. “I’ll take point.”
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Only Demons Walk the Southern Wastes.
The phrase stuck in my mind that night, needling in my brain like an unseen splinter.
Walk? Demons walk? Since when are they so casual?
No, that’s not the problem with the phrase.
“Yoohoo. Speranza to Rae, come in, Rae,” Nora teased, nudging me.
“Rae is unable to report,” I replied, my eyes still fixed on our campfire. “She’s off in her own world.”
Nora poked my shoulder. “And what’s it like there?”
“Simple. Quiet. Food-filled.”
I didn’t want to bother her with such a stupid concern over a single sentence.
“You look troubled,” Nora pressed. “Is this about the Animus?”
It should have been. I’d already checked the squad over, even given them a pep talk. Captain Sonea had priests on alert. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pinpoint its source.
“Only demons walk the Southern Wastes,” I muttered. “It’s obviously a warning for humanity, but what does it mean? We already know they’re in the Southern Wastes. If I were going to spend all that energy carving something in stone, I’d sure as hell make it more meaningful.”
Or at least add some choice expletives.
Nora frowned. “Where are the Southern Wastes, exactly?”
I blinked. “You know, west of Porta? Southern Wastes?”
“No,” Nora objected. “That’s just the southern edge of the Wastelands.”
I waved my hand. “Same thing, same thing.”
“Not necessarily.”
I grit my teeth. “Wastes. Wasteland. They both mean barren land!”
Nora pulled out the map. “There is no place called the Southern Wastes, see? But you told me that phrase on the stone had it capitalized as if it was a proper location.”
“Semantics!” I shouted.
“Is there a map in that hero manual of yours?”
“Yeah, a few, actually. Hold on.”
Anything to prove she was making a mountain out of a molehill.
I pulled out the book from my cloak and turned to the first one, which didn’t resemble Speranza in the slightest. “Hmm. This one won’t help. Porta’s not even on it. And forget it for estimating distance– the cartographer must have been a drunkard.”
Nora took the book and continued to look through it. “Porta’s not on any of them except this one, and even then, it’s a whole lot smaller, see?”
She was right, of course.
“So?” I grunted. “Maps change all the time. Remember the one in high school? They refused to buy a new one and just kept redrawing the borders with different colored markers. Heck, some of the countries couldn’t even agree on what their name was because of all the fighting over… oh…”
Nora sniffed, her not-so-subtle sign of victory. “Maybe to the demons, this isn’t Porta. It’s the Southern Wastes.” She glanced back at her map. “So maybe the message was just saying ‘GTFO.’”
It made more sense… and everything else more complicated. Had Porta been annexed? When, exactly?
I sighed and stood up. “Well, no one’s going to comply with the message now, are they? It's much too late for that.”
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“The otherworlder. She is too casual with you.”
My eyes flew open, though there was only darkness to see. I was in my tent alone, the sides still faintly sparkling from Relias’s ward.
“She does not defer to your words. She argues with you in public. She does not address you by your rightful title,” Raeanne Ironwrath criticized in my mind, each sentence landing harder than the last. “She called me human.”
Well, of course she did, that’s what you were! It wasn’t an insult.
There was a long pause, and I rolled over, anticipating part two of my slumber.
“I am not stating my observations merely for the pleasure of irritating you. I am making a point.”
Look. Nora is my best friend and—
“She is your weakness, just as Relias was mine. Demons will use her against you, one way or another.”
It’s not like I’m going to tell them that Nora is—
“They already know. The Sergeant and her accomplice have surely reported on interactions with all your party members. She is the most targetable now. Warn her.”
You like her too, don’t you?
“Do not ask stupid questions. It does not matter what I think of her.”
I’m sorry for yelling at you before. I’ve—
"Do not apologize, either. It is a sign of weakness! Merely… merely… forget it happened. I already have."
Well, this feels awkward. Maybe she was just a big ol’ tsundere?
“Do you not realize I can hear your thoughts? As my junior, you are to least attempt to comply with my orders!”
Fine! I’ll warn her!
I smacked my bedroll—half fluffing it, half attacking it—before throwing my head back with a frustrated groan and squeezing my eyes shut.
And good night to you, ma’am!
There was no initial response. Just when I thought she was finally gone, her voice hissed one last time, soft yet sharp: “Remember, weakness will be the death of you both.”