The streets of Blackhaven had begun to remember themselves.
Shopkeepers swept their thresholds. Children ran between the legs of adults carrying bundles of linen and baskets of vegetables. A cart piled high with lumber creaked toward the eastern gate, its driver whistling a tune that might have been cheerful if it had been in key. The scars were still there—walls still patched with fresh stone, roofs still covered with new timber, corners of buildings where the masonry had not yet been replaced. But people were moving. People were working. People were living.
Jamie walked among them with her hands behind her back and her eyes on the cobblestones.
She passed the jewelry shop where the Dishonored had hidden. The rubble was still untouched. The owner and his staff had long been killed when the sleepers took over so no one had stepped up to rebuild it. A a sign was placed in front that if no one brought evidence to claim ownership, the plot would be reclaimed No one had tried and the duration was almost up.
She did not stop though.
Beth's shop was doing better. The spot where Elias had blasted a corrupted through the wall was filled in and the door was open. The windows clean, the herb bundles hanging in their usual places. Jamie stopped at the corner and watched through the window.
Liora Vale stood behind the counter, measuring dried roots into paper packets. Her movements were steady, practiced. Her face was calm. She had lost Gael during the attack. Jamie remembered seeing her break down when she saw his body. She remembered the hollow look in her eyes, the way she had barely seemed to see the world around her.
Now she was active, measuring roots, packing them, tying the packets with string.
The bell above the door chimed. Kev walked in, his grin already in place, his hands spread wide in greeting.
"Good morning, fairest shopkeeper of Blackhaven," he announced.
"I have come to brighten your day with my presence."
Liora did not look up. "Buy something or leave."
"Such hostility. Such cruelty. And here I thought we were friends."
"We were friends until you started stealing my dried sage."
"I borrowed it. Temporarily. For a noble purpose."
"What purpose?"
There was a pause. Kev's grin did not waver.
"...I was making a potion."
"You don't have the brains for that."
"I was going to learn...Eh? What do you mean I don't have the brains for that?"
Liora set down the packet she was holding and looked at him. Her face was still, but there was something in her eyes—something that might have been warmth, or might have been exhaustion, or might have been both.
"You're going to scare away my customers," she said.
"Your customers are afraid of me?"
"They're afraid you'll deminish thier intelligence with your so called '.presence'."
Kev clutched his chest.
"Liora dear, you wound me."
"I will if you dont buy something or leave."
Kev looked around the shop, then back at her. His grin softened.
"Maybe tomorrow," he said. "I'll buy something tomorrow."
"I don't want you to make a hait of coming here."
He lowered his head, arms dropping in mock sadness and walked backwards towards the exit. He was almost to the door when he stopped.
"You should smile more," he said rasing his head.
"You'll scare away customers."
"Just leave already. Geez"
He laughed and stepped out into the street. Behind him, Liora's lips pressed together. It was not quite a smile. But it was something close...before she inhaled some spices and started wheezing. Her eyes teared up and she swung her arms around looking for the jug of water.
Jamie smiled and walked away from the window.
The square where her father had died was quiet.
The cobblestones had been replaced. The buildings around it had been repaired. Life had returned to this place—carts passing through, merchants calling out, children chasing each other between the stalls that had been set up at its edges. But the square itself felt different. Not empty. Just... heavier.
Jamie stopped at the center.
She remembered him falling. She remembered the spear. She remembered the sound he made, or the sound she thought she heard, or the sound that had lived in her head every night since.
Her hands curled into fists. For a long moment she simply stood there.
"Jamie?"
She turned.
Old Man Garett stood at the edge of the square, his weathered face split into a grin that did not quite reach his eyes. Beside him, Lysle and Fenn shifted their weight, their gazes flickering between her and the cobblestones at their feet.
Garett scratched the back of his head, threw a glance at the other two and approached slowly.
"Haven't seen you in a while," he said.
"Been wondering how you're doing."
She grunted.
He nodded as if she had said something profound.
"The Lord and Lady treating you all right?"
She grunted again.
"Good, good." He scratched the back of his neck. "That's—that's good."
Then he noticed where they were standing.
His smile faded.
Garrett glanced briefly at the ground.
'Ah...right.'
He looked back at Lysle and Fenn. Fenn coughed as he bent dont to wipe imaginary dust off his boot. Lysle found something very interesting to look at on the side of a building.
Garrett frowned.
'Oh come on.'
They didn't budge.
Garrett sighed dramatically and pinched between his eyes.
'Tch, fine fine.'
He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Well… uh…"
Garett cleared his throat. "We're heading out to the forest. Some sightings. Nothing confirmed, but—"
He waved a hand vaguely.
"Since you're here, wanna come with? You know, stretch your legs. Get some air away from the posh and polsih?
Jamie remained silent.
The breeze rustled through the square. She looked at the spot where her father had fallen. There was still a large blood stain on the ground. Then she looked at Garett. She shrugged and nodded.
Garrett smiled faintly.
"Alright then."
The forest swallowed them.
