Emberlyth awoke to a scream. Not her own. Not Penta’s. A sound far worse.

It cut through the stillness, raw and inhuman, like something wrenched from the very marrow of the world. Her heart lurched, and before her thoughts could catch up, she was on her feet, hands clawing at empty air for something—anything—to defend herself with.

Nothing. Only cold, empty air.

For a frantic moment, her mind struggled to make sense of it all. The Mistlands. Penta. The compass. It came back in pieces, jagged and scattered. Her hand flew to her pocket, fingers fumbling to confirm the compass was still there. When she felt its familiar shape beneath her touch, the tension in her chest eased just enough for her to exhale.

Then there was his hand.

Not pressed over her lips, not forcing her to the ground. Just a touch. Light enough to draw her attention without startling her further. Her breath hitched as she turned to find him, sitting cross-legged on a smooth stone, his eyes darker than she remembered. Penta raised a single finger to his lips, then gestured toward the sky.

She nodded, pulse still pounding in her ears, and followed his gesture upward.

Above them, the mists swirled and parted, revealing something vast. A shadow, larger than anything she’d ever seen, passed overhead. It moved slowly, ponderously, its enormity defying comprehension. Whatever it was, it seemed to blot out the sky, its sheer presence making her chest tighten. The thing could have swallowed her entire home—her whole world—without even noticing.

She sank back to the ground, knees weak, her breath shallow. “What is that?” she mouthed, her lips barely moving as she tilted her head toward the heavens.

Penta didn’t answer. He didn’t even look her way. Just shrugged, his eyes fixed on the colossal shadow overhead. His silence spoke louder than words, and her stomach turned cold.

Keep quiet.

With no answers to cling to, no sense of what was safe or what wasn’t, Ember hugged her knees to her chest, her fingers tightening over the fabric of her clothes. Questions tumbled through her mind, an endless stream of them. None of them found their way to her lips.

Instead, as the silhouette above became too much to bear, her gaze drifted over the strange, dreamlike scene around them. The haze of the Mistlands, lit faintly by muted flashes of shifting light, felt more like twilight than morning—if morning even existed here.

When they’d first stopped to camp, the space around them had been barren, a stretch of cracked earth enclosed by the delicate, precise circle of runes Penta had etched into the ground. Now, the mist had receded, revealing something else entirely. The skeleton of an ancient church loomed in the distance, its crumbling walls and jagged spires reaching out like broken fingers. Around it, gravestones jutted from the earth at odd angles, their inscriptions worn away by time.

Her eyes narrowed as she noticed Penta’s perch. A gravestone. Of course.

She let out a small, silent sigh and looked away, trying to push the absurdity of him—of all of this—out of her mind. But it clung to her, heavy and suffocating, like the mist itself.

This was a far cry from the familiar ceiling of her bedroom, the warm safety of home. Here, even the silence felt like a threat.

Even as she sat there, watching the ruins settle into their stillness, a wisp of fog drifted by. It coiled and writhed, delicate as a spider’s thread, before unraveling into nothing. When it was gone, a dead willow tree stood in its wake, its branches bent low as if weighed by unseen burdens.

“With someone to witness it, this place is slowly remembering what it once was.”

That’s what Penta had told her the night before, at least. One of the few answers she’d managed to coax out of him, though she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

What did it even mean, for a place to remember itself?

She had no answer. Only more questions. A hundred of them. But as long as Penta stayed silent, she would too.

The quiet stretched, interrupted only by the occasional flicker of movement among the gravestones. Something was out there, stirring the tall grass, muttering to itself in a voice too soft to hear. It left faint sounds in its wake—the crunch of pebbles shifting, the whisper of leaves brushing against stone. It was unnerving, enough to wear on her sanity did she listen to it for too long.

Then, finally, after the shadow overhead had long since passed, Penta’s mask cracked. His usual smirk pushed through the weight of his serious expression, like sunlight breaking through heavy clouds.

“Seems you needed the rest more than I did,” he said. His tone was light, almost teasing, as if she’d only just woken up. As if they hadn’t both been sitting there, quiet as statues, for what felt like hours.

Emberlyth glanced at him, her brow furrowed. The words that came next weren’t planned, weren’t anything she’d meant to say. They just slipped free, like water through her fingers.

