The road out of town felt longer than any road Kael had ever walked.
They had left the five captured criminals to the Guild's custody, left behind their father's hollow stare, and now every step carried them further from the quiet life that had already been shattered.
The Guild promised trials. But trials weren't enough.
There were more out there. Kael intended to find them.
---
This journey was different. There was no mission to collect, no contract to sign. They joined caravans only as a way to move from one city to the next. At every Guild annex, they asked the same questions:
Had there been attacks like the one at home?
Any groups preying on small towns?
Did anyone know where the criminals vanished afterward?
Answers were scattered and vague.
Sometimes just a whisper.
Those whispers became their map.
---
In the first three months, Kael crossed farmland and border towns, always listening, always looking for signs no one else would see: hurried graves outside villages, a bloodstain where no fight should have been, the faint tracks of many feet heading away from a town.
And every time they caught up, it was already too late.
---
It was during one of those nights in a border town that they met Mirek.
He was a healer, tall and lean, with hands that had seen too much blood and eyes that held something unshakable. He stepped into Kael's path and said, "You look like someone who hasn't slept in a week."
Kael tried to walk past.
He followed. "You're chasing the raiders, aren't you?"
Kael stopped. "Do you know where they are?"
"I know where they've been," Mirek said. "I've been fixing what they leave behind. If you let me, I'll walk with you."
---
Kael considered. Traveling alone made them faster, but Mirek wasn't slow—he had the steady presence of someone who wouldn't break under pressure.
"Fine," Kael said at last. "But I don't stop."
"I'm used to not stopping," Mirek said simply.
---
From that day, they traveled together.
---
Mirek talked enough for both of them. At night, he built small fires and told stories about mountain lakes, deserts where the wind carved singing stones, and the strange plants of far-off nations.
Kael listened more than they answered. Sometimes they offered a word or two. Occasionally, when Mirek wasn't looking, they allowed the smallest trace of a smile.
---
The hunt shaped the rest of their months.
Villages with burned storehouses, families missing, sometimes only signs left behind.
In one small town, Kael and Mirek arrived just as a band of raiders approached. It was a brutal fight. Mirek fought with his staff; Kael with wind and stone. The surviving raiders were delivered to the Guild.
But none of them were leaders. They were disposable pieces, just like the five Kael had caught before.
---
At each Guild stop, Kael's name started to change in tone. The young adventurer who was once Branch-ranked and known for their patience was now a figure of relentless focus.
Some admired them. Others whispered uneasily.
---
After one long week in the southern countryside, Mirek asked quietly by a campfire, "When this is done… what will you do?"
Kael stared into the flames. "I don't know."
It wasn't a lie. It was simply too far away.
---
The trail took them deeper south.
Here, the attacks were bolder. They found the ruins of a caravan scattered across a valley—a dozen wagons overturned, burned to blackened husks.
Kael crouched, running their fingers over tracks and ash, piecing the attack together. Mirek followed silently.
---
At the center of the wreckage, they found a boy no older than ten, curled beneath a wagon, trembling.
Kael knelt beside him, voice low. "You're safe now."
---
The boy's voice shook. "They took everyone."
"Did you see where?"
He shook his head, dirt streaking his tear-stained face. "They came from the hills. They were so fast."
---
Kael carried him back to the nearest Guild hall. Mirek treated his wounds. The Guild promised to return him to family, but the look in the boy's eyes—the shock—stayed with Kael long after they left.
---
Two nights later, Mirek found Kael standing alone by a river, staring into the water.
"I'm not going to stop," Kael said, not turning. "Not until I've found all of them."
---
"You know this won't be quick," Mirek said.
"I don't care."
---
The healer didn't try to change their mind. He only said, "Then I'll keep walking with you. Someone has to remind you to sleep."
---
The journey stretched on.
Lead after lead dissolved. Every town offered fragments but never the whole picture.
And Kael never stopped. The closer they got, the more the network of shadows seemed to scatter.
---
Far off, a storm gathered on the horizon. Kael adjusted the strap on their staff. They didn't know how long it would take, but every step was another mile closer.
This road wasn't about rank anymore.
It was a vow.
---
The second half of that long six-month stretch began much like the first: Kael and Mirek on the road, chasing rumors.
But there was a difference now.
Kael was sharper. Faster. The weight of every step, every strike, every spell honed like the edge of a blade.
