Aric ValeThe soldiers returned at dawn. I was waiting with my sword, water skin, and nothing else. Everything I owned fit inside that tower, and none of it mattered enough to bring.The young captain looked surprised. "You're coming?""I'm coming."They'd brought a spare horse, a gray mare that eyed me with suspicion. Smart horse. I approached slowly, letting her smell my hand before mounting. Seven years since I'd sat on a horse, but muscle memory took over.We rode in silence. The soldiers kept their distance, forming a loose circle around me. Not quite prisoner formation, but close. I didn't blame them.The scarred soldier rode closer after an hour. Up close, I could see he was older than I'd thought—fifty, maybe. Gray in his beard, lines around his eyes."Name's Garrett," he said. "Lieutenant Garrett Moss. Twenty-three years with the Royal Guard.""You would have served when I did.""I did. I was there the night they brought you back. The night Prince Dorian died." He paused. "I

Aric ValeWe reached the second murder site late the next afternoon. Another ravine, deeper this time, with a stream running through it. The body lay half in the water, preserved by cold.Two weeks dead instead of three months. Fresh enough to see details that decay had destroyed in the first victim.I dismounted, hands still bound. Garrett cut the rope after a long pause, but kept his sword drawn. "Stay where we can see you.""Not planning to run." Where would I run to?The descent was steep. Loose rocks, slippery with moss. I went slowly, aware of soldiers behind me, aware that one wrong move might look like escape.The smell was worse than the first site. Fresher death, not yet rotted to bone. I breathed through my mouth and approached.Female. Mid-thirties, maybe. Royal courier by her uniform, leather riding gear, insignia on her shoulder. Her horse was probably long gone, spooked and running.The wounds were identical to the first victim. Four parallel cuts to the throat, deep an

Aric ValeThomas was gone.They found his body an hour after dawn, half a mile from camp. Same wounds as the others. Four parallel cuts to the throat. The Mark of the Vale burned into his chest.Still warm.I stood over his body, hands bound behind my back now, two soldiers gripping my arms. Captain Lyons knelt beside Thomas, face pale with shock and rage."He was nineteen," Lyons said quietly. "He joined the Guard eight months ago. He wanted to make his mother proud.""I'm sorry," I said. The words felt hollow, inadequate."Sorry?" Lyons stood, hand on his sword. "You murdered him. While we slept, while we trusted that the ropes would hold you…""The ropes did hold me," I interrupted. "Check them. They're still tied exactly as you left them. Still secured to the tree."Garrett had already gone to check. He came back looking troubled. "He's right. The ropes are intact. The knots haven't been disturbed. He couldn't have gotten free and retired himself that perfectly.""Then how?" Lyons

Aric ValeWe reached the old watchtower at mid-morning the next day. The structure rose from the wasteland like a broken tooth, thirty feet of crumbling stone, roof long since collapsed. "This is it?" Captain Lyons asked skeptically. "This is your rally point?" "It was intact seven years ago," I said. "The Wastes have a way of aging things faster than normal time." We approached cautiously, weapons drawn. The tower sat alone in a field of dead grass, no cover nearby. If this was a trap, we'd see it coming. But I felt no danger. Just a strange pull, like recognition. I'd been here before. Not recently, seven years ago. The memory was faint, filtered through fog, but present. Garrett and Lyons went in first, checking for threats. After a tense minute, Garrett called back: "Clear. But you need to see this." They brought me inside, still bound. The tower's interior was hollow, open to the sky where the roof had fallen. Stones littered the floor, overgrown with strange plants. And

Aric ValeWe set up before daybreak, no one eager to linger beside Thorne's grave more than they had to. The mood was blacker than ever, heavy, there was no talking, tense, all soldiers watching me like I was about to shatter at any second.Perhaps I would.The further we rode into the Wastes, the stranger reality became. Trees grew out in curls, their bark curling like water. The ground shifted color, brown to gray to purple, beneath the horses' hooves. Time felt fluid, stretching and compressing at will."How much farther?" Captain Lyons queried, checking his compass for the third time in an hour. The needle spun futile, unable to tell north in a place where direction didn't exist."By the princess's prints, maybe six hours," Garrett said, studying the prints we'd been following. "But there's no telling here. It could be three hours. It could be twelve."I recognized it too, the wrongness pressing down my skull. The Wastes were most intense here, reality stretched and rented asunder