Rules For The Bled

Days passed beneath a sky that changed little, a pale canvas stretched over endless plains. The landscape shifted from cracked scrubland to windswept salt flats, then to dry grass fields, whispering beneath the hooves of their horses. The sun hung overhead like a silent overseer, watching without warmth.

They rode single file at times, in pairs at others. Yvain ahead, always ahead. He spoke rarely, and when he did, his words were clipped and mechanical, just enough to convey need or instruction. The softness that once colored his voice, when it showed at all, had faded.

Celeste kept pace beside him. She said little herself, watching him out of the corner of her eye, studying the distance in his gaze. He never looked back. Not at her, not at the road, not at the sky.

Behind them, Mars and Adeline trailed at a slower gait. Mars, his usual flippancy dimmed, leaned toward Adeline as he gestured subtly at Yvain's back.

"When are you guys going to tell me what actually happened to him?" he whispered, voice low enough not to carry forward.

"We already told you," Adeline replied, without turning. "He met Lissom Qen."

"And what did she tell him?"

"He didn't say," she said flatly.

Mars narrowed his eyes, riding in silence for a few heartbeats. Then he scoffed, but quietly. "Must've been something serious. He's been different ever since. Well… not that he was especially cheerful before, but you get what I'm saying."

Adeline glanced up at Yvain, who rode like a statue. Something about him felt hollow, as if his soul had been scooped out and replaced with something too large for the vessel. She wasn't sure if he was broken, exactly.

No. He looked more like someone who had stopped resisting.

"It's no use speculating," she muttered at last, nudging her horse to a faster trot, leaving Mars to his questions.

Ahead, Celeste shifted in her saddle and steered her mount closer to Yvain's. Her tone was casual, but her eyes betrayed fatigue. "How much farther?"

Yvain's response came with the same inflection as if she'd asked him the time of day. "To the harbor or to Necropolis?"

She groaned. "Both."

He adjusted the reins slightly, scanning the horizon. "We'll reach the harbor before long, if Mars is to be believed. There are ships waiting, should take us across the Dramedo Sea into Dominion. Necropolis is a weeks inland from the coast, give or take, depending on how cooperative the road is."

Celeste rolled her eyes and slumped forward, letting her reins slacken. "This is going to take forever."

Yvain's lips curled into a faint smile. It was brief, reluctant, but unmistakably real, and it came in response to Celeste's theatrical groan and sudden burst of speed, a small rebellion against exhaustion that was oddly contagious. The smile was seen by most of them, even from behind, and in its quiet emergence, something in the group eased.

Mars grinned at the sight, nudging Adeline with his elbow. She glanced up and caught the flicker on Yvain's face too, and for a moment, her worry lightened.

But behind that expression, Yvain's mind was far from peace.

He knew they worried, Celeste especially. His silences, his detachment, the way he sometimes stared too long at nothing. It hadn't gone unnoticed. He wanted to tell them he was simply tired. That the battle with Sorel had drained him, or the sea of open land ahead had put him into a meditative state.

But the truth was less kind.

His thoughts kept circling back to the tower. To her.

To Lissom Qen.

Her voice still lived in the corridors of his mind, patient and echoing.

She had spoken of a war not yet begun, and called it holy.

Named him with titles borne by emperors long dead, Dehmohseni relics from an age most tried to forget. God-Flesh Enthroned, Sovereign of the Spear-Kings, Dragonlord of the Pale Flame, titles meant for madmen and legends, and soon enough, for him.

She had told him he would save the world.

And in the same breath, that he would destroy it.

She had stared straight into him and told him he would become everything, creator and ruiner, god and butcher.

He had never been so unsure of himself, as he was in those moments.

And yet…

He would not be undone by her words. Whatever else he was, he was still an augur, and augurs did not submit to fate. They challenged it. Raged against it. Shaped it into something else.

Yvain's fingers tightened slightly on the reins.

"Look ahead," Mars called out suddenly, pointing toward the horizon.

