The Witness of the Deep Veil

The ash fell like gray snow, silent and relentless, coating the rutted road in a soft, dead powder. You’d been walking for two days, the soles of your boots worn thin, the sealed message a cold, hard weight in your satchel. Embervein was a scar on the landscape ahead, a huddle of dark timber and flickering lamplight against the dusk. The air tasted of soot and iron, and the silence was wrong—no dogs barking, no children yelling, just the low, rhythmic groan of a mine wheel turning somewhere beyond the treeline.

A figure detached itself from the shadow of the gate. The foreman. You’d met him once, a year ago, in a town down the pass. He’d been a loud man then, a backslapper with a thunderous laugh. Now he stood perfectly still, hands clasped before him, a smile on his face that was a fraction too wide.

“Courier,” he said, and his voice was right, but the cadence was off, like a song played slightly out of tune. “You must be tired. Come. The inn has a fire.”

He didn’t offer to take your pack. He turned, and you noticed the way he moved—too smooth, too fluid, as if his joints were only just remembering what they were for. Behind him, the town waited, its windows glowing with a warm, hollow light.