The Wastes did not welcome the living.
We stood at the edge of a shattered causeway, gazing out over a landscape of twisted ruin and ash.
The air shimmered with toxic mists, and the sun was a dim, bleeding smear against the poisoned sky.
Finn coughed into his sleeve.
"Lovely, isn't it?"
I said nothing.
There was nothing lovely about this place.
Buildings slumped like dying beasts, half-sunken into craters of black sludge.
Creatures — malformed and shivering — slithered between the ruins, their eyes gleaming in the twilight.
Somewhere in that desolation, the next Pillar called to me.
Weak, flickering.
Dying.
"We move fast," I said.
Finn nodded, adjusting the straps on his satchel.
"Stay out of sight. And whatever you do... don't step in the pools. Some of them aren't just water."
We descended carefully, picking our way along cracked stones and broken metal.
Every sound seemed magnified — the crunch of gravel, the rasp of our breathing.
Twice we ducked into hiding as winged shadows swept overhead — massive things with ragged wings and too many eyes.
Finn called them Carrion Lords.
They hunted by sound.
And they were always hungry.
The deeper we went, the worse the air became.
My lungs burned with every breath, and my skin prickled as if unseen hands brushed against me.
Finn handed me a small vial of violet liquid.
"Drink it," he said shortly. "It'll help."
I hesitated.
Then drank.
The taste was foul, but almost immediately the burning eased, and the whispers in the mist faded to a dull murmur.
Old magics.
Dangerous, but necessary.
Hours passed.
Or perhaps only minutes.
Time bent strangely in the Wastes.
We crossed a field of rusted machines, their skeletal frames half-buried in slime.
Once, they had been engines of progress — now, they were tombs.
Finn moved ahead, scouting.
I followed, senses straining for any sign of danger.
At the far end of the field, we found the first sign of trouble.
A corpse.
Human — or what had once been.
Its body was twisted, arms elongated into claws, face frozen in a rictus of agony.
Dark veins pulsed beneath its skin, still alive somehow, still twitching.
Finn grimaced.
"Plagueborn."
I glanced at him.
"Explain."
He knelt beside the corpse, poking it cautiously with a broken blade.
"The Wastes don't just kill. They change you. Some faster than others. If you get scratched, bitten... you're done."
I tightened my grip on the relic-sword.
There would be no second chances here.
We moved on, staying clear of anything that moved.
As night fell — or what passed for night here — the mist thickened.
Shapes danced at the edge of vision — things that laughed and wept in the same breath.
Finn led us to shelter inside a broken tram car, half-submerged in a pool of black water.
We barred the doors with rusted poles and settled in for the night.
Or at least tried to.
Sleep was impossible.
The tram shook occasionally as unseen beasts brushed against it.
Whispers slid through the gaps in the walls, telling lies in voices I almost recognized.
"You failed," they hissed.
"You left them all to die."
"You're nothing but a walking grave."
I pressed my hands to my ears, shutting them out.
Across from me, Finn sat cross-legged, humming softly to himself as he tinkered with a strange device — a sphere of brass and glass, etched with runes.
"You alright?" he asked without looking up.
I forced a nod.
"Good," he said. "Because the real fun starts tomorrow."
He twisted the sphere sharply.
With a soft click, it unfolded into a floating orb, casting a thin shield of blue light around the tram.
The whispers dulled instantly, retreating into the mist.
Finn flashed a grin.
"Old Warden tech. Found it in a graveyard near the Shattered Choir. Bit unstable, but it keeps the nightmares out."
I stared at the orb.
"How do you know so much?"
Finn shrugged.
"Because I've had to. Knowing keeps you breathing. Not knowing gets you a bullet or worse."
He leaned back against the wall, arms behind his head.
"You think the Council sent all their dogs after you yet?"
I frowned.
"Probably."
He chuckled.
"Good. Means you're doing something right."
I shook my head.
"You think this is a game?"
Finn's eyes sharpened, the humor draining from his face.
"No. It's not a game. It's a war. And wars need more than swords and anger. They need survivors."
He closed his eyes.
"And sometimes, the ones who survive are the only ones left to remember why the war was fought at all."
Silence fell between us.
Outside, something screamed.
Long and low and utterly inhuman.
Finn cracked one eye open.
"Get some rest, Caelan. Tomorrow we find your Pillar.
And if we're lucky, we live long enough to find the next."