The fire cracked like rifle shots in the hollow of the basin. Long tongues of orange light danced across weather-worn faces. Tin cups passed hand to hand, the smell of cheap whiskey mingled with woodsmoke and the faint, iron tang of rail grease. Laughter rose and fell like a tide, men loosed of their burdens by drink or fatigue, or both. A fiddler paid his dues.

  Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd sat apart, though not alone. He leaned on one elbow at a rough-cut table beneath the open sky, his coat slung on the back of his chair, collar open at the throat. His fair hair caught the firelight like fresh coin. Across from him sat Dedue, upright and still, hands folded before him. They had not spoken in some time. There was no need.

  Dimitri swirled his cup absently. Water. He hadn’t touched liquor since the New Mexico incident.

  “I used to think,” he said, at length, “that my father’s dream could survive anything. Even death. I thought the idea of it was stronger than the man himself. But now I wonder…”

  Dedue tilted his head, waiting. “…If I’ve only inherited a grave.”

  The wood snapped in the flames. Far-off thunder muttered across the plains.

  Dedue said, “Then you must bury it proper. Lay the old dream down, and build the new one with your own hands.”

  Dimitri gave a low breath of amusement. “You always make it sound so easy.”

  “It never is. That’s why it must be done.”

  Before he could answer, footsteps sounded through the sand. Ingrid strode up from the light, cheeks flushed, curls disheveled and gleaming. A grin tugged at her mouth, loose and lively. She carried a half-empty bottle and two tin cups.

  “I swear,” she said, “there’s not a damn thing to eat in this place, but at least there’s good liquor.”

  “Ingrid,” Dimitri said, blinking. “You’ve…found your merriment, I see.”

  “It found me. And besides.” She sat with them uninvited, pouring a shot for herself. “I’m off duty. We’re making history out here. Don’t you think we deserve a little revelry now and then?”

  He hesitated. “I… suppose we do. It’s rare to see you so unbound like this.”

  She gave him a sideways glance and leaned in just a bit. “And what if I asked you for a dance, Mister Railroad Magnate? Would that be considered too forward?”

  “A dance?” Dimitri straightened, flustered. “Actually, I’ve never—”

  But she was already on her feet, taking his hand, her laughter bright and reckless. He rose, bewildered, and was swept away into the glow of the fire, her boots kicking up dust in time to the fiddle’s call.

  Dedue remained seated. He did not drink. His gaze turned westward, to the horizon, where clouds gathered black and low. They would be here before nightfall. The wind carried no chill, but it carried something else, something harder to name.

  He watched them dance, the prince and the soldier girl, twirling like phantoms in the firelight.

  A joy lived in that moment. He felt it. But he did not smile.

  He only said, quiet to himself,

  “Storm’s coming.”

  But not in the morning. By midday the sun hung like a butcher’s hook above the land, and the air lay thick and motionless, so that the sweat on a man’s brow neither cooled nor evaporated but only clung there, beaded and brined, to run stinging into his eyes. Beneath this dome of heat the land lay prostrate, a broken plain of dust and stone, and in the midst of it the camp, if it could be called such, with its flimsied tents and its jerry-rigged shelters of clapboard and tarpaulin, its canvas awnings bowed and tattered under the weight of the sun.

  Dimitri stood amid this makeshift dominion, his boots planted in the dirt, hands upon his hips, eyes scanning the sweep of the horizon. He was dressed in workman’s garb, plain trousers, a sweat-stiffened shirt with the sleeves rolled back upon his forearms, and he had about him the air of a man made impatient by delays, though his voice, when he spoke, carried no anger in it.

  "Ingrid," he said. "We sent word about the housing weeks ago. The men are sleeping in the dirt."

  She inclined her head in a brief nod, already thumbing open the ledger with practiced ease. "The request was reviewed and ultimately denied. The official reasoning was that temporary lodgings were deemed an unnecessary expenditure, given the project's timeline and expected completion window."

  He exhaled sharply through his nose. "And who made that decision?"

  She flipped a page, ran a gloved finger down a column. "The department heads in Washington. Their rationale was that the laborers would naturally move along with the track’s progress. That permanent structures would be redundant. Short-sighted, but final."

  Dimitri stared past her at the scattered clusters of men, hard men, hollow-cheeked and sunburnt and ragged with their exertions. There were bloody raw hands, men floundering with heatstroke. They sat in the shade of their own meager contrivances, gnawing at dry rations, some muttering among themselves in tongues foreign to him, others simply staring, unspeaking, into the fire-hazed distance where the land seemed to waver and melt at the edges.

  "I won’t have them sleeping in the sand like stray dogs," he said. "We need something better than this."

