A week later, the young man found himself approaching the smaller of the two cities he had been told about: Junktar.

  It had been a somewhat eventful trip. After leaving the pond, he had traveled for a little over half a day before the road began to truly take shape. At first it had been a faint, reddish strip in the distance, just a suggestion of structure. As he drew nearer, the full scale of the thing became clear. The road stretched across the land like an ancient titan’s spine, huge and wide and unnervingly smooth. It was made of reddish round brick laid so seamlessly together he could find no hint of mortar between them.

  It was as wide as a four-lane highway and just as smooth as freshly laid asphalt. The kind of road you loved to drive on. The kind of road that should have come with signage, speed limits, and some bored highway patrol officer sitting behind a billboard with a radar gun.

  He wasn’t sure how this world had built it. He wasn’t sure how long it had been here. But if a road like this existed in the modern world he had come from, people would have written papers about it. Engineers would have stood on it with clipboards and hard hats, muttering reverently like pilgrims at a shrine. It would have been considered a marvel of engineering.

  When he reached the road and looked up, he realized there were only a few hours left in the day. The sky was turning soft gold, shadows stretching long across the plains. He considered camping on the side of the road for the night. The three women had been right; there were wide, rolling flatlands on either side of the stone highway, dotted with waves of grass and occasional clusters of trees. It was clear, open land. Easy to watch. Easy to rest.

  He figured he could get another hour or two of travel in before dusk swallowed the horizon, but he still paused to think through his options.

  He had plenty of dried, smoked fish thanks to his experiments with the storage bag. Plenty of water. And at this point, he was used to sleeping outside. Sleeping under the sky felt almost normal now, like slipping into an old habit.

  Still, he sat for a bit on the edge of the road, elbows resting on his knees, watching the sun dip lower. Thinking.

  He could go to the major hub, Tarkas Rell, and get a full look at the region’s civilization at its peak. He pictured noise, crowds, rules, attention, and complications.

  Or he could go to the slightly smaller city, Junktar. Fewer eyes. Fewer questions. Less risk.

  Not quite ready to deal with whatever chaos a city like Tarkas Rell would bring, he stood, dusted off his hands, and casually began walking south.

  Junktar it was.

  He walked for another couple of hours, the sun slipping behind the distant canopy of the Great Green. The air cooled quickly, the evening wind chasing fingers of cold down his spine. Far ahead, just visible in the fading light, he saw the faint glow of firelight. A caravan.

  Maybe another half hour ahead.

  As he closed the distance, he saw the shapes more clearly. Wagons pulled off to the roadside. People moving around them. Small cooking fires burning in little circles of stone. The silhouettes of tents being raised.

  These were nothing like the camping tents he had known. They looked like a cross between Native American teepees and some type of elegant pavilion he could almost but not quite place. Maybe something he vaguely remembered from old martial arts films or traveling exhibitions. Sloping and rounded structures, tied with ropes, decorated with minimal but intentional patterns.

  There seemed to be about thirty people in total.

  A good portion of them appeared to be guards. Big, broad-shouldered men and women, rugged in dress and efficient in movement. One or two men wore what he guessed was the local version of middle-class clothing; decorated tunics, thick belts, woven vests. Their posture and the way others deferred to them suggested they were merchants.

  Then there were the women and children, dressed similarly. Likely family. Possibly workers. Maybe both.

  He remembered many rural countries from his past life. Family businesses where children helped from an early age, not out of exploitation but necessity. It felt similar here.

  The rest were the rugged types: men and women armed with staves, swords, knives, and assorted other weapons typical of the region. He didn’t know enough to judge quality, but at least the weapons weren’t rusted or falling apart.

  Probably a hired guard troop. Or a mix of merchant family and their own guard detail.

  As he approached, one of the guards stepped forward. A burly man with a physique straight out of a Conan comic or old Mongol illustration. Square jaw, thick neck, arms like braided rope. He said something to one of the merchants and nodded toward the young man.

