By the time the sun fully pulled itself above the horizon, the caravan looked like something dragged from a grave.
Horses slogged instead of trotted, heads low, flanks dark with sweat and foam. Guards' eyes were ringed with red, their grips clumsy on spear shafts. Even Gerran, who seemed carved from old oak, slumped slightly in
his saddle.
Only the land seemed energized.
The hills softened as they moved south, bleeding into a shallow valley where the ground grew patchy and uneven. Grass gave way to sedge, then to reed-choked swales, then to slick mud that clung to wheels and
boots alike.
"Marshland," Flint said, wrinkling his nose. "Hate marshes. Marshes are where good boots go to die."
Gerran squinted ahead. "Better your boots than your neck. This is the upper reach of the Greyfen valley. The main river's farther in, but
the ground rots on the edges, even here."
"Excellent," Flint muttered. "So we're tired, hunted, and now we're going to drown slowly at ankle height."
"Complaining burns energy," Dorothy said dryly. "You have very little to spare."
Flint made a show of miming zipping his mouth, but his eyes never stopped scanning.
John walked beside Doris again, one hand steadying her when the ground grew treacherous. The wagon wheels ahead of them sank half a handspan into sludge with every turn, then tore free with a wet sucking sound. The smell was… layered. Mud, algae, something sour and organic that clung to
the back of the throat.
Brian shifted in Doris's arms, face scrunching at the smell. He let out a tiny, indignant sound.
"You and me both, little one," John murmured.
Doris's lips twitched. "If he starts commanding the element of muck, I'm disowning him."
"Careful," John said. "Given his luck so far, he might."
Her smile faded quickly, replaced by the familiar tight focus she wore whenever resonance was mentioned, even jokingly. Her arms tightened around Brian's small body.
"Do you feel them?" she asked quietly. "The Paragons?"
John shook his head. "I feel watched. But that may just be habit now."
"Good habit," Flint called back.
Dorothy lifted her staff slightly, feeling the air. "We have some distance from the ridge. The marsh's aura is muddy. It smears resonance.
That helps us."
"Muddy is the point," Gerran agreed. "We'll follow the drier strips until we hit the river track. There should be a ferry hamlet where
merchants cross. If it's still standing."
John raised an eyebrow. "You doubt that?"
"War and cults do strange things to small places," Gerran said. "We'll see."
The further they descended, the worse the footing became.
What had been mud became patches of standing water with thin mats of floating weeds, the kind that looked solid until a boot punched through. Horse legs splashed. Cart wheels lurched. More than once, John had to
shove his shoulder against a wagon alongside other guards to free it from a suctioning pit of mud.
The air grew humid, a clammy press that stuck cloth to skin. Insects returned in whining swarms once the sun climbed higher, gnats and midges and hovering, blood-hungry things that loved exhausted flesh.
"Remind me," Flint said, swatting at his neck, "whose idea this was again?"
"Mine," Dorothy replied. "You're welcome."
He sighed. "Right. Of course."
John wiped a smear of mud from his cheek with the back of his hand. "If the marsh hides us, I'll march through worse."
"Worse does exist," Doris said under her breath.
John glanced at her. "You sound very sure."
She shifted Brian. "Voidborn training involved a lot of places like this. Only worse. This is… almost nostalgic."
John studied her profile, the way her eyes stayed faraway for a heartbeat, then forced themselves back to the present. "You'll tell me
about it someday?"
"Maybe when we're not being hunted," she said softly. "So never."
He huffed a quiet laugh. "I'll take that as a 'later.'"
As the sun climbed toward its peak, the marsh parted ahead into a broad, sluggish channel of water—a river that looked more tired than
flowing. Reed beds rimmed its banks, and broken pilings jutted where a dock must once have been. Further along, a collection of structures clung to slightly higher ground—simple wooden houses, sheds, and a sagging building with a faded sign in the shape of a fish.
"Ferryside," Gerran said. "Still standing."
