The mist came first.It rolled across the ground in long slow waves, thick and white, carrying mana the way coastal air carries salt. Dense enough to taste. The stillness that came with it sat differently on the skin than ordinary quiet, heavier, like the air itself was paying attention.Dante stood at the edge of the hill and looked at the forest spreading below him and summoned the Fallen without turning around. He heard them arrive one by one, the familiar pressure of ten presences arranging themselves behind him, and reached into his inventory for the black cloak and the magic leather armor he had bought that morning.He changed without ceremony.The armor settled onto him in gold and white, archaic patterns running across the surface in lines that caught the broken light coming through the canopy above."Flawless," Pride said, from somewhere to his left. The word came out the way Pride said most things, half genuine and half something sharper underneath it. "Truly. The craftsmans

The gray valley had the particular quiet of a place where something bad had already finished happening and something worse was still deciding whether to start.Eva was on her knees in the dirt with her hands bound behind her and blood at the corner of her mouth, and the circle of white and gold knights around her had their swords drawn with the relaxed posture of men who didn't expect to need them. In front of her stood Bishop Orlino, thin and pale, in robes that cost more than the village that had raised her. He had the patient expression of a man who had already decided how this ended and was simply waiting for the remaining steps to complete themselves."The book," he said, for the third time. His voice was the kind of quiet that doesn't need volume. "That is all I want. Give it to me and this concludes peacefully."Eva looked at the ground."I don't have it.""You're lying.""I don't have it with me.""Then you know where it is." He crouched down to her level, and his face up clos

"Run," Dante said.Eva grabbed his arm. "Are you serious right now?""We can't beat that." He was already moving, pulling her with him toward Vorak. "A pointless fight is a pointless fight. Move."She moved.Vorak's paws hit the valley floor and the ground shook with each stride, the beast eating distance in long clean bursts, and Dante pushed the order through the mental link to every Fallen still scattered across the village. Break off. Converge on my position. Now. Eva held onto his waist with both hands, her fingers shaking against his ribs, and behind them the sound of enormous wings filled the air as Orlino came down from above, golden aura blazing, his rage visible from fifty meters up.The valley narrowed.Then it stopped.Tall cliffs rose on every side, sealing left and right and straight ahead in one clean door-slamming instant. The kind of dead end that doesn't apologize for itself.Vorak skidded to a stop. Eva's grip tightened. Dante looked at the cliffs, looked left, look

The Broken Ravine swallowed them the moment they crossed the entrance.Mist first, thick and immediate, pressing against the chest with each breath like the air had weight to it. Then the walls rose on either side, massive and close, covered in carvings worn down by more than a century of weather into shapes that were almost recognizable and not quite. Vorak moved through the silence at an easy pace and Eva sat behind Dante on the broad purple back and filled the quiet with words spoken low, almost like she was talking to herself and he happened to be there."A hundred and twenty years ago this was the most important route on the continent," she said. "The main artery connecting Arontre to the other three. Every major trade house had stations along the full length. There were villages here, planned infrastructure, proposals to extend it into the Golden Road for intercontinental commerce." She looked up at the eroded wall carvings passing overhead. "Half a million people died when the

The road was gone.Not damaged. Not blocked. Gone, the stone collapsed into itself at some point that the debris pattern suggested wasn't ancient, the gap it left going down rather than forward and offering nothing useful to anyone.Eva stared at it.Dante watched the denial move through her face in stages, quick ones, the particular sequence of a person checking and rechecking something they already know isn't going to change."This was the route," she said. "I'm certain of it. I traveled it once before, five years ago. One of my father's people brought me through before leaving me near the village." She looked at the collapsed stone. "This was the path.""Vorak." Dante looked down at the broad purple head. "Can you read the other paths from here? Sense which one is cleaner?"Vorak lifted his nose to the mist and held it there for a moment."The mist is too thick," he said. "It's dampening everything. I can give you a direction but not a reading worth trusting."Dante considered send