The sky was barely light.

  A blue-gray wash stretched above the treetops, bruised at the edges with the promise of storms. Kyle crouched beneath a thicket where the ridge met the northern woods, dirt clinging to his boots, breath shallow in his throat. He hadn’t slept. He couldn’t. It had only been a day since the festival began, less than that since everything started to unravel. But it felt like a week had passed through him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Tina's face lit by the hearth, his mother’s hand tightening on his shoulder, the cold gleam of the pendant pressing against his skin like it wanted something.

  The village looked different in the early haze. The streamers drooped, heavy with dew, and the festival’s joy had gone brittle in the night. Only the smoke remained—low fires lit by habit, by those pretending normal was still possible.

  Kyle watched from the high rise north of the chapel. It gave a clear view of the green and the buildings that ringed it. A place he'd often come, to brood. Now it felt like something else. A place to disappear into. A place to act from.

  Below, he spotted them.

  Three figures cutting across the green like blades through linen. One was massive—bald, broad, and scarred down the scalp like someone had tried to split him open and failed. The woman beside him moved with too much precision, her stride exact, her ponytail swinging behind her like a blade unsheathed. The third trailed behind—tall, rail-thin, and still in a way that made Kyle’s skin crawl.

  They weren’t asking questions anymore.

  Kyle couldn’t hear what was said, but he saw the way people shifted when they passed. Harret stood near the chapel steps, arms folded. His presence usually settled a crowd. This time, it barely held one together.

  The strangers had begun their sweep.

  Kyle adjusted his position, easing the cramp in his leg without snapping a twig. The pendant pressed against his chest—warm now, not from his skin. It pulsed once. Just once. Like a second heartbeat. He touched it through his shirt. Frowned.

  A crow screamed overhead. Kyle flinched and ducked instinctively.

  “Too early for this,” he muttered.

  But it wasn’t. Not really. It was already too late.

  He slid back down the ridge and into the trees. If he was going to act—really act—it would have to be today.

  --

  The inn’s side wall was warm with morning sun, but the shade beneath it still clung to the cold of night. Kyle moved low and fast, weaving between stacked crates and empty barrels. His feet knew which boards would creak, which stones were loose. He didn’t make a sound.

  He paused beneath the kitchen window, listening. No voices. No clatter. No scent of frying bread. Just smoke, faint and bitter.

  Tina was either gone or still upstairs. He didn’t dare check.

  Instead, he slid along the side of the building toward the green.

  Across the way, the front doors of the chapel stood open—but no one entered. Jorgen was nowhere in sight. Kyle’s eyes moved quickly across the square.

  One of the black-armored figures stood near the well, face unreadable beneath a matte helm. Another disappeared into the smith’s shed without asking.

  Kyle’s pulse quickened.

  To his right, a woman yelped as the tall one ducked into her home uninvited. A few villagers shouted, but they didn’t get too close.

  He spotted Mara uphill, toward the forest, seated beneath her pine again, leg stretched stiff before her. She was watching everything, as if memorizing the faces, the movements, the tilt of the wind.

  Kyle shifted, intending to move toward her—

  A hand gripped his arm.

  He nearly struck.

  “Quiet,” someone hissed.

  Lem.

  The smaller boy’s face was pale, eyes darting, breath sharp and shallow.

  “They went into your house,” Lem whispered. “Not all of them—just one. I think your mom’s okay, but they didn’t knock.”

  Kyle’s stomach clenched.

  “I tried to say something,” Lem added quickly. “I told them you didn’t do anything. I told them—”

  “Stop.”

  Lem stopped.

  Kyle pulled back, wiping a hand across his mouth. His breath tasted like ash.

  “They’re going house to house,” he said. “Anyone who’s talked to me—”

  Lem nodded. “I know.”

  “I need to get Mara. Maybe warn Tina. Then I’m gone.”

  “You’re not waiting till tonight?”

  “I can’t.”

  Lem shifted his weight, glanced toward the green. “They’re not leaving, are they?”

  Kyle’s voice was low. “Not without something.”

  A shout rang out. Sharp. Close.

  Kyle froze.