"Barely," Flint said. "It looks like someone built a village out of regrets and rotten planks."
"Rotten planks float," Dorothy said. "Regrets make good anchors. Both have their uses."
Flint blinked. "Do you rehearse those, or does it just come naturally?"
Dorothy didn't answer. She watched the village instead, eyes narrowed.
No smoke from the chimneys.
No children near the water's edge.
No dogs barking at the sight of strangers.
Just the wet slap of water against pilings and the lonely creaking of a dock rope.
Gerran raised a hand. "Hold!"
The caravan slowed, guards moving up automatically to form a front ring.
John felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Places that shouldn't be quiet were the worst.
"See anyone?" he asked Flint.
Flint shielded his eyes and scanned. "There. Movement. Shutter on the third house." He pointed. "Someone's peeking."
Dorothy stepped forward. "I'll go. Alone."
"No," John said immediately.
"Yes," she replied. "If they see too many weapons, they'll hide and we'll waste daylight. We need the ferry, or we'll detour through deeper marsh and lose time. The Paragons will welcome that."
John hated that she was right.
"Take one guard," Gerran said. "And keep your staff down. We don't advertise mages unless we must."
Dorothy nodded. "John, come."
He blinked. "I thought—"
"You're not a guard," she said. "You're a husband carrying a newborn. You read as less threatening." A faint smile ghosted across her lips. "And if someone is waiting to hurt us, I want your sword near my back, not twenty wagons away."
Fair enough.
Doris's fingers clutched his sleeve. "Be careful."
He kissed Brian's forehead, then Doris's.
"Stay with the wagon," he said. "If anything looks wrong, Gerran will move you back out of range."
"Try not to make him have to," she retorted.
He squeezed her hand once and followed Dorothy toward the hamlet.
They approached slowly, boots squelching in the damp soil of the riverbank. The reeds hissed softly as the wind shifted; water gurgled against half-rotten pilings.
The village did not greet them.
They passed the first house—shutters closed, door barred, a crude charm of woven reeds nailed above the lintel. It rustled in the breeze.
"Protection charm," Dorothy murmured.
"Against what?" John asked.
"Anything not invited."
"Are we invited?" he said.
"We'll find out," she answered.
A faint creak sounded from their right—another shutter nudged open a hair, then slammed closed, as if the wind had gotten too sudden and bold.
"Friendly lot," John muttered.
They reached the sagging fish-sign building. A faded crude painting of a smiling fish flaked off the wood. Someone had scratched a second symbol beside it—three overlapping circles. John frowned at it.
Dorothy noticed. "Old river god mark," she said. "Locals like to hedge their bets."
She raised a hand and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
She knocked again. "We come in peace," she called. "We have coin. We need crossing."
Silence.
Then, behind them, a voice: "Coin's useless if you bring trouble with it."
John spun, sword half-drawn on reflex.
An old man stood knee-deep in reeds near the waterline, hauling in a net. His hair was more silver than white, his beard gone in uneven patches. A small boat bobbed beside him, tied to a lone stake. His eyes, though—sharp. Too sharp for someone pretending to be a simple fisherman.
John eased his sword back into its scabbard.
Dorothy inclined her head. "We're hunted, yes. By cultists. But we don't intend to drag them over your threshold."
The old man snorted. "Cultists, she says. As if that narrows anything these days."
He tugged the net onto the muddy shore. A single, sad-looking fish flopped weakly in it. He regarded it with mild disdain. "Not your night," he told it. "Or mine."
"Sir," Dorothy said. "We need ferry access. We can pay."
"Not 'sir,'" the man replied. "Ferran." He straightened, grimaced as his knees popped, and squinted past them toward the distant line of wagons. "That lot all yours?"
"Yes," Gerran called, having moved closer once he saw the exchange. "We'll only use the river track for a day or two. Then we cut back to the kingroad."
Ferran spat into the reeds. "Kingroad's no safer than swamps these days."
"Maybe," Gerran said. "But it's faster to the capital. And that's where we're bound."
