Kael had not slept properly in six days.He had slept in the technical sense -- horizontal, eyes closed, hours passing -- but the fire did not sleep. The absorbed Aeth moved through him even in unconsciousness, cycling through his chest and arms and the backs of his hands like a current that had nowhere to discharge. He woke every morning feeling like he had been running.Sera noticed. She noticed everything, which he was beginning to understand was not a gift but a discipline -- something she had built over years of surviving in rooms where missing details was fatal."You are burning through it too fast. When you are not actively using it, the fire is still active. You are not resting. You are smouldering.""How do I stop?""You bank it. Like a hearth fire -- you do not let it go out but you reduce it to coals. The difference between burning and holding is intention." She sat cross-legged on the floor across from him. "Close your eyes."He did. The fire was immediately more present w

They left Ashenveil before dawn -- five people, dark clothes, no light. Sera led. Linne navigated. The two scouts, Dav and Mira, moved like people who had done this enough times that fear had become manageable rather than absent.Kael kept his fire banked and his senses open. The Mirroring had given him something he was only beginning to map -- a faint peripheral awareness of Aeth in his vicinity, like hearing a sound just below the range where you could identify it. Sera's shadow moved in his awareness like a cool current. The scouts had trace bonds, minor, barely registering. Linne had nothing -- Aethless, like he had been.He kept that to himself.The Greyspan pass opened between two ridges at the north end of the canyon network -- a natural corridor the Imperial supply lines used because there was no faster alternative. Today was the second day of the convoy cycle: it would come through at midmorning.They were in position by sunrise, split into two pairs on either side of the pas

The letter arrived three days later, carried by a courier who had found it pinned to a cairn at the Greyspan second entry point -- the one only four people in Ashenveil knew existed.Rhen brought it to Kael unopened. It was addressed in a clean precise hand: Kael Dun. No title. No village. Just the name."It is from Vessin," Sera said, seeing the seal -- no imperial crest, just a single threadlike impression in the wax, the mark of an Arbiter operating independently."How did he find the cairn?""He found you by Threadwork. He found the cairn by following your residue to places you have touched." She paused. "Open it."He did. The letter was three paragraphs, handwriting consistent throughout -- no variation in pressure or pace.The first paragraph identified information he already had: Kael's Mirroring, the empire's classification of it, the standing order to retrieve him alive.The second paragraph contained information he did not have: the names of four other people in occupied Vel

The names were: Oryn, Bess, Cael-not-Kael, and a woman listed only as the Farrier of Thornwick.Rhen spread them across the map table and assessed the locations. Three in Veldrath -- one in the highlands near Linne's old cooperative, one two days east of Ashenveil, one in a coastal settlement under heavy Imperial presence. And one in Ironcrest, location approximate, last known position a border trading post."We move on the Veldrath three first," Rhen said. "Simultaneous -- sequential means the empire has time to notice and move the others.""I will take the coastal one," Kael said.The room looked at him."It is the hardest," Sera said."I know. I am also the most useful in a situation where we might need to move quickly past soldiers." He paused. "And I am the one Vessin gave us the names. If something goes wrong because I was not there, that is on me.""That is not how responsibility works," Linne said from the corner."I know. But it is how I work." He looked at Rhen. "Give me Ser