Dorin was exactly what the market woman had described.
They found him at the town gate at seventh bell — a round-faced man in his mid-forties, wagon loaded and horse already hitched, talking to the gate guard about something that had apparently started as a question about road conditions and evolved into a detailed account of a merchant dispute he’d witnessed in a town three stops back.
The guard had the expression of someone who had been nodding for longer than was comfortable.
Dorin turned when he heard them coming and his face opened into the kind of smile that suggested he was genuinely glad to see them and also genuinely glad to have a new audience.
"Ah. My escort."
His gaze settled on Mira first, taking in her well-maintained gear and the spear resting easily in her hand. It was the measured appraisal of a man who had hired hunters for years and knew competence the moment he saw it.
Only then did his attention shift to Kael.
Then he looked at Kael.At the roughspun shirt and canvas trousers that had clearly seen better days even as secondhand purchases. At the dead man’s sword on his hip that didn’t quite fit the scabbard right. At the eye bags that suggested a night that had nothing to do with sleep.
"You look like you had a difficult night," Dorin said.
"I had a productive one," Kael replied.Dorin considered that. Decided it was an acceptable answer. "Well. Crestfall won’t wait." He climbed up onto the wagon bench and clicked his tongue at the horse.
"Shall we?"
The road out of Valdris was well-maintained for the first hour — flat stone paving that gave way to packed earth as the town fell behind them, open farmland on both sides, the morning air cool enough that their breath showed faintly. The twin moons were still visible low on the western horizon, fading as the sun climbed.
Dorin talked for the entire first hour.
He talked about the cargo bolts of dyed cloth, specialty thread, three crates of a particular spice that was apparently cheaper in Valdris than anywhere else on the route. He talked about Crestfall Pass and the relay station there, which he described as having the worst food of any stop on his regular circuit but the most reliable storage.
He talked about the Gate disturbances on this stretch of road with the cheerful pragmatism of a man who had been doing this long enough that danger had become a scheduling problem rather than a source of fear.
Kael walked beside the wagon and listened.
Mira walked on the opposite side of the wagon, her spear resting across her back as her eyes swept the treeline with the quiet vigilance of a seasoned escort. She knew from experience that trouble rarely announced itself before it arrived.
"The merchant," Seradhiel said quietly in Kael’s skull, "is more observant than he presents himself to be. He has been cataloguing you since the gate. The conversation is a screen."
Kael had noticed. He said nothing and kept listening.
Eventually Dorin ran out of things to say about the road and the cargo and the relay station’s food. The rhythm of the horse’s hooves and the creak of the wagon filled the silence for a while.
Then Dorin fell asleep.
It happened with the abruptness of someone whose body had decided the conversation quota was filled and rest was now non-negotiable. One moment he was describing a particularly memorable storm he’d driven through two seasons back, and the next his chin had dropped to his chest and his hands had gone loose on the reins the horse, clearly experienced with this, maintaining its pace without guidance.
Mira looked across the wagon at Kael.
Kael looked back.
She moved around to his side and fell into step beside him. They walked in silence for a moment the kind that had something waiting in it.
"Where are you actually from?" Mira asked.
Her voice was quieter this time. There was no calculation behind the question, no attempt to catch him in a lie. Just simple curiosity.
Kael was silent for a few steps.
"Somewhere far," he said. "Leave it at that for now."
She held his gaze for a moment longer.
Then she looked forward, jaw tight, filing it away the way she always did when he gave her a wall instead of an answer.
They walked in silence after that. Dorin snored softly on the wagon bench. The farmland gave way to thicker forest on both sides, the road narrowing as the terrain changed.
"The treeline," Seradhiel signaled sharply.
Kael’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword before he consciously understood why.
Ahead of him, Mira had already stopped.
Her spear was in her hands, drawn in one smooth motion born of long habit rather than conscious thought. She stood perfectly still, eyes fixed on the bend where the road disappeared between two low hills.
Kael felt it a heartbeat later.
The air had changed.
A faint crackling hung beneath the morning breeze, subtle but unmistakable. It wasn’t a sound so much as a sensation, as though the world itself had begun to strain under an invisible weight. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
Reality was being forced open.
A Gate.
It tore open on the road ahead vertical, maybe three meters tall, edges crackling dark red. Bigger than the one at the clearing. The wrongness coming off it pressed against Kael’s Essence senses like a hand flat against his chest.
Dorin woke up.
He took one look at the Gate, said something under his breath, and pulled the wagon off the road into the grass verge with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this before. He set the brake and stayed on the bench without being asked.
Three creatures came through.
Kael assessed them in the two seconds before they fully oriented.
Roughly humanoid and a head taller than any ordinary man, they moved with a slow, deliberate heaviness that spoke of density rather than speed. Their grey skin looked almost stone-like, and the Essence radiating from them pressed against his senses in a way the wolf-beasts never had.
This wasn’t the wild, instinctive aura of the wolf-beasts.It was controlled,purposeful and prolly around a class c tier gate.