Shallin breathed a sigh of relief amidst her confusion. At least that confirms I’ve reached Pellago, she thought. Ants continued to swarm over the former queen until they had consumed what remained. The girl kept her head to the ground the entire time as Shallin watched.

“What do you mean? What change comes?”

A hand, rough and large, settled on her shoulder. “The war, of course,” a man spoke, his deep voice gravelly, befitting his immense size. She flinched unwittingly. “Welcome to the Kindred, child.”

She resented the implication. Her sword swung free as she turned to face the newcomer. He towered above her, his well-trimmed brown beard brushing against his broad chest. In the crook of his arm he held a hoe that rested on his shoulder. I suppose to a man that large, I might appear to be a child, she considered. But that doesn’t mean he should make that assumption. He laughed at her.

“Why’d you sneak up on me like that?” she asked, more than a little embarrassed it had happened, so in thrall to the spectacle of ants she’d been. If Frain had witnessed it, she would never have heard the end of it.

“We have that effect. What may we call you?” He smiled broadly and spoke with soothing kindness. He impressed her with the gentle tone of his words.

Shallin hesitated, then looked at the girl who still knelt with her head to the ground. She muttered something quiet, something Shallin couldn’t make out. I’m at a disadvantage here. I probably shouldn’t have left Frain and come on my own.

“I don’t know your customs. Who are the Kindred? I’ve traveled far and never heard of you,” she said, ignoring his question.

“I see. It’s a lack of trust. That extends both ways, you know,” the man said. “Pellago isn’t known for having visitors. We keep people away. How did you find your way here?” He squinted and cocked his head as if listening to something in the distance, but she heard nothing new. He nodded.

“She led me here,” Shallin offered. “I told her my name. I expect you already know it.” The way the girl communicated with animals, she guessed they had some way of sharing knowledge and chose to test it.

“Antsy told us that ‘The Red Dawn’ approached with Inquisitor before she passed. It has been long since the colony deposed their queen.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Shallin cast a few furtive glances between the girl and the anthill. “Is she Inquisitor?”

The man laughed again. “You are the one asking questions.” He knelt next to the girl and gestured to Shallin to do the same before prostrating himself before the colony. “Render honors, please,” he commanded gently.

This is ridiculous, she thought as she knelt on the other side of the girl and bowed her head. When it touched the ground, she saw visions of the ants rapidly cycling through their lives. As they progressed she understood something of a story, how the lives of the queens grew from an egg and were nurtured by their colony. Each reigned a short time, giving birth to thousands of offspring that dug deep under Pellago.

Antsy had been a sister queen, Prime of the colony distinct from the other two. A new Antsy ascended each time the previous was consumed. With each cycle, the queen perceived a shadow growing to the east. Now it had come too close. No new Antsy had been laid. Her colony now foundered.

Shallin realized that the ants had shown her each their individual perspectives, passing to her tiny bits of knowledge that her mind somehow interpreted. She blinked and raised her head. The ants had lined up in neat rows and died in front of them. Thousands of insect corpses littered the ground between the three people and the three mounds.

“You see, we are Kindred,” the girl whispered, the first coherent words Shallin had heard from her since arriving at the anthills. “You cannot remain.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Shallin rocked back onto her ankles as the other two did the same. “It was never my intention to stay.”

“The girl can come across as gloomy. All she sees are disrupted futures when she talks with them. It takes a hardier mind to truly see. She is but a learner, a questioner.”

“An Inquisitor,” Shallin understood. “That makes me the ‘Red Dawn.’” She sighed. “This is all very confusing to me, I must admit.” In doing so, she bit back her more scathing responses. It would serve no purpose to lash out. Am I truly not as world-weary as I thought, to lose my temper among these people?

“I am Barin, and she is my daughter, Baral. You have observed the ways and followed with harmony. Our home is open to you,” Barin introduced each of them to her. “The colony has perished. This is troubling. Please come with us.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Others watched as Shallin followed the two through town. She felt the judgemental eyes observing her with a sense of unease and discomfort, both theirs and her own. Barin scarcely looked back at her, but Baral looked up at her and grabbed her hand. They walked alongside each other, Shallin sparing a small smile. Dell followed the trio at his own pace, unled.

“You know of the war,” she ventured. “Can you tell me more of it?”

“Do you seek war, or a way to end it? Or something else besides?” Barin asked. “It is unusual that you have made it here, but perhaps that is the way it was meant to be.”

“I serve the Regency. There have been rumors of incursions, but the Cadres that come back refuse to speak of it to me.”

“Are you a leader they report to?” Barin asked. “You look quite young for that kind of responsibility, but I know you carry the weight of souls upon you.”

