The rest house had fallen into quiet. The fire crackled low in the hearth, its glow flickering across the wooden floorboards, while wind whispered through the trees beyond the walls. Ash's fingers drummed lightly on the edge of the table—not anxiously, but with a distant purpose. A rhythm he wasn't playing so much as remembering.
"I was born far from Ironhold," he said, voice low and even. "Back when the world still had cities that weren't ruins. Back before the Fall meant anything."
He glanced down, flexing his fingers like the memory was still trapped in his bones. "My family lived in a place called Haltris. You won't find it on a map. It was swallowed during the first wave."
Kade stayed quiet, just listening.
"We didn't have much. But we had had enough. My father was a medic—the kind who treated wounds without asking which badge someone wore. And my mother..."
His words trailed for a moment, the firelight catching a flicker of pain in his expression.
"She wasn't a Tamer. They didn't exist then. But she understood beasts in a way that defied logic. She could calm the wildest creatures with nothing but a word or a glance."
A faint smile crossed his lips. "They called her the Whisperer of Haltris. I used to think she had magic in her voice."
Kade nodded slowly, saying nothing.
"When the Fall came... Haltris didn't stand a chance. Beasts swarmed from the forests. The ground cracked open with light and fire. People changed—or didn't survive the change. My mother stayed behind. Tried to lead a stampede away from the eastern gate. She made it work. But not for herself."
Kade's hands curled into fists, knuckles white.
"My father and I escaped with a few others. We wandered for weeks, feral, starving—until we were taken in by a group calling themselves the Vigil. Back then, they weren't a faction. Just survivors with rules and rifles."
"And you joined them?" Kade asked softly.
Ash nodded. "My father became their medic. I became something else. A tracker. A scout. They trained me in beast tactics, sabotage, and terrain warfare. I was sixteen when I earned my field designation."
He leaned back in his chair, shadows deepening across his face. "I believed in them. For a while. Believed they were trying to rebuild the world."
Kade tilted his head. "But something changed."
Ash's gaze dropped. "They stopped leading and started controlling. The beasts we captured were no longer studied. They were broken. Rewired. Used."
His voice turned to flint. "When my father protested... they called it an accident. I found his body a week later. Cauterized cuts. Clean. Too clean."
Silence hung between them.
"I burned their labs," Ash said. Freed every beast they had locked up. Left a name in the ashes."
Kade stared. "Rei."
"The name they gave me. Their perfect ghost. But I stopped being him that night." He met Kade's eyes. "Ash is what's left. And that's all I need to be."
A quiet beat passed.
"Sometimes," Ash added, voice softer, "I wonder if I kept a piece of her. My mother, I mean. Not the full gift, but something like it. A thread of empathy. Some beasts… they respond to it."
Kade nodded slowly. "That tracks."
Ash raised a brow. "Why?"
"Because you act like you've already seen the world end once."
Kade leaned back, eyes on the ceiling as if reading something only he could see. The fire popped softly. Outside, the wind shifted direction.
Ash let the silence stretch.
Then Kade murmured, "You're not the only one who walked away from something."
Ash studied him. "I figured."
Kade gave a bitter smile. "Yeah? What gave it away? The awkward pauses? The way I flinch at thunder?"
Ash didn't smile back. "The way you hold your breath when a beast growls."
Kade's jaw tightened. "So it's that obvious."
After a pause, he continued. "I grew up in the under tunnels of Ebonlight. My mother ran salvage routes. My father was… gone. We lived on scraps and shards. Then one day, she gave me a beast egg. Said it might change our luck."
He exhaled. "It hatched. Sickly, skittish. I named him Brill. He wasn't strong, but he followed me everywhere. Just wanted to be close."
Ash stayed silent, letting the story unfold.
"Then the Thorns came," Kade said. "Called us squatters. Took our salvage. Took Brill. Didn't care that he was bonded. Said he'd be reconditioned."
His voice cracked. "I chased their hauler two blocks. Screamed until my throat gave out. They still broke the bond."
A beat.
"I didn't know it could feel like that. Like something inside you ripping away."
Ash leaned forward. "That's why you joined?"
Kade nodded, not looking at him. "If I can keep even one kid from watching their companion get dragged away like trash, then yeah. That's why I'm here."
Ash studied him for a moment. "You've got more in you than guilt."
"I'm not steel," Kade muttered. "I'm what's left of someone who couldn't save what mattered."
Ash rose and walked to the window. The moon was pale behind drifting clouds.
"You're more than that," he said.
Kade stared at the embers, then murmured, "So are you."
The silence afterward wasn't empty.
It was shared.
A battlefield, neither had to fight alone anymore.
The fire burned lower. Shadows grew longer. The weight of confession still hung in the air.
Ash sat quietly, fingers tapping that same rhythm again—steady, soft, distant. Not nerves. Not habit.
Listening.
Kade had dozed off, chin to chest, arms folded. Half-asleep.
Then—
A faint whisper.
Paper against wood.
Ash's fingers stopped.
He stood, alert in an instant, and crossed the room. There, slipped beneath the door, lay a folded slip of parchment. No seal. No name. No markings.
He crouched and picked it up. The fold was clean. Crisp. New.
Kade stirred. "What is it?"
Ash didn't answer.
He unfolded the note.
Read it once.
His eyes hardened.
Kade blinked awake. "Ash?"
Ash didn't speak. He handed the note over.
In the glow of the fire's final embers, the message gleamed in jagged ink:
The Vigil remembers. Ironhold is not safe.
Ash stared at the door, listening again.
But now the rhythm had changed.
This time, it wasn't a memory.
It was a warning.