The settlement's lights still twinkle in the distance, a beacon of hope in the hostile darkness. Tomorrow we'll reach it, find out what kind of people live there, see if they're friend or foe.
But tonight, we grieve for the friend we couldn't save.
22
FORLA
The village spreads below us like a wound that refuses to close, its crooked houses huddled against the rocky coastline where gray waves gnaw at black stone. After three days of walking through empty hills, the sight should bring relief. Instead, my stomach clenches with the same dread I felt watching Talia and Brom's lifeless eyes stare at nothing.
Thoktar grunts beside me, shifting his weight to favor his injured ribs. "Finally. Civilization."
But there's something wrong with the way the village sits against the shore. The houses lean inland, their backs turned to the sea like they're afraid of what might crawl out of the waves. Fishing nets hang between buildings in impossible tangles, stretched like spider webs across narrow alleys, and beneath the salt tang of ocean air lies something else—the sweet-sick smell of meat left too long in the sun.
"At least they have boats," Rophan says, his deep voice carrying hope for the first time since we fled the arena. His massive frame towers over us both, but even he seems diminished by the strange emptiness of the place.
We pick our way down the rocky path, loose stones skittering ahead of us like fleeing insects. The village appears completely deserted—no smoke from chimneys, no voices calling across courtyards, no children playing in the narrow streets. Yet I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched from every dark window, every shadowed doorway.
A weathered wooden sign leans drunkenly beside what might once have been a proper gate. The letters are carved deep, filled with something dark that might be tar or dried blood: PENMORVAH. Below it, smaller words in a script that makes my eyes water when I try to focus on them.
"Penmorvah," I whisper, tasting the name like medicine gone bad.
The first street we enter runs parallel to the shore, but every door faces inland as if the sea is something to be ignored rather than embraced. Fish bones lie scattered in deliberate patterns between the cobblestones—spirals and crosses and shapes that seem to shift when I'm not looking directly at them. The bones are bleached white, picked clean, but they're fresh enough that they should still stink. Instead, they smell like nothing at all, as if the scent has been carefully removed.
Nets hang everywhere—not just between houses but draped over windowsills, stretched across doorways, bundled in corners like sleeping animals. They're not ordinary fishing nets either. The mesh is too fine, the knots too complex, and when the wind catches them they whisper like voices sharing secrets.
"Where is everyone?" Thoktar asks, his hand drifting to his axe handle.
As if summoned by his words, curtains twitch in the windows above us. A pale face appears for an instant at a second-story window, then vanishes so quickly I might have imagined it. But the feeling of being watched intensifies, pressing against my skull like fever.
We move deeper into the village, our footsteps echoing off stone walls that weep with moisture despite the dry afternoon air. The houses grow larger as we approach what must be the village center, their rooflines decorated with carved fish that seem to writhe in my peripheral vision. Every alley we pass exhales the sound of whispers, conversations conducted in voices too low to understand.
A cat slinks across our path—at least, I think it's a cat until I see how it moves, its joints bending in directions that make my bones ache in sympathy. It pauses to stare at us with eyes like green glass, then flows away into the shadows with liquid grace.
Seabirds perch on the rooftops above us, but they don't call or cry or move the way birds should. They simply watch with heads tilted at unnatural angles, their beaks hanging open as if they're trying to taste our scent on the wind.
"This place feels wrong," I murmur, stepping closer to Thoktar's warmth.
"Everywhere feels wrong lately," he replies, but his voice carries the same unease that's crawling up my spine like cold fingers.
The village center opens before us—a circular plaza paved with stones that spiral inward toward a well. But it's not water that fills the well. Something dark and thick laps at the stone rim, and the sound it makes is like gentle sobbing.
As we stand there, uncertain whether to advance or retreat, doors begin to open.
They emerge slowly, one by one, the people of Penmorvah. An old woman from the largest house, her movements careful and precise as if she's walking on ice. A younger man from a doorway to our left, his arms hanging at strange angles. Children who might be seven or seventeen—it's impossible to tell because their faces carry an ancient weariness that belongs to neither age.
"Travelers," the old woman calls, her voice carrying the hollow sound of wind through empty shells. "Come. Rest. The tide brings few visitors to Penmorvah."
She approaches us with measured steps, her eyes the pale green of deep water. When she smiles, I catch a glimpse of teeth that have been filed to points—not sharpened like a warrior's might be, but worn down to needles through deliberate use.
"I am Grandmother Netts," she says, and the other villagers gather behind her like kelp following the current. "These are my children. We welcome those the sea delivers to our nets."
The way she looks at Rophan makes my stomach turn. It's the expression of a fisherman who's just spotted a prize catch struggling in shallow water.
"We need passage north," Rophan says carefully. "I seek passage to Miltar, but my friends need to go to the north of Rach. We can easily drop them on the way. We can pay."
Grandmother Netts' smile widens, revealing more of those needle teeth, but her eyes turn cold as deep water when they fix on Thoktar and me.
"Payment for the minotaur, yes," she says, her voice taking on the hollow sound of wind through empty shells. "The deep ones smile on horn and hoof. Twenty silver and you sail with the evening tide."
