“Now, if you would just excuse me—”

Before Penta could scramble to his feet, before he could even think about scurrying off again, Ember was on him.

“May the Abyss devour us whole before I let you get away again,” she growled, her voice a taut thread barely holding together. Her hands trembled as they seized the front of his shirt, and her glare pinned him in place as effectively as any blade. She could barely contain the whirlwind inside her—relief at seeing him again, fury that he’d tried to abandon her, and a deep, gnawing sense of betrayal.

“You’ve got a damned lot of explaining to do,” she hissed, her voice cracking despite her best efforts to keep it steady. “And bolting the moment you saw me isn’t helping.”

“I… came back?” Penta wheezed, attempting a disarming grin.

“Oh, you came back? Something tells me that wasn’t by choice,” Ember snapped, leaning closer. Her eyes caught the slight, guilty twitch of his left hand as it slipped toward his pocket. Quick as a cat, her hand darted out to seize his wrist.

“This?” she demanded, prying his fingers open.

In his hand was a… compass? Ember stared at it for a moment. She’d seen compasses before—even if few such things held a purpose in the surface worlds—but this one felt wrong. The needle quivered as if alive, flicking back and forth with restless indecision, never settling on a single direction.

“That?” Penta tried with an awkward laugh, his smile as slippery as oil. “No, no, that’s… nothing.”

“Nothing?” Ember asked, deadpan, and let it fall from her grasp—only to snatch it midair with her other hand.

The way Penta’s eyes widened told her everything she needed to know.

“Nothing?” she repeated, her glare sharpening into a blade.

He sighed, his shoulders sagging as he cast a nervous glance at the swirling mist. “Look, this really isn’t the place for this conversation. I’m not even sure why it brought me back here, but we—we need to get moving.”

“It brought you back here?” Ember asked, her gaze narrowing as her fingers tightened around the compass.

“It’s… it’s an Augur’s Compass,” Penta admitted reluctantly. There was something restless about him. Something she hadn’t seen before. He looked her way as much as he stared into the mist. “It leads you where you need to be, and—”

“And it led you to me?” Ember interrupted, a stiff smirk finding its way onto her lips. Arching an eyebrow, she tilted her head, letting her tone drip with mockery as she drawled, “My, Mister Penta, don’t tell me you’re actually falling for me.”

Penta scowled, his restless eyes flicking once at her, then at the mist, only to land upon the burlap sack where it had fallen. “That,” he said, jabbing a finger in its direction, “must’ve been what pulled me back here. It seems I misjudged the season. You forced my hand at an awkward time, and I didn’t have the chance to prepare if the distance between worlds is longer than usual. But—” He broke off, his tone sharpening as he gestured at the swirling mist. “This is really not the time for—”

A bone-deep wail tore through the haze, slicing his words in two. Both of their heads snapped toward the sound, but the mist coiled too thickly to reveal anything.

Right. Even if she’d found him, that was only a sliver of relief. They were still trapped in this nightmare. But she had already tried running. As fast as she could. She needed something better.

Ember glanced down at the erratic compass in her hand. Its needle jerked and twisted like a restless fly trapped in a jar. “And this is somehow supposed to lead us out of here?”

“It will lead me out of here,” Penta corrected, his tone clipped. “You? It’ll most likely take you back to the estate where you belong.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Ember angled the compass so he could see its trembling needle. “Did you break it?”

“Brilliant,” Penta groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Not just a brute of a lady, but a lost one, too. Hand it over, and I’ll—”

“Run away again?” Ember snorted, holding the compass out of his reach as she took a step back. “Too bad. It led you to me. Now it seems—”

“This isn’t a game,” Penta snapped, his usual mask falling away. His voice was harsh, his face a grim visage of frustration. “In here, we are very small fish in a very big pond. This isn’t some fleeting curiosity for a spoiled noble lady to waste a few hours on. This is—”

Another howl echoed through the mist, louder and closer this time, its unearthly tone reverberating through the haze. Both of them froze, the sound driving icy needles into Ember’s chest.

Whatever this place was, Penta was at least right about one thing—they couldn’t stay here for much longer.

“Look,” he began, his voice softer now, almost coaxing. “I realize you were bored back at the estate, but—”

“I know this isn’t a game,” Ember hissed, her glare cutting him off mid-sentence. Her voice carried a sharpness that silenced him completely. “I know too well that it isn’t. I was almost killed after someone ran away the moment they saw my face.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her words landed heavy in the mist, hanging between them like a weight. Penta’s mouth opened as if to retort, but whatever he had to say, he thought better of it. For once, the ever-flippant rogue had nothing to say.

At least for a moment.

“Goes to show how dumb it was to follow me in here…” he murmured, only for her eyes to lock onto him like twin daggers.

He raised his arms in a swift surrender, “Alright, yes, I am sorry for running away. At least the second time. In here. Had I known…” He trailed off, his expression growing somber as he shook his head. “Look, these lands are not what you think they are. They show you things. Things you don’t want to see. Even now, I’m not entirely sure if you’re the same lady who so graciously hosted me at the Draekart estate, and that’s really twisting my nerves.”

“Want me to hit you a few times to see if that settles things?” Ember offered, her voice low but biting.

Penta rolled his eyes, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, fine. I get it. You’re real. Too real, if you ask me. But could you please hand back the compass so that we can—”

It wasn’t a howl this time. No, nothing that simple. Instead, a clicking sound emerged from the mist around them, like a thousand tiny legs skittering just out of sight. Penta froze mid-sentence, his head snapping toward the sound. Ember’s spine prickled as a cold chill coursed through her.