  "A noble sentiment," said Ingrid. "Have you a plan?"

  He nodded. "Twofold. First, we secure immediate shelter. I’ll speak to Claude—see if he can procure enough wagons to serve as temporary barracks. We can repurpose old ones from the supply trains. Enough to get the men off the ground, at least."

  "And the second part?"

  "I need a map of the region. A thorough one. I want to know what resources we have at our disposal. The stone, the timber, what can be cut, what can be quarried. If Washington won’t approve the funds, we’ll build something permanent ourselves."

  Ingrid studied him a moment longer, then nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

  “Thank you.” Dimitri smiled, and it was for the first time in months. “I am truly fortunate to have a cherished old friend as my liaison secretary.”

  Ingrid smiled too. “Your father would’ve been proud to see you now, Dimitri. I know I am.”

  She reached across, gently adjusting his collar. Nodded, then quietly left.

  Dimitri turned only after she was gone, already surveying the land again, his mind at work, calculating. The sun above bore down without mercy, and the men toiled beneath it, the iron of their tools hot enough to scald the flesh. He could hear the distant clang of hammers on railspike, the slow and dogged march of progress, and he knew then that if the land itself would not yield to them, then they would bend it to their will.

  This was but the latest in a long line of tribulations.

  Before the tents, before the hammering of stakes, before the blueprints were unfurled beneath the sun-bleached awning of his makeshift headquarters, there had been the road.

  It stretched behind them, a ribbon of dust and hardship, littered with broken axles and spent horses, the bones of those who had faltered and been left behind. Dimitri had ridden at the head of it all, his coat drawn close against the wind, the weight of a hundred lives pressing against his spine. They had gathered laborers from a dozen counties, men eager for work or desperate for coin, their numbers swelling with each settlement they passed. Farmers, drifters, runaways. Criminals, perhaps. It did not matter. The road bound them all together in purpose.

  The final days of their march had been grueling. The land grew treacherous, the nights colder. Wheels sank into the salt flats, the sun bleached their provisions to dust. They lost a man to fever, another to thirst. The rest pressed on, drawn forward by the promise of something greater than themselves.

  And then, at last, they had arrived.

  The chosen site sprawled before them in the morning light, an empty expanse of earth waiting to be conquered. There was no ceremony, no speeches. Dimitri had only taken in the land, his unfiltered gaze sweeping the horizon, his people looking on with a speechless awe, and nodded once. Then, as if by instinct, the work had begun. There had been no time for reflection. Not yet. Not while there was still so much to build, the clang of hammers echoing into the sky like churchbells of some strange and blasphemous cathedral. And over it all the dry wind blew, tugging at canvas, catching in the throat like dust ground from the bones of forgotten saints.

  Felix sat cross-legged behind a wagon, his back to the sun, the clamor of labor fading behind him like the din of a distant war. His pistol was broken open in his lap, the chamber dark with powder residue. He worked a rag through each cylinder, slow and deliberate, like a man brushing blood from a favorite blade.

  Bootsteps crunched in the dirt.

  Claude leaned around the wagon’s frame, casting a long shadow over him. He tilted his head, grinning.

  “Well now. I always had you pegged for a sword-only kind of guy.”

  Felix didn’t look up. He scoffed. “What kind of fool do you take me for?”

  Claude shrugged, crouched beside him, one arm resting on his knee. “The kind who once said, and I quote, 'guns are for cowards and drunkards.' That ring any bells?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Felix paused in his cleaning, eyes narrowing. “I’ll use a gun if I have to. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Claude’s smile crooked. “Aw, that’s almost romantic. You and that old slab of iron you sleep next to every night. Bet you even named it.”

  “It’s not a dog.”

  Claude let the silence hang between them, but his tone shifted slightly when he spoke again. “You know the man you killed at Red Butte? The one who ran?”

  Felix’s jaw tightened. He pressed the cloth deeper into the chamber, like he could scrub the question out of existence.

  “I don’t keep count,” he said flatly. “And I don’t chase men to parley with them.”

  Claude watched him a moment longer, then leaned back on his heels. “You always this friendly, or is this just for me?”

  “What are you still doing here?” Felix asked. “The tracks are laid, the wagons run smooth. We don’t need you.”

  Claude smiled again, wider now, like he’d been waiting for that. “As a matter of fact, I’ll have you know I was summoned by our King of the Rails himself. Something about a very important mission. I even brought a new hat for the occasion.”

  Felix grunted. “You’re full of shit.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” Claude gestured lazily at the pistol. “So, really. Give me a number. Rough estimate.”

