The Journey, Book 3: Chapter 9 - Previous Chapter
Chapter 10, Knebworth
Nekira stopped so abruptly that Santaya nearly collided with him. The road into Knebworth had become a gash in the land—a wound that refused to heal. Days-old smoke clung to the ruins like a sour ghost, and the air hummed with the wet, relentless buzz of flies. The sun baked everything, turning rot into something thick and oily in the nostrils.
The wolves whined before he made sense of the scene. Knebworth didn’t look destroyed—it looked digested. Roof timbers sagged at obscene angles. Walls slumped inward, blackened and brittle. A child’s wooden toy was half-melted into the dirt beside a hand that had once held it.
Then the smell hit.
Sweet at first. Sickly sweet. Then sharp. Then something else, something that clung to the back of his throat and made it hard to breathe. The scent of flesh returning to the earth. Of time doing what steel had started.
Corpses sprawled everywhere, but they were no longer people—just shapes. Skin sloughed away in patches. Bloated limbs strained against seams of clothing. Some bodies had burst, spilling blackened innards that steamed softly in the afternoon heat. Others lay twisted, heads lolling, mouths frozen mid-scream, ribs gnawed into white, stark cages.
Fat-bellied crows strutted—arrogant, overfed—ripping strips of meat with wet jerks. A raven tugged at a villager’s cheek and peeled it back like fruit skin. A fox snarled at Kristolia over a half-eaten arm and then darted off, jaws dripping. Something larger dragged a corpse into shadow with a slurping sound Nekira tried not to imagine.
Armor lay among the carnage, black and crimson like old bruises. Thomaz’s colors soaked in putrefaction. No symbols, no honour—just rust creeping like rot across metal, rain having carved streaks of reddish-brown down the plates. The soldiers’ bodies were in no better state. One still clutched a sword sunk wrist-deep into a woman’s ribcage. Another had his helmet crushed inward, skull collapsed, maggots wriggling where thoughts once lived.
Santaya gagged—a strange, choking sound he’d never heard from her. Kristolia’s lips curled, not in aggression, but in fear.
Nekira tried to swallow, but the air tasted like spoiled fat. His eyes watered, not from emotion, but from the sheer assault of decay. Death had become a climate here—a weather that soaked into skin.
He stepped forward and his boot sank into something soft.
He didn’t look down.
“This wasn’t punishment,” he rasped, voice raw. “This was needless slaughter.”
Not just lives ended—identity scrubbed out. Names, histories, memories… all compost for flies.
As the wind shifted, it carried the groans of buildings finally giving up and collapsing inward. The world here wasn’t just dead.
It was rotting in place, too stubborn—or too cursed—to finish the job.
Nekira’s hands trembled as he forced himself deeper into the ruin. His wolves flanked him, as though afraid he might fall apart if they strayed even a step away. He didn’t speak—words were too small for this. Instead, he pushed his thoughts outward, reaching across the invisible tether that bound him to Amira.
Images spilled through the link—the bloated bodies, the bone-white ribs exposed to the sky, the stink that crawled into his lungs like a living thing. He showed her the crows wrenching flesh from faces no longer recognisable, the children curled where they had died, the black-and-crimson corpses slumped among them like rotting punctuation marks.
For a heartbeat there was silence.
Then Amira’s mind recoiled.
Dragons did not recoil.
Her thoughts faltered, stuttering like broken wingbeats. ‘Nekira—wha—this…’ Her voice, usually as smooth and ancient as molten stone, came jagged, cracked. Dragons did not stutter. Amira’s horror was more eloquent than poetry.
Their bond didn’t just share images. It shared the weight beneath them.
He felt her shock, her fury, her grief. She felt his nausea, the tremor in his bones, the desperate, failing attempt to hold himself together.
He pushed on anyway, boots squelching in mud that was only partly mud. The smell thickened as he neared what had once been the church—its steeple snapped, its stones scorched, its doorway yawning like a broken jaw. Half a wall remained, leaning at an exhausted angle.
Nekira braced against it.
The moment he stopped moving, everything hit him in one crushing wave—the images, the smells, the helplessness, the absolute wrongness of it all.
He gagged.
Then he vomited.
His body convulsed, trying to purge something his mind couldn’t escape. Bitter acid burned his throat. Tears stung his eyes. The stench around him seemed to notice his weakness and pressed closer, as though rot itself wanted in.
Santaya whimpered. Kristolia nudged his shoulder anxiously.
Amira’s presence surged through his mind—warm, vast, winged enough to wrap around him even across miles. Her voice was steadier now, though thick with emotion.
‘Nekira, little one… breathe. Centre yourself. Do not let the dead pull you under.’
He dragged in air that tasted like decay, coughed, tried again. His chest shook. His hands clawed at the stone as though he could anchor himself by force.
Amira’s consciousness steadied him like a talon against his spine.
‘You are alive,’ she whispered. ‘Remember that. The dead have no claim on the living unless we give them one.’
Nekira swallowed hard, wiping his mouth with a shaking sleeve. The world still stank, still buzzed with flies and ruin, but the edge of panic receded, just enough to stand.
He lifted his head.
The village didn’t change.
But he had.
Nekira’s breath came in jagged bursts, each inhale a serrated blade cutting deeper into his chest.
‘If I had flown with you…’ His thoughts tumbled out raw, unfiltered, desperate. ‘If I had been here sooner, Amira—if I hadn’t wasted time—I could have stopped this. I could have given them peace. They’re trapped now, their spirits—restless, alone—’
His voice cracked into a broken sound that wasn’t quite a sob and wasn’t quite a scream.
