What the hell is going on?
Elda waits for the table to settle before speaking.
“I have information you need before you leave,” she says. “Two nights before you arrived, a caravan passed through the village. Traders heading east.”
She pauses.
“They reported seeing a young woman with purple hair — with someone hooded beside her. They didn’t look like willing companions. Moving fast. Heading toward the mountain.”
My heart stops.
Seren.
For half a second the hall blurs — firelight, faces, noise — and all I can see is a kid with purple hair and too-big boots trailing in my shadow.
Patricia appears at my elbow, notebook blazing, then blurs like the ink can’t keep up. Mouse presses against my boot.
“Sorrow’s Keep,” Kieran says quietly.
Elda nods. “That’s what they call it. The mountain at the heart of the corruption. They say it holds the gateway to the gods.” She shrugs slightly. “Whether that’s true or superstition, I couldn’t say.”
Darian shifts in his seat. “It’s not easy to reach. The terrain around it is… wrong. Twisted. Alekir talked about it constantly, but I never saw it myself.”
“There’s more,” Revna says from the doorway. I didn’t even notice her arrive. “A separate witness spotted someone else heading the same direction. Hours apart from the caravan.”
She steps into the room, her expression grim.
“Callum.”
The name lands like a stone in still water.
Carl peels out from beneath the table, halfway through a salute before Bob yanks him back, edges sharp withdon’t you dare.
Torric’s rune flares briefly, heat rolling off him before he clamps it down. Aspen goes very still. Kieran’s jaw tightens, controlled and focused.
Finn stiffens beside Malrik, something flickering across his face — grief, guilt, fear — before he shoves it down and goes blank.
Darian tenses.
I notice. So does Malrik.
“You know him?” Malrik asks, voice carefully neutral.
Darian hesitates. “I’ve heard the name. Thorne mentioned him once. Maybe Alekir too. I don’t know the details.”
Malrik nods slowly, filing that away.
“They weren’t traveling together,” Revna continues. “The sightings were hours apart. But they’re both heading toward the Keep.”
Silence settles over the table.
I take a breath.
“We leave at dawn.”
Bob snaps into a crisp salute. Behind him the new recruits scramble to copy it, half a step late and wildly uneven. Linda nods approvingly.
Are there more than before?