“Why are you still here?”

Her voice wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t even curious. It was flat, resigned, the kind of tone that came from too little sleep and too much time spent wandering through a nightmare.

He shrugged, the movement as lazy as his smile. “You still have my compass.”

That should have been enough. It was enough, in a way. And yet, somehow, his answer only pulled at more threads, unraveling a tangle of new questions.

“Is it really that important—the compass?” she could have asked.

“Why didn’t you steal it while I was sleeping?” she almost said, biting the words back at the last moment.

Instead, what gnawed at her most rose unbidden. “You could have left me. A dozen times over, you could have let this place take me. Why didn’t you?”

Penta didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached into the burlap sack beside him and pulled out one of the few apples she hadn’t accidentally scorched. He held it out to her, a gesture so simple, so absurdly kind, it almost felt cruel.

Her fingers hesitated before taking it. The weight of it in her palm was grounding, almost too real. But his kindness—it felt wrong. A mockery of her doubts. A quiet betrayal of everything she’d been bracing herself for.

Was it more or less naive to trust him?

She bit into the apple anyway, the taste sharp and sweet against her dry tongue. And as she chewed, she stared at Penta, waiting for him to explain. To justify why he was still here. Why he hadn’t lived up to her worst expectations.

But he didn’t. He only smiled, the edges of it soft, inscrutable. And that, more than anything, set her teeth on edge.

Another bite, and she realized how hungry she’d been. How much time had really passed since they set foot in here? It felt as though days had folded into each other, minutes stretching and collapsing into something shapeless.

“Who are you?” Emberlyth asked as the silence prolonged, her voice cutting through the quite like the edge of a knife. It wasn’t the question she’d meant to ask, but it was the one that burned the hottest on her tongue.

Penta paused, mid-motion, a wedge of cheese poised delicately in his hand. He bit off a piece, chewing it slowly, methodically, as though tasting the weight of her words along with the sharp tang of the cheese.

“Do you mean besides dashing, charming, and a dreamy hunk all baked into one?” he said, a wry grin curling at the corner of his mouth.

“Besides obnoxious,” Emberlyth retorted, her tone flat. She didn’t have the energy for his games. “A thief, I get that much. But why our house? And… is it always that?”

Her gaze flicked toward his rolled-up sleeves, her chin nodding faintly at the intricate lines etched across his skin. Aethermarks. They crisscrossed his arms like rivers on a map, weaving stories she didn’t know how to read.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was strange. He had so many, yet he hadn’t used a single one since they met. She had only one, and she used it every chance she got.

“It is what brings money,” he said, his smile widening into something that felt like a challenge. It was a thief’s smile, the kind that asked, What other answer could there be?

Maybe it was true. Emberlyth couldn’t tell. She had no idea how much an Aethermark was worth—only that her family had spent years impressing upon her their rarity. They’d moved mountains, overturned the world, just to get her a single one. Or so they’d said.

But then there was the stash beneath the estate. Come to think, Chamberlain Olsen had one. Efrain had one. Even Ginnis, who smelled perpetually of pipe-smoke and soup-stock, wore one like an afterthought. Perhaps they had more.

Maybe everyone did.

The longer she sat there, the clearer it became: her family had lied to her. About the marks, about their worth, about everything. That hurt in ways she couldn’t explain. Maybe, had this entire situation been less bizarre, she would have been mad about it. Now, she couldn’t.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and in her pocket, she could almost feel the Augur’s Compass spinning itself into knots. The motion felt like her thoughts—restless, erratic, and impossible to pin down.

Her arms tightened around her knees, pulling them closer to her chest. When she spoke again, her voice was barely more than a murmur, each word pulled from her with painful effort.

“Where are you going?”

Penta blinked, his eyes flicking toward her in surprise. She didn’t meet his gaze, staring instead at the gravestones around them, their cracked surfaces blurred by the lingering mist.

He said nothing for a long moment. The quiet stretched between them, heavy as lead, until it felt like the mist itself might swallow the question whole.

“Nowhere fun,” he said, the words carrying an edge of resignation, as if he had read her thoughts and dismissed them with a single glance. “You’re better off returning to your home. You’ll be safer there.”

