Empty. But not clean.
Lindarion held still. Weight on the balls of his feet. Every part of the basin below him looked untouched at a glance, but the cold didn't sit right. Too sharp at the edge, too hollow underneath.
He let his gaze move left. Down the slope. A shallow groove curled along the frostline. Uneven. Not a footprint. Not dragged by wind.
Beside him, Ardan stepped forward. Slow. asured. The dirt under his boot gave with a muted crunch.
A strip of cloth flapped once, then settled. Red. Dark. Frozen along the edge, but soft in the middle. Not old.
Ardan crouched. Held it between two fingers. Brought it close, didn't sniff it, just looked. Then looked again.
"Still wet."
Lindarion didn't answer. His eyes were following the line past it. The way the frost broke, thinned out in places. Like a weight had passed low, not walking. Maybe crawling. Maybe dragged.
Ardan rose. Didn't brush off his glove. He looked past Lindarion now. Toward the center.
"That rock," he said.
Lindarion saw it too.
A boot lay half-hidden in the hollow between two stones. Heel torn. No laces. No foot inside.
'Weird.'
He moved first. Down the incline. His coat shifted. No sound but the press of frost under soles.
He didn't touch the boot. Just crouched near it, low enough to see the way the leather had split. Not clean. Not worn down. Cut.
The wind skimd overhead, light enough to barely stir the loose pine at the ridge. Still no birds.
Behind him, Ardan stopped at the crest. His shoulders square. Head tilted slightly.
"Too clean."
Lindarion nodded once. Stood.
"The frost would've covered this if it happened last night."
"Which ans soone ca through."
"More than one."
Ardan glanced down the slope. "Dragged?"
"Possibly." Lindarion turned his head. "But not far."
Ardan let out a slow breath through his nose.
Neither of them moved.
A branch snapped uphill. Small. Sharp. Then nothing.
Ardan looked up without turning his head.
"Fox?"
"No." Lindarion didn't blink. "That was steel on bark."
They stayed still for another beat. Long enough to hear what didn't co next.
Nothing moved.
Lindarion stepped back from the hollow. He scanned the tree line again. Not for figures. For patterns.
"There," he said.
A break in the frost. Just above a ledge, notched into the stone where soone had slipped. Not recently. Within the hour, maybe less.
Ardan shifted his stance. Gloved hand moved to his coat. The fold parted slightly. Hilt exposed. Still undrawn.
They didn't speak.
Lindarion took the slope sideways, easing his steps, toe first. The path bent along the natural ridge. Too narrow to flank.
He checked again at the next outcrop. Fingers on the stone. Still warm in places where the frost hadn't reford.
Ardan followed close. No questions now.
Sothing had gone ahead of them.
Still close.
And not alone.
—
The frost ca back harder up here.
Thicker at the edges. Crunching under each step like thin bones. The ridge narrowed again. Ardan moved closer, not behind—alongside. Sa pace. Sa breath. Sa tension just under the skin.
Lindarion paused where the ground dipped. He crouched low. One hand pressed to the earth.
Still warm.
[Greater Core Recovery: 26%]
The reading flashed behind his eyes, quiet. Like a pulse just under the surface. His lungs didn't ache. Breaths ca steady. That sharp twist in his ribs had dulled to sothing tighter, more familiar.
He pressed his fingers deeper into the frostline. It crumbled too easily.
Not frost. Ice that had thawed.
Soone bled here.
A streak ran through the moss, old red going brown. No splash. No spray. A leak. Slow. Slumped.
Ardan leaned forward. His coat brushed the stone.
"Still fresh," he said.
Lindarion nodded once.
Ahead, the ridge turned sharp. A hard bend around a natural wall of black rock. Too steep to climb over. Too sheer to see past.
They moved slow.
Lindarion took the corner first.
He didn't breathe for half a second.
Just below the next rise, the trail opened into a narrow shelf. The snow was thinner here. Less cover. And there, under a flat stone ledge, slumped halfway into brush—
A body.
'What the hell?'
Ardan stopped two steps behind him.
No movent.
No sound.
Lindarion didn't call out. He scanned first. Trained for the pattern. No footprints nearby. Just the single trail that led here, with the drag marks breaking against the roots.
He approached from the side.
Closer now. The figure was curled on its side. Boots wrong size. Left leg bent under at an unnatural angle. One hand showing. No glove. Skin cracked from cold, but not purple.