Amira wrapped her presence around him like great wings trying to shield him from himself. ‘Little one, this burden is not yours. You are not the cause of—’
But her words slid off him like rain on stone. They couldn’t breach the storm building inside his skull. His frustration kept rising, molten, hungry. It gnawed at him—at reason, at guilt, at the shape of who he believed himself to be. Every breath he took tasted like decay and failure. Every corpse around him whispered too late.
And at the center of the blaze was Thomaz.
Thomaz’s colours. Thomaz’s cruelty. Thomaz.
The hatred that had simmered in Nekira until now began to boil, frothing, dangerous. His fingers curled into fists. His heartbeat punched against his ribs. The wolves felt it; they backed away, ears pinned, uncertain whether the danger was outside him or in him.
Amira’s voice surged again, firmer, strained. ‘Nekira! Stop feeding this fire—’
Then something interrupted the roar in his head.
A voice.
Soft. Unexpected. Balanced on the edge of the ruined church like a cat-shaped punctuation mark.
Nekira jerked his head up.
Tabby the were-cat crouched along the leaning, blackened steeple as though gravity was merely a suggestion. Her fur-thickened limbs moved with eerie grace, paws silent on the scorched stone. Her tail flicked once, a lazy pendulum. Smoke curled around her like she’d been born from it.
She tilted her head, whiskers glinting.
“Anger is like a strong wind,” she murmured, voice calm enough to slice through his fury without force. “It calms down after a while, but lots of branches are already broken.”
The words weren’t loud, but they landed with the precision of claws finding the right place to anchor.
Nekira flinched—not from fear, but from the shock of being seen. His rage faltered, knocked off balance. His gut twisted, breath snagging as if someone had yanked him back from the cliff’s edge.
His pulse hammered, but the edges of the world stopped blurring. The sound of flies, the stink, the ruin—they were still there, but suddenly separate from him. He wasn’t drowning in them anymore.
Kristolia huffed, tail flicking. Santaya crept closer, nudging Nekira’s hand as though reminding him he was still tethered to something living.
Tabby blinked slowly, feline patience personified, perched high above the dead like a creature who owed the world nothing.
Nekira swallowed. The jump in his muscles eased. The fire didn’t vanish, but it settled into embers instead of inferno.
Tabby’s gaze lingered on him, unreadable and ancient in a way that never failed to unsettle.
“Better,” she purred. “You can hate, if you must. Just don’t burn yourself trying to scorch another.”
The ruins were silent again—but Nekira was listening differently now.
Tabby slipped from the steeple without so much as a whisper of falling air, landing with luxurious ease on Kristolia’s back. The wolf barely dipped beneath her weight—just turned her head and wagged her tail in a slow, delighted sweep, as though greeting a long-lost companion rather than a creature who generally treated gravity like a rumor.
Tabby stretched once, claws flexing in Kristolia’s fur, then curled herself into a perfect, smug coil. Her ears twitched, half-listening to the buzzing flies, half-dismissing them as beneath her notice.
Nekira let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “You have a way of showing up when no one expects it,” he muttered, voice still raw around the edges. “And always with some cryptic wisdom. Where did you hear that saying?”
Tabby cracked one golden eye, expression drifting somewhere between amused and bored. She shrugged—an elegant, lazy ripple of shoulders far too human for a creature with paws.
“It just came to me,” she replied, tail swishing like punctuation. “Sometimes the mind coughs up wisdom the way a cat coughs up a hairball. Unpleasant, but occasionally useful.”
Kristolia huffed—possibly a laugh, possibly resignation. Santaya snorted softly, though it could’ve been agreement.
Tabby yawned, revealing teeth far too sharp for someone who sounded so casual. “Now, can we leave?” she drawled. “Another moment in this stench and I’ll hack up something vile all over your wolf’s spine, and I’d rather not be responsible for Kristolia smelling worse than the dead.”
Kristolia’s ears shot back indignantly.
Nekira almost—almost—smiled. The tension in his chest uncoiled just enough for him to breathe without feeling like he was inhaling ghosts.
He glanced once more at the ruined village, then turned away. “Fine. Let’s go.”
He didn’t have all the answers. The dead were still dead. Thomaz still had much to answer for. But he was moving again.
And sometimes, movement was the first mercy the living could give themselves.
The wolves padded forward.
Tabby flicked her tail.
Nekira slowed, then stopped so abruptly the wolves nearly ran into him. Something tugged at him—not sound, not sight, but the sensation of a whisper under his skin. He stared down at his feet, frowning, and then turned back toward the ruins of Knebworth as though some invisible string demanded his attention.
There, half-hidden in trampled soil and ash, a single shoot of living green pushed stubbornly upward. A thin root, no thicker than a finger, yet alive—defiant—in a place where everything else had died.
Kristolia tilted her head, ears perked. Santaya sniffed the air, puzzled. Tabby cracked open one eye from her perch and flicked an ear.
“What are you doing, No-name?” she asked, voice lazily curious.
Nekira didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Words belonged to a smaller kind of moment.
He lifted his left hand, the purple-stoned ring glinting like a bottled star. Power stirred beneath the gem’s surface, a pulse like a heartbeat not his own. The wolves whined—not afraid, just aware.
Nekira stepped toward the shoot. His mind reached inward, brushing the ring’s energy. Ancient syllables rolled off his tongue—sounds older than kingdoms, older than grief. The air vibrated, as though the land itself leaned closer to listen.
