There were no smells after you put your gear on and went into the Shade, only the staleness of your own, panicked breath.

Ashen took a deep breath of the fresh air, savoring it. It had almost become a ritual of his, to stand on the edge and breathe. He could smell the pine trees, and the breeze. Taste the dust lingering in the air, and the faint touch of what he hoped would become rain. The stink of the horses pulling their wagons. The sweat trickling down his back in the muggy afternoon air. He opened his mouth, sucking it all in.

Twelve shockingly colored wagons trundled down the road around him, slowing as they approached the boarder to the Shade. Their wheels made the only sound in an eerie silence.

All of nature held its breath.

Dark mist hung in a boiling wall ahead of them, marking the place the Shade began. It massed near the ground, slowly dispersing as it climbed into the sky, blotting the sun out where it hung somewhere against the unseen western horizon.

Ashen glared into it, as if with the pressure of his gaze he could punch a hole through it to the safety waiting on the other side. As always, there was a distinct lack of obedience. Ashen released a sigh too long pent-up, shuddering.

His nature sense recoiled off the wall like a distant echo, screaming at the base of his skull. It had been doing that since before the wall of mist came into sight, now it was, the strength redoubled in its dire warning.

The back of his neck tensed, shoulders drawing up towards it, as if the posture could somehow protect against the things lurking just beyond the black mist.

A rattling sounded next to him and he jerked, looking over at the wagon moving past as it bumped across another hole in the road.

Ashen turned in a small circle, surveying the wagons. People were beginning to fit masks over their faces. The hardened leather of his own brushed the side of his leg when he moved. Softer gutting hung down off of it in a tube, wire lining the insides to keep its shape. His fingers moved along it, eyes scanning over familiar faces. They stopped at the end against a tightly woven basket of grass and copper threading. It hung off his belt from a small loop of leather, heavy from the lead inside it.

Ashen placed it over his face, tightening the straps. Inside his mask the air grew stuffy. He could taste the old, worn leather.

The basket began to hum softly. A haze collected around it, visible in the corner of his eye.

His sister walked past, easy to pick out from the small crowd by her wildfire hair. She looked like a strange bug with the long tube of her mask dangling from over her mouth. Saphier drew her red silk scarf up around it, coiling it over her head, and up to her eyes as she moved.

Ashen found himself checking the straps on the back of his head again.

When he looked up, almost everyone he could see had donned theirs. Where was Lightfingers? Avoiding him, probably. Ashen frowned.

The wagons came to a stop, and he slowed with them, listening to the sound of the wheels echo back off the Shade. He inhaled a shaky breath, tasting the inside of his mask again.

Saphier scrambled nimbly up the side of a wagon, standing atop it with her arms out. Her body shifted in the soft breeze, flowing into a better balance. It made her look as if she would begin to dance.

Then, she dropped down onto the wagon roof with a thud, legs crossed. It rocked from side to side beneath the impact.

Ashen moved to the wagon he and his sister shared. The body had, at some point before he could remember, been painted a stunning red color. Since then it had bled away into something more the tinge of rust. Green trimming bordered it, and made a line across the door. It coated the frame, paint curled and peeling on the edges.

He turned the latch, pulling the door open and stepping inside.

Ashen knew how the interior smelled without having to remove the mask. It smelled like the flowers his sister wore in her hair, the musk of her little demon Maz, and their mother.

He didn't know how it could still smell like their mother after so long, or how he even knew what she had smelled like anymore. He just did, and it did. In reality, he suspected that the scent was also his sister's, but it reminded him of their mother, and that was enough to stir up muzzy memories of lost times whenever he stepped inside.

Ashen shut the door lightly behind him, plunging the familiar surroundings into darkness. Climbing to his bunk in the pitch black, he stretched from the ladder to the other side of the bed, sticking his hand under the straw mattress.

The knife he pulled out was not familiar to his fingers, he didn't hold it enough for it to be. The leather sheath had gone silky smooth on the outside from long use by someone who wasn't him. The antler handle had been worn down till the once intricate carvings on it were barely bumps and ridges, hardly visible in any detail save for under the brightest of lights.

He dropped off the ladder, boots hitting the floor of the wagon with a solid thump. A cup on the small dresser across from the beds rattled. Ashen stilled it with his free hand, then moved to the door, snatching a thickly padded jacket far too warm for the summer heat off it's hook.

He pulled it on, placing the knife beneath it and out of sight before stepping out cautiously. The Wayless folk weren't allowed weapons since long before his lifetime and his mother's, and some generations prior to that. So despite being sure no one else was on their road, and knowing the knife was invisible beneath the coat, he opened the door a few inches at a time, looking out.

People moved by, dressed in the dully colored coats, and thick pants of those about to venture into the Shade.

And there was Lightfingers, passing the wagon quickly, almost indistinguishable beneath the clothes and mask, save for the long tail of his black braid, and the grace with which he slunk by.

Ashen leapt from the wagon, feet landing in the dirt of the road with a stinging impact.