“Would if I could,” Ember replied, her hollow smile doing little to mask the weight behind her words. She pulled out the compass, its needle spinning wildly, as though it were screaming into the mist how deeply she was lying. Would she really go back if she had the choice?

Sure, she’d nearly died in here. The chill running down her spine every time she thought of…that thing was reminder enough of that. But in the past twenty-four hours, she’d also lived more than she had in years prior. For once, her choices had been her own, even if they were foolish. No one could take that away from her.

“And you think things will get better by tagging along with me?” Penta asked as if having read her thoughts once more. His tone was carefully neutral, but she could sense the sharp edge of mockery lurking just beneath. Naive, foolish, doomed to fail. The unspoken words clung to the air between them.

“Maybe,” Ember huffed, her thumb tracing absent circles over the compass’s surface. The mist around them seemed to grow quieter, as though listening. “All I know is that, whenever the needle stops, it seems to point in one of three directions. The first one, I’m sure, is leading me back. Back home, to safety. Familiarity. The second…” She hesitated, her voice softening as she tried to shape her thoughts into words. “The second, I think, is leading me forward. Into the unknown. Into adventure.”

Penta tilted his head, his eyes narrowing slightly. “And the third?”

Ember’s breath hitched. The hesitation in her throat stretched into silence, heavy and fragile.

“And the third?” he coaxed, his voice lighter now, but his gaze sharp.

Her fingers tightened around the compass as she raised her eyes to meet his. “The third,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “is pointing straight at you.”

Penta blinked, his expression unreadable for a moment, though his posture tensed. Ember tried, and failed, to stop the blush creeping into her cheeks. “I—I think us meeting back at the estate was no coincidence, Mister Penta Grammus…Maximus?”

At that, he flinched, his shoulders jerking upward as if struck by a stray arrow. “Penta,” he said quickly, clearing his throat. “Just Penta is fine.”

She opened her mouth to say more, but he cut her off, his voice suddenly lighter, as if trying to brush away the weight of the moment. “Also, I gave you plenty of chances for a romantic encounter when we first met, Lady Draekart, but you didn’t strike me as the type to care for such things.”

The smirk that followed was practiced, but there was something else in his eyes—something Ember couldn’t quite place. Amusement? Concern? Or maybe it was something far more fragile.

“Well,” she said, her tone sharper now, fighting the urge to let him have the last word. “You didn’t strike me as the type to care for anything beyond running and… stealing.”

“And yet here we are,” he said softly, the smirk slipping just a fraction. “Following a compass neither of us understands, through a place neither of us belongs.”

For a moment, the mist around them seemed to sigh, as though agreeing.

Then, his next words struck like thunder, “And I hope, for both our sake, not chasing something as foolish as love.”

Emberlyth felt her embarrassment deepen, her cheeks burning despite the chill of the Mistlands. “I-I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly, her voice laced with insistence. Though, as she continued, it petered out into exasperation, “It’s just… you seem to know so much about Aethermarks, and I—well, I’m struggling with mine.”

Penta arched an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over her in an appraising manner that made her bristle. “That’s certainly a fresh angle, Lady Draekart, but—”

“Ember,” she corrected.

“Ember,” he amended, his smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But I’m not really in the teaching or mentoring business. I’m a gentleman by nature and a thief by trade, forced into this predicament by circumstances well beyond my control. If you knew even half my story, you’d weep for days. But, since I don’t want to get overly dramatic, let’s just say I have my own problems to deal with. Babysitting a noble lady who dreams of life on the run? Not high on my list of priorities.”

“You really think I’m just some naive, spoiled girl, don’t you?” Ember shot back, her voice tinged with something halfway between defiance and hurt.

“Not naive,” Penta said, his tone unusually soft. “Soft-hearted? Kind, maybe, in a strange sense. You’re too kind for this world, and kindness like that gets people killed.” He leaned back, as if distancing himself from the weight of his own words. “It’s just like back in your library. Most people would’ve shackled me and handed me over to the nearest hangman without a second thought. And I wouldn’t even have blamed them. These runes on my arms? They’re worth more than my life. The best way to keep them safe? Kill me, plain and simple. But you… all you seem to care about is—”

He stopped, squinting at her as if searching for the right words. “What is it you care about, actually?”