The tiny root shivered.
Then it began to grow.
First inches, then feet, bark thickening, twisting upward in spirals. Branches burst from the trunk, curling outward like a dancer’s arms. Petals unfurled—soft pink, luminous, impossibly pristine in a place of rot. In breaths, a full cherry blossom tree stretched skyward, its canopy trembling with life, as though spring itself had taken root in the bones of a massacre.
Nekira sagged slightly as the energy left him. His palm rested against the trunk, warm like living flesh. He inhaled once, steadying himself, and then spoke loud enough for the dead to hear.
“Knebworth,” he said, voice ringing against broken stones, “I am sorry for your loss, for your pain, and for your fear. May this tree stand in your memory, and may its blossoms bring you peace.”
Then he repeated the words in the ancient tongue—this time not as magic, but as a promise.
A wind stirred.
Not a normal one. Not random. It rolled across the land like a sigh too weary to be anything but real. Cherry blossoms fluttered, petals dancing through the air, and the ground trembled—not in threat, but in acceptance.
Bodies—villagers, soldiers, all of them—sank silently into the softened earth. No hands dug. No tools scraped. The land swallowed its dead with the tenderness that Thomaz’s soldiers had denied them.
When the last scrap of cloth disappeared beneath the soil, the wind faded. The village grew silent—not the silence of death, but the hush after a prayer is answered.
Tabby sat up, ears rigid. The wolves stared, tails still.
Nekira turned slowly, face pale, breath unsteady. “Th-that…” He swallowed hard, eyes wide. “That wasn’t me.”
Tabby blinked once.
Then twice.
Her whiskers twitched. “Well,” she murmured, tail curling thoughtfully, “either the land likes your apology…”
She leaned in, voice dropping low.
“…or someone was listening.”
The cherry blossoms rustled—just once, as if agreeing.
Nekira lingered a moment longer beside the cherry blossom tree, his palm pressed flat against the trunk. The bark thrummed faintly beneath his skin—like the heartbeat of something ancient and newly awakened.
In the old tongue, he whispered a single word. Thank you.
The petals shivered in reply, though no breeze stirred.
He let out a long, exhausted sigh. Whatever had happened was beyond his understanding, and right now he didn’t have the strength to chase explanations. He turned away, boots crunching over broken stone and soft soil. Santaya and Kristolia padded at his heels. Tabby, now curled once more on Kristolia’s back, closed her eyes as though asleep—but her ears flicked with every sound.
A short distance from the ruins, Nekira whistled sharply. Moments later, Myrtle trotted into view—dark mane tossing, saddle creaking, eyes bright as if she’d been waiting just out of sight.
Nekira stroked the mare’s neck. “Good girl.”
Then his gaze slid to Tabby. “What brought you here to Knebworth? And where is your other half?”
Tabby didn’t lift her head. Only her tail moved, flicking and swaying like a thought given fur and attitude. It brushed against Kristolia’s flank, earning a pleased huff from the wolf.
“Curiosity,” Tabby replied, voice as smooth as warm milk. “And somewhere.”
That was it. No clarification. No embellishment. Just the verbal equivalent of smoke—there, and then gone.
Nekira frowned, but pressing Tabby for answers was like trying to squeeze a riddle into a jar. You ended up confused, scratched, and no wiser.
He swung Myrtle’s saddlebag open and pulled out a polished copper bowl, its surface gleaming even under the somber sky. Kneeling, he set it on the ground.
“Akvo…” he whispered.
Water welled up from nothing, filling the bowl until it brimmed. The wolves stared, heads cocked, tails still. Even Tabby cracked one eye—magic always earned her interest, if only to judge it.
Nekira swallowed, steadied himself, and spoke more clearly.
“Queen Gabija.”
The water shivered. Ripples spread, overlapping, colliding, as though something beneath the surface wrestled its way through. Then the liquid deepened—not in volume, but in presence. It no longer looked like water at all, but like a piece of sky caught in a bowl.
A face emerged—not as a reflection, but as though peering through a window.
Moon-pale skin. Eyes like molten gold. Hair braided with starlight.
Queen Gabija.
Her gaze sharpened as it settled on Nekira—on the exhaustion cloaking him, the wolves at his side, the were-cat curled like a living question.
“Nekira,” she said, voice both song and warning, “why do you call upon me with the scent of death still clinging to your soul?”
The petals from the distant cherry tree fluttered once, as though the world itself leaned closer to hear what he would say next.
Nekira looked at the Elvish Queen, then blurted without thinking, “Wait—you can smell through this too?”
A faint, almost wry smile flickered across her face before vanishing. “No,” she said softly. “Amira showed me the images of what you shared with her… Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes stayed fixed on the cherry blossom tree, where petals drifted lazily in the breeze, brushing against each other with a soft, whispering sound. Beneath the delicate blooms, the air still carried the faint, bitter tang of rot—the remnants of Knebworth’s slaughter. A faint hum of sorrow seemed to rise from the ground itself, almost audible in the quiet.
“I… I think I’m okay,” he finally said, his voice tight. Then he told her everything: how he had knelt before the small surviving root, feeling the pulse of life beneath his fingers; how the tree had erupted from the soil, branches spreading wide, blossoms unfurling like soft pink flames against the gray ruin; how he had spoken to the village, asking forgiveness, offering peace; and how the earth had seemed to answer, sinking the bodies into itself, as if the soil itself mourned, absorbed, and healed.
