The passage out was narrower than Alistair remembered it being on the way in.
He moved first, and Due followed without being told.
Cold air hit him before the light did. Alistair stopped at the threshold for a moment, his eyes watering slightly from the grey sky. He hadn't realized how long they had been underground until now.
Due stepped out after him, looked up once, then adjusted the collar of his dark cloak and started walking like the open air was something that didn't require comment.
Alistair didn't comment on that either.
They rode east on a road that was hardly a proper road. It was packed dirt with old wheel ruts, the kind of path people took when they wanted to stay hidden.
The Oasis of Grain stretched around them in every direction, flat and pale under the morning sky, distant settlements marked by thin columns of smoke on the horizon.
Alistair curled his fingers in front of his face and let his Equalizer begin its passive scan.
Faint signatures from the nearest settlement, but nothing that needed attention. He let his hand drop.
Just as he was about to speak, a farmer appeared from a nearby field, dragging a cart. The wheel caught in a rut, and one of the crates nearly tipped.
Seeing this, Due caught it before it hit the ground. The farmer thanked him and kept walking.
However, Due paused. He stood there a few moments, then approached the farmer again and spoke quietly. The farmer shook his head at first, then listened.
Eventually, his expression shifted, and he accepted the small coin that Due held out. The farmer walked away looking pleasantly surprised.
Due returned to the road.
"That was necessary," Due said.
Alistair said nothing. He had been watching Due's hands the entire time, the tension in them before the exchange, the way they settled afterward.
They hadn't traveled another half mile before it happened again. A passing merchant at a crossroads said something to Due, who stopped mid-step.
Two smaller matters followed from that. Due handled each one with the same focused expression while Alistair stood at the edge of the road and waited, scanning the flat land in every direction out of habit.
Eventually, Due rejoined him and adjusted his collar without looking down. He said nothing about the merchant or what had been exchanged. He never did.
'Every interaction, no matter how small, creates something that needs resolving. Every single one.'
"The Sovereign Record," Alistair said. "You mentioned needing a settlement to intercept one."
"The nearest distribution point is ahead. Bird arrives around midmorning." Due glanced at the sky. "We still have time."
A bird passed overhead, fast and purposeful, moving east without descending.
They both watched it.
"Not a Record bird," Due said. "Wrong pattern. Record birds descend into settlements. That one is going somewhere specific."
"You memorized their routes?"
"Before my exile. The infrastructure hasn't changed." A pause. "It doesn't change unless something forces it to."
The settlement appeared as they topped a low rise, stone buildings around a market square, cookfire smoke rising straight into the still air. A few horses were tied near the entrance.
Carts were moving slowly between stalls that were still being assembled for the morning. The kind of place where the continent's politics eventually reached, though always delayed and secondhand.
Alistair scanned it from the rise. Several Characteristic signatures, all minor. A blacksmith near the center read slightly stronger than the rest, but nothing that suggested a real threat.
He moved through each signature methodically and found nothing worth stopping for.
However, his scan caught something that didn't fit.
Far edge of the settlement, a faint reading, controlled, deliberately suppressed. Not absent, but hidden. The output was too exact, too clean to be natural.
His feet suddenly stopped.
"What?" Due said.
"Far edge. Someone's suppressing their Characteristic."
Due's hand moved to his collar. "Strength?"
"Can't figure it out. The suppression is too exact." He ran the scan again and adjusted his settings.
The signature felt familiar, and he furrowed his brows, recalling that same reading from Therasia the day they arrived, somewhere near the administrative building. He hadn't paid it any attention then.
"I can't identify it," he said.
"How long have they been there?"
"No idea."
Due looked at the edge of the settlement. In the distance, he saw only stone walls and a group of houses. People were going about their morning routine. Everything seemed normal at first glance.
"We go anyway," Alistair said.
"I know."
They came down from the rise toward the gate, a low stone wall with the entrance open and a boy watching from the top with a bored expression. The boy's eyes went straight to Alistair's hair.
Seeing this, Alistair pulled his hood up, his expression firm.
"Therasia's description was distributed three days ago," Due said. "They'll have it here."
"I know."
"Your hair is recognizable even —"
"I know, Due."
Due frowned slightly and let it go.
Inside, vendors were setting up stalls, and a few early shoppers moved between them. The smell of fresh bread and cool stone. A child ran between two stalls and disappeared into the crowd.
An old man sat outside a doorway, sipping something warm, watching them pass without particular interest.
Alistair kept scanning as they moved deeper into the settlement. The suppressed signature at the far edge hadn't moved.
Whatever it was, it had stayed in the same exact position since before they reached the rise.
Overhead, a Sovereign Record bird swept down in a steep arc toward the settlement's center, its dissolving dispatch already catching the morning air at the edges.
Due moved toward it without a word.
Alistair followed, though his attention stayed on the far edge of the settlement. The reading was completely stationary, not searching, not wandering. It had been sitting still since before they arrived.
He hadn't thought much of it at first. Now, he was almost certain it had been watching them the entire time.