  Felix clicked the chamber shut with a clean, final snap. It sounded like bone. He stared down the line of the barrel, not quite aiming, just feeling the weight in his hand.

  “If a man can’t defend his own life,” he said, “then it was never really his to begin with.”

  Claude’s smile faded. He looked down, thoughtful. Then:

  “You can’t really believe that. Do you?”

  Felix met his gaze with a hard, flinty stare. He spun the revolver once in his hand and slid it into the holster at his side.

  “I’m not paid to believe anything.”

  Claude stood for a moment, gazing after him, then turned and made his way back toward camp, boots crunching dry salt beneath them.

  A wind caught the corner of a tent-flap, and from within came the sharp clink of ceramic, the rustle of linen, a voice muffled but firm—

  "Annette, hand me that poultice. And fetch more water while you're at it."

  The air inside the tent was thick with the scent of herbs—camphor, chamomile, crushed fennel—and something subtler, stranger. A trace of sulfur? Ozone? Mercedes couldn't tell. She frowned as she washed her hands in the basin, the water already clouded from tending a dislocated shoulder earlier that morning.

  Annette hovered nearby, sleeves rolled to the elbows, cheeks ruddy with heat and effort, organizing a tray of instruments with meticulous care.

  “Next patient, please,” Mercedes called gently toward the flap.

  There was a pause. Then, as if the air itself were announcing her, a voice rang out:

  “Stand aside, for it is a matter of most dire urgency that my companion be attended to by a healer of the utmost skill!”

  Annette jumped, knocking over a tray of splints. A few clattered to the floor.

  In stepped a vision of contradiction. The woman was tall and pale, clad in black with striking lace at the collar, her golden hair tied in an elaborate braid that had clearly weathered better days. She held her posture like a statue—but it was a performance, not ease. Her hands trembled faintly, even as her expression bore the hauteur of a duchess storming Versailles.

  Behind her slouched another girl entirely, hood up, arms folded, boots scuffed, expression somewhere between bored and actively annoyed.

  “She has been stricken with a most unusual affliction,” the first woman declared, sweeping into the tent like she owned it. “A lingering malaise! A pall upon the humors! I fear dark forces may be at work.”

  “Coco,” the hooded girl muttered. “It’s not that bad.”

  Mercedes blinked. “Um. Of course. Please—come sit, miss…”

  “Nuvelle,” the tall one answered at once. “Lady Constance von Nuvelle, formerly of House Nuvelle, now regrettably displaced due to the untimely destruction of our ancestral seat. And this is my… associate.”

  “Hapi,” said the hooded girl flatly, plopping onto the examination cot with a long-suffering sigh. “Just Hapi.”

  Annette brightened. “Oh! Like… happy?”

  “No,” Hapi said.

  Mercedes offered a warm, practiced smile, unshaken. “What seems to be the problem today, Miss Hapi?”

  Hapi shrugged, but her eyes—striking and tired—shifted sidelong toward Constance. “Ask her. She’s the one who thinks I’m dying.”

  “Perish the thought!” Constance cried. “But the symptoms are deeply concerning. Dizziness. Night terrors. A marked increase in the consumption of salted meats. Not to mention the cough.”

  Annette leaned in. “Oh no. You’re coughing?”

  “It’s not like a sick cough,” Hapi said. “It’s more like a—well, it’s hard to explain.”

  Mercedes knelt beside her, starting to check pulse, pupils, temperature. All normal. “Any pain?”

  “No.”

  “Fatigue?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Any… strange dreams?”

  There was a pause. Hapi looked away. “Maybe.”

  Constance stepped forward, gesturing with an air of secrecy. “She moans in her sleep,” she whispered. “Names no one knows. Places she could not have visited. Her breath clouds in a tent too warm for frost.”

  Annette’s eyes widened. “Ghosts?”

  Hapi sighed. “No ghosts.”

  Mercedes turned to her gently. “When did this start?”

  “Few weeks ago. After that night in the canyon,” Hapi said. “We heard… something. Screaming. Not human. Then the wind picked up. Since then I’ve just felt… off. Like there’s something watching me.”

  There was a pause. The tent rustled softly in the breeze outside.

  Annette was hugging the tray to her chest. “That does sound spooky.”

  Mercedes touched Hapi’s wrist again, her fingers cool. “I believe you,” she said softly.

  Hapi looked at her then, surprised. “You do?”

  “Yes,” Mercedes said. “Even if I can’t explain it.”

  Constance sniffed, as if this was merely confirming what she’d already deduced. “We suspected spiritual entanglement. Possibly residual trauma, possibly a more nefarious possession. I have prepared an array of wards—”

  “Please don’t talk about my ‘array,’” Hapi groaned, lying back and covering her face with her arm.