There, rising like a sprawl of broken teeth against the skyline, was the harbor. Dozens of vessels crowded its edge. Merchant skiffs, galleons, even a few rusted warships. Nets hung from leaning poles, flags fluttered in the sea wind, and gulls wheeled overhead with shrill cries.

Celeste let out a loud, theatrical groan of triumph and immediately urged her horse into a full sprint. "Finally!"

Mars whooped and took off after her, and Adeline, grinning now despite herself, spurred her mount into pursuit.

Yvain watched them for a heartbeat longer, the wind catching the edges of his coat. Then he leaned forward, just slightly, and let his horse follow.

The wind rushed through his hair, the salt scent of the sea growing stronger with every breath, and for a moment, just one moment, the scream in his head dulled.

The path into the harbor narrowed into cobbled streets choked with life. The sounds hit them first, dockhands shouting over crashing waves, gulls squabbling over fish guts, sailors chanting as they hauled crates and barrels. It was a cacophony of salt, sweat, and sea-worn voices that seemed to embrace them as soon as they passed beneath the weathered stone arch that marked the harbor's edge.

The horses slowed to a trot, weaving between carts heavy with dried fruit, glass jars, live goats, and other provisions bound for far-flung ports. Towering ships groaned against their moorings, their masts spiderwebbed with rigging, sails flapping loosely in the wind like the wings of resting giants.

Yvain turned in a slow circle as they rode, eyes wide at the sheer number of vessels and people. "It's like a floating market crashed into a war camp," he muttered.

Adeline smiled. "You've clearly never been to the Amber Coast."

"I'd like to keep it that way," he replied, dodging a swinging crate that passed perilously close.

Celeste had recovered her usual poise but remained silent, eyes scanning every ship with a practiced gaze. Mars, meanwhile, had already dismounted and approached a small post near the docks. A crooked desk beneath a patched canopy, behind which sat a harried portmaster clutching a wax tablet and stylus.

The man barely looked up when Mars spoke. "We have passage reserved under the name of Alun Mercier."

The portmaster squinted, lips moving silently as he traced the stylus down the list. "Ah. Yes, here. Passage for four, outbound for Dominion aboard the Osprey's Wake. Mid-deck. Departure at dusk."

Mars nodded and turned back toward the others. "We've got a few hours," he said. "They're still loading cargo."

Celeste dismounted beside him, brushing windswept hair from her eyes. "Is it a safe vessel?"

"It's seaworthy. The captain's name is Faelen Rusk. A smuggler once. Now works for Dominion's Merchant Navy, officially anyway."

Adeline tilted her head. "Unofficially?"

"She still smuggles."

"Of course," Yvain muttered.

They left the horses in the care of a stableboy and made their way down the crowded quay, weaving between sailors cursing in half a dozen tongues and children selling crusted fruit pies. The Osprey's Wake waited at the far end, larger than it had appeared from a distance. Its hull was painted a dull blue and bore the faint scars of cannon fire and long sea-weathering. A brass figurehead shaped like a bird mid-dive adorned the prow, tarnished but proud.

Crewmembers were still hauling up crates and barrels by rope winch as the group approached. A lean woman in a captain's coat stood on the gangplank, overseeing the chaos with the calm of someone who had seen far worse storms than this.

She spotted them before they spoke.

"Mercier's lot?" she called, already turning on her heel. "Come aboard. Find your footing fast. We leave at dusk, tide willing, and if the tide's not willing, we bully it."

Mars nodded. "Captain Rusk, I presume."

"Faelen if you like me. Captain Rusk if you don't," she replied, already striding toward the helm.

They boarded the ship one by one. Adeline clutched the railing as if expecting the deck to lurch out from under him at any moment.

"So, uh… how often do these things sink?" she asked.

A question to which Mars wisely left unanswered.

Below deck, their assigned quarters were modest, two cabins with narrow cots, hammocks, and a small porthole each. There was little luxury, but it was dry, and it was private. The sound of boots thudding above mixed with the creak of boards and the occasional cry of gulls. They would be at sea soon.

As the sun dipped low, painting the water in bruised gold, Yvain stood at the railing alone, watching the last of the ropes be drawn in.

He exhaled, long and slow, as the ship began to drift.