They passed through a country that had no name.

  Not on any map. Not in any tongue spoken by living men. It stretched in broken ridges and dun-colored swales, a basin of earth so blasted and burnt by time that even the stones looked flayed. No beasts roamed here. No wind blew. Only the sun, brutal and white, laying judgment on all things.

  And there the Judge halted.

  He turned in his saddle and looked back—not at the gang, not at Edelgard, not even at Bernadetta.

  But at the land itself.

  His voice, when it came, was not loud. But it carried, as though the silence had been waiting for it.

  “There are places in this world that recall nothing of man.

  That hold no print, bear no mark.

  And there are places still that remember everything.”

  He stood in the stirrups, his long arms spread wide like some prophet or scarecrow nailed to heaven.

  “These are the elder grounds.

  The first soil.

  Where the earth rose raw and red from the belly of God and spat back in His face.”

  No one spoke.

  “Man came here and was unmade.

  His name unlearned. His purpose forgot.

  For in these places, all men are children.

  And all children are meat.”

  He turned slowly in the saddle, his eyes sweeping across them. Across Edelgard. Across Bernadetta.

  “You believe you are building something. An empire. A throne.

  You believe in deeds. In gold. In paper signed with sacred ink.

  But the earth does not know these things.

  She knows only what feeds her.”

  A beat. A gust of wind kicked up and died again.

  “I have seen kingdoms crumble with less sound than a leaf falling.

  I have seen women crowned in blood and buried in silence.

  What you build now may yet outlive you.

  Or it may feed the roots of another thing entirely.”

  He looked at Bernadetta then. Just briefly.

  “You walk toward your making.

  But not all births are clean.”

  Then the Judge lowered his arms and nudged his horse forward. The moment passed. The desert held its breath.

  And the gang rode on.

  Come midday an adobe village lay low on the plain, the desert vast about it, the canyons rising like petrified battlements to the east, and the distant haze of California’s peaks drifting westward like the ghost of some promised land.

  The gang had settled in among the dwellings, their numbers thinned but their appetites unstarved. Some squatted beneath the shade of crumbling walls, others haggled with wary-eyed merchants who’d dared meet them. Scalps were traded for whiskey, powder, and gold teeth. The wounded were dressed with sour-smelling rags. New blood arrived in their place—ragged, eager, sunburnt youths keen to prove themselves, some already boasting of tracking a bear in the hills beyond. None of them knew what lay ahead. Few ever did.

  The Judge and Edelgard sat apart from the others, shaded beneath the fractured arch of a collapsed grain silo. Between them, a jug of wine rested unopened, sweating in the heat. The Judge had one leg crossed over the other, his hands folded atop a cane he hadn’t used until that day. Edelgard, seated on a crate with her coat folded beside her, leaned forward slightly, elbows on knees, her gaze distant.

  “Petra’s gone,” she said, not turning. “She left before dawn. No note. Just a look.”

  “She goes to speak peace to wolves,” the Judge said. “If she comes back, the land will have changed her.”

  “She won’t be the first.”

  The Judge tilted his head. “Nor the last.”

  A silence passed. Somewhere in the square, a dog barked. Then nothing.

  “The cub… you’ve taken her far,” he said. “Farther than most.”

  “She took herself,” Edelgard replied.

  “And now you’d see her through the veil.”

  “I want to see her become.”

  “And if she becomes mine?”

  Edelgard turned now. The light caught in her eyes like flint on steel. “Then I’ll take her back.”

  The Judge chuckled, slow and rich. “You’ve never been good at sharing.”

  “I never learned the taste for losing.”

  “You may yet.”

  A beat.

  Then she rose, slowly. “Then I’ll learn to kill you.”

  The Judge only smiled.

  From across the camp, Glanton watched them both.

  But that would change.

  They gathered at the edge of the village, where the scrubland began its slow ascent into pine-thick hills. The air was sharper here, touched by the breath of higher places. It smelled of dry grass, old stone, and rain that had not yet fallen.

  The men were fewer this morning. Some had already gone ahead with packs and provisions. Others lingered, shouldering rifles, watching. They could feel it—something coiling in the marrow. Something ready to snap.

  Edelgard stood apart from them, adjusting the strap of her pack. She wore no cloak, only her dark riding coat, unbuttoned at the throat. Her eyes were unreadable.

  Glanton approached. His limp was worse today. The injuries he sustained from the raiders in that bloody gulch had gone deep. He kept his coat fastened high, but the bruising crawled past the collar. Still, he walked like a man unimpressed by his own fragility.

  He did not greet her.

  “I never said that grim butler of yours could ride with us.”

