Calamity Awakens

The fire was burning low, casting long shadows up the beams of the longhouse. With Harold gone, the Branded lingered—plus Daran and Ferin, who sat with his dogs, sharpening a knife that didn't really need it. The air had the weight of unasked questions, and eventually someone broke it.

Ferin snorted softly. "Every time I blink, one of you has changed. Your Daos sharpen, your paths burn brighter. Meanwhile I'm still trudging through snow with a bow on my back and half-wild mutts chewing on elk bones. Don't mistake me—I'll keep hunting till I drop. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't wonder. If a Brand could sharpen my path, maybe I'd stop feeling like I'm two steps behind."

Lira turned her pale face toward him. Her voice was quiet, but carried. "It's not only sharpening. It's reshaping. My Dao was once two separate rivers—Life and Death. The Brand forced me to see how they flowed together instead. I never thought I'd touch that kind of power at Tier Two. It's not… safe. But it's true. The Brand burned the old me away and left something new."

Daran leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes narrowed. "That's what concerns me. A soldier knows better than to accept gifts without asking what's owed. This Brand—it makes you stronger, yes. But what else does it do? Does it change loyalty? Bend your will? If Harold fell… or worse, if Harold changed—would the Brand chain you still?"

He shook his head, lips pressed thin. "And another thing. He carries himself like someone who's seen violence, who's lived through it. I know those kinds of eyes, when I appeared I could feel him assessing me. And the new sergeants he picked for me. I could have picked better but those three are good. How does he know that.

But his hands are clumsy on a weapon. He's new to the act of killing. That doesn't add up. I want to know what his story really is."

Lira hesitated, then added, "He once spoke of reincarnation. Said he'd lived before. It was strange, the way he said it—like it was fact..."

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Rysa gave a short laugh and shook her head, stirring the faint scent of herbs clinging to her. "No chain on me. At least, not one I feel. What I feel is… inspiration. I'll be mixing, and suddenly the idea to add a root I'd never considered before will hit me, clear as if whispered. That's not chains, that's guidance. If Harold asked, I'd follow. But not because I'm forced. And honestly—" she brightened, grinning at them, "—I'd rather have a Brand with surprises than go back to the plodding, dreary way things were before."

Kelan grunted from his corner. "Surprises, aye. Don't forget, this man who can't draw blood with his own hand still managed to put me on my back. Him and Hal."
As if on cue, Halvor lifted his head, lips pulling back in a low, rumbling growl, blue eyes catching the firelight like twin shards of ice.

He keeps pushing us to fight up tiers…he doesn't understand how we are breaking a rule that is ironclad. There is so much he doesn't know and understand.

Daran looked at Kelan and said " You'll have to tell me how that happened, you should have punished anything he did. I have never seen a Tier 2 able to do things you are able to do and I have spent my life training people and trying to sharpen my dao. I fear I will be overtaken by you three in not much time."

Silence followed. Ferin broke it, quieter this time. "I'll keep hunting. That much I know. Food's my duty. You can't brew your potions or train your soldiers on empty bellies. But if Harold ever did offer me a Brand…" His hand paused on the knife. "I wouldn't turn it down. That much, too, I know."

Lira smiled faintly at him, though her eyes were tired. "You envy us," she said softly.

"Of course I do," Ferin said bluntly. "I'd be a fool not to. But envy doesn't fill the stewpot. Hunting does. So I'll keep to my work, dogs at my side. Still…" He leaned back, gazing at the rafters. "You lot are building something. I can smell it. And if keeping Harold alive is the price of being part of it, then I'll pay it."

Daran's brow furrowed, his voice gruff. "Maybe that's the danger. We already talk like he's the center of it all. Maybe he is and I just arrived here. Either way… protecting him might be the most important duty we'll ever have."

That earned a ripple of uneasy laughter. Someone muttered about Harold's habit of "collecting strays, more children than adults here" and even Rysa snorted into her cup. But the laughter didn't hide the weight of it—the unspoken recognition that they were all part of something strange and fragile. Something worth protecting.