Kairn woke to birds.
Real birds.
Not the silent, ash-feathered things that sometimes flitted through the Wilds. These chirped. Trilled. One let out a harsh, repetitive call that made Fen groan and throw an arm over his face.
"For the love of all graves," Fen muttered. "We escaped chains to be killed by cheerful animals."
Lysa shifted beside Kairn, blinking grit from her eyes.
"How long?" she asked.
Kairn listened.
The sun's angle through the cave mouth had shifted.
His body ached in new ways—the dull heaviness of real sleep instead of the sharp, buzzing exhaustion of no sleep.
"Couple of hours," he said. "Enough to not fall over if something looks at us funny."
The kids were still out, softer snoring mixed with quiet breaths. Tam's hand was tangled in Mar's shirt. Sia had an arm flung over both of them.
The bone-walker sat at the cave entrance, chin on its knees, staring at the valley as if watching a play.
"It is busy," it said quietly when Kairn crawled up beside it.
"Anything interesting?" Kairn asked.
"Yes," it said. "Everything. People who are not chained. Lines that are not chains. Smells that are not rot. I am very hungry."
"Don't eat the neighbors," Kairn said.
It huffed.
"Rude, mine-rat," it said. "I have some manners."
Kairn peered out.
The town below was clearer now.
Buildings clustered along a river that shimmered silver instead of gray glass. Fields spread out in patchwork around it—some green, some yellow, some bare dark dirt. Smoke rose from chimneys in thin trails.
People moved along paths—too far to see faces, but he could make out shapes: some carrying baskets, some pushing carts, some on horseback.
No armor glinted.
No relay towers stabbed the sky.
He saw no obvious wards etched on the hills.
If there were chains here, they were quiet.
"We go down?" Lysa asked, coming up to crouch on his other side.
"Carefully," he said.
Fen joined them, rubbing his eyes.
"First contact," Fen said. "Always my favorite part. Do we have a plan? Or are we improvising as usual?"
"Plan," Kairn said. "Then we improvise when it goes wrong."
Lysa smirked.
"Consistent," she said.
Kairn pointed.
"We need three things," he said. "Food. Information. Somewhere to sleep that isn't a hole in a rock."
"And clothes that don't scream 'we crawled out of a burning mine,'" Lysa added, glancing at their ash-streaked, ripped gear.
"Right," Kairn said. "So. We can't walk in as we are. I can hide most of the scales, but not the eye. The bone-walker is… a bone-walker. The kids look like they've been through seven wars. Fen looks like Fen."
"Rude," Fen said mildly.
"We need a cover," Lysa said. "Something close enough to the truth we don't have to spin a story every other sentence."
"We are refugees," Sia said, voice small.
They turned.
She was awake, sitting up, hair a mess, eyes serious.
"We are," she said again. "We ran from a war. From a bad city. From a bad king. We don't have to say which one. There are always wars somewhere. People will believe that before they believe dragons and sideways bites."
Kairn considered.
"That could work," he said. "We don't name the King. We don't mention chains. We say we came from far east, or south. We got lost in the Wilds. We're looking for work, shelter."
Fen nodded.
"Plenty of towns know what to do with battered strays," he said. "Feed them. Fear them. Use them. Depends on the place."
"We also don't know what their magic looks like," Lysa said. "We don't want to light up with weird tricks in front of their version of Wardens."
"So we hide as much as we can," Kairn said. "No System talk. No ash-fire. Lysa, no big beats unless it's life or death. Bone-walker… stays up here."
It hissed.
"No," it said immediately.
"Look at yourself," Fen said. "You look like something that crawled out of the underside of a storybook. They see you, we don't get in. Or we get in on fire."
The bone-walker's fingers flexed.
"I will not be far," it said. "I can watch. Listen. If you are eaten, I will be sad. Then I will eat whoever ate you."
"That's… almost sweet," Lysa said.
Kairn met the creature's ember eyes.
"We'll come back," he said. "We're not leaving you in a hole."
It sniffed.
"You say that," it said. "We'll see."
He couldn't blame it for doubting.
He'd left a lot of things behind.
He hoped he could keep this promise.