  From behind the smithy, one of the armored figures emerged dragging a man by the collar. It was the goat-tender. His face was red, and he was shouting something about “no right” and “not yours.”

  The tall one backhanded him without slowing down.

  The goat-tender hit the dirt hard.

  The villagers said nothing.

  Kyle’s nails bit into his palms.

  He turned back toward the treeline.

  “You should hide,” he said. “Now.”

  Lem didn’t argue.

  Neither of them looked at each other when they split.

  --

  The old pine creaked overhead as the wind shifted. Mara didn’t look up.

  Her leg ached, more than usual. The pain was an old rhythm now—part throb, part hum—but today it settled deeper in the bone. Still, she didn’t move. She sat with her bandaged leg stretched out, hands folded in her lap, as the village unfolded like a slow unraveling tapestry beneath her.

  From this vantage—just above the green, near where the trees began to crowd in again—she could see most of it: the chapel steeple casting long shadows, the faded edges of the inn’s shutters, and the black shapes that didn’t belong.

  She watched them with the same patience she used on injured animals. The tall one moved like a butcher. The woman with him—quieter, but her eyes never stopped moving. And the thin one—the worst kind. Lean and smooth, like he’d slip between shadows if no one held him in place.

  They didn’t talk to each other. That bothered her more than anything.

  Below, someone cried out. She didn’t flinch.

  Instead, she leaned forward slightly, fingers resting on the carved wood of her cane.

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  “You’re early,” she said.

  Kyle emerged from the brush behind her, breath hard, face pale. His eyes were fixed on the figures below.

  “They went into your house,” she added, “They’re hunting.”

  Kyle didn’t respond. His hands were clenched too tight.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said after a beat.

  “I came to warn you.”

  “I saw them an hour ago.” Her voice didn’t soften. “You’ve wasted your warning.”

  His mouth twitched like he might argue.

  Mara looked at him—really looked. “You’re too visible, Kyle. Always have been. You act like a shadow, but shadows don’t carry weight the way you do.”

  “They have Tina,” he said suddenly.

  Mara’s face didn’t change.

  “And my mother. I think they’re still just questioning. But they’ve started hitting people. Rannic got knocked down just now. For shouting.”

  She exhaled through her nose.

  “They’ll take more if you stay,” she said. “Or worse.”

  Kyle didn’t move.

  “You have to run.”

  “They’re Virgo Enforcers,” Mara muttered, almost to herself. “That mark, that color—they don’t come to ask questions. They come to remind you who you live under.”

  “Not yet.”

  Mara’s voice sharpened. “If you wait too long—”

  “Then I make them chase me,” he said. “Not the people I care about.”

  Silence stretched between them again.

  Finally, Mara reached beside her, under the old stump’s edge. She pulled free a small cloth bundle, tied tight.

  “Take this,” she said.

  Kyle frowned. “What is it?”

  “Nothing important. But they’ll think it is. If they follow, drop it. Make them chase the wrong thing.”

  Kyle hesitated, then took it. The bundle felt heavy for its size—stones, maybe. Or coins.

  “You’ll be okay?” he asked.

  Mara’s smile was thin. “I’ve been old too long to die for someone else’s secrets. Now go.”

  He turned, then paused.

  “If I don’t come back—”

  “You will,” she said.

  He didn’t ask how she knew. And she didn’t explain.

  By the time Kyle vanished into the brush, Mara had already closed her eyes again, listening to the wind.

  --

  The air inside the inn was too still.

  Tina sat upright in bed, blanket tangled at her knees, the heat of the early sun pushing through the warped shutters. Her heartbeat had already outpaced reason by the time she was fully awake—something had pulled her from sleep. Not noise. Not light. A sense. A change.

  She stood, bare feet hitting the floorboards with a soft thump, and crossed to the window. From her small room above the kitchen, she could just see the edge of the village green. A figure in black armor stood with their back to her, still as stone.

  Tina swallowed hard.

  She dressed quickly, hands fumbling the laces of her overshirt. Her body moved on instinct. Mind still fogged with dreams. Except it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t even a nightmare. It was real—and it had started yesterday.