  From the shadows behind Edelgard, Hubert emerged like an inkblot blooming in water. His coat was immaculate, gloved hands folded before him. “A butler,” he said, tone mild. “Indeed. I suppose it fits—as someone tasked with cleaning up after Lady Edelgard’s less... diplomatic encounters.”

  Edelgard’s eyes flicked sideways.

  “Hubert rides with me.”

  Glanton’s jaw worked. “We need to talk.”

  “Then talk.”

  “Not here.” He gestured with his chin toward the treeline. “We’ll walk.”

  Hubert started to follow, but Glanton threw out a hand.

  “Just you,” he said. “Not your shadow.”

  Edelgard gave Hubert a slight nod. He fell back, but not far.

  The two of them—Edelgard and Glanton—walked toward the woods, the hush of the land swallowing the sounds behind them. Somewhere in the branches, a bird cried once and fell silent.

  They did not speak until the trees took them.

  Then Glanton stopped.

  “I heard the Judge’s sermon,” he said. “The usual cryptic phooey. But there was something in it this time. Something about you. About her.”

  Edelgard didn’t answer.

  “I want to know what this is. This *deed.* This *empire.* You’ve got me and these men–my men–chasing ghosts westward. So now I think it’s high time you stopped your treating me like a fungus, keeping me in the dark and feeding me pure horseshit.”

  “Very well.” Edelgard met his gaze, calm. “It is a binding agreement, certified by seal and office. If I sign it in California, before a judiciary, I become its rightful sovereign.”

  Glanton laughed. A wild, humorless bark. “That’s it? That’s the grift?”

  “I wouldn’t have come this far on a whim.”

  “I’ve heard crazier things,” he said, “but not by much.” He stepped closer. “You want my men to die, you’ve had them die, for a crown made of parchment. And why? So you can stick your little eagle on the coast and play queen?”

  She didn’t rise to the bait. “You can choose to stand beside me, or we can part ways now.”

  He tilted his head. “Now I see why you kept it vague. All this time.” He leaned in. “I suppose that whore you strapped me with was part of the game, too. Kept me pacified while you sunk your claws into my gang.”

  Edelgard’s expression didn’t shift—but her hand twitched by her side.

  “It’s true,” she said quietly. “The first part, at least.”

  “Maybe I’d rather take you.”

  “...the second was simply inevitable...”

  His pistol was out before she finished speaking.

  “I’d advise against that–”Hubert’s voice cut across the clearing.

  He stood at the edge of the trees, pistol drawn.

  The forest wind tugged at his coat.

  Edelgard stepped aside—but so did the Judge, from behind a nearby tree. As though he’d always been there, watching. And his own chosen utensil of murder, a gleaming ivory rifle, was primed.

  A standoff. Three figures. Two barrels aimed at one.

  Hubert’s voice was calm.

  “If you pull that trigger—even if you kill me—you’ll regret it more than you can imagine.”

  Glanton pulled the trigger. The shot cracked.

  Hubert staggered back, a clean line of red opening across his shoulder.

  Edelgard flinched. Just slightly.

  It was the first time Glanton had seen her falter.

  He grinned. “That put some color in your cheeks, didn’t it?”

  “You arrogant fool,” Hubert hissed from the dirt, clutching the wound. “You don’t know what you’re doing. What’s at stake. All because of your bruised, pathetic little pride.”

  The Judge said nothing, there as though by obligation. His gun remained raised.

  Glanton turned his on Hubert again.

  But Edelgard stood in the way.

  “No.” Her voice stopped the world for a moment.

  Hubert groaned. “My lady—”

  “Enough.”

  She faced Glanton, calm. Composed.

  “You’ve made your grievances clear. So let’s renegotiate our terms.”

  “I’ll put a kid in you,” Glanton muttered. “How’s that for terms?”

  From the brush beyond, hidden and trembling, Bernadetta raised her rifle. She had been following and here now she had heard and seen enough. She’d recognized the tilt of Glanton’s hand, the gleam in his eye. She knew its meaning like a coyote knows a fire.

  He would not be denied his wants.

  She lined up the sights—but her hands were shaking. Too much.

  Through her scope she watched the Judge, still unmoving, step slightly to the side—as though he knew she was there. As though he were giving her the shot.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  Not enough to unlearn her helplessness.

  Not yet.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  And then the world went quiet in the way it does before something awful arrives.

  A twig snapped. Bernadetta’s breath hitched.

  From the trees, dark and silent, something moved.

  The thing stepped from the trees like a shadow turned solid. Shoulders broad as yokes, its eyes were two black pits shining with old fire. It had been watching them for some time. It had come down from the higher places in the night, moving along the ridge above—dark against the dark. It was old, its hide thick with scars, and it carried no fear in it. The men had entered its country, and so it meant to know them.