  The two merchants traded quiet words, then signaled the guard. The younger merchant and the guard began walking up the road toward him. They stopped a few feet from the edge of their camp and waited.

  He slowed as he approached and saw the tension in their shoulders, the stiffness in how they stood. The nervous flick of their eyes.

  This really is a fucked-up world if everyone is this wary of everyone, he thought.

  Once he was about fifteen feet away, he stopped. No one spoke. They just watched him.

  The silence stretched on long enough to get annoying.

  Finally, he sighed and lifted his hands slightly, palms open.

  “I mean you no harm. I’m just traveling to the next city. There is safety in numbers, so I was wondering if I could join your caravan, at least for the night.”

  The two men turned to whisper to each other. The young man caught the guard mutter that he “appeared to be a cultivator.” The merchant nodded quickly, then stepped forward again. His smile was too bright, too practiced, almost brittle.

  He bowed repeatedly.

  “Of course, cultivator. Please come sit by our fire. As you say, there is safety in numbers. We would be more than happy to have you join us for the night.”

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  Not sure what was going on, but polite enough, the young man nodded.

  “I can help with preparations or pay with food and provisions. I’ve got plenty of smoked fish and fresh water. I also might have some goods, fabrics and so on, from my pouch if you’re interested in trading.”

  The merchant kept smiling that porcelain smile. The young man studied him, trying to decide if the man was simply well-mannered or afraid. Judging by the way he kept glancing at the guard, fear seemed likely.

  And then he remembered the look in the robed man’s eyes before the end.

  Yeah. Maybe they do have a reason to be nervous.

  Almost an hour later, the camp was fully set up. Fires crackled. Children laughed. Utensils clattered. Wagons creaked as supplies were shifted. The smell of cooking drifted through the air.

  The young man sat on a small woven cushion around the merchants’ central fire with the two merchant heads and the guard leader.

  The guard leader introduced himself as Hu Bo. He ran the small mercenary group that protected the caravan’s more mundane routes. None of his people were cultivators, but they were tough, seasoned, and clever. Ten years of surviving the road meant they were doing something right.

  Most of the monsters and beasts found along the journey were what they called mortal beasts. Dangerous, but no more so than big predators from his old world. If a spirit beast or cultivator wandered close, they were usually low-level. Patience. Positioning. Teamwork. That was how the guard company survived.

  The older merchant introduced himself as Ren Cai. His son Yon Cai and their extended family ran the Cai Trading Company. They weren’t a major trade house, but they were trying to grow, traveling between hubs and smaller towns carrying goods and forging relationships. They made their coin mostly from spices and herbs grown in surrounding regions.

  Nobody among them cultivated, but after the initial caution, and after the young man played with some of the children while pretending not to, people warmed to him. The tension eased.

  Dinner was simple but seasoned. The moment the smell hit him he almost groaned out loud.

  He had missed seasoning. He had missed flavor.

  The stew was made from fish, some fresh, some of his smoked batch added in. Rich broth. Soft flatbread. Rice with a light herbal fragrance. He savored every bite.

  He asked Ren Cai if he could trade for some of the herbs they used. Ren Cai laughed softly and said Junktar had plenty, and the next town after that was a farming hub for spices and herbs, though he happily handed over a small satchel of spares in the meantime.

  When asked his name, the young man already knew what he would say. He had thought on it for weeks. He had weighed his past, the pieces of himself, the losses, the memories. He chose a name with purpose.

  Algraves Burning.

  A nod to his old last name, Graves. A nod to the graves left in his wake. A nod to the fire that ended his former world and reshaped him. A reminder of what had been done and what he would not repeat.

  A beginning forged in loss.

  So when asked, he introduced himself as Algraves Burning.

  If anyone found the name strange, they hid it well. Though he did have to clarify that “Burning” was not what he wanted to be addressed as. After a few moments of cultural explanation, they switched to simply calling him Algraves.

  Later that evening, as most of the Cai family settled near their wagons, it was just Ren Cai and Algraves at the fire. Algraves reached into his bag and pulled out four small pills. The same pills the robed man had tried to use during their fight.