"Kids stay close to us," Lysa said. "No wandering. No answering questions alone. If anyone tries to separate us, you yell. Loud."
They nodded.
Tam's hand found Kairn's sleeve.
"Will there be bread?" Tam asked.
Kairn's throat tightened.
"I hope so," he said.
They cleaned up as best they could—shaking out clothes, wiping faces with water from a small trickling stream near the cave, smoothing hair. It didn't make them look less traveled. That was fine.
It made them look alive.
Kairn took a breath.
"I'll go ahead," he said. "Take a look up close. See guards, gates, if they have rules posted. I'll stay where you can see me from a distance. If something goes bad, you pull back."
Lysa didn't like it.
He saw it in the set of her jaw.
But she nodded.
"All right," she said. "Don't be a hero. Just be eyes."
He smirked.
"That's the worst job for me now," he said, tapping his ash eye.
She rolled her eyes.
"Go," she said.
He went.
He kept his steps steady, not skulking, but not marching, either. Just a man walking down a hillside toward a town.
He folded the scales back under his skin again, kept ash-fire banked, let his Brand sit quiet. The dragon grumbled, but stayed.
The path down wasn't a path, not really—just a slope, then a narrow animal track that wound among rocks and bushes.
As he got closer, details sharpened.
The buildings were plain but sturdy—stone lower walls, timber above, roofs of shingle or tile. A low wall encircled the town, waist-high, more to keep animals out than armies. There was a gate of sorts—a gap with two thicker posts, where a pair of people stood.
Guards.
Light leather jerkins.
Short spears.
No chain-sigils.
No glowing brands.
No hovering constructs.
Just two tired-looking people in brown and gray, talking quietly.
As Kairn approached, they straightened.
One—a woman with sun-browned skin and a scar along her jaw—raised a hand.
"That's close enough, traveler," she called. "State your business."
Her accent was different, rounder, but close enough that he understood.
Good.
"I'm not alone," Kairn said. "There are six more behind me. We're looking for food and a place to sleep. We can pay in work."
The other guard, a man with straw-blond hair and a missing tooth, squinted.
"You're a long way from the big roads," he said. "Where from?"
Kairn let his shoulders slump a fraction, not too much.
"Far east," he said. "Near the Breakline."
He had no idea if that meant anything here.
The guards exchanged a glance.
The woman's brows knit.
"That's a bad place to be from right now," she said. "Band wars, if the rumors are true."
"Worse than that," Kairn said honestly. "We left before it got too close. Or we tried."
Not a lie.
Just edited.
The man eyed his clothes, the scars, the eye.
"You fight?" he asked.
"Yes," Kairn said.
"You cause trouble?" the woman added.
"Only for the people who try to own me," Kairn said before he could soften it.
Her mouth twitched.
"Good answer," she said. "Bring your people. No weapons drawn. No magic flung around. If the Warden wants to talk to you, you don't run."
The word Warden made every muscle in Kairn's body want to tense.
He stopped it.
Different world.
Different meaning.
Probably.
"Understood," he said.
He turned and raised an arm, beckoning.
Above, on the slope, Lysa and the others started down.
"We have a Warden," he said quietly.
"Of course we do," Fen muttered when he reached him. "Why wouldn't we."
The guards watched them all come.
Their eyes lingered on the kids, on Lysa's bandaged hands, on Fen's limps, on Kairn's eye.
No one screamed.
No one reached for chains.
The woman guard's gaze sharpened on Lysa's wrists.
"Wrong side of a Brand?" she asked.
Lysa didn't flinch.
She just rolled the bandage a little higher, showing faint scar lines—not the King's pattern, but still recognizable marks of someone who'd worn something binding.
"Not anymore," Lysa said.
The guard nodded, expression hardening in sympathy rather than suspicion.
"Good," she said. "We've had enough of men thinking they can mark everyone who breathes."
Kairn filed that away.
This world had chains.
Just different shapes.
They passed through the gate.
The town air wrapped around them—smoke, baking bread, animals, people.
The noise was almost overwhelming after the hush of Sideways and Wilds.
Children ran in a dusty lane, chasing a dog.