“Has… has the earth ever done something like that before?” he asked, voice low, almost reverent. “A burial of its own… for the dead?”
The Queen’s gaze softened, her amber eyes reflecting both awe and compassion. “Not often,” she said, slow and careful, “and never with intent this conscious. The land is patient, ancient, and filled with memory—but for it to respond with understanding, to honour life it did not create… that is rare. What you offered—the energy, the sorrow, the respect—it stirred the land itself.”
Nekira swallowed hard, feeling the lingering warmth of the magic flow from the tree into the earth, into him, into everything around him. He shivered. The breeze carried the faintest scent of cherry and earth, mingling with decay, and he could almost feel the spirits of Knebworth stirring, sighing with relief. “It… wasn’t really me, was it?” he whispered. “I only tried to speak… and then it happened.”
“Sometimes,” the Queen said softly, “our intentions, when pure, are enough to awaken the world around us. The living, the dead, the soil, even the air—they all listen, and sometimes… they answer.”
Nekira looked back at the tree. Petals fluttered across the scarred, blackened ruins like soft snow, and for the first time since Knebworth’s destruction, he felt a faint, fragile thread of peace.
“Is there any news, Gabija?” Nekira asked, his voice steady but edged with curiosity.
“Tara and Elqiana ran into a problem in the Dwarven Mountains,” the Queen replied, her voice rippling across the bowl like gentle water. “But they are safe and on their way back here as we speak. Mathious has constructed a tower in Cartakunthor so enormous it dominates the horizon—you can see it for miles. Everyone must be vigilant, especially you dragon riders.”
Nekira sucked in his cheeks and exhaled slowly, a knot of worry tightening in his chest. “So… we have three enemies: Thomaz, Rubian, and Mathious. How do we deal with this, Gabija? What do we do?”
The Queen’s gaze, deep and unwavering, seemed to pierce through the watery surface. “The answer is not yet known,” she said, calm but measured, “but we move as we always have: one step at a time.” She paused, her eyes glimmering. “When can we expect to see you here in Caa Alora?”
Nekira’s eyes swept over Myrtle, the wolves, and finally rested on Tabby. “Soon, Gabija. I will make my way back.”
At that moment, Tabby lifted her head with feline grace, her golden eyes glinting with mischief. “After a small detour,” she purred, “I shall see No-name safely back to Caa Alora.” Then, with perfect timing, she stuck her tongue out at him.
Nekira froze, heat rising to his ears. “She… she stuck her tongue out at me…”
Tabby cocked her head, tail swishing slowly, eyes narrowing with mock indignation. “SHE has a name!” she said, her voice dripping with theatrical offense.
Nekira stumbled back a step, blinking rapidly, completely at a loss. Myrtle snorted softly, as if suppressing laughter, and the wolves’ tails wagged in quiet amusement.
Gabija’s laughter rippled through the bowl, soft and musical, carrying an almost tangible warmth that made the tense air of Knebworth momentarily fade. “Soon, Nekira,” she whispered, the words lingering in the swirl of the water before the image dissolved, leaving the bowl calm and still once more.
Nekira let out a slow breath, his gaze drifting once more to the cherry blossom tree. The petals shimmered faintly in the afternoon sun, drifting lazily to the scarred earth below. Even after the earth had swallowed the dead, a faint, bitter tang lingered—the memory of the slaughter refusing to fade completely. He shivered, brushing his hand over his cloak as if to wipe away the lingering scent of decay.
Tabby stirred on Kristolia’s back, stretching with an exaggerated yawn, tail swishing through the air like a ribbon. “Well, enough lingering in death and sorrow,” she purred, hopping lightly to her feet. “We have a world to keep moving in, No-name.”
Nekira exhaled, steeling himself, and mounted on to the saddle on Myrtle's back, hooves clattering softly against the uneven stones of Knebworth. Kristolia and Santaya followed closely, noses twitching, alert to every lingering scent in the air. The wolves’ fur bristled slightly at the whispers of carrion birds circling overhead, picking through what little remained of the ruin.
As they moved toward the outskirts, the breeze carried the delicate scent of cherry blossoms mixed with the sharp tang of rot, an odd reminder of both death and renewal. Tabby stretched on Kristolia’s back, curling up with a soft hiss as she settled, while the wolves flanked them, noses low, alert. The ruined village fell behind them, the air heavy with quiet echoes—empty homes, collapsed roofs, and the faint sigh of the earth itself, still mourning and healing in tandem.
“Where to first?” Nekira murmured, speaking more to himself than anyone else. His mind still hummed faintly with the memory of the spirits’ sighs, the way the ground had accepted the dead, almost as if acknowledging his apology.
“Forward, of course,” Tabby replied lightly, voice teasing but serious beneath the humour. “Every step matters, No-name. And keep your eyes open—those who brought ruin here are far from finished.”
Nekira’s fingers brushed the purple stone ring at his hand, feeling the energy inside it pulse softly. Myrtle’s hooves clicked against the hard path, stirring dust and small stones. Kristolia and Santaya moved with easy grace beside them, the rhythm of their breathing and steps blending with the wind that carried the faint perfume of cherry blossoms.
As they left the ruined village behind, Nekira allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder. The cherry blossom tree stood alone amidst the blackened stones, petals fluttering like soft pink flames. Somewhere deep inside, he felt a fragile thread of peace. And though the world ahead was uncertain, dangerous, and tangled with enemies, for the first time in days, the weight pressing on his chest felt slightly lighter.
Tabby flicked her tail, eyes glinting. “Hold tight, No-name. We’re just getting started.”
