The next two days unfolded in tense monotony, paced by the grating creak of the cart and the pounding of footsteps on a road that grew rockier and steeper as they climbed the foothills of the Martissant mountains.
The air had cooled, now heavy with a mineral scent and the first persistent wisps of smoke rising from the still-invisible city behind the ridges. The old man's bread, dense as a brick and black as coal, still sat in the cart, untouched.
No one had dared to eat it, not even Dylan, despite his jokes. It had become a silent symbol of their lingering distrust and the strangeness of the road.
Fatigue had sculpted them, deepening Jonas's features, making Marisse's gaze even sharper beneath her furrowed brow. Dylan had lost part of his mocking bravado, replaced by a nervous vigilance.
