NEVEN

"Are you feeling any better, Neven?" Maria asked as she came down the steps from the upper bedrooms and her study. "Yuven was worrying about you in his letter."

"I see we got the same letter." Neven smiled at her as he sorted through reports given to him when he made a stop at the lodge. "Though whether he worded it the same way to either of us..." He lifted one report to examine its contents while Maria bustled into the small kitchen. "Did you tell him about your research?" At Maria's silence, he shifted around his seat as she twirled a spoon in her cup. "Maria?"

She tipped her head to one side and grabbed a loaf of bread from the cupboard to cut it. "I told him all about it in the last letter I sent, which was a fortnight ago," she mumbled as she buttered up the bread and placed them in a cast-iron skillet, sending a burst of flames from her fingertips into the runes in the stove. "I sometimes worry I ask too much of him to hold onto a shred of hope — for this isn't just about him, but all others who have suffered due to the Corruption." Her hand brushed the countertops. "For Turns, people have pushed them aside when everyone thought their end was assured, when they needed the support the most." She leaned on the counter.

"Do you think he doesn't believe in you?" Neven asked.

Maria shook her head. "No. I just remember asking him if he'd rather someone else be his chirurgeon through this process. He told me, 'Maria, I can't trust anyone else.'" Her frown deepened behind her golden curls and she dragged her fingers against the countertop. "'I trust no one else,' that's how he feels, Nev. I just..." Hand outstretched, she sighed. "I wish there was a way I could undo all that. I'm just hoping our research will be enough."

Neven frowned then heaved himself out of his chair to head up to the other side of the counter. "Yuven was ever the type to push away his suffering if he thought it was hurting those he cares for," he whispered. "I think the thing he fears is that you are bereft of your hope and determination to see this research through... no matter what happens."

Maria folded her arms and released a sigh. "It is hard to glean that from penned parchment alone."

Neven smiled. "Then you both need to discuss this when your tenure here is over, which shouldn't be long at all. Written words can only get across so much." He returned to his work, but found his own letter to send. "Especially in Navee. It is much better to hear the song than the silence of paper." He folded it then sealed it shut with ice. "I'm hoping to get a reprieve after I've made sure things won't fall apart while I'm gone." He set it to the side before turning back to her.

"That would be best, especially for you," Maria commented. "You've been here longer than I have."

Farther away from the Obscura text... and any truth it may hold. But Kemal is insistent that the truth can still be found. Maybe another patrol to that ruin with the strange runes and... Neven nodded, unable to finish the thought in full, where the nonsensical had no answers but within itself. "Then let us both work toward that. If for nothing else but to show Yuven that he need not bear all his resolve alone."

The ember flames in her eyes set alight. "True enough. Thank you for listening, Neven."

Neven raised his hand in farewell as she grabbed her breakfast and stepped for the door, opening it. A Storm Warden bolted up to the stairway, almost bowling into her, though she dodged back.

"Captain!" They gasped. "Captain! You have to come! There was an attack on the patrol. Only one survivor!"

Neven rushed past Maria to follow the Storm Warden. Which patrol? The only one I sent was a routine inspection with... Terror crushed his heart. "Where is Kemal?" he snapped.

The Storm Warden turned back to him. "I've already sent someone to retrieve him, Captain Lotayrin. Julis is already there."

No. It cannot be. He rushed along the pathways of roots and tall, spiraling trees, whose leaves scattered the promise of the sun at his feet while darkness trailed in front of him. Fists clenched, he followed the Storm Wardens directions to the main gate. Not again. I sent them to a relatively quiet part, far away from where the disappearances started... It grew more nonsensical, and it came ever closer to the void knowing the truth.

A small, horse-drawn cart came closer to the small barracks behind the lodge, driven by a weary Storm Warden as Julis knelt over something in the cart.

"Julis!" Neven snapped. "What happened?"

"I don't know..." he mumbled as Neven climbed over the cart to confirm his worst fear. Kayal, the young Storm Warden, slumped in a corner, his gaze lost to the void while blood splattered across the entirety of his armor, painting the crest with crimson. He breathed, but he never responded to Julis' snapping fingers. He tried not to imagine Yuven or Fenrer in his place. Sent on what was their customary, first patrol, only to come back. Ended before it truly began. Neven listened to Kayal's light breaths, but the emptiness remained.

The Aurus shook his head with a sigh. "I don't know what's wrong with him, I've never seen anything like this before..."

Neven jumped when the cart came to a stop and Kemal's booming voice thundered through the air, "What in the Infernal Hells has gone on?" he asked, where the sea tempest raged.

Neven waited as his Oathbound climbed over the cart, but came to a stuttered stop as he gazed upon his apprentice. Julis shuffled on his feet. "We found him on the road," he muttered. "He was alone. We thought it best to take him back here, but we couldn't find anyone else."

Kemal leaned beside Neven. "What is wrong with him, Julis?"

Julis lowered his head. "I... I'm not sure, I can't tell from here," he admitted. "He is alive, but his aura is... empty, I suppose is the better word for it."