Chapter 10, Knebworth
Nekira stopped so abruptly that Santaya nearly collided with him. The road into Knebworth had become a gash in the land—a wound that refused to heal. Days-old smoke clung to the ruins like a sour ghost, and the air hummed with the wet, relentless buzz of flies. The sun baked everything, turning rot into something thick and oily in the nostrils.
The wolves whined before he made sense of the scene. Knebworth didn’t look destroyed—it looked digested. Roof timbers sagged at obscene angles. Walls slumped inward, blackened and brittle. A child’s wooden toy was half-melted into the dirt beside a hand that had once held it.
Then the smell hit.
Sweet at first. Sickly sweet. Then sharp. Then something else, something that clung to the back of his throat and made it hard to breathe. The scent of flesh returning to the earth. Of time doing what steel had started.
Corpses sprawled everywhere, but they were no longer people—just shapes. Skin sloughed away in patches. Bloated limbs strained against seams of clothing. Some bodies had burst, spilling blackened innards that steamed softly in the afternoon heat. Others lay twisted, heads lolling, mouths frozen mid-scream, ribs gnawed into white, stark cages.
Fat-bellied crows strutted—arrogant, overfed—ripping strips of meat with wet jerks. A raven tugged at a villager’s cheek and peeled it back like fruit skin. A fox snarled at Kristolia over a half-eaten arm and then darted off, jaws dripping. Something larger dragged a corpse into shadow with a slurping sound Nekira tried not to imagine.
Armor lay among the carnage, black and crimson like old bruises. Thomaz’s colors soaked in putrefaction. No symbols, no honour—just rust creeping like rot across metal, rain having carved streaks of reddish-brown down the plates. The soldiers’ bodies were in no better state. One still clutched a sword sunk wrist-deep into a woman’s ribcage. Another had his helmet crushed inward, skull collapsed, maggots wriggling where thoughts once lived.
Santaya gagged—a strange, choking sound he’d never heard from her. Kristolia’s lips curled, not in aggression, but in fear.
Nekira tried to swallow, but the air tasted like spoiled fat. His eyes watered, not from emotion, but from the sheer assault of decay. Death had become a climate here—a weather that soaked into skin.
He stepped forward and his boot sank into something soft.
He didn’t look down.
“This wasn’t punishment,” he rasped, voice raw. “This was needless slaughter.”
Not just lives ended—identity scrubbed out. Names, histories, memories… all compost for flies.
As the wind shifted, it carried the groans of buildings finally giving up and collapsing inward. The world here wasn’t just dead.
It was rotting in place, too stubborn—or too cursed—to finish the job.
Nekira’s hands trembled as he forced himself deeper into the ruin. His wolves flanked him, as though afraid he might fall apart if they strayed even a step away. He didn’t speak—words were too small for this. Instead, he pushed his thoughts outward, reaching across the invisible tether that bound him to Amira.
Images spilled through the link—the bloated bodies, the bone-white ribs exposed to the sky, the stink that crawled into his lungs like a living thing. He showed her the crows wrenching flesh from faces no longer recognisable, the children curled where they had died, the black-and-crimson corpses slumped among them like rotting punctuation marks.
For a heartbeat there was silence.
Then Amira’s mind recoiled.
Dragons did not recoil.
Her thoughts faltered, stuttering like broken wingbeats. ‘Nekira—wha—this…’ Her voice, usually as smooth and ancient as molten stone, came jagged, cracked. Dragons did not stutter. Amira’s horror was more eloquent than poetry.
Their bond didn’t just share images. It shared the weight beneath them.
He felt her shock, her fury, her grief. She felt his nausea, the tremor in his bones, the desperate, failing attempt to hold himself together.
He pushed on anyway, boots squelching in mud that was only partly mud. The smell thickened as he neared what had once been the church—its steeple snapped, its stones scorched, its doorway yawning like a broken jaw. Half a wall remained, leaning at an exhausted angle.
Nekira braced against it.
The moment he stopped moving, everything hit him in one crushing wave—the images, the smells, the helplessness, the absolute wrongness of it all.
He gagged.
Then he vomited.
His body convulsed, trying to purge something his mind couldn’t escape. Bitter acid burned his throat. Tears stung his eyes. The stench around him seemed to notice his weakness and pressed closer, as though rot itself wanted in.
Santaya whimpered. Kristolia nudged his shoulder anxiously.
Amira’s presence surged through his mind—warm, vast, winged enough to wrap around him even across miles. Her voice was steadier now, though thick with emotion.
‘Nekira, little one… breathe. Centre yourself. Do not let the dead pull you under.’
He dragged in air that tasted like decay, coughed, tried again. His chest shook. His hands clawed at the stone as though he could anchor himself by force.
Amira’s consciousness steadied him like a talon against his spine.
‘You are alive,’ she whispered. ‘Remember that. The dead have no claim on the living unless we give them one.’
Nekira swallowed hard, wiping his mouth with a shaking sleeve. The world still stank, still buzzed with flies and ruin, but the edge of panic receded, just enough to stand.
He lifted his head.
The village didn’t change.
But he had.
Nekira’s breath came in jagged bursts, each inhale a serrated blade cutting deeper into his chest.
‘If I had flown with you…’ His thoughts tumbled out raw, unfiltered, desperate. ‘If I had been here sooner, Amira—if I hadn’t wasted time—I could have stopped this. I could have given them peace. They’re trapped now, their spirits—restless, alone—’
His voice cracked into a broken sound that wasn’t quite a sob and wasn’t quite a scream.