The trees were thick, their branches woven together so tightly that the morning light came through in scattered coins of gold. Garett walked ahead, his head behind his head and a stick of grass in his mouth. Fenn and Lysle walked on either side, their movements loose, practiced.
Jamie walked behind them.
"You know," Garett said, not looking back, "I once tracked an awakened wolf through this same stretch. Three days, I followed it. Three days. And when I finally caught up—"
"It was a badger," Lysle corrected.
"It was a very large badger."
'' That doesn't make it a wolf."
''What difference does it make?''
"You almost lost your hand."
"I almost lost my finger. There's a difference."
Fenn snorted.
"Dunno why you're so proud you almost became one handed Garett."
"Hey, I earned that scar. You don't earn a scar from a badger every day."
"You don't earn a scar from a badger at all. You earn it from not looking where you're putting your hand."
Garett turned and pointed at Fenn. "And whose job was it to watch my hand?"
"I was watching your hand. That's how I saw the badger bite it."
"After."
"Immediately after."
"Not the same."
Lysle glanced back at Jamie. She was absently observing the surroundings. He looked forward again and said nothing.
The landscape changed.
The trees thinned. The ground became broken, overturned, scarred with trenches and craters that had not been there before the attack. A few trunks stood alone, their branches shattered, their bark scorched. Others lay where they had fallen, half-buried in earth that had been thrown up and left to settle.
Lysle stopped at the edge of the clearing. It was so large you could almost fit Blackhaven in the open space.
"No matter how many times I see it," he said quietly, "it's something. A battle of Saints. Does this to a place."
Fenn nodded. "Makes you wonder what brought Roric out here. What he was doing so far from the city when—"
He stopped. Lysle's elbow had found his ribs.
"What?"
Lysle jerked his head toward Jamie.
Fenn's face went pale. "Ah. I didn't—that's not—"
He looked at Garett. Garett looked at Fenn sternly. Unable to look at the old man, he averted his gaze to the ground.
Jamie paid them no mind and was instead walking across the clearing, away from them, toward the far edge where a broken structure leaned against a collapsed wall of earth.
The shack was barely recognizable. Its walls had splintered. Its roof had caved. The strange legs that had once carried it through the forest lay in pieces among the rubble. Jamie stopped beside it and placed her hand on what remained of the doorframe.
Her fingers traced the wood.
Garett took a step toward her and opened his mouth to say something when suddenly the ground exploded.
A shape burst from the earth—scaled, long, low to the ground—its jaws open, its body twisting toward her. However, the force of its appearance caused Jamie to slip and fall sideways. The creature crashed into the broken shack, sending wood and dust flying in all directions.
Jamie got up and stepped back, the laurel bracelet S.K had given her catching in the sunlight.
The beast climbed out of the rubble, black veins pulsing beneath its scales, remnants of the ooze still clinging to its hide. It must have gotten infected with a remanent of the black ooze from the battle that happened here a month ago.
Garett's staff was in hand. Fenn and Lysle moved to flank it, their weapons drawn, their bodies tense.
The lizard watched them. Its eyes were flat, empty, the same black corruption running through them. It was outnumbered. It knew it.
It turned and vanished into the trees.
Fenn lowered his bow. "Another one."
"More and more every week," Lysle said.
"Small ones, mostly. Awakened stage. But that corruption—"
"It makes them too volatile to be handled carelessly," Garett finished. " Now that I have conformed this myself we need to head back and prepare a number of hunters ro remove these beasts before history repeats itself."
His staff vanished into a spatial artifact and he looked back toward the city.
"Tch. Lord Alaric need to know about this so I'll need to write a report....I'm too old for writing reports."
"But not too old to put your hand into badgers mouths?'' Fenn said. Garett kicked some dirt at him and turned to where Jamie had been standing.
She was gone.
Garett scanned the clearing. The edge of the trees. The path leading deeper into the forest.
"Jamie?"
No answer.
Lysle pointed. "There."
A shape, small and dark, moving between the trunks at the forest's edge.
Fenn took a step after her. "We should go after her."
Garett caught his arm. He was watching the girl disappear into the trees. His face was tired.
"She'll come back," he said.
''But that beast..."
"She's a Huntress in her own right. If anyone can survive this forest it's her."
''Don't you think thats a bit irresponsible of you?'' Lysle asked. Garett closed his eyes and piched thier ears, pulling them along as he moved back toward Blackhaven.
The Iron Forest was dark.
The trees here grew close together, their branches twisted, their bark bark glinting with a metallic sheen. The light struggled to reach the ground. The air was cool and damp and smelled of rust. The shadows inside looked thick.
Unwelcoming.
Jamie paused before steping through the last line of normal trees and into the shadow of the Iron Wood. Her father had warned her not to enter a Node until she was at least a Saint.
Her father was dead.
She did not look back.
The lizard's trail was easy to follow—scraped bark, disturbed earth, the faint glisten of corruption on the leaves it had brushed against. She moved slowly, her footsteps quiet, her eyes fixed on the path ahead.
Behind her, the sounds of the clearing faded. The sounds of the normal forest grew distant, then disappeared. The metallic trees closed around her.
She did not stop.