  Mercedes rose. “I’ll need some time to consider. If it’s spiritual, we may want to speak to a cleric or a scholar. But in the meantime, you need rest. And no more salted meats.”

  “That’s gonna be a problem,” Hapi muttered.

  “Fear not,” Constance said dramatically. “I shall prepare for you a restorative infusion passed down from my grandmother’s own tome of ancestral remedies.”

  Annette offered an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “That sounds awesome! I’ve been wanting to learn more about poultices!”

  “You shall assist,” Constance declared. “And together, we shall rebuke the darkness!”

  Hapi groaned again.

  A hush fell over the tent. Not a silence—there were still the creaks of canvas, the faint rasp of Annette’s mixing bowl, the soft exhale of breath—but something in the feel of the place changed, like the barometric pressure had suddenly dropped.

  Hapi sat up a little.

  “What?” Constance asked, noticing.

  “I don’t know,” Hapi murmured. “It’s like…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence.

  From outside came the sound of boots. Slow. Deliberate. Heavy enough to register, even on the dry-packed earth. Mercedes turned toward the tent flap, drawn by something unseen. Annette, ever attuned to Mercedes’ cues, stopped grinding herbs.

  Then the flap shifted.

  He did not enter.

  A shadow passed against the canvas—a tall one, broad at the shoulders, utterly still. You could hear nothing. Not breath. Not movement. Just presence.

  Hapi stared at it, face gone pale. Her fingers curled tightly in the cot’s edge.

  The shadow lingered.

  Then it moved on.

  No one spoke until the footsteps had fully faded into the dust and distance. Even then, it was several heartbeats before anyone remembered how to breathe.

  “…Friend of yours?” Hapi asked finally, her voice hoarse.

  Mercedes shook her head slowly. “No. I don’t think… anyone has friends like that.”

  Constance straightened, smoothing her coat. “Wretched timing. He nearly ruined the moment.”

  “Ruined what moment?” Annette asked, still clutching the mortar.

  “The one in which we triumph over evil,” Constance said.

  And Hapi, despite everything, let out a dry, half-horrified laugh.

  The sun had fled westward and left the sky in ruin. A molten smear across the rim of the earth where day was put to death, and above it the stars came shyly into view like the eyes of unseen beasts rousing in the dark. In the heart of the camp the fires were lit and the hammering went on, but beyond the tents the light faltered and the wind stirred only dust.

  From this place of tents and toil there came a figure. He did not emerge so much as he was, as if the darkness had conspired to take on form and walk. Tall he was, and pale, and bald as a stone. Naked save the boots upon his feet and the book he carried at his side. The Judge.

  He passed through the last rows of wagons and cookfires like a spirit unchallenged. A dog whined low and slunk behind a barrel. A man stopped hammering and turned to stare after him, but the Judge never looked back. He walked with the certainty of a god, a thing that had never doubted its dominion.

  Canvas flaps stirred in his wake. The scent of sweat and herbs and iron followed him. In the medical tent, where a girl with ash-grey hair lay on a cot and a woman with flaxen curls murmured to her in gentle tones, the air turned sudden cold. The lamps flickered. Somewhere deep in the folds of her being, Hapi shivered. Constance glanced to the tent’s entrance. No one was there.

  The Judge walked on.

  Out past the camp’s edge, past the last posted stake, past the boundaries of man’s attempt to shape the land. Here the earth returned to itself. The hardpan cracked like a fallen eggshell, the scrub grew sparse and thorned. He stepped lightly, and yet the land recoiled.

  He began to hum.

  There was no melody. Just sound. The way a corpse might hum in dreaming. The way the world itself might hum in its sleep when no one watched it.

  On a low rise a coyote sat watching, ears perked, tail curled over its paws. It did not flee. He passed within ten paces and the animal did not blink.

  He came to a ridge. The stone was red and scarred by wind. He climbed it in silence, and when he stood atop it he looked out over a valley of black rock and moonlit sand. No tree, no fire. And yet—

  There. In a cleft among the stones. A flicker.

  A shape bent by a fire. Her back bare, the bear-hide cloak slung from one shoulder like the vestment of some wild hierophant. She crouched low, sharpening a blade against a whetstone gripped between her knees. Her hands were steady. Her face caught in profile.

  Bernadetta.

  He did not move. But down below, she froze. Her head lifting, breath halting. She turned to scan the canyon mouth. The fire snapped. A wind came low and long through the gorge.

  She saw nothing.

  The Judge smiled.

  “She remembers me,” he said.

  And the stars above flared like old embers blown upon by some unseen breath.