Amira wrapped her presence around him like great wings trying to shield him from himself. ‘Little one, this burden is not yours. You are not the cause of—’
But her words slid off him like rain on stone. They couldn’t breach the storm building inside his skull. His frustration kept rising, molten, hungry. It gnawed at him—at reason, at guilt, at the shape of who he believed himself to be. Every breath he took tasted like decay and failure. Every corpse around him whispered too late.
And at the center of the blaze was Thomaz.
Thomaz’s colours. Thomaz’s cruelty. Thomaz.
The hatred that had simmered in Nekira until now began to boil, frothing, dangerous. His fingers curled into fists. His heartbeat punched against his ribs. The wolves felt it; they backed away, ears pinned, uncertain whether the danger was outside him or in him.
Amira’s voice surged again, firmer, strained. ‘Nekira! Stop feeding this fire—’
Then something interrupted the roar in his head.
A voice.
Soft. Unexpected. Balanced on the edge of the ruined church like a cat-shaped punctuation mark.
Nekira jerked his head up.
Tabby the were-cat crouched along the leaning, blackened steeple as though gravity was merely a suggestion. Her fur-thickened limbs moved with eerie grace, paws silent on the scorched stone. Her tail flicked once, a lazy pendulum. Smoke curled around her like she’d been born from it.
She tilted her head, whiskers glinting.
“Anger is like a strong wind,” she murmured, voice calm enough to slice through his fury without force. “It calms down after a while, but lots of branches are already broken.”
The words weren’t loud, but they landed with the precision of claws finding the right place to anchor.
Nekira flinched—not from fear, but from the shock of being seen. His rage faltered, knocked off balance. His gut twisted, breath snagging as if someone had yanked him back from the cliff’s edge.
His pulse hammered, but the edges of the world stopped blurring. The sound of flies, the stink, the ruin—they were still there, but suddenly separate from him. He wasn’t drowning in them anymore.
Kristolia huffed, tail flicking. Santaya crept closer, nudging Nekira’s hand as though reminding him he was still tethered to something living.
Tabby blinked slowly, feline patience personified, perched high above the dead like a creature who owed the world nothing.
Nekira swallowed. The jump in his muscles eased. The fire didn’t vanish, but it settled into embers instead of inferno.
Tabby’s gaze lingered on him, unreadable and ancient in a way that never failed to unsettle.
“Better,” she purred. “You can hate, if you must. Just don’t burn yourself trying to scorch another.”
The ruins were silent again—but Nekira was listening differently now.
Tabby slipped from the steeple without so much as a whisper of falling air, landing with luxurious ease on Kristolia’s back. The wolf barely dipped beneath her weight—just turned her head and wagged her tail in a slow, delighted sweep, as though greeting a long-lost companion rather than a creature who generally treated gravity like a rumor.
Tabby stretched once, claws flexing in Kristolia’s fur, then curled herself into a perfect, smug coil. Her ears twitched, half-listening to the buzzing flies, half-dismissing them as beneath her notice.
Nekira let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “You have a way of showing up when no one expects it,” he muttered, voice still raw around the edges. “And always with some cryptic wisdom. Where did you hear that saying?”
Tabby cracked one golden eye, expression drifting somewhere between amused and bored. She shrugged—an elegant, lazy ripple of shoulders far too human for a creature with paws.
“It just came to me,” she replied, tail swishing like punctuation. “Sometimes the mind coughs up wisdom the way a cat coughs up a hairball. Unpleasant, but occasionally useful.”
Kristolia huffed—possibly a laugh, possibly resignation. Santaya snorted softly, though it could’ve been agreement.
Tabby yawned, revealing teeth far too sharp for someone who sounded so casual. “Now, can we leave?” she drawled. “Another moment in this stench and I’ll hack up something vile all over your wolf’s spine, and I’d rather not be responsible for Kristolia smelling worse than the dead.”
Kristolia’s ears shot back indignantly.
Nekira almost—almost—smiled. The tension in his chest uncoiled just enough for him to breathe without feeling like he was inhaling ghosts.
He glanced once more at the ruined village, then turned away. “Fine. Let’s go.”
He didn’t have all the answers. The dead were still dead. Thomaz still had much to answer for. But he was moving again.
And sometimes, movement was the first mercy the living could give themselves.
The wolves padded forward.
Tabby flicked her tail.
Nekira slowed, then stopped so abruptly the wolves nearly ran into him. Something tugged at him—not sound, not sight, but the sensation of a whisper under his skin. He stared down at his feet, frowning, and then turned back toward the ruins of Knebworth as though some invisible string demanded his attention.
There, half-hidden in trampled soil and ash, a single shoot of living green pushed stubbornly upward. A thin root, no thicker than a finger, yet alive—defiant—in a place where everything else had died.
Kristolia tilted her head, ears perked. Santaya sniffed the air, puzzled. Tabby cracked open one eye from her perch and flicked an ear.
“What are you doing, No-name?” she asked, voice lazily curious.
Nekira didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Words belonged to a smaller kind of moment.
He lifted his left hand, the purple-stoned ring glinting like a bottled star. Power stirred beneath the gem’s surface, a pulse like a heartbeat not his own. The wolves whined—not afraid, just aware.
Nekira stepped toward the shoot. His mind reached inward, brushing the ring’s energy. Ancient syllables rolled off his tongue—sounds older than kingdoms, older than grief. The air vibrated, as though the land itself leaned closer to listen.
