“Rule #1: The living come first. Property, borders, and reputation follow after.” - Field Guide for Rangers of the Western Vale

  Short-handled spades cut into the cold soil. The sound was dull and heavy. Each strike sent a tremor through Rhea’s wrists. Above them, branches shifted with a brittle scrape that carried through the trees. The air felt thin, and the light was low. Neither of the rangers spoke.

  Rhea ignored the ache in her fingers and tightened them on the spade handle. She had worked in worse conditions, but her hands still shook when she set her next foothold and pressed her weight into the blade. The soil resisted, stiff with early frost. It broke in uneven clumps.

  Tarren worked beside her with a hard focus that looked almost like anger. His jaw stayed locked, his breath came sharp and fast.

  The grave dug, they turned to their friend. They lowered Maera carefully, steadying the coat around her. Rhea’s hands noticed the weight of the knife as she picked it up. Maera had carried it with a kind of ease that never showed in the blade itself. Now the knife felt heavier, clean-edged and colder against Rhea’s palm.

  She placed it in the earth beside Maera, blade facing east, as tradition instructed. She adjusted the edge of Maera’s coat so it would not pull at the shoulder. Maera had always hated that.

  Tarren opened his mouth. No sound came. He closed it again. He had words for every moment except this one.

  They filled the grave in quiet. Soil slid against fabric. Rhea pressed the final layer flat with her hand. She sat back on her heels, heart steady but tight. When she stood, her legs felt heavier than before.

  The others drifted toward camp in slow steps. Rhea, however, turned away and walked a little farther, past a fallen log and around a thicket that had held its leaves longer than the rest. When she reached the edge of a narrow clearing, the forest stilled.

  The moerik waited there, silent, its outline softened by the thin shimmer that lived within its hide. It stood without motion. The faint glow along its flank pulsed like a slow breath.

  Rhea stopped a respectful distance away. Her fatigue sat like a weight across her shoulders. The moerik’s stillness made her feel even more human, even more breakable. Its unblinking eyes reflected just enough of the night to hint at depth, but not emotion. The forest around them held its own breath.

  She carefully reached into her pack and unwrapped a bit of dried fruit and bread. She crossed halfway to the tree line and set the food on a flat stone. Then she stepped back.

  The moerik tilted its head. The shimmer along its throat brightened for a moment. When Rhea looked up again from closing her pack, the creature was gone. No sound. No tracks. The stone held the food untouched, as if waiting.

  By the time she returned to camp, the fire had settled into low, orange light. Eldra crouched near it with her arms wrapped around her knees. Tarren sat across from her, rubbing at a scrape on his knuckles. Ralen stood a short distance away, checking the lantern’s light. The glow within it swayed in a steady rhythm, soft and even.

  Eldra waited until the others settled before she spoke. “What now?” Her voice was calm, but the strain under it was clear. She looked at Rhea with a question that carried more than logistics.

  Rhea lowered herself to a seat near the fire. She hesitated for a moment, hands clasped, then met Eldra’s eyes. “We keep moving. I have lost too much to the Withering to walk away.”

  The words came out steady. She felt the weight of them settle around the group like a slow draft. No one contested it.

  Rhea turned to Tarren. “You choose your path. You can stay with us or return to the nearest chapterhouse. Either is authorized.”

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  Tarren snorted softly. “I’m not leaving you out here. Not after today. Besides, if I went back alone, they’d think I did something wrong.” His mouth pulled into something like a smirk. “And I am not handing them that satisfaction.”

  Rhea almost smiled. Almost.

  Ralen listened without interrupting. His posture shifted with concern as she spoke. He looked like he wanted to say something, maybe a reassurance or an apology, but he held back. That restraint said more to her about him than words could have. His expression carried respect and unease together, as if he felt the gravity of the moment, but did not trust himself to respond to it.

  She nodded once to him. He said nothing. She had not expected comfort, but a small part of her was disappointed that he hadn’t offered.

  The fire burned lower. One by one, they settled into their blankets. Tarren muttered something about taking first watch, the edge gone from his voice. None of them needed convincing. Eldra lay with her back to the fire, one hand pressed lightly over the bandaged cut on her arm. Ralen moved closer to the lantern, watching the pulse shift in small, quiet waves.

  Rhea lay down last. She adjusted her blanket, rested her head on her pack, and let her eyes close. The night settled around them. The wind moved through the far trees with a faint hiss. No animals called from the undergrowth.

  Sleep came in pieces, and when dawn thinned the darkness, Rhea sat up slowly. Her breath fogged the cold air. She rubbed her face, pushed hair from her eyes, and reached for her boots.

  And stared.

  Near the toe of her blanket, something waited. A single crow feather, black and clean, its edges smooth and unbroken. Beside it lay a short stem of moonleaf with three fresh leaves still attached, the green bright even in the pale light.

  Rhea touched the feather with one finger. It held a faint warmth, as if it had been set down moments earlier. She lifted the moonleaf sprig next. The leaves were unbruised, gathered from a plant that grew higher on the ridge. Nothing in camp explained how it had arrived.

  A quiet flush moved through her chest. She didn’t know what the offering meant, but it felt like an answer.

  She glanced toward the others. Eldra slept curled on her side, breath shallow but even. Ralen sat against a log with his head bowed, lantern resting near his knee, the glow faint and steady. None of them had stirred.

  Rhea wrapped the feather and the sprig in a scrap of cloth and tucked them into her pack. They didn’t need attention. Not yet.

  Footsteps crunched softly behind her.

  She turned just as Tarren emerged from between the trees, rain-darkened cloak brushing his boots. He looked tired in the quiet way that came after vigilance rather than fear. He paused when he saw her awake.

  “Perimeter’s clear,” he murmured. “Nothing moving closer than it should.”

  She nodded once.

  He tipped his head toward the others. “Your turn.”

  Rhea rose without comment, easing her weight onto her feet so the ground didn’t complain. Tarren moved past her toward the fire, lowering himself near the log with a careful exhale.

  As he settled, he snorted once in spite of himself, the sound sharp enough to startle him awake again. He muttered something under his breath and pulled his cloak tighter.

  Eldra shifted with a soft, pained breath and didn’t try to sit up.

  Ralen noticed immediately. He edged closer to her, worry sitting plainly on his face despite his attempt to hide it.

  Rhea stepped away from the firelight and took up her watch, eyes on the dark between the trees.

  When Ralen spoke, his voice was rough. “We shouldn’t travel. Her wound isn’t holding. If she moves now, it will open again.”

  Eldra glared at him for a heartbeat, then winced and let her eyes close. “I could walk,” she muttered, “if the world were cooperating.”

  “It isn’t,” Ralen said.

  Rhea nodded once. That was enough. No one argued. Eldra couldn’t walk, and none of them had the strength to pretend otherwise.

  Once dawn arrived, they moved around camp in quiet, practical motions. Tarren checked their packs. Ralen settled near Eldra, watching her breathe. The lantern maintained a soft, steady output.

  Rhea stepped a few paces out, letting the cold wake her fully. Frost hung on the branches above, pale and still. She looked back toward Maera’s grave. The mound sat under its thin sheet of frost, the trees holding a stiff, brittle hush around it.

  She took one breath, let it out, and that was that.

  They stayed put for the day. No promises to move soon. No talk of the trail ahead. Just rest and enough stillness for Eldra to mend a little and for the ground to feel solid again.

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