The road to the north was long and unforgiving. The empire’s heart gave way to its ribs—endless fields, grey hills, and forests stripped bare by the cold. What sunlight there was came in pale fragments, weak and distant, swallowed by clouds the color of ash.

Lara rode ahead, her hood pulled low against the biting wind. Marcus followed close behind, while Karina sat bundled in the third saddle, silent and watchful. Karina had chosen in the last minute that she was coming with them and threw quite a tanturam. The journey had already taken two days, and the weight of their destination pressed heavier with each passing mile.

The northern mines—where men vanished, where exiles became ghosts. The territoy of baron Niger.

They rode mostly in silence, the clatter of hooves on frozen ground their only conversation. But silence, Lara had learned, had a voice of its own. It spoke of the unspoken—the things they feared to say aloud. She had also steal a sword from emperor's collection before coming, the while Karina and Marcus were fighting.

At dusk, they stopped by an abandoned way station. The old building sagged against the wind, its windows shattered, its hearth long dead. Marcus built a fire while Karina fetched water from the nearby stream. The cold air filled with the scent of burning wood, a small pocket of warmth in an otherwise cruel landscape.

Lara sat apart, sharpening her dagger with slow, deliberate strokes. The metal hissed under the whetstone, a steady rhythm that matched her heartbeat.

Karina returned, lowering herself beside the fire. “How much farther?” she asked softly.

“Two days,” Marcus replied. “Maybe less if the weather holds.”

Karina nodded, her gaze drifting to Lara. “Do you really think you’ll find her there? The friend you spoke of?”

Lara paused, the most gut wrenching question no one dared question... not even Lara. Her hand stilling on the blade. The firelight flickered across her face, throwing her expression into shadow. “If she’s alive,” she said quietly, “I’ll find her. And if she’s not… I’ll find who made her disappear.” Her hands and body shivered as well as her heart. Nina...Nina...Nina, her each breath whispered with trembling lips.

The wind howled through the cracks in the old station. Karina shivered and wrapped her cloak tighter.

“You don’t owe her this,” Marcus said after a long silence. “You’ve risked everything for a ghost.” Karina's eyes widened, she would have smacked him hard at that stupidest statement.

Lara’s eyes lifted to him, cold and steady. Not leaking any emotions whatsoever. “I owe her everything. Nina’s father trained me when no one else would. And she— (  a long unentended breath ) she was the only person who believed I could be more than a crown.”

Marcus lowered his gaze. He knew better than to argue. There was a kind of devotion in Lara that bordered on sacred, and sacred things could not be reasoned with. But he wanted her to scream or cry... to let out whatever was building in her.

Later that night, when the others had fallen asleep, Lara sat alone by the dwindling fire. The flames had burned low, leaving only glowing embers. She stared into them, lost in thought.

The words of Count Collin echoed in her memory: sent north to the mines… sold to Baron Nagir.

She could almost see it—the darkness of the mines, the sound of pickaxes on stone, the faces of men who no longer hoped for dawn. If Nina’s father had been sent there, he was either dead or worse... 

Her jaw tightened. She could not allow herself to falter now. But their voice, their images, their smiles, them...

Lilliyana’s last report had mentioned something else—a strange movement of funds between the Chamberlain’s office and the northern districts. Supplies listed under false names, payments for “labor maintenance.” A cover, perhaps, for what truly went on beneath the ground.

The thought made her stomach twist.

A hand touched her shoulder. She turned sharply, dagger raised, but it was only Karina.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Lara asked, lowering the blade.

Karina shook her head. “It’s too quiet. I’m not used to quiet.”

Lara offered a faint smile. “You’ll learn to hate noise soon enough.”

Karina sat beside her, watching the embers. “You saved me,” she said after a while. “No one ever came back for me before.”

“I didn’t save you,” Lara said simply. “You saved yourself. I only opened the door.”

The younger woman smiled faintly. “Maybe. But still… thank you.”

They sat in silence, listening to the wind. Above them, the sky stretched wide and black, scattered with thin stars. The world felt endless—and terribly small all at once.

When the fire finally died, Lara stood. “Get some rest. Tomorrow will be harder.”

"Won't you listen to my story? My past? I want to let it all out..."
Karina said as she tugged on lara's cloak. Lara sat down again and faced the fire.
"Three was the age when I became a prostitute... They killed my parents for they had given birth to a beautiful daughter... And that we were poor with no authority, dignity or life..."

Karina stopped as she inhaled, trying to hold in her tears and finish what she started narrating.

"I just wanted to live Lara... To wake up next day... To see another day... To finally live... To perhaps be free"

She knew she could not tell any thing to her, so she just talked in fregments... Lara did not hug her, nor consoled her, just not judged the tears that came out of her eyes and gave her a place where she was seen, heard and most of all respected. 

And after a while Lara stood up and gestured towards the camp.

Karina nodded and retreated to her bedroll. Lara lingered a moment longer, staring at Karina, Marcus, and north. The horizon was a jagged line of darkness, and somewhere beyond it waited answers she was both desperate and afraid to find.

She sheathed her dagger, turned from the dead fire, and whispered to the wind, “I’m coming, Nina.”

The night swallowed her voice, but the promise lingered. And she had once again resumed being an assasin moving around the shadows.