Here is Chapter 28 of Bound for Ete
The air changed.
Not dramatically. Not in the storybook way where the wind stops and a hush falls across the trees.
It changed the way silence changes after a scream.
The way stillness settles after something has broken.
Lyra felt it first.
The slope had leveled, the terrain less jagged now, soft hills, moss-covered rocks, trees creeping in around the edges like they'd been waiting. The sky above was still gray, but no longer heavy.
Just quiet.
Thalin walked a few paces ahead, scanning the path with a frown he didn't bother to hide.
Kaal limped beside her, slower than usual, cloak wrapped tighter.
"You look like death," she said casually.
"You look worse."
She smirked. "I take that as a compliment."
"Of course you do."
They didn't speak again for a while.
They reached a clearing by late morning, small, ringed by tall stones worn smooth by wind and time. No runes. No magic. Just space.
It felt wrong.
"Let's rest," Thalin said.
Lyra didn't argue. She didn't want to stop, but her legs had started to shake in that subtle way that meant ignoring them would get her killed.
They sat.
Kaal leaned back against a tree with a low hiss.
Lyra glanced at him. "Is it worse?"
He nodded. "It's always worse."
"You're a terrible patient."
"And you're a terrible nurse."
She looked away so he wouldn't see her smile.
Thalin sat apart from them, journal open, quill moving in slow, deliberate strokes. He hadn't said much since the battle. Just worked. Observed. Sketched.
Lyra watched him without watching him.
He hadn't tried to explain what that thing was.
Hadn't said a word about the phrase it spoke.
She should've been glad.
She wasn't.
"You think he's trustworthy?" Kaal asked softly.
Lyra didn't answer right away.
"I think," she said slowly, "he's useful. And I think he knows when to keep his mouth shut."
"That's not a no."
"No," she agreed.
That night, they didn't light a fire.
Too close to the edge of something. Lyra could feel it, like stepping onto a floor you know won't hold.
She sat awake while the others rested. The mark on her side didn't burn anymore, but it hadn't gone cold either.
Just there.
Somewhere beyond the hills, a bird screamed once and then went silent.
There hadn't been any birds since the journey began.
Lyra's hand moved toward her blade.
She didn't draw it.
Not yet.
By the next morning, the trees grew closer. Denser.
Kaal said nothing, but his pace changed. More alert. More… prepared.
Lyra noticed it too.
This wasn't wilderness anymore.
It was territory.
She could feel the boundary like a thread drawn tight across the path. They hadn't crossed it yet, but they were close.
Thalin slowed as well. His eyes scanned the treetops more than the map now.
"Something's different," he murmured.
"No kidding," Lyra replied.
She stopped.
Held up a hand.
Kaal froze beside her.
Ahead, the path narrowed into a gap between two twisted trees, and beyond them, the faint outline of something woven between branches.
Not rope.
Not vines.
A warning.
Subtle. Ancient.
Handmade.
They were near.
Too near.
She turned back to the others.
"We don't go further today," she said.
Thalin raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because I've seen that kind of silence before. It usually ends in arrows."
Kaal didn't argue.
Thalin only nodded once and crouched beside his bag.
No fire tonight either.
Only breath and tension and the soft whisper of wind through trees that didn't like to be watched.
Lyra sat with her back to a stone, eyes fixed forward.
If they were being watched already, she wouldn't give whoever it was the satisfaction of surprise.