The tiny root shivered.
Then it began to grow.
First inches, then feet, bark thickening, twisting upward in spirals. Branches burst from the trunk, curling outward like a dancer’s arms. Petals unfurled—soft pink, luminous, impossibly pristine in a place of rot. In breaths, a full cherry blossom tree stretched skyward, its canopy trembling with life, as though spring itself had taken root in the bones of a massacre.
Nekira sagged slightly as the energy left him. His palm rested against the trunk, warm like living flesh. He inhaled once, steadying himself, and then spoke loud enough for the dead to hear.
“Knebworth,” he said, voice ringing against broken stones, “I am sorry for your loss, for your pain, and for your fear. May this tree stand in your memory, and may its blossoms bring you peace.”
Then he repeated the words in the ancient tongue—this time not as magic, but as a promise.
A wind stirred.
Not a normal one. Not random. It rolled across the land like a sigh too weary to be anything but real. Cherry blossoms fluttered, petals dancing through the air, and the ground trembled—not in threat, but in acceptance.
Bodies—villagers, soldiers, all of them—sank silently into the softened earth. No hands dug. No tools scraped. The land swallowed its dead with the tenderness that Thomaz’s soldiers had denied them.
When the last scrap of cloth disappeared beneath the soil, the wind faded. The village grew silent—not the silence of death, but the hush after a prayer is answered.
Tabby sat up, ears rigid. The wolves stared, tails still.
Nekira turned slowly, face pale, breath unsteady. “Th-that…” He swallowed hard, eyes wide. “That wasn’t me.”
Tabby blinked once.
Then twice.
Her whiskers twitched. “Well,” she murmured, tail curling thoughtfully, “either the land likes your apology…”
She leaned in, voice dropping low.
“…or someone was listening.”
The cherry blossoms rustled—just once, as if agreeing.
Nekira lingered a moment longer beside the cherry blossom tree, his palm pressed flat against the trunk. The bark thrummed faintly beneath his skin—like the heartbeat of something ancient and newly awakened.
In the old tongue, he whispered a single word. Thank you.
The petals shivered in reply, though no breeze stirred.
He let out a long, exhausted sigh. Whatever had happened was beyond his understanding, and right now he didn’t have the strength to chase explanations. He turned away, boots crunching over broken stone and soft soil. Santaya and Kristolia padded at his heels. Tabby, now curled once more on Kristolia’s back, closed her eyes as though asleep—but her ears flicked with every sound.
A short distance from the ruins, Nekira whistled sharply. Moments later, Myrtle trotted into view—dark mane tossing, saddle creaking, eyes bright as if she’d been waiting just out of sight.
Nekira stroked the mare’s neck. “Good girl.”
Then his gaze slid to Tabby. “What brought you here to Knebworth? And where is your other half?”
Tabby didn’t lift her head. Only her tail moved, flicking and swaying like a thought given fur and attitude. It brushed against Kristolia’s flank, earning a pleased huff from the wolf.
“Curiosity,” Tabby replied, voice as smooth as warm milk. “And somewhere.”
That was it. No clarification. No embellishment. Just the verbal equivalent of smoke—there, and then gone.
Nekira frowned, but pressing Tabby for answers was like trying to squeeze a riddle into a jar. You ended up confused, scratched, and no wiser.
He swung Myrtle’s saddlebag open and pulled out a polished copper bowl, its surface gleaming even under the somber sky. Kneeling, he set it on the ground.
“Akvo…” he whispered.
Water welled up from nothing, filling the bowl until it brimmed. The wolves stared, heads cocked, tails still. Even Tabby cracked one eye—magic always earned her interest, if only to judge it.
Nekira swallowed, steadied himself, and spoke more clearly.
“Queen Gabija.”
The water shivered. Ripples spread, overlapping, colliding, as though something beneath the surface wrestled its way through. Then the liquid deepened—not in volume, but in presence. It no longer looked like water at all, but like a piece of sky caught in a bowl.
A face emerged—not as a reflection, but as though peering through a window.
Moon-pale skin. Eyes like molten gold. Hair braided with starlight.
Queen Gabija.
Her gaze sharpened as it settled on Nekira—on the exhaustion cloaking him, the wolves at his side, the were-cat curled like a living question.
“Nekira,” she said, voice both song and warning, “why do you call upon me with the scent of death still clinging to your soul?”
The petals from the distant cherry tree fluttered once, as though the world itself leaned closer to hear what he would say next.
Nekira looked at the Elvish Queen, then blurted without thinking, “Wait—you can smell through this too?”
A faint, almost wry smile flickered across her face before vanishing. “No,” she said softly. “Amira showed me the images of what you shared with her… Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes stayed fixed on the cherry blossom tree, where petals drifted lazily in the breeze, brushing against each other with a soft, whispering sound. Beneath the delicate blooms, the air still carried the faint, bitter tang of rot—the remnants of Knebworth’s slaughter. A faint hum of sorrow seemed to rise from the ground itself, almost audible in the quiet.
“I… I think I’m okay,” he finally said, his voice tight. Then he told her everything: how he had knelt before the small surviving root, feeling the pulse of life beneath his fingers; how the tree had erupted from the soil, branches spreading wide, blossoms unfurling like soft pink flames against the gray ruin; how he had spoken to the village, asking forgiveness, offering peace; and how the earth had seemed to answer, sinking the bodies into itself, as if the soil itself mourned, absorbed, and healed.
“Has… has the earth ever done something like that before?” he asked, voice low, almost reverent. “A burial of its own… for the dead?”
