Chapter 32. Wyrdcallers

He arrived just after dawn, when the sky was the color of bruised silk. A threadbare cloak, ragged at the hems and dulled by years of wear, draped from his shoulders like a funeral pall. Pale light spilled over thorned barricades and caught in the ragged tears of his garment. Mud, thick and glistening, clung to the soles of his bare feet, tracing veins of dirt up his ankles. His eyes—too large for the gaunt planes of his face—gazed steadily forward, luminous as wet stones.

When the sentries discovered him at Thornroot’s eastern edge, he said nothing. He did not stumble or plead. Instead he lifted one blistered arm, palm up, as though offering himself like an unwrapped relic. Branded above the wrist was the Council’s mark: a scarred rune scorched into the flesh, its edges still smoking in his pale dawn-light. A symbol of ownership. Of things used. Of lives spent.

In minutes, Aeryn found herself standing over him. The air smelled of pine resin and embers from the nearby fi