Chapter 33
XAVIAN
The approach to Eldridge Hollow had been gnawing at me for days, a tightening coil in my chest that I kept buried under the steady rhythm of our steps, the constant scan of the horizon for threats that hadn't yet materialized.
This place had lingered in my mind like a half-forgotten anchor, one of the few remnants from my life before the exile that might still hold, tucked away in the border wilds where Nyra's influence hopefully would have thinned to whispers.
It wasn't much—a small enclave of healers and outcasts, neutral ground where rogue practitioners mended what the great Houses broke, trading in relics and favors without the choke of politics.
I'd passed through before, years before my exile, and remembered Seryth's face, her steady hands weaving essence into flesh like thread through fabric.
If anyone could reattach what I'd severed from Morgan, could knit bone and nerve back together before the preservation rune faded entirely, it would be her.
The thought had driven me harder these last miles, my pace quickening without comment, the landscape blurring into a haze of twisted forests and mist-shrouded ruins as I pushed us forward.
Hope wasn't a word I allowed myself often, not after so long scraping by in shadows, but it simmered low, controlled, fueling each step with the quiet promise that this might give Morgan back some piece of what she'd lost—because of me.
Morgan had kept up, her strides more assured since that self-carved rune had steadied her, though I caught the occasional wince when the terrain turned rough, her missing hand a constant shadow in her movements.
She didn't complain, not outright, but her questions had sharpened along the way, probing at the edges of my silence about our destination.
I'd deflected where I could, offering fragments to keep her moving, but now, as the familiar ridge came into view, the anticipation tightened further, urging me up the final slope with a focus that bordered on urgency.
The Hollow should have been visible from here, a cluster of low stone dwellings nestled in the valley below, smoke from communal fires curling into the violet sky, the faint hum of wards marking its perimeter.
But as we crested the rise, the valley stretched out empty, unnaturally so, and that coil in my chest snapped into something colder, sharper.
It wasn't gone in the way time erodes things, not abandoned with the slow creep of vines over forgotten walls or the scatter of weathered debris that speaks of gradual decay.
No, this was erasure, deliberate and wrong, as if the land itself had swallowed the enclave whole and left behind a scar that refused to heal.
The valley floor, where homes and healing halls should have stood, was a flattened expanse of charred earth, blackened soil cracked in patterns that resembled shattered glass, radiating outward from a central point like the impact of something immense.
Faint wisps of smoke still rose from fissures in the ground, carrying a acrid scent that burned in my nostrils, not woodsmoke but something metallic, laced with the bitter tang of spent magic.
Ruins of structures poked through here and there, but they were twisted, stone melted and reformed into grotesque shapes, as if subjected to a heat that warped reality itself.
The wards I'd remembered, those protective barriers that hummed with neutral power, were absent, replaced by a lingering dissonance in the air, a vibration that set my teeth on edge, like the echo of a scream long faded but not silenced.
This wasn't natural decay or even a raid gone wrong; it was obliteration, the kind that left traces of intent, of power wielded with precision to ensure nothing remained.
Frustration surged through me, cold and biting, clenching in my fists as I scanned the devastation, anger rising not as a roar but as a controlled burn, fueling the realization that another door had slammed shut just as we'd reached it.
Eldridge Hollow had been a viable refuge, removed enough from Nyra's grasp to buy us time, to perhaps restore Morgan's hand and give us a base to plan from.
Now it was ash and echoes, another consequence of my delay, of years lost in exile while she tightened her hold on everything I'd known.
I should have anticipated this, should have known her reach would extend even here, erasing potential threats before they could harbor exiles like me.
The failure stung, sharpening my focus into a blade of resolve, but I didn't let it show, not yet, turning instead to Morgan, who stood beside me, her expression shifting from anticipation to confusion as she took in the empty valley.
"What is this?" she asked, her voice carrying that edge of frustration she'd honed over our journey, sharp and real, cutting through the heavy air. "This is where you were taking us? It looks like a bomb went off. What happened here?"
I kept my tone even, masking the anger simmering beneath with a practicality born of necessity, already recalibrating our path in my mind.
"It was supposed to be a village. Healers, outcasts—people who could have helped you.
But it's gone. Wiped clean. We'll make camp here for the night, among what's left.
In the morning, we move on. There's another option, farther out, but viable. "
She turned to me fully, her eyes narrowing, confusion giving way to the frustration that had been building in her for days, her voice rising with an incredulity that matched the exhaustion etched in her features.
"Make camp? Move on? Xavian, you've been dragging me through this nightmare for days, promising answers, help, something, and now we're at a dead end, and you just shrug it off like it's a detour?
I still don't even know what the full plan was!
What was this place supposed to be? Who were these people?
You keep me in the dark, feeding me scraps, and expect me to just follow along? "
Her words landed like barbs, stoking the frustration already burning in me, and I felt my control slip just enough to let sarcasm bleed through, dry and biting as I met her gaze. "Forgive me for trying the route that would have reunited you with your hand first."
She recoiled slightly, her face flushing with a mix of anger and hurt, her voice cracking with incredulity as she fired back without hesitation. "The hand you cut off?"
I opened my mouth to respond, the defense rising sharp on my tongue—that there had been no choice, that the blade would have consumed her entirely if I hadn't acted, that every second of delay had been a gamble with her life—but the words died unspoken, cut off by a sound that sliced through the air, high and unnatural, a keening wail from the charred ruins below that made both of us freeze, our argument forgotten as something stirred in the ashes we'd thought empty.