---
During those months, they crossed through valleys of wildflowers and into dry plateaus where the sun scorched the ground. Each stop brought new signs of devastation: villages with empty houses, hastily dug graves, children who spoke of being taken and escaped only by luck.
Kael never let their anger boil over. It was cold now. Controlled.
---
They caught more raider bands—sometimes two or three in a single month. Each confrontation tested them.
Each one ended the same way: the smaller group captured or scattered, and the leader nowhere to be seen.
---
After one particularly brutal skirmish in early spring, Mirek said, "You're bleeding."
Kael hadn't noticed. A slash across their shoulder dripped quietly down their arm.
Mirek took out a small kit, murmured a sequence of syllables in the magic language, and laid a hand on the wound. A faint glow spread from his palm, closing the torn flesh.
Kael watched silently, eyes fixed on the glow.
---
When the wound closed, Mirek sat back.
"What spell is that?" Kael asked.
"A simple one. First thing a healer learns."
"Teach me."
Mirek frowned. "Kael—"
"Teach me," they repeated.
---
That night, by the fire, Mirek guided them.
"It's a chant of balance. Ten syllables on each line will do nothing. Five, seven, five, exactly. Say the words in order, picture the wound closing, and give a thread of mana to the spell. The language does the rest."
Kael practiced, their voice quiet at first.
---
Skin and flesh entwine
Life flows back to what was lost
Pain, be still, obey.
---
The glow sparked faintly in their hands. By the third try, it was steady.
Mirek smiled, but Kael's expression stayed frozen.
---
"If I'd known this six months ago…" Kael's voice was low.
Mirek's hand tightened on theirs. "Kael. Don't do that. You couldn't have known."
"You were out there somewhere," they said softly.
"And I wasn't where I should have been," Mirek said, his own voice rough. "If I had been in that town that day, maybe I could have done something. I can't change that. All I can do now is help you so no one else has to suffer like that again."
---
For a long moment, they sat together in silence, the fire crackling between them. Kael finally nodded. "Then teach me everything you know."
And Mirek did.
---
By the next month, Kael's command of basic healing was precise, efficient. It didn't stop the guilt from gnawing at the edges, but it gave them something: a promise that if the same situation happened again, they would not stand there helpless.
---
With every group they intercepted, Kael's reputation grew.
Guild clerks whispered when their name appeared on reports.
Travelers told stories: of the adventurer with a shifting face who moved like a ghost, who hunted raiders as if the world owed them a debt.
---
By mid-summer, Kael noticed a pattern: the closer they got to the southern edge of the continent, the more scattered the attacks became. These were not well-fed, arrogant raiders. They were desperate and cautious, operating in smaller and smaller cells.
Someone was still pulling strings, but those strings were fraying.
---
During one confrontation, they came across a group too inexperienced to even fight well. Kael disabled them in less than a minute. One of the captives, trembling, whispered, "We haven't seen the bosses in months… they say the bosses have gone deeper into the hills."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Where?"
But the boy shook his head. He didn't know.
---
That hint—the first in months—was too vague to be useful. Still, it confirmed what Kael already suspected: the leaders were in hiding.
---
Mirek grew quieter in those last few weeks before Kael's birthday. He watched Kael's shoulders stiffen with each new fight, watched them move faster, hit harder. There was a point where Kael barely slept more than four hours a night.
"You know," Mirek said one evening as they broke camp, "you don't even move like the same person anymore."
Kael didn't answer.
---
And so, as summer crept toward its peak, they reached a plateau—a wide, dry stretch of land with sparse grass and no towns in sight. They had been traveling for days without any sign of raiders.
The silence was unsettling.
---
That was when Kael saw it: faint, barely a line on the horizon. Smoke.
Not the soft, rolling gray of a village hearth. This was dark and harsh, rising in jagged streaks against the blue sky.
Kael stopped walking. Mirek nearly ran into them.
"What is it?" he asked.
Kael raised a hand, pointing.
---
Even from this distance, something inside them twisted.
It wasn't close enough to run to by nightfall, but the shape of it—sharp, rising fast—told them it wasn't an ordinary fire.
---
Mirek squinted. "That's at least half a day away. Maybe more."
Kael didn't look away. "We'll move faster."
---
Their hands tightened on their staff as the wind carried the faintest scent of burning.
Six months of searching had brought them here.
It wasn't the end. Not yet.
But something was waiting over that horizon.