Joran studied him for a long moment. The mist shifted faintly between them, silent witnesses to the unspoken tension.
Lucian halted mid-step and turned slightly toward Joran. The group behind him slowed in response, boots crunching against gravel and muted whispers trailing off. The fog coiled low around their ankles like a waiting thing.
Lucian stretched out his hand, palm open. "I've held up my end of the deal so far. Don't you think it's time you held up yours?"
Joran raised a brow. "Now?"
"You said you'd keep your word. Well I'm still leading. And we're still alive."
Joran studied him for a long moment. The mist shifted faintly between them, silent witnesses to the unspoken tension.
Finally, he gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Alright."
Then Joran exhaled and reached into a hidden fold inside his coat. From within, he drew a dagger—short, sleek, forged from dark alloy. Its edge caught the faintest glint of the grey light around them. Nothing ornate, nothing enchanted. But solid. Balanced. Real.
Lucian took it without hesitation. His fingers closed around the leather-wrapped hilt. He flipped it once, tested its weight, and nodded.
"Sharp enough to matter." He muttered.
Joran gave a small nod in return. "Keep it close."
"I always do."
They moved on, steps tightening again into a loose but steady rhythm. The fog had grown thicker now, wrapping around their legs and swallowing anything more than a few paces ahead. Shadows moved in the corners of their eyes, but nothing took shape. The wind had died again, and with it, all birdsong, all insect hum. The mountains had become a quiet grave.
Then, raised voices broke the stillness.
Up ahead, Garrick stood nose-to-nose with one of Joran's men Vael, a seasoned scout with a clipped accent and sharp tongue. Garrick's arms were folded, his eyes hard.
"We're not your lackeys," Garrick snapped. "My boys didn't sign up to follow your orders like whipped dogs."
Vael narrowed his eyes. "And yet here we are, keeping you alive."
"That's enough," Joran barked, stepping forward.
Garrick turned to him. "You said joint expedition. This feels more like leash-and-collar."
"You're being paid, aren't you?" Joran replied evenly. "Unless you'd rather go back to town."
"We've lost three already," Garrick growled. "No bodies. No screams. Just… gone. My men are spooked." He changed the topic. He knew their chances of making it back to Yellow-Vale was close to zero.
Lucian stepped forward, his voice cutting through the rising tension like a blade.
"You think you're scared now? This mountain hasn't even started talking to you yet."
A heavy silence fell.
Lucian looked from Garrick to Vael and back. "Keep arguing, and you'll be dead before you realize something's watching."
Garrick sneered, but didn't reply.
Joran gave Lucian a sidelong glance. "That dagger suits you."
Lucian didn't smile. "It better."
Kaela brushed past him, voice low. "I'll keep an eye on Garrick. You just make sure we don't walk into a grave."
Lucian's fingers grazed the dagger again, its solid presence a quiet comfort at his side. Not powerful. But his. A symbol that, even if he didn't fully trust anyone here, he had leverage. A blade in the dark.
They continued onward into the mist.
.....
The wind had gone still.
Lucian blinked beneath his blindfold, his fingers twitching slightly as the memory of Yellow-Vale dissolved from his mind. The scent of dry moss and ancient stone returned, grounding him in the present. The jagged peaks of the Ghost-Bane Mountains towered around the group, cloaked in a pale fog that shifted like the breath of some sleeping beast. Even the air felt thicker here, like the mountain was watching.
He inhaled slowly through his nose. The scent was the same as before, stone dust, old lichen, and something else. Copper. Faint, but there.
Kaela's voice cut through the hush, low and cautious. "You all right?"
Lucian tilted his head toward her. "Fine."
She didn't press. But her gaze lingered.
Ahead of them, the group had come to a natural ledge that jutted out over a narrow ravine. Mist poured into it from above like a slow waterfall, obscuring the bottom. Garrick muttered a curse and waved his hand through the fog, as if trying to clear it by force.
"Still nothing," he grumbled. "No trails, no signs of the missing."
"They're not lost," Lucian said quietly. "They're taken."
Tavian, nearby, glanced over. "By what?"
Lucian didn't answer immediately. His head tilted slightly, listening. "Not what. Where."
Joran gave the order to keep moving. The others tightened ranks. No one wanted to admit how nervous they were becoming, but the shift was obvious. The cocky swagger of the Ironbrands had worn off. Their footsteps were shorter now. Less noise. Less talk.
The Ghost-Bane Mountains had that effect on people.
Lucian walked near the middle of the formation, ears twitching at every crunch of boot, every distant echo. He didn't trust the silence. It was too deliberate. Too knowing.
The feeling was familiar now. Like back in Yellow-Vale, when those men had waited outside his home. A presence too large to see, but impossible to ignore.
Only now, there was no town. No walls. No guards.
Only the mountain.