Ferran's gaze slid to John, then to Dorothy, then finally to Brian in the distance, visible only as a pale bundle in Doris's arms.
His eyes narrowed.
"How old?" he asked quietly.
John's pulse kicked. "Who?"
"The child," Ferran said, as if the answer were obvious.
"Four days," John said. "Born in the storm."
Ferran's expression twisted. "I smelled the storm from here. Wind turned backward. Rain fell with no clouds to birth it, at least for a while. The marsh twitched like something poked it with a stick." He shook his head. "Storm-born child in a caravan running southeast. You expect me to believe that's coincidence?"
Dorothy lifted her chin. "Believe what you like. We still need the river."
"River's mine," Ferran said. "Or near enough. I decide who rides my track, and who doesn't."
John swallowed his impatience. "We don't seek to bring harm here. We're trying to keep harm away from the boy."
Ferran looked at him for a long moment. "You think harm cares what you want?"
"No," John said. "But I care. And I carry a sword."
Ferran actually smiled at that. It was not a kind smile, but it wasn't hostile either. "You know how many men say that, and still lose everyone they love?"
John didn't flinch. "I'm not them."
Ferran studied him, then Dorothy again. His gaze lingered on her staff.
"You're bending the air just standing there," he said. "Try not to lie to a man who lives on currents."
Dorothy sighed. "We are hunted, Ferran. That part wasn't a lie."
"By who?" he asked. "Be precise."
"Paragons of the First Flame," she said. "Cloaked watchers. North ridge. They felt a resonance surge last night from up near the pillar field."
Ferran's face went very still.
When he spoke, his voice had lost its earlier sarcasm. "You lot walked through the Listening Stones?"
John blinked. "Listening—?"
Dorothy nodded slowly. "We didn't have another route."
"You never have another route," Ferran muttered. "That's how they get you. The world bends so you step where it wants you."
He squinted at John. "And the baby cried?"
John's stomach lurched. "…Yes."
"Of course he did," Ferran said. "Babies cry. Stones sing back. Everything that listens, listens. Including those bastards in their flame
rags." He spat again, harder. "You lit up half the valley. Maybe more."
"We know," Dorothy said. "That's why we're here. Marsh smears resonance. The river disperses it. If we stick to the ferry track, we might slip free of their trail long enough to reach academy wards."
Ferran eyed her. "Academy, eh? Haven't heard anyone speak that word near here in seasons. They don't like being reminded of swamp folk."
"They like cults even less," Dorothy said.
Ferran snorted. "Fair."
He stood there, weight shifting in the sucking mud, thinking. The river whispered beside him, current dragging slow streaks of debris downstream. Reeds bowed and straightened in some private rhythm.
Finally, he sighed.
"You pay double," he said.
Gerran exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. "Done."
"And you don't light anything brighter than a beetle's backside on my river," Ferran added. "No spells. No fireworks. If anyone in a cloak so much as thinks about looking our way, I want them seeing nothing but fog."
"Agreed," Dorothy said.
Ferran jabbed a thumb toward the crooked docks. "I've got two barges. They'll take half your lot at a time. We'll stash the wagons on deck, but if anything's too heavy or fancy, it walks the mud." He glanced at John. "You're strong. You get to push."
John managed a faint smile. "I've had worse jobs."
Ferran sniffed. "You will."
It took the better part of two hours to load the first barge.
The vessel was little more than a broad, low raft with boards nailed across its surface and a waist-high rail hammered into place in a
haphazard rectangle. Thick poles lay along its length for pushing off from the riverbed. Old ropes looped around crude cleats.
John helped coax the horses onto the deck, soothing them when their hooves clopped uncertainly on wood instead of earth. The animals snorted, rolling white eyes at the water lapping inches below.
"Easy. Easy," John murmured. "It's like a moving bridge. You like bridges."
The horse did not look convinced, but it stayed.
Doris boarded last, Brian cradled in her arms, cloak pulled to shield him from the river's chill. Dorothy stepped close once they were all
situated.