Lightfingers sighed, not looking back at him. He allowed his pace to slow so Ashen could catch him.

"What now, Ash?" His voice was too tired for his age, and muffled by the mask over his face. He reached up, pulling it down.

Time for one final, last ditch effort. Resignation crossed the older man's lean face, settling inside his eyes.

Ashen fell into step beside him, both still moving towards the thing he wanted to avoid. His back grew tighter on every step forward. The danger sense screamed louder, and louder.

"There's other ways to make money, you know there are."

Annoyance flickered over Lightfingers' tan face, making the pale scar over his lower lip dance. "It's not all about the money. It's about the work being reliable. Every month." He pressed tense fingers into his palm, meeting Ashen's gaze, "every month we get this, no one else gets it, because we struggled and fought for years to show we could do it better than so many others."

Ashen let out a strangled sound of frustration, running hands over his face above the mask. The pressure inside the back of his head began to grow, inch by inch, towards a pounding headache.

"Yes, I know that, you know I do. I just..." He didn't know how to explain it. The dread filling his bones and making his limbs shake. The way it coated his insides and made him feel sick. "There's other ways, there's other things we could do. Even if we struggle some, there's other things, and they're safer."

"What the hell do you think will happen, Ashen?" Lightfingers demanded, stopping.

He looked up, catching a brief glimpse of his sister sitting atop a wagon before he scrunched his eyes shut. "I don't know."

"Nothing ever happens," Lightfingers insisted. "That's why we didn't bother looking for guards the last four times. When has anything ever happened?"

Never. Nothing had ever happened. Not anything big, or worth losing halfway respected work in a world that hated them.

But always something might happen, and every time he stepped past the black wall he wanted to scream.

Lightfingers would call that a personal problem, unfortunately. Had, in fact, referred to it as such the last time Ashen had tried to talk him out of this trip... and the trip before that. The two prior to those.

Most.

Every time grew worse though, in a way he'd complained of too often to be taken seriously anymore. If he'd ever been taken seriously. They all knew how and why it affected him so much more than the rest, and, while no few felt pity for him at it, and the offer for him to stay had been given, no one thought it was anything more.

"There is something wrong with it."

"Of course there is, it's the Shade!" Exasperation made Lightfingers' voice rise. People glanced at them, but said nothing. The last minute bickering between the two was no longer of any interest, it was so frequent.

"No, listen to me," he snapped, grabbing Lightfingers arm a little too tightly. "Listen, Lightfingers, something is wrong, something is going to go wrong. I've been telling you for weeks."

He shook his head, prying Ashen's hand off. "Nothing is wrong, you're just high strung."

"I'm not. You aren't listening. No one is listening."

"Ashen, you've been telling me the same thing for years, and what has happened? The grass on the road has grown. It happens."

"I'm not talking about gods cursed Shade grass! I'm talking about something real, don't you feel it?" His head beat with the thumping of his heart. "Close your eyes and listen. Don't you hear it?"

"Hear what?" he asked, voice tired again. "I don't hear anything, Ash."

"Exactly. Where are the birds?"

"Does it matter?"

Ashen choked. "How doesn't it matter?"

"Look, Ash, I have things I still have to do before we go. Why don't you just stay?" The question held a frustrated edge.

Stay. As if there were any real option in that. As if his twin wouldn't rush on ahead of him into the danger alone. She would, Saphier had no healthy fear of anything, not even the Shade.

Lightfingers started moving faster. Ashen snatched at his arm again, fingers catching the edge of his thick sleeve. With a sharp jerk, Lightfingers pulled it away.

"Everything will be fine." He met Ashen's gaze. "I promise, Ash. We'll be okay, and in a few days it will be behind us like it always is."

Ashen's shoulders slumped. Behind them. It probably would be. For as long as he could remember, the Shade had made him feel sicker than everyone else. Maybe... maybe he was just becoming more sensitive.

Lightfingers seemed to read the dip in his conviction as it crossed his face. He nodded, smiling more gently. The sort of smile only he had, it made staying angry difficult.

"Everything will be fine." He gave Ashen's shoulder a squeeze, then moved away, pulling his mask on again.

Ashen began to walk towards the Shade wall, feet dragging. Chills ran along his body. He breathed into the stuffy mask, making himself relax. The magic inside it would keep the worst off. Everything would be fine.

His danger sense persisted to dispute the thoughts he used to still his shaking hands.

The first wagon slowed, horses going pensive. One stepped high, nickering in displeasure. The driver flicked them with the reigns, muttering a few words of encouragement to the team.

They moved forward, reluctance obvious. The wall came closer and closer. Then the horses passed inside. Ripples raced out from where they had entered, as if they hadn't stepped into mist, but rather a pool of dark water, held somehow on it's side. The ripples spread across the wall, black on black.

The horses grew distorted and fuzzy beyond the layers of darkness hanging in front of them. The bright blue and silver painting of the wagon dimmed with every step they took, a mere sham of what it should be.

