The Rot Path looked worse than Kael imagined.
"You said this was just wilderness," he muttered.
Rei smirked as she tightened the wrappings around her boots. "Technically, it is. Just the kind that wants to eat you alive."
They stood on cracked stone, overgrown with black moss and flowering fungi that pulsed faintly. Beyond, a warped forest stretched out under a dead sky, its trees crooked and bone-colored, with no leaves. The air stank of copper and rain.
Kael adjusted the straps on his coat. "I liked it better when people were the only things trying to kill us."
"That's Varn thinking," Rei said, scanning the trees. "Out here? Everything's a threat. The ground, the air, the sounds. Especially the sounds."
"You're not really selling this as a survival path."
"I'm not here to sell. I'm here to get us through."
They stepped past the old border line marked by rusted pylons, some still sparking with dying current.
Kael nodded at one. "Why don't they just repair the wall?"
"Because it doesn't work. The rot doesn't care about steel. It creeps through thought, through memory. You can't weld shut something that lives in your blood."
"That's comforting."
She smirked. "I'm full of comfort."
They moved into the woods. The light dimmed instantly. The canopy, though thin, cast a strange shadow like someone had poured ash over the sun.
"So," Kael said, glancing at the surroundings, "what exactly lives out here?"
"Used to be nothing. Then came the war. Then came the rot."
"That's not an answer."
"Feral Veinborn. Cracked Seraphs. Memory Beasts. Or sometimes just the wind, whispering your own regrets back at you."
Kael frowned. "You're messing with me."
"Try sleeping out here and tell me I'm wrong."
Silence grew between them as they walked, broken only by the squelch of wet earth beneath their boots.
Then Kael spoke again.
"Rei… why are you really helping me?"
She didn't answer right away.
"I've seen people like you," she said eventually. "Lost. Burning. Dangerous. And I've seen what happens when no one gives them a reason to fight for something other than survival."
He raised a brow. "And what am I fighting for?"
"Not dying is a good start."
A branch snapped to their right. Instantly, both dropped into a crouch.
Kael whispered, "That wasn't the wind."
"Nope," Rei said, sliding her blade free. "You feel it?"
He blinked. "Feel what?"
"That hum in your chest. That tension in the dirt. The rot's stirring."
He looked around, heart hammering. "You said this path would be hard, not suicidal."
"I said we'd survive. Not that it'd be pretty."
A shape moved through the trees. Not walking gliding. Its form was wrong, like a smear of oil wearing a robe of feathers. Its face was a shifting mirror.
Kael whispered, "What the hell is that?"
Rei didn't move. "It's a Thoughtwraith. Don't speak. Don't think loudly."
Kael swallowed. "How do you not think loudly?"
"Breathe slow. Clear your mind. Do not and I mean this do not focus on fear. That's how it finds you."
The creature paused. Its mirrored face twisted.
Kael tried not to breathe. His veins itched.
Then the core inside him pulsed. Just once.
The creature snapped its head toward him.
Rei whispered, sharp and fast, "Run."
They bolted.
Branches tore at their coats. The trees seemed to move, the path tightening, twisting.
Kael shouted, "You said don't think loudly!"
"Did you think the core would listen to me?"
A scream echoed behind them not a sound of pain, but of recognition.
"It knows me now!" Kael shouted.
"Of course it does!"
They burst into a clearing with an old transport husk crashed in the middle. Its doors were rusted shut, but the cargo ramp was open.
"In there!" Rei shouted.
They dove inside. Rei jammed a metal pipe into the ramp's track and yanked it down just as the wraith reached the clearing.
Darkness swallowed them.
Kael gasped for breath. "Is it still out there?"
"Don't move," she hissed. "Listen."
They both froze.
Outside, the wraith drifted past. It circled the transport once. Twice.
Then silence.
Minutes crawled.
Finally, Rei relaxed, exhaling. "I think it's gone."
Kael collapsed against a wall. "That's twice now something's tried to kill us in under an hour."
"Get used to it. You're glowing like a beacon to everything cursed and curious."
He rubbed his eyes. "This core… it's not just power, is it?"
"No. It's hunger. And memory. And choice."
"Choice?"
Rei nodded. "It didn't just bind to you because you touched it. It saw something. That's why it picked you."
Kael leaned his head back. "That's not exactly comforting."
"It's not supposed to be."
He looked around the wreckage of the transport. "You think this thing still works?"
Rei checked a control panel. "Dead. But maybe its map system's intact."
She pried open a side console. Dust spilled out. After a few seconds, flickering light returned to a cracked screen.
"We're here," she said, pointing at a red dot. "Two sectors into the Rot. Another three to go before the edge."
Kael groaned. "We're not even halfway?"
"Not yet."
He sat up. "Let's rest here for a bit. My lungs are rebelling."
Rei agreed and slid down beside him. The quiet felt heavy, like the forest outside was holding its breath.
Kael broke the silence. "That thing… it didn't attack you. Only me."
"Because I'm Veinborn," she said quietly. "It doesn't see me as prey."
He turned to her. "Veinborn? You never mentioned that."
"I didn't need to. It's not something I advertise."
"What does that mean for you? That you're like me?"
"No. I was born with a diluted trace of core fire. You, Kael… you're hosting something raw. Wild. Ancient. That's different."
"So I'm not Veinborn."
"You're something else entirely."
They sat in silence again, the weight of her words settling in.
Then she added, "You're not just carrying a stolen relic. You're carrying war."
Kael looked down at his hand.
The faint glow of the veins had returned.
And it was spreading.