By dawn the road had gone narrow and mean, the kind that made a man wonder what it remembered.
It pinched from two ruts to one. Asphalt ghosts showed through sand like old scars. No shoulder. No mercy. Just a thin gray vein cutting east, pressed hard between scrub and drop-off.
Cole rode it anyway.
The mule's ears stayed back. Not fear. Memory. Animals remembered roads longer than men did.
Dusty paced ahead, careful. The dog kept to the edge where the ground looked less certain, nose working, eyes never still. He slowed where the road bent, then slowed again where it straightened. Like he didn't trust either.
Cole felt it too.
Some roads were built to move people.Some were built to move things that didn't ask.
Wind dragged grit across the flat. The whisper of it sounded too much like shuffling cards. The sun climbed without warmth. Just light. Just exposure.
Cole kept his hands loose on the reins.
He didn't hurry.
Hurry was how roads took more than they offered.
The track dropped into a cut between two low ridges. Shadow pooled there, thick, refusing to burn off. Cole watched it as he approached. The way sound thinned. The way the mule hesitated. The way Dusty stopped at the lip and looked back.
Not asking.Warning.
Cole nudged the mule forward.
The road accepted that.
For now.
Inside the cut the temperature dropped. Not cold. Just wrong. A pocket of air that had held onto the night too long.
Dusty's hackles lifted.
Cole scanned the walls. Rock scored with old blast marks. Gravel shifting with no wind. A sense like someone had passed through moments ago, leaving the air bent behind them.
Halfway through, the world tightened.
Not physically.
Conceptually.
Like a rule reasserting itself.
Cole felt it behind his eyes. A pressure. A signature he'd come to know the way men knew weather.
The House of Reckoning.
Watching.Measuring.Waiting.
Dusty growled once, not toward the walls but toward the empty space ahead.
Cole slowed the mule to a stop.
"Easy," he said.
The mule obeyed. The dog didn't.
Dusty took three steps forward, nose low, tail stiff.
Cole saw it then.
A shimmer in the air.Not light.Not heat.
A probability echo.
Like someone had walked a path through reality and the road was still deciding whether it wanted to keep it.
Cole dismounted.
Boots on gravel made no sound.
He walked toward the shimmer. Slow. Careful. Ready.
The shimmer pulsed.
Once.
Then system text bled faintly into view, grey on grey.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // PATHFOLDSTATUS: UNSTABLECAUTION: MEMORY COST POSSIBLE
Cole's jaw tightened.
Pathfolds weren't traps.Weren't gifts.They were leftovers from moments where choices had bent too sharply.
He raised a hand.
The shimmer responded.
Or recoiled.
He couldn't tell which.
Dusty barked once, sharp.
The shimmer collapsed inward, folding like fabric pulled through a crack.
And someone stepped out.
Not a monster.Not a Royal.Not a ghost.
A man.
Or what used to be one.
His coat was shredded. His skin dust-burned. His eyes empty of focus, like he'd spent too long walking roads that didn't exist anymore. He took two steps forward before he saw Cole.
Then he froze.
Dusty snarled.
The man blinked. Slow. Wrong.
Cole didn't draw.
He waited.
The man opened his mouth.
The sound that came out wasn't speech. It was the creak of a rusted hinge. A sound scraped off something that wasn't quite human anymore.
The man tried again.
"…hold…"
Cole stepped forward.
"Say it clear."
The man's jaw worked. Muscles twitched. His eyes flicked to Cole's chest, then to the dog, then to the road behind him like he was checking if he still belonged there.
"Don't… hold…"
He shook. Hard. Like the air around him was a weight he couldn't carry.
Dusty barked again.
The man turned toward the dog.
Not aggressive.
Resigned.
Cole stepped between them.
"Look at me," he said.
The man obeyed.
He lifted a trembling hand and pointed east.
"Don't… hold… the… cards."
The last word cracked like a dry bone.
Cole felt the road twist under his boots.
System text flickered.
UNAUTHORIZED WARNING DETECTEDSOURCE: CORRUPTED ENTITYVALIDITY: UNKNOWN
The man staggered backward like the message cost him something.
Then he looked at Cole with sudden clarity.
"Run," he whispered.
Cole tensed.
"From what."
The man didn't answer.
He dissolved.
Not exploded.Not vanished.
He broke apart like sand losing cohesion.
A body becoming dust.
A memory becoming nothing.
Dusty snapped at the air where the man had stood.
Cole stepped back, pulse rising.
The dust settled.
Silence returned.
Cole exhaled slow. Pressed a hand against his ribs where the Ace lay cold.
"Let's move," he said.
He got back in the saddle.
They rode out of the cut.The shadow lifted.The sun returned.
But the road didn't feel like the same road.
It watched.
Every bend.Every mile.Every choice.
Miles later the land opened into wide flats. The wind carried the smell of rust and salt. Ruins dotted the horizon—the bones of old towns eaten down to rebar.
Dusty stopped suddenly.
Cole raised a hand.
Ahead, half-buried in sand, lay a sign.
RUSTLINE HOLD3 MILES
Fresh scrape marks dragged across the letters, like something with claws had tried to erase the warning and failed.
Cole dismounted to check the tracks.
Not animal.Not wheel.
Something dragged.
Something heavy.
Something moving wrong.
Dusty circled the sign, nose low.
Cole straightened.
Three miles wasn't far.Too close for the Queen to be casual about it.Too close for the House to be quiet.
He checked his revolver.Checked the Ace.Checked the road.
"Stay sharp," he said.
Dusty growled once, agreement.
Cole swung back into the saddle.
They moved.
Slow.Silent.Prepared.
The sun dropped behind them like a closing hand.
Rustline waited.
And the road remembered more than it should.