  No festival music. No clanging pans or shouted orders from the kitchen below. The smell of bread was gone. There was only the smell of wrong.

  She crept to her door, eased it open.

  Voices drifted up—quiet and angry. Her father’s voice. And another, colder. Male. Clipped, precise.

  She padded silently to the stairs and paused halfway down, hidden by the turn.

  “…nothing of the sort,” Harret was saying, firm but not loud. “If you want the boy, find him yourself. He’s not here.”

  A long pause.

  Then the other voice: “So you say.”

  Boots scuffed against the floorboards.

  Tina’s chest tightened. Boy? Which boy?

  Her mind leapt unbidden—Kyle.

  Of course it could have been anyone. But it wasn’t. Not with how her father’s voice sounded. Not with how careful he was being.

  The enforcers hadn’t come for the village. Not really. They were looking for something. Someone.

  Kyle had disappeared into the woods last night, after the festival. After everything between them. He hadn’t come back.

  She didn’t know what he’d done. She didn’t need to.

  Tina’s hand tightened on the banister.

  She leaned just far enough to see. One of the black-clad figures was near the hearth, helmet off now, resting beneath one arm. His face was pale and pinched, lips too thin for kindness. His eyes flicked to Harret, then to the stairs—too close.

  She backed away before he saw her. Probably.

  There was no time.

  Back in her room, she shut the door, forced herself to breathe. She pressed her forehead against the cool wall, pulse drumming like a warning. He’s looking for Kyle. He knows something.

  They all knew something. Or thought they did.

  Tina glanced at the floorboards beneath her bed. The loose one. The one Kyle had helped her wedge back into place after she’d hidden her keepsakes there.

  She didn’t move it now. She didn’t have time.

  Instead, she scrawled a quick note on a scrap of torn cloth—They know. Be careful.—and tucked it in her pocket in case she saw Kyle.

  She cracked the shutters open. No one stood watch behind the inn.

  Good.

  She slipped her boots on and lowered herself over the edge of the windowsill. The drop jarred her knees, but she stayed quiet. Then she ran—not across the green, but around the long back path, skirting the edge of the field toward the mill.

  Toward their place.

  She didn’t know if he’d be there. But if he was, he’d need to know.

  And if he wasn’t… she’d decide what to do next.

  --

  The green had gone quiet.

  No music. No laughter. Just the rustle of dew-heavy streamers and the crackle of a hearth fire still burning in the chapel brazier. Smoke curled upward, thin and uncertain, as if even flame had lost its place.

  Jorgen stood near the center of the square, robes drawn tight against his frame, one hand clutching his satchel like a talisman. His hair was loose—he hadn’t braided it this morning. Or perhaps he hadn’t been given the chance.

  Across from him, the tallest of the three strangers stood with arms folded, helm tucked under one elbow. No words passed for a long moment. Then the woman stepped forward.

  She spoke low, but her voice carried.

  “You were the one performing rituals last night.”

  Jorgen didn’t answer at first. His gaze flicked from her to the growing ring of onlookers. Harret stood near the inn, jaw set. Others watched from doorways and windows, wrapped in shawls or aprons, eyes too wide.

  “I was leading the festival rites,” Jorgen said, finally. “Same as every year.”

  “You used Dust.”

  The priest’s shoulders stiffened. “In accordance with tradition.”

  A pause.

  The thin one moved then—quietly, almost idly—pacing behind Jorgen like a wolf testing the edge of a pen. Jorgen turned slightly to keep him in view.

  “And what tradition,” the woman asked, “permits loss of control?”

  Jorgen flinched.

  A murmur rose from the watchers, quickly hushed.

  “There was no loss of control,” he said. “Only a misstep. The wind shifted. The Dust reacted.”

  “Dust doesn’t shift,” the tall one said. His voice was gravel and heat. “It obeys.”

  Jorgen looked smaller now. Not hunched, not broken. But shrunk—like something hollowed had been found inside him.

  He opened his mouth, closed it.

  The thin one stopped pacing.

  The woman turned slightly, gaze sweeping the green. “We’re not here for your festivals. Or your excuses.”

  She stepped closer. “We’re here for what slipped through your fingers.”

