Marcel reached the treeline just as the last of the daylight vanished behind the hills.
Ash floated in the air, soft as snow, but thicker than usual. It clung to his skin, itching. Breathing it felt wrong.
The scent hit him next—not the usual firewood and soil—but something sharper. Burnt oil. Char. The unmistakable tang of blood on smoke.
He ran.
Down the ridge, past the old boundary stones, through fields now trampled by boot and hoof. No bodies, no screams. Just silence thick enough to choke on.
The village still stood.
Mostly.
A barn was blackened. The old tavern's sign had split down the middle. A cart lay overturned in the square, its wheels missing.
But it was the lack of sound that hit him hardest.
No dogs. No children. No chatter.
Just the wind—and something behind it. Something watching.
"Marcel?"
The voice came from the shadows between two crumbling sheds. A pair of small hands grabbed his arm before he could reach for his weapon.
Lira. Eyes red, cheeks streaked with ash.
"You're back."
She wrapped her arms around him, trembling against his chest.
He held her without words.
Tarin emerged moments later, limping slightly, a makeshift spear clutched in hand. His face hardened when he saw Marcel.
"You said you'd be back before dusk."
"I know."
"And you weren't."
"I found something," Marcel said quietly. "Something buried."
Tarin said nothing.
Just looked toward the distant hills, where a faint red glow still lingered behind the clouds. "They came just after you left. Not from the front road. From the ash fields."
"Hunters?"
"No. Worse."
---
The three slipped into their home through the back—what was left of it. The door was splintered, like it had been kicked in. Some furniture smashed. Lira's wooden doll, broken in two, lay in the hearth.
Tarin handed him a half-burned paper from beneath the table.
It bore a crest Marcel recognized—a guild mark. Faint, but still clear.
The Sable Crescent.
Low-ranked, barely known beyond the 9th Domain. But they weren't supposed to operate this far from the main outpost. Especially not armed.
"What did they want?" Marcel asked.
"They were looking for someone," Tarin said. "Didn't say who. Just said we'd 'harbored a risk.' Then they took two people from the village square."
Marcel felt the shard in his palm pulse.
Lira looked up at him, voice barely a whisper. "They asked about you."
---
He didn't sleep that night.
He sat near the shattered doorway, sword across his lap, listening. The system was silent now. The "Echo" buff had long since faded. Whatever power it gave him, it was gone—for now.
> [Passive Scan: Low-level Hostile Presence Within 1km]
[Warning: Guild Activity Detected — Unauthorized for Region]
He kept his grip on the blade tight.
A storm was coming.
Not loud. Not sudden. But slow, inevitable—like a pressure building beneath the skin of the world.
Marcel didn't know what the Whispershard had unlocked in him.
But others clearly did.
And they were already looking.