Hours later, when the fires burned low and most of the caravan slept or pretended to, Nyxara stood at the edge of camp and listened to the wasteland breathe.

Wind moved through the broken ridges in low, uneven sighs. Somewhere to the north, stone shifted against stone, a small cascade of shale skittering down an incline.

Then something heavier displaced the quiet.

A shape moved beyond the fire's halo, out where the ground sloped toward broken rock.

Not a trick of shadow. Not wind.

Nyxara's gaze fixed on it. She flexed her fingers near her blade.

"What is it?" the mage whispered.

Nyxara lifted a hand for silence without looking back.

Her sight cut through the dark, resolving the movement into muscle and bone.

An Ash Worg stood just beyond the reach of the camp, ribs sharp beneath dark-matted hide. One ear torn. Muzzle scarred. Its eyes caught the firelight and held it there—twin embers set deep in its skull. Its head was broad enough that a single bite could take a man's arm at the shoulder.

It wasn't circling. It was weighing the wounded against the teeth guarding them, calculating risk against hunger.

Behind her, someone shifted nervously. A boot scraped. The sound was small, but the worg's head tilted.

Nyxara stepped forward, clearing the edge of camp without drawing attention to it. 

The worg's lip lifted, just enough to show yellowed, cracked teeth. Its flanks hollowed with each breath, hide drawn tight against bone. Its eyes tracked the movement near the wagons, looking for weakness. Its tail remained still. 

No pack scent lingered on the wind. Lone hunter.

Nyxara stepped closer, holding the Ash Worg's stare.

A long breath passed between them.

Then, slowly, it stepped back.

One pace. Then another.

It did not look away until a low, broken ridge of basalt swallowed its shape, smoke-colored fur dissolving into stone.

But Nyxara did not lose it.

She listened to the faint scrape of claw. Only when the sound of its retreat faded and the air settled into something ordinary did she ease her stance.

Behind her, the mage exhaled shakily. The halfling girl whispered something she couldn't hear.

Torin Cross began to pluck the strings of his lute.

Nyxara did not turn. She kept her attention beyond the firelight, on the places where movement would show itself too late. Still, the sound reached her.

The melody came slowly, unhurried. It wandered instead of pressing forward, looping back on itself as if it had nowhere urgent to be. A road-song, she realized. The kind learned by repetition and necessity rather than instruction.

When he started to sing, his voice settled low and even, threading through the crackle of fire and wind over stone. It did not demand attention. It did not need to. The rhythm slipped into the spaces between breaths, into the quiet people hadn't noticed tightening around them. Even the fire seemed to burn more evenly.

Nyxara felt the shift before she saw it.

The rhythm wasn't accidental. It carried weight. Deliberate placement. Not just music.

Bardcraft.

The song settled into the camp, and the firelight found him — half-elf ears tipped faintly, wavy hair pulled back but not contained, pale green eyes bright with something too knowing.

He was beautiful in the way drawn blades were beautiful.

Dangerous to admire.

Several travelers edged closer to the fire. Someone let out a short, surprised laugh at a line about boots drying by flame that wouldn't last. And another about roads that took more than they gave. The mage's shoulders lowered a fraction. The halfling girl forgot her lantern, its light tilting as she leaned in.

"Leave the fire lit, just one more night..." The words settled and then were gone. He didn't bow. Didn't flourish. He simply lowered his hands from the strings.

The quiet that followed felt steadier than the one that had come before.

Nyxara turned her attention back to the land beyond the firelight.

"Stillreach," the bard said easily, as if the word belonged among the notes. "Ever hear a place talked about so much by people who've never seen it?"

A few quiet laughs moved through the camp.

"White walls," the gnome said first. "Bright enough to catch the sun even through dust. Streets clean as if someone scrubs them daily."

"Water running through carved channels," a dragonborn woman added. "Not rationed. Not brackish. Clear."

"Markets that don't pack up at the first sign of a sandstorm," someone muttered near the wagons.

"Gardens," the gnome said. "Actual gardens. Not just stubborn weeds pretending to be crops."

A murmur followed that. Not disbelief. Something softer—the sound people make when they remember what plenty feels like.

"I've seen the shield," a gnome added. "From a distance. It looks like glass. Or heat over sand."

"It hums," a dragonborn woman added. "Low. You feel it in your bones."

"Anyone know how it works?"

The gnome shook his head. "Depends on who you ask. Some say the power source is buried. Old as the bedrock."

"Others say it isn't buried at all," the dragonborn countered. "That it answers."

"Answers to what?" Torin asked.

The gnome shrugged. "Prayer. Blood. The right hands, maybe."

"Or no hands at all," the dragonborn said. "Whatever it is, it was built to outlast empires."

A low ripple of agreement moved through the camp.

"I know this," the gnome continued. "Crops grow inside that barrier like the wasteland never touched them. Trees keep their leaves. Water runs clear. No ash. No rot."

"And nothing unwanted gets through the shield," the dragonborn said quietly.

Nyxara turned. "Nothing?" she asked.

"That's the story." The dragonborn's gaze drifted toward the dark beyond the firelight. "They say storms break against it. Raiders turn aside. Even the air changes once you cross the threshold."

"And no one knows how?" Torin asked.

The gnome shook his head. "Only that it works."

The words settled into the hush between them.

A city the wasteland could not claim. A shield that did not fail. A barrier that let nothing unwanted pass.

A heartbeat later, heat brushed along the back of Nyxara's left shoulder, a quiet pull drawing her forward. Toward Stillreach.