Chapter 64. Whitefall

We left at dawn with packs that didn’t rattle and faces that didn’t ask questions.

Syra took point. Neris vanished and reappeared like a second, smug shadow in the places you most wanted walls. Rhea trotted backward half the time, telling us about a vendor who’d tried to sell her counterfeit salt yesterday and how she’d talked him into giving her the real bag plus two lemons and some kind of pickled fish because she’d smiled like a thief and said “please.” Orla walked steadily, like a woman who has found a pace and no longer apologizes for it. Kael’s stride matched mine without effort. Leaf bounded ahead, then back, then ahead again, collecting miles and adoration as if we’d promised to measure the day in his joy.

Whitefall lay to the north where the cliff breaks and the river dives, a place where the sea climbs the land every afternoon just to prove it knows how. The vault—if the legends weren’t liars—hung behind the waterfall like a breath you never let go.

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