Not dead long.
He crouched again.
No blood under the nose. No frostbite across the cheeks. But the lips were parted. Jaw slack. Eyes shut.
He touched the side of the neck.
Still warm. No pulse.
Ardan moved behind him. Closer now.
"Starved?" he asked.
"I don't think so."
Lindarion shifted the collar. A thin scar across the shoulder. Burned at the edge. Old brand.
He didn't say the word. Just looked once at Ardan, then back at the mark.
The man's face was young. Lines just starting to settle near the eyes. Head shaved close. Lips split.
And the other arm—
Missing.
Not torn. Removed. Clean along the shoulder. Cloth burned.
Lindarion stood slow. The cold moved up his spine like a breath.
[Greater Core Recovery: 27%]
He didn't look back down.
Ardan's face had changed.
Not surprise. Not fear. Just sothing hard set under the eyes now. His jaw shifted once.
"Taken?"
Lindarion nodded.
"Alive?"
"Maybe."
They both stared past the brush now. The trail dipped again into the trees.
The air changed.
It wasn't wind.
Not movent.
Just a pressure. A weight that didn't belong.
And sothing far ahead, too faint to echo—
A sound like stone over stone.
—
Lindarion moved first.
Not fast. Just forward. One step into the shallow trail past the brush. It dipped between two broken roots, then curved like sothing had been pulled there. Not walked. Pulled.
The man hadn't bled much. But the moss rembered. Every bent blade pointed the sa way.
He didn't look back.
The body stayed where it fell. There was nothing to be done.
[Greater Core Recovery: 28%]
His chest still held steady. No tightness. No heat. Just the faint press of sothing rebuilding behind the ribs, like old scaffolding coming up again, piece by piece.
Ardan followed without a word.
They kept low. Not crouched, just leaned. Like their bodies knew how to carry tension without showing it.
The trees closed again after twenty steps. Narrow trunks. Cold bark. So bent from wind. Others dead before the frost ever ca.
The trail grew tighter.
No tracks now, just signs. A snapped branch here. A fold in the ferns. Scuffed stone. Sothing passed through without care. Or without strength to hide it.
Lindarion's thoughts drifted once, uninvited.
'Why leave the body there?'
It didn't make sense. If they took the arm, if they branded him, if they had reason to move him—they wouldn't just drop him ten steps from the path.
Unless…
They were interrupted.
Or they wanted it found.
That part sat wrong.
Ardan's steps were asured. No crunch. No drag. He stayed close but not breathing down his neck. Trained. Professional. But not cold.
Lindarion could feel his presence like a weight at the edge of the coat. Grounding. Like a mory with a sword.
Another branch broke underfoot. Dry. Loud in the hush.
He stopped.
So did Ardan.
Just ahead, sothing hung from a tree.
Lindarion tilted his head. Didn't blink. Just stared.
It was cloth. Thin. Dark. Maybe once black. Now stiff with frost. Torn into a strip and tied to the branch at shoulder height.
A marker.
He stepped closer. Raised one hand. Didn't touch it.
Just looked.
Not frayed. Cut. One clean edge. The rest curled and stiff.
Ardan's voice was lower now. "Trail marker?"
"Maybe."
Lindarion crouched. Looked at the base of the tree.
Scrape marks.
Soone had stumbled here. Kicked the roots. Sat maybe. Or was dropped.
He didn't speak it.
Not yet.
Further up the path, a small pile of stones sat stacked just off the trail. Three flat ones. One curved. And a sar of soot on the topmost.
He stood slow.
Ardan had already seen it.
"I don't really like this," he said.
Lindarion didn't either.
[Greater Core Recovery: 29%]
The system's quiet pulse flicked again behind his ribs.
He scanned ahead. The trail dipped once more, then turned out of sight behind a low wall of granite, crusted with old lichen.
Nothing moved.
No wind. No calls.
Just that silence again. Not the peaceful king of silence. But the one that screams sothing is wrong.
Lindarion placed a hand on the bark beside him. Cold. Dry.
It helped anchor the thoughts.
He tried to piece it again. The body, the brand, the missing arm. The clean trail. The marker. The stacked stones.
This wasn't panic. This was so kind of a procedure maybe.
Whoever passed through here had done it before.
And they were close.
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