“The longer we stay still,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound, “the more we disturb this place. The more it becomes aware of us. So…?”

There was something desperate in his tone—a plea barely hidden beneath his words. She didn’t need it. She’d felt it herself. The Mistlands were alive, their attention heavy and suffocating, and she’d already seen a glimpse of the horrors they harbored.

“Fine,” Ember said, her voice a reluctant whisper. She stooped to grab the fallen sack, shoving it into Penta’s chest with more force than necessary. “We’ll get moving. But I’m keeping the compass, and you are not getting out of my sight.”

Without waiting for a response, she snagged the back of his collar, her grip firm and unrelenting. Penta gave her an incredulous glance but wisely held his tongue.

Ember glanced down at the compass, its needle jittering wildly as if caught in an indecisive frenzy. One moment, it pointed straight ahead; the next, it twisted sharply to another direction. She swallowed hard, forcing down the rising tide of nerves.

The clicking sounds were growing louder, closer, encircling them in the mist.

“This way,” she said, her voice steady despite the dread twisting in her gut. She pointed ahead, away from the growing cacophony.

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

There was no telling how far or how long they walked. All that marked the passing of time was fatigue, creeping in like an unwelcome guest. Hunger followed not far behind, dull and persistent. Penta’s breaths turned strained, his needless quips few and far between. Even Ember’s own steps became a dull rhythm to her ears, counting each moment in this grim reality. The one thing that never faltered was her hand, a constant presence at the back of his neck, steering him forward as though she were marching a criminal to the gallows.

Which, of course, he’d pointed out several times.

“My hands are incredibly soft and warm, you know?” he’d tried, wiggling his fingers in the air as if to prove it. Them moving seemed to have eased his mind; loosened his tongue. “Much better for holding. We could turn this whole wretched night into something nice and romantic. Isn’t that every noble girl’s dream anyway? To be stolen away by a dashing thief?”

Each time, she declined without fail, her responses curt and unamused. Even if it might have been more convenient to let him walk freely, Ember felt far more comfortable keeping her grip near his throat. A leash for a dog too clever by half. There was no telling when or where he’d try to bolt again.

And that, of course, posed its own problem.

The Augur’s Compass was a fickle thing, the needle jittering and twisting with no rhyme or reason. It refused to guide her in straight lines, instead jerking between one direction and the next like a bird unable to choose a single branch. Penta, for his part, had called it the mark of an uncertain heart—while offering, with great exaggeration, to take on the burden of guiding them himself.

She’d declined that, too.

And so, their progress through the Mistlands was slow, meandering, and deeply uncertain. The mist remained unchanging, a sea of pale, featureless nothing. Each step blurred into the next until the very concept of time felt meaningless.

The one thing certain was: the longer they went, the heavier Ember’s eyelids grew. When she’d caught Penta skulking in the library earlier that night, she’d been moments away from falling into bed. Sleep had seemed inevitable then, but now it felt like a cruel memory, something she’d once had and might never find again.

Her steps grew slower, the weight of exhaustion dragging at her heels. Walking in a straight line—if it even was a straight line—through this endless, unchanging mist wasn’t enough to keep her awake. Every step felt the same, pressing forward into a pale, featureless void.

Her attention wavered, drifting toward things better left unnoticed. The faint whispers within the mist, half-heard words that clawed at the edges of her mind. The crunch of their footfalls against the cracked, parched ground. The rhythm of Penta’s breath, strained and uneven, rising and falling like an echo of her own.

The feeling of bare feet against unfamiliar earth.

Right. I don’t have shoes. The thought surfaced sluggishly, like a bubble rising to the top of a still pond. That’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?

Her focus slipped further, settling on the ache in her legs, the cold sting in her soles. She was so caught up in her thoughts, so consumed by the fog in her own head, that she didn’t notice Penta slowing. Didn’t see him pause until she stumbled forward, colliding into him.

She would have fallen if not for his hands, catching her at the last moment. His grip was firm but strangely soft, more steady than she’d expected from someone so quick to run.

Penta’s smile greeted her when she looked up, sharp enough to bring her crashing back to reality.

“I was asking,” he said, the faintest lilt of amusement in his tone, “if it’s time we stopped for a rest?” His expression was uncharacteristically sincere. Too sincere. Her head felt too muddled to sift through the layers of deception she knew must be hiding there.

“The mist…” Ember murmured, her objection unfinished but clear in its meaning.

“I didn’t come that unprepared,” he said with a soft chuckle. And why—why did he have to sound so genuine now? “I can set up a ward. It’ll keep us safe while we rest, at least for a while. Should we…?”

You just want to run while I sleep, she thought. You’ll take the compass and leave me here to fend for myself. Or worse, you’ll stab me in my sleep, if you think that’s safer.

But those words stayed trapped in her throat.

So many doubts. So many uncertainties that had never crossed her mind when she’d dreamed of adventure back in her safe, comfortable bed. Now, the weight of those dreams pressed down on her shoulders like a cruel mockery.

How could she trust a stranger she barely knew to keep her safe through the night?

But then, the heavier question followed, dragging her spirit lower still: How can we go on if I don’t?

“Let’s,” she said at last, her voice rough with weariness. She knew, even as she spoke, that she was making a mistake.

But she was just so very, very tired.