They didn’t go far.
Ethan kept the route short and familiar, skirting the outer paths near the stream where the goblins checked traps and reset lines. The forest was changing — leaves duller, ground softer with rot, air carrying that thin bite that said winter was no longer theoretical.
Azrael hovered beside him, quieter than she’d been all morning.
That alone set him on edge.
“You’re watching your feet again,” she said at last.
“Because I like keeping them,” Ethan replied.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He glanced sideways. She wasn’t glaring. Not snapping. Her posture was tight, but not aggressive — like someone holding themselves together by habit.
They stopped near the water. Goblins fanned out without instruction, murmuring softly, moving with the ease of people who knew exactly where they belonged.
Azrael watched them.
“…They can’t hear me,” she said.
“No,” Ethan replied.
She frowned. “Then when you talk—”
“They assume I’m speaking to a spirit,” he said. “Which isn’t wrong.”
She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Of course they do.”
Ethan crouched and brushed aside wet leaves, exposing a nest of pale centipedes writhing beneath the rot.
“There,” he said.
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Azrael recoiled on instinct. “That’s vile.”
“Effective,” Ethan replied, carefully transferring several into a thick ceramic vessel etched with shallow markings. “And patient.”
“You brought me out here for insects?”
“I brought you out here because you were getting quiet,” he said.
That stopped her.
“…I am recalibrating,” she said stiffly. “This form. This separation. It is… inefficient.”
He sealed the vessel and stood. “It’s your second day.”
She stiffened. “And?”
“And you’re holding together better than I did,” Ethan said.
She turned sharply. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” he agreed. “You don’t know this either.”
They started walking again.
“I ran,” Ethan said. “When I got here. Straight into the nearest village I could find.”
Azrael didn’t interrupt.
“I thought if I copied what everyone else was doing, things would settle,” he said. “Instead I just… flailed.”
He made a vague, lopsided gesture with one hand.
“Like a chicken with its head cut off. Still am, honestly.”
Azrael frowned. “That is an oddly specific image.”
“It fits,” Ethan said. “No plan. No direction. Just panic pretending to be movement.”
She studied him for a long moment.
“…Oh,” she said slowly.
He glanced at her.
“You were extremely idiotic,” Azrael continued, tone sharpening with satisfaction. “Which explains why you survived.”
Ethan smiled faintly.
“You are still extremely idiotic,” she added.
He shrugged. “Working on it.”
He glanced at her.
“You woke up yesterday. Realized you weren’t a blade anymore. Realized the rules didn’t apply. And you’re still functional.”
She looked away.
“…I am not calm.”
“I didn’t say calm,” Ethan replied. “I said functional.”
They reached a low rise overlooking the stream. The goblins were distant now, their voices reduced to texture.
Azrael hovered lower than before.
“…This world,” she said quietly, “is badly constructed.”
Ethan snorted. “Yeah.”
She hesitated, then asked, softer, “How long have you been with them?”
“Five months.”
“And you trust them.”
“Yes.”
“That is foolish.”
“Maybe,” Ethan said. “But it’s kept everyone alive so far.”
She studied him in silence.
“You’re improvising,” she said finally. “Constantly.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
She looked at the sealed vessel in his pack. “And that?”
“Something that takes time,” Ethan said. “Like most things worth surviving.”
Azrael didn’t respond right away.
“…You will show me how it works,” she said at last.
“When it’s ready.”
She scowled. “You enjoy withholding.”
“I enjoy not dying,” Ethan replied.
They turned back toward the tunnels as the light shifted.
Behind them, the forest continued doing what it always did — indifferent, patient, waiting.
And for the first time since she’d awakened, Azrael didn’t argue the silence.