"This will help," she said quietly. "Water flows. Flow confuses patterns. The marsh around us is noisy, magically speaking. It's like shouting in a market—you get lost."
Doris looked out over the sluggish grey-green expanse. "As long as they lose us, I don't care if I drown in noise."
John put a hand on her back. "You're not drowning," he said. "Not while I'm here."
She didn't argue with that.
Flint, perched near the bow with a coil of rope, eyed the surface warily. "If anything comes out of this water that shouldn't exist, I'm
jumping onto the nearest horse and pretending I never knew any of you."
"You can't swim?" John asked.
"I can," Flint said. "I simply choose not to do it in cursed rivers."
"Not cursed," Ferran grunted from the stern, setting his pole. "Just… informed."
Flint stared. "That does not make me feel better."
Ferran planted the pole deep into the riverbed and heaved. The barge lurched, then drifted free from the shore with a sucking sound. The river embraced it with slow, grudging acceptance.
Gerran and half the guards watched from the bank, ready to load the second barge once Ferran returned. The division of numbers made John uneasy, but there was little choice. The river could not hold everything at
once.
As they drifted, the sounds of the shore faded: the creak of wagons, the murmur of voices, the restless snorting of horses left behind. Mist lay in thin skeins over the water, curling around the barge's edges, trying to
climb aboard.
Doris shivered.
Brian shifted in her arms and opened his eyes.
For the first time, John watched his son see water.
Not puddles.
Not rain.
A river.
Brian's pupils widened. His tiny fingers uncurled, reaching—not out, not exactly, but… toward the sound. The slow, wet rhythm of
current. The gentle slap of wavelets against wood.
The air cooled.
Not by much.
Just a breath.
But John felt it.
So did Dorothy. Her head snapped toward the child, eyes narrowing.
"Doris," she whispered, "hold him."
"I am holding him," Doris said.
"Hold more," Dorothy breathed.
Brian's fingers continued their invisible reaching, his eyes glossed with infant curiosity. His breathing slowed rather than quickened, as if the river were a lullaby only he could hear fully.
Small droplets of water misted the air above the rail for a moment, drawn upward… then fell back, splattering against the deck.
Doris glanced at Dorothy, alarmed. "Is that—"
"It's too early," Dorothy muttered. "It should be too early."
John's heart thudded heavily. "Is he—?"
"Resonating," Dorothy said. "Not controlling. Not yet. But he… hears it."
Water lapped softly, steady, indifferent.
"You said each element has a condition," John murmured. "Something brutal. Something that forces a change."
Dorothy nodded. "Yes. But before the conditions, there is always… affinity. A pull. The world leaning toward the mage, just as the mage leans toward it." She studied Brian. "He's leaning toward everything at once."
Doris stroked Brian's hair, voice trembling. "Is that going to kill him? Or make him stronger?"
Dorothy didn't answer.
Which said enough.
They crossed in near silence.
Ferran kept them close to the reedy banks, using the shadows of overhanging branches as partial cover. Twice, he paused to let a low cling of mist drift across, further shrouding them.
Once, at a widening of the river, he gestured with his chin. "Look there. But quickly."
John and Doris followed his gaze.
Far to the north, barely visible over the dark line of marsh trees, a ridge cut the horizon. And on that ridge—small as insect legs at this
distance—figures moved.
Paragons.
They swept along the ridge with uncanny coordination, breaking into smaller knots and reforming, like they were searching with some pattern John couldn't read.
"They're looking," Ferran said. "They felt the stones sing last night, same as the frogs and the reeds and the things that shouldn't crawl this close to daylight. They know something is moving."
"But they don't know where," Dorothy murmured. "The marsh is working."
Ferran grunted. "For now."
The Paragons dwindled from view as the barge slid around a bend.
John let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "You were right," he said to Dorothy. "The river track was worth the mud."
"Some things I still get right," she said. "Even tired."
Flint exhaled loudly. "Let's just make sure it stays that way."