“I’m no one, really. I was out here on my own business and wanted to look into the rumors myself.” Shallin hated that he so plainly saw the cost of each Cull that cut into her faith in the Light. “If there truly is a threat, I’d like to know of it so I may pass word along.”

“You have no idea what you seek,” Baral said. “I smell your concern upon you. What did you think you would find in Pellago?”

“Answers,” Shallin said. “Though I’m not sure what questions I mean to ask anymore.”

Barin chuckled as he led them down a short path to a modest home. “Those who find us have more questions than they thought. What did you know of Pellago before you came?”

Shallin thought about it. “Not much,” she offered. “Just a name on a map, really. And a sense of how close I was. I misjudged.”

“You found us nonetheless,” Barin said. His home seemed built to accommodate a man of his stature, with high ceilings and large doors roughly hewn. Simplicity and humbleness existed in concert with the man and his daughter. Their sparse furnishings reflected this. “Antsy foretold your coming as a harbinger of darkness. What say you?”

“I think you might have things a bit confused,” Shallin said.

“You saw what they showed you. With your arrival, the colonies have failed us. I do not believe she was wrong. It is our task to understand what she showed us.” Baral set a mug of honey mead in front of her. “You are Kindred as well. I do not know how an outsider can know our ways.”

“War does not touch us here, Shallin. Our people have retreated and withdrawn from our furthest lands,” Barin explained. “We are safe.”

“Your border wall stands open and empty. No one guards it. You’re foolish if you think it can’t reach you here.” Shallin’s fingers itched. Death would follow this kind of naivete.

“We Kindred protect our own, child. If you hadn’t been one of us, you’d have never found your way here.” Barin settled into a large chair that creaked beneath him. “It isn’t war that you seek, Shallin.” He sipped from his own mead. “There is nothing to fight, anyway. We only wait for the inevitable.”

“What is that?” she asked, sipping from her cup. It tasted mostly sweet, with just a hint of bitterness. It didn’t calm her nerves.

“Show me your hands. Remove your gloves,” Barin said. “That is where my tale must start.”

I didn’t realize I was signing up for a story, she thought as she tugged off the gloves. Shallin watched when Barin nodded as her Price revealed itself, remnants of the Flashback at the end of a Cull. He seemed unsurprised.

“May I?” Barin leaned forward and gently grabbed her left hand, tiny in his massive grip. Each line of the Price felt like cold pinpricks. He traced a few with his finger, riding up her forearm to her elbow. Shallin resisted the urge to pull away. “I know what kind of trust this takes, child.”

It was more than trust. It felt like a violation of her privacy, a gaze at something she normally kept shielded from the world, comfortable only in the company of fellow Sentinels. Even then, most chose to remain gloved. Within the Vigil, the Price could be ridiculed and shamed as much as praised. Shallin knew hers to be more extensive than most, and regretted the manner in which many had been earned.

“What do you think of these, Baral?” Barin asked his daughter. “You see more than most.”

The girl leaned in, tracing the scars in the same manner as her father. Baral looked skyward as she did it, feeling her way up Shallin’s arm rather than following her finger with her eyes. “She seeks approval from her father. She feeds, feeds, feeds.” Her eyes dropped and locked with Shallin's. “There is no hunger here.”

“That is good. Very good, Baral,” Barin said. “But that is not what she has come here to learn.”

You’re damned right, I haven’t learned a fucking thing except confusion, Shallin thought.

“Each mark you bear,” he said, turning her hand over, “came at a cost.”

“I know that,” she said.

“Apologies, but you do not,” he said calmly. “Remember, we are Kindred.”

“You say that like it means something,” she said rudely, losing her patience. “Are you done violating me?”

“I knew it would feel that way, Shallin.” Barin smiled, the sad glint in his eyes the only indication of his sorrow. “I do not apologize.” Shallin jerked away.

“There is no hunger here, but it comes, tearing, gnawing, eating all away. Consuming, antsy and jittery. In its wake is death,” Baral said.

“You serve the hunger, Shallin. I see you do not do it willingly, but until you reject it utterly, it shall feast upon you. You are the kind of meal it enjoys, and no earthly border shall impede it,” Barin said. “Where you go, it shall follow until dawn rises.”

“The suns rise every day,” Shallin said. “What is there to fear?” The two Kindred spoke in riddles, and she wanted only concrete answers. I wasted my time coming here, she thought. I should have gone back with Frain.

Barin sat back and crossed his arms. Baral stood next to him, glaring at her. “Your hard edges do you justice, but also undermine your efforts. Consider the price you pay to the Light, but ask yourself if it’s worth the cost,” he said. “Only then will you begin to understand.”