“Freedom?” Ember ventured, her voice uncertain. She fiddled with the compass in her hands, watching its needle spin as if it might give her an answer. Was she there to prove something? Defy her family? “I guess… I guess I don’t understand your situation. But you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to me either—to be shackled by a name you don’t even know what it means half of the time. To realize your family has been lying to you your whole life. To question if they ever truly cared…”

Silence stalked her words, lasting until Penta gave a low whistle, followed by a soft laugh that carried an edge of discomfort. “Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “here I was thinking: Wonder if there’s a way to make camping in a graveyard even more depressing? Turns out, there was.”

His smirk returned, though it lacked its usual sharpness. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not running a therapy service here. I’m sure there’s someone better suited to dig through your family trauma. A priest, maybe. Or a poet. They love that sort of thing.”

“Not if I go back,” Ember murmured, her voice quieter now, her gaze distant. “They wouldn’t let me. It’s easier for them if I meet no one. If I just stay at the estate, quietly…” She poked at the ground, at her trousers, and bare feet. At anything that meant she didn’t have to meet his gaze. “In a way, I envy those who have nothing. They don’t have to hear how much they stand to lose with every mistake they make. They don’t have to be told to be happy with what things they have. They’re free to seize the world as they see it, without fear.”

“It ain’t that pretty, trust me,” Penta said.

Ember shrugged, the motion small and weary. “Guess I wouldn’t know. I’m just a sheltered girl who knows nothing, right?”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Penta said with mock cheer, brushing the dust from his trousers as he stood. “Now, you said you could get the compass to point you back home? That sounds like an absolutely brilliant plan to me.”

Ember tilted her head, her expression unreadable. “If we don’t go back,” she said carefully, “I can let you keep the marks.”

His eyebrow climbed higher. “I don’t see how you have any say in that matter.”

“They’re my family’s,” Ember replied, tentatively, scraping for an angle of authority as she spoke. “Without them here, I’m the closest thing to an owner. If we go back, on the other hand, I might have to hand you over for that hanging you were so eager for earlier.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Penta said, his voice light, but there was a flicker of something guarded in his eyes.

“Wouldn’t I?”

Penta sighed deeply, picking up a pebble from the ground and rolling it between his fingers. “And who’s to say I don’t have a mark that allows me to flick this little rock,” he said, holding it up, “through your skull at the speed of a crossbow bolt?”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Ember crossed her arms, her expression cool but amused. “I don’t think you can,” she said, her tone as sharp as her gaze. “If you could, you wouldn’t have let yourself get pushed around the way you have.” It was a challenge as much as it was a certainty. As he let the pebble slip from his finger with a sigh, she knew she was right. He wasn’t Vaelen. He wouldn’t suddenly turn around and nearly break one of her ribs.

“Whatever your Ascension Path entails—and whatever your ‘deal’ is—we’ve got a long road ahead to figure that out,” she continued, raising the compass in her hand. The needle quivered like a living thing before settling into a steady point. “For now, I supposed we’ll just have to see where this thing takes us.”

Penta let out a deep breath, this time rubbing his neck with exaggerated care. “We’re not doing that thing with the collar again, are we?” he asked, his tone halfway between pleading and resignation. “Can’t I just, you know, walk nicely next to you? Like a normal person?” He caught her skeptical look and quickly added, “Or hands! We could do hands. Have a nice, romantic saunter, even. Or—compromise—I could give you my wrist to hold. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”

His smile, faintly crooked, seemed almost genuine this time, as though he were trying to coax some semblance of trust out of her. Ember stared at him for a moment, her expression calculating.

“And how will you carry our food if we do?” she asked.

The hope drained from his face like water from a sieve.

“Collar it is,” Ember said, smirking faintly as she gestured for him to step closer. “Now come here, boy. If you behave well enough, I might even let you run around freely when lunch comes around.”

Penta muttered something under his breath—probably unkind—but stepped forward nonetheless, a faint grimace tugging at his lips.

Yeah, if he had the power to shoot pebbles through her skull, then there was definitely something seriously wrong with him. Why else would anyone go along with this?