  He held one up.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Ren Cai examined it for a long moment, sniffed it gently, then nodded and handed it back.

  “These appear to be minor grade healing pills. At least… that is what they are now. Do you not have a jade bottle to hold them in? They are losing efficacy without a proper container.”

  Algraves shrugged.

  “I don’t have a jade bottle. I got these off a fellow who attacked me. He crushed the bottle trying to heal himself.”

  Ren Cai did not flinch. The harshness of this world was nothing new to him.

  After a moment’s thought, Ren Cai disappeared briefly and returned with a small jade bottle.

  “I’ll trade you this bottle for one pill. Then the others will stop losing strength.”

  Algraves handed the pill over. Maybe it was a good trade, maybe it wasn’t, but three stable pills were better than four dying ones. Ren Cai placed the pill in a jade box of his own and nodded before asking:

  “Do you have a tent or bedroll?”

  Algraves smiled faintly.

  “I’ll meditate by the fire. Seems as good as sleep. Sometimes better.”

  Ren Cai nodded, familiar enough with cultivators to understand, and wished him a good night.

  Algraves settled into a slow breathing exercise, one of the three breathing methods from the jade slip, and eased into meditation.

  He continued traveling with the Cai Merchant Group over the next several days. He could have made the journey alone in half the time, but being with people again eased something in him. The slow pace gave him space to think, to reflect, to breathe.

  He walked beside the wagons, chatting lightly when spoken to, playing with children when they wandered near, the faint ache of missing his own children stirring each time a small hand tugged at his clothing.

  He offered to take watch at night, explaining he could meditate lightly and remain aware. Ren Cai politely declined, grateful simply to have a cultivator traveling with them. Hu Bo, pragmatic as always, simply told him to help if trouble came.

  At night he practiced. Quiet forms. Corvid-inspired movements. Odd hops that made the children laugh. Strange half-falls that impressed nobody but amused everyone. He cultivated under the starlight while the caravan slept.

  Until the third night.

  He was settling into meditation, the moon high above, full and silver as always. That was odd, he realized. It was never anything but full. He had no idea what sort of astronomy or physics could make that happen. He wasn’t an astronomer. He wasn’t a scientist. But he knew enough to know that moons did not just stay full forever.

  As he pondered it, Hu Bo’s quiet warning cut through the night.

  One of the outer guards had spotted something.

  Or thought they had.

  It was enough. The caravan guards trusted their instincts. They moved through the camp quietly, weapons drawn, shifting positions, forming loose defensive lines.

  It was then that Algraves felt it.

  A presence. No… someone.

  Someone trying to sneak into the camp.

  He wasn’t sure how he sensed the intruder. It was a subtle thing. A distortion. A faint wrongness in how the world breathed around him. As though something had draped itself in a thin veil that didn’t quite mask its existence.

  He rose silently and moved toward the merchant wagons, senses sharpened, breath steady.

  He leaned toward a nearby guard and whispered, “I think there’s someone here.”

  The guard stiffened, nodded, then sprinted toward Hu Bo.

  If Algraves sensed a threat and the guards did not, it meant one thing.

  A cultivator.

  Or worse.

  Algraves lowered his stance and slipped into stealth. Heel to toe. Weight low. Breathing controlled. His senses reached outward. He strained to detect whatever was hiding itself.

  He almost missed it.

  He nearly walked straight past it.

  But there. A sound. A featherlight crush of grass beneath a foot.

  His body reacted before conscious thought. He lunged sideways in one of the odd leaping movements that had become instinct. His fist slammed into something solid.

  A shimmer. A distortion. And then a figure erupted into visibility, ripped from whatever technique it had used to hide.

  Its face twisted in fury.

  It shrieked and lunged, unleashing a storm of blows.

  From the darkness all around them came the sound of shouting. Men and women screaming warnings and battle cries. The ring of steel. The thud of feet. The chaos of sudden combat swallowing the night.