The following day, we rise before dawn. It is a quick hustle of repacking bedrolls, unhitching tents, gathering scattered supplies and packing it all up to resume our travels.
By the time first light breaks, we are journeying through the woods. On the edge of the forest by the steep cliff-side, my stallion is near the brink. My vision swims with the haze of exhaustion. Though my body moves on instinct, my mind lingers just beyond the edge of full consciousness.
I breathe in—slow, unsteady. The air carries a scent sharp and unmistakable: ash. Not old or faint, but fresh—biting. Burning cinders linger in the back of my throat. I inhale again, deeper this time, and the stench intensifies. Then I hear it. A sound that isn't quite a scream, but not silence either. A distant cry, then another. And another.
I turn my head to the right, peering through the breaks in the foliage. Beyond the leaves, dark tendrils stretch into the sky, thick and smearing, like ink spilled across dawn.