The Queen’s gaze softened, her amber eyes reflecting both awe and compassion. “Not often,” she said, slow and careful, “and never with intent this conscious. The land is patient, ancient, and filled with memory—but for it to respond with understanding, to honour life it did not create… that is rare. What you offered—the energy, the sorrow, the respect—it stirred the land itself.”
Nekira swallowed hard, feeling the lingering warmth of the magic flow from the tree into the earth, into him, into everything around him. He shivered. The breeze carried the faintest scent of cherry and earth, mingling with decay, and he could almost feel the spirits of Knebworth stirring, sighing with relief. “It… wasn’t really me, was it?” he whispered. “I only tried to speak… and then it happened.”
“Sometimes,” the Queen said softly, “our intentions, when pure, are enough to awaken the world around us. The living, the dead, the soil, even the air—they all listen, and sometimes… they answer.”
Nekira looked back at the tree. Petals fluttered across the scarred, blackened ruins like soft snow, and for the first time since Knebworth’s destruction, he felt a faint, fragile thread of peace.
“Is there any news, Gabija?” Nekira asked, his voice steady but edged with curiosity.
“Tara and Elqiana ran into a problem in the Dwarven Mountains,” the Queen replied, her voice rippling across the bowl like gentle water. “But they are safe and on their way back here as we speak. Mathious has constructed a tower in Cartakunthor so enormous it dominates the horizon—you can see it for miles. Everyone must be vigilant, especially you dragon riders.”
Nekira sucked in his cheeks and exhaled slowly, a knot of worry tightening in his chest. “So… we have three enemies: Thomaz, Rubian, and Mathious. How do we deal with this, Gabija? What do we do?”
The Queen’s gaze, deep and unwavering, seemed to pierce through the watery surface. “The answer is not yet known,” she said, calm but measured, “but we move as we always have: one step at a time.” She paused, her eyes glimmering. “When can we expect to see you here in Caa Alora?”
Nekira’s eyes swept over Myrtle, the wolves, and finally rested on Tabby. “Soon, Gabija. I will make my way back.”
At that moment, Tabby lifted her head with feline grace, her golden eyes glinting with mischief. “After a small detour,” she purred, “I shall see No-name safely back to Caa Alora.” Then, with perfect timing, she stuck her tongue out at him.
Nekira froze, heat rising to his ears. “She… she stuck her tongue out at me…”
Tabby cocked her head, tail swishing slowly, eyes narrowing with mock indignation. “SHE has a name!” she said, her voice dripping with theatrical offense.
Nekira stumbled back a step, blinking rapidly, completely at a loss. Myrtle snorted softly, as if suppressing laughter, and the wolves’ tails wagged in quiet amusement.
Gabija’s laughter rippled through the bowl, soft and musical, carrying an almost tangible warmth that made the tense air of Knebworth momentarily fade. “Soon, Nekira,” she whispered, the words lingering in the swirl of the water before the image dissolved, leaving the bowl calm and still once more.
Nekira let out a slow breath, his gaze drifting once more to the cherry blossom tree. The petals shimmered faintly in the afternoon sun, drifting lazily to the scarred earth below. Even after the earth had swallowed the dead, a faint, bitter tang lingered—the memory of the slaughter refusing to fade completely. He shivered, brushing his hand over his cloak as if to wipe away the lingering scent of decay.
Tabby stirred on Kristolia’s back, stretching with an exaggerated yawn, tail swishing through the air like a ribbon. “Well, enough lingering in death and sorrow,” she purred, hopping lightly to her feet. “We have a world to keep moving in, No-name.”
Nekira exhaled, steeling himself, and mounted on to the saddle on Myrtle's back, hooves clattering softly against the uneven stones of Knebworth. Kristolia and Santaya followed closely, noses twitching, alert to every lingering scent in the air. The wolves’ fur bristled slightly at the whispers of carrion birds circling overhead, picking through what little remained of the ruin.
As they moved toward the outskirts, the breeze carried the delicate scent of cherry blossoms mixed with the sharp tang of rot, an odd reminder of both death and renewal. Tabby stretched on Kristolia’s back, curling up with a soft hiss as she settled, while the wolves flanked them, noses low, alert. The ruined village fell behind them, the air heavy with quiet echoes—empty homes, collapsed roofs, and the faint sigh of the earth itself, still mourning and healing in tandem.
“Where to first?” Nekira murmured, speaking more to himself than anyone else. His mind still hummed faintly with the memory of the spirits’ sighs, the way the ground had accepted the dead, almost as if acknowledging his apology.
“Forward, of course,” Tabby replied lightly, voice teasing but serious beneath the humour. “Every step matters, No-name. And keep your eyes open—those who brought ruin here are far from finished.”
Nekira’s fingers brushed the purple stone ring at his hand, feeling the energy inside it pulse softly. Myrtle’s hooves clicked against the hard path, stirring dust and small stones. Kristolia and Santaya moved with easy grace beside them, the rhythm of their breathing and steps blending with the wind that carried the faint perfume of cherry blossoms.
As they left the ruined village behind, Nekira allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder. The cherry blossom tree stood alone amidst the blackened stones, petals fluttering like soft pink flames. Somewhere deep inside, he felt a fragile thread of peace. And though the world ahead was uncertain, dangerous, and tangled with enemies, for the first time in days, the weight pressing on his chest felt slightly lighter.
Tabby flicked her tail, eyes glinting. “Hold tight, No-name. We’re just getting started.”