Someone shouted about fish.
A bell rang somewhere deeper in, clear and high.
No one turned to stare all at once.
They were another set of battered strangers in a town that had seen some.
Kairn's chest loosened.
One step.
Then another.
They followed the guards to a square where a well sat, surrounded by a few benches.
"Wait here," the woman said. "I'll fetch the Warden."
She left.
The man stayed, leaning on his spear.
Fen eyed him.
"So," Fen said. "What does your Warden do?"
"Keeps the peace," the guard said. "Settles disputes. Makes sure no one's bleeding out in a ditch. Takes messages when the Roadkeepers come through. Why?"
"Just checking," Fen said. "We've had… experiences."
The man snorted.
"Haven't we all," he said.
Kairn almost smiled.
The kids sat on the bench, eyes darting from well to buildings to people.
Tam's nose twitched.
"Smells good," he whispered.
Kairn followed the scent.
Bread.
Stew.
His stomach growled loud enough that Fen snickered.
"Subtle," Fen said.
"Eat later," Kairn said. "Talk first."
The Warden arrived a few minutes later.
They heard her before they saw her—boots on stone, firm and steady.
She was older than Kairn had expected—a woman with silver in her dark hair, lines at the corners of her eyes, a plain leather coat over a simple tunic, sword at her hip. No armor, no visible sigils.
Her gaze was sharp but not cruel.
"Strays from the east," she said, looking them over. "We're getting a lot of you this year."
"Bad year for the east," Fen said lightly.
"Bad decade," she said. "Name?"
"Kairn," he said. "This is Lysa. Fen. Sia, Mar, Tam."
She nodded to each.
"I'm Warden Hale," she said. "I'm not a queen, not a priest, not a chain-owner. I keep things from falling apart when I can. You're welcome to a night by the well and a bowl at the inn if you don't start a fight. After that, we see."
Lysa's shoulders eased a little at the tone.
"You don't ask who we ran from?" she said.
Hale's mouth tightened.
"I can guess shapes," she said. "Names don't change the bruises." Her gaze flicked to Kairn's eye. "Yours is stranger than most, I'll admit."
Kairn shrugged.
"Occupational hazard," he said again.
"Can you keep it from making a mess in my square?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Good," she said.
She rubbed her temple once, as if fighting a headache.
"You have a… hum about you," she said. "Like being near a storm that hasn't broken yet."
"Like that everywhere," Fen said.
She snorted.
"You're honest," she said. "That'll either help or get you stabbed. Try to make it help."
She jerked her chin toward a building with a painted sign showing a loaf and a mug.
"Inn's there," she said. "Tell Derren I said first night's on the town. After that, you work or you move on. We're not rich enough to keep permanent charity."
"We don't want charity," Lysa said. "We want a chance to not die in a ditch."
"That we can do," Hale said. She studied them a moment longer. "If you have strange trouble following you…" Her eyes met Kairn's, too knowing. "Warn me if you can. I'd rather know the shape of the fire before it hits the roof."
He swallowed.
"We'll try," he said.
She nodded once.
"Welcome to Farbridge," she said. "Don't make me regret it."
Then she walked away, already being pulled into another conversation with someone waving about a broken fence.
They stood there.
Breathing.
Listening.
Smelling bread.
"Farbridge," Sia repeated softly.
"Bridge far away," Tam said.
"Better than Near-Murder," Fen said. "Which is what our last town should have been called."
Lysa huffed a laugh.
Kairn started toward the inn.
"Food," he said. "Then sleep. Then… we figure out what kind of trouble this sky has."
"And how long it takes for the old one to notice we're missing," Lysa added quietly.
Kairn's Brand pulsed once.
The King's web was faint now, far behind.
But not gone.
He knew, without needing a System line, that some day, some way, the King would sniff the engine's shiver and the hole in his song and follow.
Maybe not soon.
Maybe not here.
But eventually.
"We have time," Kairn said.
"For once," Fen said, "let's use it to eat."
They went inside, under a painted sign and a new sky, carrying dragon fire, null teeth, a tired engine, and an old war into a world that hadn't met them yet.