  A storm had begun to gather—soft at first, just wind and the smell of rain, but it thickened now behind the beast like a cloak. Its pelt was matted with pine duff and dried mud, its snout red with something that might not have been blood but surely was.

  The clearing froze.

  Glanton lowered his pistol, not out of fear, but calculation. His gaze ticked between the others, then back to the bear.

  Hubert, still crouched in pain, muttered, “God above...”

  The Judge whispered: “She calls her own.”

  Glanton turned just in time to raise his pistol. And he fired.

  The first hit square in the shoulder—useless.

  The beast kept coming.

  Another shot. A third. Then a scream.

  The beast slammed into him, knocking him from his feet and he hit the ground hard, gun spinning from his grip. The claws came next. The sound they made against his chest was like tearing wet leather. He screamed again, a gurgling, feral sound.

  Hubert staggered forward—still wounded, but rising, one hand blood-slick at his shoulder. He aimed his pistol, fired once—then again.

  The bear turned with a sharpness like it had understood an insult.

  Edelgard moved without hesitation.

  She ran, flung herself between Hubert and the beast, drawing its charge.

  She had no rifle. Only the axe.

  It caught her with a glancing swipe—arm raised, blade in hand—but the blow landed deep. A red seam opened across her ribs, staggering her. Her knees buckled.

  Hubert shouted her name, but she didn’t fall.

  Bloody, breath sharp, but standing.

  Then a shot rang out.

  The bear recoiled—one eye darkened by a perfect hit. Bernadetta. Hidden. Silent. Another shot might have come, but the beast reared and twisted toward the brush. And she was gone.

  Edelgard gritted her teeth, raised the axe—

  Too late. The devil was already now doubling back and surging again toward her.

  And then—

  A scream. Not of pain, but vengeance.

  Bernadetta again. Charging from the woods.

  She didn’t stop. She launched herself onto the beast’s back. Her knife—Edelgard’s knife—flashed like lightning. She drove it deep into the base of the neck.

  Blood fountained. The bear roared.

  Bernadetta screamed louder.

  She struck again. And again. Baptizing in its blood.

  It collapsed beneath her.

  And she didn’t stop. Not until her arms gave out.

  The Judge watched from the edge of the trees, silent as a tombstone.

  Edelgard was kneeling, one hand clutched to her side, blood flowing bright between her fingers. An unknowable amount of time passed. Her gaze searched but couldn’t find Hubert.

  Or Bernadetta.

  And Bernadetta was already going.

  Not running. Not fleeing.

  Drawn.

  Drawn by something nameless, blood-deep, older than memory.

  She moved like a sleepwalker. Like a vessel filled by some other will.

  Into the dark.

  Toward the cave.

  Toward the Judge, who waited—naked, unblinking, eternal.

  Behind her, Edelgard fell in a soft sound like the wind losing its breath.

  The world reeled. Rain split the sky.

  Bernadetta did not return. She did not look back.

  She walked as if the earth itself had called her by name.

  Through trees warped by shadow.

  Under skies that folded in like closing hands.

  The path was no longer a path.

  It was a procession.

  It was a rite.

  She walked, not by direction but by gravity—drawn, as though some deeper knowledge of the land had awoken in her blood. Rain fell in whispering sheets. The dark trees grew stranger. The sky folded in on itself like the lid of a tomb.

  By the time she found the cave, she could not tell if she had known it or if it had known her. Its mouth gaped open like a wound in the hillside. She entered it wordlessly, shedding her bloodstiffened clothes one by one, leaving them behind like skin outgrown. Her limbs ached. Her fingers cramped. Her thighs were slick with gore not her own.

  The bear-hide she had skinned lay in the center. Laid there, she could not say by whom. The cave smelled of earth and iron, and smoke that hadn’t burned in hours.

  She knelt.

  She wrapped herself in the pelt.

  She did not speak.

  The silence pressed in around her until it felt like her own heartbeat. Her breath slowed. Her hands stilled. Her thoughts curled in on themselves like dying spiders.

  Then—

  The hallway pulsed. Breathing walls.

  Floors that rolled like skin beneath her feet.

  Shadows bent the wrong way. Light didn’t reflect—it recoiled.

  Doors lined the corridor, none of them hers. They whispered in voices she recognized from childhood—dead animals, old dolls, her father. All of them calling her by names she had outgrown.

  She walked. Or the hall walked her.

  There was cake.

  On a plate that floated. Frosting too pink, too wet, beading like sweat on flesh.

  She reached for it—fingers trembling, starved.

  But it dissolved.

  Melted down her arm. Became ink, or blood, or nothing at all.