Brian yawned, the strange intensity in his gaze fading as his eyelids drooped. He drifted back to sleep, cheek resting against Doris's
chest.
John watched the gentle rise and fall of his son's breath.
For a few stolen heartbeats, the world shrank to that small movement.
In.
Out.
Life.
Then he forced his attention outward again. The river, the banks, the faint rustle of reeds. The sky brightening above, thinning clouds
slowly revealing pale patches of blue.
The world kept moving.
So did they.
By the time both barges had crossed and the caravan re-formed on the south bank, the sun had climbed toward midday. They rested
only briefly—just enough to check harnesses, redistribute supplies, and let the horses drink from less stagnant pools.
John sat on a rock near the water's edge, cleaning mud from his boots with a stick. Doris sat beside him, Brian asleep between them, wrapped in an extra blanket now that the wind had picked up a chill.
"Do you think the Academy will actually help?" John asked quietly.
Doris's shoulders lifted and fell. "They'll do
something. Whether we like that something…" She trailed off.
"Doris," he said, "if they try to take him from us—"
"They will," she said. "In some way. Physically or through rules or by locking him into training he's not ready for." Her eyes darkened. "They will want to study him. To use him. To keep him alive as long as possible. And then—when he becomes too dangerous—they will want to bind him."
John's hand curled into a fist on his knee. "Not while I breathe."
She turned to him. "That's the thing, John. Your breathing won't matter to them." She reached out, resting her hand over his fist. "That's why we have to be smarter than them. Not just stronger."
He looked at her.
"You've thought about this before," he said softly.
"Every day since I realized what he was," she replied. "Maybe longer."
"Why didn't you run somewhere else?" he asked. "Away from the Empire. Away from the Academy."
She smiled sadly. "Because they have the strongest wards. The most knowledge. And because the Paragons fear them just enough to hesitate." She brushed a finger across Brian's cheek. "I'm not taking him into somewhere weaker and hoping the world goes easy on him."
John nodded slowly. "So, we walk into the lion's den. Then what?"
"Then we pretend to be grateful," she said. "We play their game. We let them believe they're in control. And we watch." Her eyes hardened. "And when they step too far over a line we can't accept, we'll be ready."
He believed her.
He wasn't sure that comforted him.
Behind them, Dorothy approached, leaning more heavily than usual on her staff. Her face was pale, lines etched deeper.
"You should rest," John said.
"I will," she replied. "When he does." She nodded at Brian. "He's quiet now. This is a good time."
"A good time for what?" Doris asked.
"For you both," Dorothy said, "to understand that the river bought us hours—not safety. The Paragons will find another way to track. Resonance clings. Especially to Voidborn blood capable of… whatever he is."
"Reassuring," Flint said, dropping down onto a log nearby.
Dorothy ignored him.
"The capital is two hard days away if we keep this pace," she continued. "Three if we're forced into shelter once more. The Paragons will not wait politely while we make the journey."
John's fingers tightened around the rock he held. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning you must be ready," Dorothy said. "Not to fight them all—that's suicide—but to buy moments. Deflect. Distract. Survive long
enough for the Academy to see, with their own eyes, that the threat is real. They'll mobilize faster then."
"Faster for whose sake?" Flint asked. "Ours? Or the Emperor's?"
Dorothy's smile held no humour. "Those answers tend to overlap when cults start threatening the stability of reality."
John looked at the river one last time.
"I'll be ready," he said quietly. "For whatever comes between here and those walls."
Doris squeezed his hand. "So will I."
Brian slept on, oblivious, the small, fragile axis around which their world spun.
The caravan resumed its march soon after.
The marsh thinned.
The land firmed.
In the distance, far beyond the haze of heat and muck, the faint suggestion of distant stone towers teased the horizon—a promise and a threat, both waiting to be claimed.
The Paragons were somewhere behind, weaving their own paths through scar and swamp.
And between them, like a spark between two flints, Brian's tiny life burned quietly.
For now.