He watched as it moved farther and farther away. Colors drained as if they had spent long years in the sun, bleaching till all the sharpness was gone. The wagon passed through a cloud of condensed darkness, and vanished.

Another was almost out of sight a few steps behind. A third approached, then plunged in without pause.

The wall stretched out in front of him, a rippling, writhing mass. Ashen looked up, craning his neck back to see the top.

Others had clambered onto wagons, and though he couldn't see, he knew bows lay concealed beside them, most homemade and of mediocre quality. All, a death sentence if someone with the brand was discovered to have them.

He fit his knife sheath onto his belt, fingers growing tight on the hilt.

Nothing but a few feet stood between him and the Shade. Ashen shut his eyes.

It rushed over him beyond the darkness of his eyelids. Nausea and disgust clawed at his stomach. The nature spirits here had died, or given up on everything, leaving only death. With his eyes closed, he imagined he could be standing within a massive field that had been salted and filled with broken, gutted creatures.

He forced them open.

The road continued along, dirt a strange bleached color, as if all the nutrients had been stolen. Dark mist hung everywhere, veiling the world beneath a shifting gauze.

It reached for him, darkness condensing into a strange approximation of a hand. He shuddered, side stepping the clumsily made thing.

Another reached from the other side, brushing malformed fingers over his arm, across his padded shirt. Ashen tugged leather gloves from his pockets, sliding them on. It continued to poke at him, and he continued to move.

His insides screamed with every touch. He swallowed to keep himself from gagging. More trips than he could remember, and he'd never thrown up inside the Shade, no matter how much he wanted to. He'd need to take the mask off, and he'd sooner stab himself in the eye.

The fingers pulled at him. Straining, the hands could barely shift the thick cloth of his shirt. It wasn't a danger of being stopped by it.

Instead, it tried to get inside you.

A wagon bounced off a rock ahead of him. Ashen flinched, the sound echoing dully around them with ghostly whispers.

The reverberations continued far too long, rebounding from the Shade around them over, and over, and over. The sound of the wheels moving became a low rumble, constantly refracting against the darkness.

Sometimes, he was certain the Shade mimicked them back on purpose.

The road was penned in by tortured trees. He kept himself from looking directly at them, stomach twisting. Dead plants. Not a single spark of life existed in this place. Slick, black grass grew on the edges of the road beneath the shells of trees, as if in defiance of what it was. It cropped up in stubborn patches inside the road. Dead and glistening with the darkness inside it, it grew.

He stepped over a patch that came well past ankle height, shuddering.

The grass bent under him, following the foot as if in a breeze. He hurried on faster, shaking his boot free of grass blades as they tried to wrap around him. It would hold him there if he let it.

It wasn't strong on the road though, not like it was just beyond the boarder of it. Spikes of glistening blue-black metal were driven into the ground just off the road, in intervals of about six paces each. On both sides they lined up perfectly even. Whether the ground was smooth or humped, they rose to the same height, in the same place. He couldn't imagine having been the people who'd placed them centuries ago in a race against the growing Shade.

Ashen kept his hand on his knife, walking in silence behind one of the wagons. His eyes followed the edge of the road. He didn't understand his sister's fascination with this place. It was too disturbing, too void of all things holy and just in the world.

Half an hour passed, the taste of his mask filled his mouth. In the back of his head, pressure continued the build, pounding against the inside of his skull.

Gaze trailing to the other the edge of the road, he looked at the woods beyond.

Something yellow glittered from the darkness. Two somethings, set close together and moving slowly.

Cold sliced into him. It landed in his stomach, as if he'd swallowed an icy river.

Ashen stumbled, coming to a stop. The eyes stopped as well. Thick black mist floated in front of them, blocking out their dimly reflected light.

More appeared, almost too distant to see among the trees. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw them. A field of yellow stars, set hovering apart from each other in careful suspension.

He turned sharply, looking at the side of the road he'd been watching before.

Nothing.

"Lightfingers!" his shout came muffled from the mask, and the way his chest squeezed on each breath. He stared into the closest pair of eyes.

The darkness lingering around them shifted, then pulled back.

A creature knelt on twisted haunches. Long, black fangs jabbed from its upper and lower jaws, glistening and wet.

"Saphier!" Ashen started running for the wagons. They hadn't paused with him. Grass shot up from the bare ground, snatching at his feet. Ashen leapt over it, running faster.

In the corner of his eye, he saw it.

One of the spikes had been bent, twisted down upon itself, as if by a massive hand.

The creature froze behind it, cautiously touching the air in front of it with a paw too close to being a human hand.

Something held it back.

Ashen almost sobbed in relief, running faster.

The thing slammed into it. White fractures ran up into the sky, flickering over a tunnel made briefly visible over the road.

Ahead, people began to swear.

A/N I hope you've enjoyed the latest installment of "boy she's even meaner to her characters than I am". Seriously though, I do adore Ashen chapters. He is my small, innocent baby. Which can only mean bad things for him.

If you liked this chapter, please remember to vote, it helps more people find my writing. Have a wonderful rest of your day!