  “Bernadetta.”

  She turned.

  Edelgard was there. Or not Edelgard—something Edelgard-shaped. Her eyes were coin-slots.

  Her mouth was a gentle cut.

  “You came out.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You always mean to.”

  “I want to go back.”

  “There’s nothing back there.”

  The walls began to bleed light. Not gold, not fire—something worse. The color of screaming.

  The ceiling opened like a flower. Petals of rot.

  She felt the hand on her head.

  Weightless. Familiar. Like a memory that forgot itself.

  She looked up.

  The center of her universe stood above her, gentle-eyed, smiling.

  Safe.

  Known.

  She reached for them. A whisper, a name.

  Then the smile grew.

  It didn’t stop.

  The eyes turned inward—black holes wearing mirrors.

  And the face was not a face anymore, but a mask drawn in chalk on a corpse too large to bury.

  The hand was still there.

  And now it smelled like iron.

  The voice that followed was not spoken.

  It arrived.

  “There is no door.”

  She gasped. Then, behind her: footsteps.

  She didn’t flinch. She knew them.

  The Judge entered without sound. He was bare from the waist up, and the rain clung to his skin like sap. He crossed to her, slow. Deliberate. His eyes never left her.

  She glanced up. And—for just a moment—she saw someone else.

  Not him.

  Her.

  Pale hair wet with rain. Eyes full of fire. The scent of oil and lavender. The glint of that knife, still clenched in her own hand.

  “Edelgard,” Bernadetta whispered, unsure if she had spoken aloud.

  But it was the Judge who knelt.

  He touched her, and she closed her eyes.

  The pelt shifted from her shoulders. The cave exhaled. Rain whispered against stone. She didn’t resist. She couldn’t. There was something vast within her now, something old and famished and…grateful. She thought she might be consumed.

  But in that moment, the body above hers was not in the shape of the Judge.

  It was Edelgard.

  And when his hand touched her collarbone, she thought she felt lips.

  And when he pressed closer, she whispered, “Don’t go.”

  The shadows crawled along the cave walls. The blood on her skin had dried to paint. Her fingers closed around nothing.

  The world fell away.

  She slept.

  And in her sleep, she was remade.

  And in the hollow of that primeval dark, there was only one thought left to her—

  I don’t want to die.

  I don’t want to die.

  Far and away, the desert lay still as a painted backdrop, all storm-washed stone and silvered sand.

  Edelgard moved through it like a ghost.

  Her coat was torn, soaked through with rain and blood—some of it hers, most not. Her right arm was bound with a scrap of canvas, hastily tied and already stiff with dark clots. Her face was scraped, her hair wet, clinging to her cheek. She moved without sound, her boots sinking into the softened earth with each step, as though the land meant to swallow her.

  She returned to the adobe village by dawn.

  The sun rose like an accusation. The buildings stood empty.

  No fires burned. No horses stirred. The voices were gone—only a few broken crates remained, kicked over in haste or indifference. A cooking pot lay spilled in the dust. A playing card fluttered across the ground, caught on the wind like a forgotten omen.

  Her eyes scanned the horizon. Nothing.

  "Bernadetta?" she called.

  No answer.

  She limped forward. Past the ruins of the courtyard. Past the place where the Judge had sat beneath the silo. Past the bloodstained stones where Hubert had last stood.

  Nothing.

  A wind rose. She staggered. Her hand gripped the edge of a wall and steadied herself. Her fingers left a print of blood behind.

  And then a cough.

  From within a shadowed doorway, a figure stirred.

  Glanton.

  He lay propped against the frame, wrapped in hides and bandages, his face a ruin. One eye swollen shut. Half his jaw bound in cloth. His breath came in rattling pulls.

  He looked up at her with what little remained of his face.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” he rasped.

  Edelgard stared.

  And then: from the same building, Dorothea emerged. Her coat was patched. Her boots worn. But her posture was unbowed.

  She met Edelgard’s gaze with something unreadable. Tired. Soft. Knowing.

  “You made it back,” she said simply.

  Edelgard opened her mouth. Closed it. Her throat was dry.

  Dorothea looked her over once. “You’re hurt.”

  “A scratch,” Edelgard lied.

  She didn’t ask where the others were.

  Dorothea stepped aside. “Come inside. You need rest. Food.”

  Edelgard didn’t move.

  Her eyes drifted past Dorothea. To the pallet set up in the back of the room. The rusting pans. The blood-streaked cloth soaking in a bowl.

  To the faint scent of sickness. Of survival.

  To the sound of Glanton’s ragged breath.

  “I’m not staying,” she said.

  Dorothea didn’t argue.

  “You said that yesterday, too.”