As they crossed beneath a low overhang, Lucian reached out with one hand, brushing his fingers against the rough surface of the stone. Cold. Dry. But it hummed faintly beneath his touch, like a drumbeat buried deep beneath the surface.
He frowned.
"Feel that?" he murmured.
Kaela looked at him. "Feel what?"
Lucian paused. Then shook his head. "Never mind."
But the feeling remained. The pulse in the stone, the same one he'd felt the night people vanished from their camp. What would come would come eventually.
The trail narrowed into a crumbling ledge, barely wider than a mule's back. Every step kicked loose gravel into the mist below, and somewhere in that grey depth, Lucian thought he heard something shift. It sounded like stone scraping against stone, or maybe something exhaling.
He didn't know what direction the group had taken exactly, but he could tell by the tightening of footsteps, the shift in bootfall, and the hush that spread like rot through the ranks that they'd found something.
Lucian sniffed the air. The mist was cooler here. Damper. Beneath the usual smells of lichen and stone was something older, dry rot, faint incense, brittle parchment. A place where people had stayed long enough to leave a scent behind.
Kaela's voice broke through. "It's… a temple."
Lucian tilted his head. A temple? He imagined stonework, maybe old timber, but to him it was a pressure, like the air was watching him now, not the other way around. The hairs on his arms lifted.
"Definitely man-made," Tavian added. "Architecture's ancient. Doesn't match any of the regional shrine designs."
Lucian stepped forward cautiously, toeing the edge of the mist. He extended a hand, fingers grazing smooth, unnaturally shaped stone. There were fine etchings beneath the moss. He could feel them as they brushed against his skin. Symbols worn down to a whisper.
"I feel carvings," he said.
"Runes?" Kaela came beside him. "Looks like it. Can't make them out clearly though, some of these are eroded."
Lucian nodded slowly. "Too many hands have touched them."
"You can tell that from feel?" Tavian asked.
Lucian's lip curled. "You'd be surprised what your hands learn when your eyes don't do the job."
Joran ordered the group to tighten formation. "Quick sweep. We're not staying. I want a record, then we move."
The Ironbrands muttered under their breath, dragging their boots behind them. Lucian could hear the resistance in their gait, the hesitations, the muttered prayers. The temple scared them.
Good.
It should.
Kaela brushed past Lucian, her shoulder brushing his lightly. "You okay?"
Lucian nodded. "This place is… layered."
"Layered?"
"Like too many people walked through it trying to forget something."
Inside, the temperature dropped. Lucian felt the cold curl beneath his skin, settling behind his ears like a breath he didn't want.
His boots met smooth stone flooring, not gravel, not mountain trail. This had been shaped, worked, polished long ago. His fingers trailed along the walls. Every few steps, the stone changed texture, part of a mural maybe, or carved recesses. He couldn't see them, but he felt history layered there, pressed into every surface.
Kaela whispered from ahead. "There are bones… lots of them. In an alcove by the right wall. No blood, no signs of struggle."
Lucian stilled.
She continued, "They're laid out deliberately. I think it was some kind of rite."
Tavian gave a low whistle. "This wasn't a temple. It was a prison or maybe a vault."
Lucian sniffed again, and this time the metallic tang of old blood drifted up from the stone. "They didn't just die here. They were preserved."
Garrick swore from somewhere to the left. "We're walking in a sacrificial pavilion."
Lucian turned his head, focusing on the subtle changes in the air. The temperature dipped near a corner. The acoustics shifted. It became closer and more boxed in.
"Something's behind that wall," he murmured.
Kaela approached it. "There's a hollow space behind it. You're right."
"I heard the echo change," Lucian said simply. "Doesn't feel… solid."
A beat later, Kaela added, "There's a track of dust. Someone was here before us. It looks like they wiped it down."
Lucian's jaw tightened. "Then we're not the first."
Joran swore low and called for everyone to regroup. As they returned to the threshold, Garrick growled, "This is your fault, Joran. You and your damn secrets. We didn't sign up to poke cursed rocks."
"You signed up to get paid," Joran said flatly.
"I signed up to stay alive."
Tension coiled again, tighter than before. The silence returned, but it wasn't empty. The temple was listening now.
Lucian traced the new dagger's hilt with his thumb. It wasn't enchanted. Wasn't powerful. But it was real. In this place, that mattered.
Tavian stepped beside him. "Why don't you seem more… surprised?"
Lucian gave a faint shake of the head. "I've seen worse. Doesn't mean I understand it."
Kaela spoke from behind, softly. "That's the first honest thing anyone's said all day."
Lucian smirked faintly but said nothing.
They left the temple behind just as the mist began to recede. Lucian didn't know why. He didn't know how. But the mountain had shown them a piece of its memory and then quietly swallowed it again.
Whatever had been held there, was gone.
Or maybe it had never left.