The third night on the road felt different.

  Not safer—Sunstone Peaks were still wild, and the fire still drew eyes in the dark—but different. The caravan had found a shallow bowl of rock that broke the wind, and the party moved with the quiet efficiency of people who’d already bled together.

  Eins crouched beside the wagon wheel, checking the lashings like a man inspecting a blade edge. Zwei sat on a crate with his bow across his knees, humming something too cheerful for a world that tried so hard to kill them. Valeriana cleaned her broadsword in deliberate strokes, each pass of cloth measured. Kael didn’t sit near the fire. He never did. He stayed just outside the circle of warmth, where shadows had enough depth to hide intent.

  Null sat a little apart, close enough to hear but far enough to think.

  In his hands was a pale block of wood and a carving knife. The blade whispered as it shaved thin curls that fell like dry petals onto his knees. Zwei had taught him the basics during travel—how to follow grain instead of fighting it, how to let the wood decide what it wanted to become—but the steady precision in Null’s fingers wasn’t something taught in a week.

  It was the same old problem.

  His mind watched. His body remembered.

  He turned the half-finished figure over, studied it once, then worked again. A few more cuts. A few more careful strokes. The shape completed itself the way a lock clicked into place—inevitable, simple, unsettling.

  When he was done, he didn’t announce it.

  He stood, crossed the firelight, and stopped beside Kael.

  “Kael.”

  The Beastman’s ears twitched before his head turned. Those sharp, lynx-like eyes flicked from Null’s face to his hands—always scanning, always measuring what mattered.

  Null held out the carving.

  It was a lynx in mid-stalk, body low, shoulders coiled, head tilted as if tracking movement that others missed. The detail wasn’t flashy. It was accurate. The grain of the wood flowed along the spine like fur laid flat by wind.

  Kael stared at it for a long second.

  Then he took it without a word, turning it once in his calloused fingers. His thumb traced the carved line of the shoulder. His jaw tightened like he’d bitten down on something he hadn’t expected to taste.

  “…You’re wasting good blade work on toys,” Kael said, voice rough.

  But he didn’t give it back.

  He slid it into an inner pouch—deep, protected, the kind of place a man saved for things he didn’t want stolen.

  Null nodded once, accepting that as praise.

  He turned to Valeriana.

  “And for you.”

  Her gaze dropped to the second carving.

  A bear, standing with weight set into its legs, posture steady—more shield than threat. It wasn’t roaring. It wasn’t posed like a hero statue. It looked like something that endured.

  Valeriana took it, and for a moment her expression slipped—something soft under iron discipline. Then it was gone.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Not warm. Not cold.

  Just honest.

  The fire popped, sending sparks up into the night. Eins watched the exchange without comment, but the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction. Zwei, for once, didn’t joke. He only leaned back, eyes half-lidded, looking satisfied in a way that made Null feel like he’d passed a test he hadn’t known he was taking.

  They weren’t friends.

  Not yet.

  But the distance between them had changed shape.

  They broke camp at first light and reached Sunstone Crossing by late afternoon.

  It wasn’t a grand city. It was an outpost that survived by being stubborn. Timber walls reinforced with stone, narrow streets built to funnel travelers toward the market and keep trouble away from homes. Sunstone quartz was set into lamp housings and building corners, bleeding warm light into alleyways that would have felt threatening without it.

  For the first time since leaving Volundrheim, Null saw children—actual children—running between stalls. He saw old men arguing over prices, as if the world weren’t ending in a hundred places at once. He saw a baker smack flour off his apron and grin at a customer.

  Normal.

  It was almost unsettling.

  They passed through the palisade, and Null’s vision flickered.

  A clean block of notifications appeared—brief, decisive, and then gone.

  

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.