The road out of Cottonwell was quieter than I expected.

No farewell banners. No kits chasing after us. Just the soft crunch of ash beneath our boots and the weight of what we were leaving behind.

Nick hadn’t said much since dawn. He walked ahead, bow slung across his back, tail low, ears twitching at every branch that shifted in the wind. I followed close behind, the straps of my pack rubbing raw against my shoulders. Cottonwell grew smaller behind us with every step—until it was just a blur of trees and smoke on the horizon.

We were headed southeast. Toward Oakenstar.

Two hundred kilometers of dry hills and wind-scoured paths. A place Elder Moss had only ever mentioned in warnings. Sparse. Harsh. Not kind to those who came unprepared.

But we weren’t heading there for kindness.

We were heading there because we needed answers. And because the Queen Beneath Ash now knew our names.

“We’ll rest at the ridge before dusk,” Nick said without turning.

“Okay,” I replied. “You sure we’re going the right way?”

He didn’t answer with words—just raised a paw and pointed. Far ahead, the land began to shift. Trees gave way to rocky outcroppings and brittle grass. The air already felt drier.

Oakenstar was waiting.

By midday, the trees thinned.

What had once been dense undergrowth and shade-darkened soil gave way to pale scrub and brittle branches. The wind changed too—no longer cool and pine-scented, but dry and restless, dragging dust across the path like old secrets trying to surface.

Ashgrove Forest ended at a rise of stone.

Nick paused there first, one boot on the edge of the outcropping, eyes scanning the horizon. I stepped up beside him, breath catching in my throat.

Oakenstar.

It wasn’t a desert in the way stories always told it—endless dunes and burning suns. This land rolled like dried waves, golden-brown hills broken by scattered ruins and clusters of thorny trees. The ground shimmered faintly with heat even in the fading light, and every distant shape looked like it might be moving.

The forest behind us fell quiet, as if even it was afraid to follow.

Before us stretched the domain of the Queen Beneath Ash.

Nick knelt, scooped up a handful of sand. Let it run through his fingers. “This is her land now.”

“And we’re walking straight into it.”

He looked over his shoulder, back toward the shadowed woods. “Waiting wasn’t an option. Not after that message.”

I nodded. The memory still burned—charcoal words, a sharpened promise: The Queen Beneath Ash knows your names now.

We had left Cottonwell behind.

Now we were walking into the heart of her kingdom.

Every step forward felt like a challenge.

Or an answer.

We stepped down from the ridge and left the last shadows of Ashgrove behind.

The sand wasn’t deep—yet—but it shifted underfoot with every step. Pebbles clattered when we moved. Dry grasses snapped like twigs. There were no clear paths here, only wind-shaped stone and memory.

By late afternoon, we passed our first ruin.

It jutted from the desert like broken teeth: cracked columns and half-buried statues, worn smooth by wind. A crumbling arch stood alone above the sand, inscribed with a language neither of us could read.

Nick walked slowly beneath it, his fingers brushing one of the runes. “This place was something once,” he murmured.

“Now it’s bones,” I said.

Something moved in the shadows between fallen stones. I turned sharply—but it was gone before I could draw. Just a flicker of motion, low to the ground. Watching.

Nick saw it too. He didn’t speak, only adjusted the strap on his quiver and kept walking.

Above us, black-winged shapes circled.

Not crows—too angular. Their wings tapered sharply at the tips, and they flew lower than they should have, as if tethered to the land by something unseen. They didn’t cry out. They didn’t scatter when we passed. They just watched.

Desert watchers.

Nick tilted his head toward them. “You think they’re hers?”

“I think everything here is hers.”

We kept moving.

Each ruin seemed older than the last. A half-collapsed spire appeared at the crest of a dune, its top snapped off like a rotten branch. Stone faces peeked from the sand, half-buried, their features rubbed smooth until they barely looked like faces at all. Just mouths, open in some long-forgotten warning.

The sun dipped lower, and the wind turned sharper.

And then, just as the last light began to fade, we found a slab of black stone pressed into the hillside. Unlike the other ruins, it wasn’t cracked. It was clean. Whole. Recently uncovered.

A sigil was carved into its surface—elegant, deliberate, terrible.

Not a crown.

A flame, ringed in ash.

Nick stared at it for a long time.

“We’re close,” he said.

I felt it too. Like the air had grown thinner. Like the land itself had been listening to us, waiting for us to cross this invisible line.

We made camp just beyond the stone. Didn’t light a fire. Didn’t speak much. Even the wind went still after sunset.

But the watchers stayed in the sky.

Circling.

I couldn’t sleep.

The sand had cooled beneath my blanket, but the air still pressed down like it was holding its breath. I sat up slowly, careful not to make noise. Nick was awake too—of course he was. He sat cross-legged at the edge of our camp, half in shadow, eyes fixed on the stone ridge ahead.

The stars were sharp tonight, wheeling above us in quiet patterns I didn’t recognize.

I shifted closer, settling beside him. His straw hat sat tilted low over his face, but I could still see his ears, twitching every so often beneath the brim.

He looked… still. In the way cliffs are still. Like if anything came out of the dark, it’d regret it.

For a while, we just sat there. I traced patterns in the sand with my fingertips, watching the ruins.

That’s when I saw it.

A flicker of movement between two collapsed walls.

Not wind. Not the watchers in the sky.

Something walking.

It didn’t come close. Just paced the edge of our vision—slow, deliberate, as if it wanted to be seen. Then it disappeared behind a crumbling pillar.

I leaned in slightly. “Nick…”

“I see it,” he said. He didn’t move. Didn’t even lift the hat. “They’re testing our nerves. Same as in the forest.”

“Scouts?”

“Or bait.”

The watchers above wheeled once, twice, then scattered.

We both stood.

Down in the ruin, a small fire winked into existence—just for a second. Like a match lit and snuffed in the same breath. Enough to show someone was there. Enough to remind us we weren’t alone.

Nick tapped the brim of his straw hat, adjusting it just enough to see with both eyes. In the low light, it cast strange shadows across his face, turning his usual calm into something unreadable.

“I hate theatrics,” he muttered, and stepped forward.

I followed, bow in hand, heart thudding.

Whatever waited in the ruins of Oakenstar wasn’t trying to ambush us.

It wanted us to know it was awake.

We didn’t chase the figure.

Didn’t speak again, either—not as we returned to the small circle of blankets and sat beneath the leaning shadow of a half-buried column. The desert had fallen completely silent, the way only deserts can. Even the birds above had gone.

Nick leaned back, arms crossed behind his head, eyes still tracking the ridgeline.

“I think she knows we’re here,” I said softly.

He didn’t answer right away. Then, without looking at me: “Good.”

A breeze moved through the ruins, dry and bitter, carrying with it the faintest hint of smoke. I turned toward the east—back the way we’d come. The forest was long gone now. Only sand behind us. Only ash ahead.

Nick shifted his straw hat down again. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

I hesitated, then lay back against my rolled pack. The sky above was too wide. The stars too sharp. I closed my eyes.

But even as sleep pulled at me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was out there. Watching. Waiting. Just beyond the broken stones.

The Queen Beneath Ash had not spoken.

Not yet.

But she was listening.

Waiting.

And with every step, it felt like the wind whispered a little louder.