  Jorgen’s voice, when it came, was barely a breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The silence that followed pressed like weight.

  Then the tall one nodded once. The others stepped back.

  Jorgen remained standing, but his hand now trembled against the satchel.

  The enforcers didn’t detain him. Didn’t touch him. They simply moved on—toward the western edge of the green, toward the next row of homes.

  And still, no one spoke.

  Not even after the strangers had passed out of sight.

  Above the square, near the treeline, something shifted in the underbrush—too careful to be wind.

  --

  The trees behind the mill still held shadows. Cool, damp ones. A thin line of frost clung to the edges of the grass in places untouched by the rising sun. Kyle waited in them, half-hidden, heart hammering.

  He didn’t know if she’d come.

  He didn’t know if she should.

  But when he saw the auburn flash behind the grain barrels, the sudden flicker of a crouched figure darting toward their place—the knot in his chest unraveled just enough to hurt.

  Tina ducked beneath the old mill flue and slipped into the narrow clearing. Her breath came fast. Her eyes scanned the tree line before landing on him.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said.

  Kyle swallowed. “Neither are you.”

  They stared at each other.

  Then she stepped closer, and the distance between them evaporated.

  “I overheard them,” she said. “One of them. Talking to my father.”

  Kyle’s jaw tightened. “What did they say?”

  “Not much. But enough.” Her voice was low. “They’re looking for someone. And I think it’s you.”

  His hand brushed the pendant beneath his shirt. It had gone still again. No heat. No pulse. Just weight.

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” Tina added. “I don’t know anything. But—”

  “I know.”

  He reached for her hand. She let him take it.

  “I’m leaving today,” Kyle said. “I can’t wait. Not after this morning.”

  Tina didn’t argue. Her grip on his hand tightened.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  The words surprised even him—raw, sudden. But they were true. More than anything, in that moment, they were true.

  Tina’s lips parted. Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but something quieter. Something harder.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”

  Kyle looked away.

  “My father would never let me go,” she said. “Not while he still thinks he can control this. And if I disappear now, they’ll know.”

  Kyle nodded. He hated how much he understood.

  “I’ll find you later,” she said. “If I can.”

  “No promises,” Kyle murmured.

  “No lies,” Tina returned.

  They stood in silence a few heartbeats longer.

  Then Kyle reached into his pocket and pulled out the cloth scrap Mara gave him.

  He pressed it into her palm.

  “If I don’t make it out… I hope this helps. Mara gave it to me.”

  Tina nodded, fingers curling around it.

  A shout rang out in the distance. Too close.

  Kyle flinched.

  “You have to go,” Tina whispered.

  “So do you.”

  She leaned in, pressed her lips against his, and then was gone.

  Kyle stayed one moment longer, staring at the empty space where she’d been.

  Then he turned toward the woods.

  --

  The treeline welcomed him like an old friend—or a hiding place too well-worn to be safe. Kyle moved low, weaving between roots and brush, ears tuned to every snap of twig or shift in wind. The bundle from Mara was gone now, tucked into Tina’s hands. A different kind of weight remained.

  He didn’t head for home. That was over. He circled instead to the supply cache he’d buried near the gulch two months ago—a stupid impulse at the time, just another runaway fantasy. Now, it felt like foresight.

  The soil came up easy, still damp beneath the moss. Inside: a skin of water, cheese in wax, a bit of dried meat, and a fire striker wrapped in oilcloth. Enough to move fast, not long.

  He slung the bag across his back. Then stood still for a long time, eyes scanning for a path north.

  Behind him, the village was shifting. Not just in movement—something deeper. The sounds had changed. Less shouting now. Less resistance. A quiet worse than silence. The sound of giving in.

  Smoke curled higher than it should’ve. More than it should’ve. Something no one would stop.

  Kyle reached for the pendant beneath his shirt again. It was warm. Just faintly. No pulse. No glow. But warmth—like skin against skin.

  He stared at the treeline.

  A scream cut through the trees. Not close. Not far. But familiar.

  Kyle stopped, turned, and dropped everything.

  Tina?

  He didn’t know. But his legs were already moving.