Kemal fell silent. "Is it reversible?" he asked in a long moment of silence.

"I don't know."

Neven hauled himself up to his feet, then jumped out of the cart to leave Kayal in the hands of Julis and the on duty healers. Heavy footsteps followed behind him, but he focused back on his previous path. He stopped by the house, grabbing his glaive and crescent blade, strapping them on before racing out and over the tree bridge and to the gate where he first sent out the patrol.

"Nev!" Kemal snapped. "Where are you going?"

Neven prepared a horse from the stables, checking the saddle and giving it a quick meal of thanks before grabbing the edge. A hand pulled him back from the horse, which stomped its foot with a huff through its nose.

"Hey." Kemal sent a firm flick into his head. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to follow their route to try to find the missing Wardens," Neven said. "Something happened on that route, Kemal. I cannot forsake them like I've forsaken the others." He leaped into the saddle, twisting the reins in his palms. "Stay with Kayal. It is my fault that he is like this. It is only right that I try to figure this out. Have Julis see if he cannot reverse what was done to him." He clicked his tongue, then guided the horse onto the road before breaking it into a gallop.

I have given orders, and they have all disappeared. Again and again. Neven tightened his grip on the reins. And all that I've ever found were their necklaces or a single Obscura text. The horse trotted down the path the patrol took, following the end of the cart's tracks before pushing forward to the first settlement they had to have come across on their way. Because if I cannot find the truth... I have sent them to their deaths for nothing.

He stopped his horse in the middle of a rocky path before dismounting it, but kept a hand on the reins. It slowly followed, its tails twitching and ears back. Old mold and decay filled his nostrils, and he shuddered right down to his feathers as he stopped by a blackened post. Unable to discern the words on it, he frowned and led the horse on the path.

He reached the telltale sign of a town barricade, but his heart fell at the blasted stones and ooze stuck between the cracks.

"No, no no no!" Neven let go of the horse, which didn't follow him into the confines.

Bones, large and small, scattered the streets, picked clean of their meat. Windows, blown from inside as blood dripped from the broken glass. Smoke rose from the fireplaces while crimson dug up and splattered the mud, where his boots squished into the piles as he made his way through. The silence of the forest beckoned to him as he reached the center, where the fountain spurt out brown water as he stepped onto the marble, and the squishing of mud was replaced with the click of his heel. On the rim of the fountain, a single necklace, where a wyvern protected a shattered star.

"Oh... no..." His knees hit the marble and sent shockwaves of pain, incomparable to what rested around him, as another horse rushed up the path. Hands against the marble, bile crawled up his throat as Kemal's voice called out his name. "This doesn't make sense..."

"Lotayrin!" Kemal snapped as his footsteps came up from behind him, but he had no strength to turn.

Neven sat on his knees and stared up at the fountain of brown water, and the lone necklace of the shattered star. Kemal got into his periphery. "Running headlong into possible danger without backup is not going to make sense of this," he bit. "Unless you want to join them, Neven."

The forest wailed for the lost life.

"I am responsible," Neven whispered as he reached out to the necklace and tucked it into his palms. "You should have stayed with Kayal. It is clear that this is like all the rest. Whoever caused this is long gone, leaving us with the remains and more questions than answers as to why."

Kemal threw his hands up in the air and twisted around. "You still shouldn't be alone."

Irritation slammed into his head. "And what does that matter?" he snapped from the ground, where the weight of the sky slammed on his back. "I have fortified the patrols since the first attack! They still disappeared." He threw the broken star back onto the ground and lifted himself off the ground, though his lack of strength in his knees threatened to cave out with the pain. "They were our best Storm Wardens. They still vanish." Neven stomped into Kemal's space. "You cannot tell me that it matters! You cannot scold me for it! I come from a place where you step in the wrong snow dune and you will disappear no matter if it is just you, or more of you!"

Kemal shoved him back. "They knew what they signed up for, Nev!"

He clenched his fists, then sent a concentrated burst of ice into the broken fountain. The brown water stopped its bloody flow in frozen time as the stone hit the other side, sinking into the mud. His feathers shifted with the change in the wind as he released the tension in his fist and stood in front of the shattered pieces of stone.

Kemal sighed and held his shoulder. "I know you're frustrated. You've been frustrated, Nev. You feel like we've been running in circles—"

Neven sank back to his knees. "How many were on this routine patrol...?"

"Six?"

"One of them was but a Trainee, on the cusp of finishing their training," Neven whispered as he picked up the necklace again.

"Kayal is still alive," Kemal said, but it came out taut.

Neven shook his head and rested his stone-filled hands in his lap. "I suppose."

Kemal shuffled behind him before setting a hand on his back. "We should get out of here, Nev. Come back with a bigger force. If there are survivors, we'll find them." His Oathbound's footsteps disappeared to the horses.

While he sat among the newly made grave of a previously bustling town of innocent lives, nothing more than bones and mud.