The Outlands didn't have roads.
They had scars — broken paths carved by the dead and half-buried beneath time.
Kael moved slowly through one of them now, a dry gully choked with brittle roots and bones long picked clean. The light was gray and harsh beneath the ash-clouded sky, and even Ash moved more warily, ears flat, body low.
They were two days from the Lifebinder ruin now.
Two days of silence, scavenged mushrooms, and restless sleep.
Kael still hadn't tried to bind again. Not yet. Not until he understood the cost.
But the mark on his arm still pulsed — faint, green, alive.
Ash froze.
A low growl rumbled from his throat.
Kael turned sharply, senses flaring.
There — just beyond the ridge. Smoke. Faint. Controlled. Not a wildfire. A campfire.
He motioned for Ash to stay low and crept up the slope.
What he saw made him pause.
A young woman stood in a shallow clearing, one arm tied with a strip of torn linen. Blood soaked her side, and she swayed slightly as she stirred a pot over a weak fire. Her other hand — still steady — held a bone-handled knife, carved with symbols Kael didn't recognize.
Her hair was dark, half-hacked at the shoulder with a blade. Her back was scarred — not with lash marks, but long, jagged burns like she'd been branded multiple times and never healed properly.
She didn't notice him at first.
Until Ash let out a low chuff.
Her body turned like a whip.
The knife was up in a second — no hesitation. Her eyes, a stormy gray, locked on Kael with raw calculation.
"Stay back."
Her voice was low. Flat. Dead calm.
Kael raised his hands slowly.
"I'm not here to take anything."
"Everyone's here to take something," she replied.
"I'm alone."
She glanced at Ash.
"That's not alone."
Kael smiled, weakly. "Fair."
He stepped into the light.
"I'm injured. And I think you are too. Maybe we help each other."
"Help," she repeated, like it was a foreign word.
He nodded. "No lies. Just shelter. I don't care who you are."
That seemed to amuse her. "You should."
They shared silence by the fire for several minutes before she relented and let him sit — not close, but not too far.
Kael noticed that she never turned her back to him. Not once.
The wound at her side was deeper than she let on. Caked with blood. Fresh enough to need treatment. But she clearly wasn't the type to ask.
So he didn't offer right away.
He waited.
"You're not from the clans," she said finally, eyes never leaving his face.
"No."
"Not from the coast either."
"No."
"Circle trash?"
Kael stiffened. "…Used to be."
She nodded, as if that made sense. "That why you're out here? Magic gone bad?"
"Something like that."
She went quiet again.
Then, as if it were nothing, she muttered, "They killed my brother for being born with light in his hands. Cut him open to see how he glowed inside. Said they were curing him."
Kael looked up. Her voice hadn't cracked. Not once.
"I'm sorry," he said, softly.
She didn't answer.
Night fell like a curtain. The fire crackled low.
Ash curled between them, cautious but quiet.
The woman finally sat down — not opposite Kael, but angled sideways. As if she didn't trust him, but didn't fear him either.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She hesitated.
"…Riven."
"Kael."
"Kael what?"
He thought of his house. His father. The name they'd stripped from him like armor.
"Just Kael," he said.
She accepted that.
They sat in silence again.
Then Kael said, "You're bleeding too much."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
He moved to his pack and pulled out a small strip of moss he'd harvested near the ruin. Not regular moss — this kind pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. He ground it between his palms and held it out.
"This will draw the poison. It's not… normal medicine. But it works."
Riven eyed it. Then him.
And slowly, she pulled aside her torn tunic, exposing the gash beneath her ribs.
Kael swallowed.
Not from lust.
From grief.
She was lean, bruised, hardened by the wild — and her back was littered with half-healed scars. A body that had been used as a battlefield for too long.
He applied the moss paste with gentle hands.
She didn't flinch. But she didn't look at him either.
"You shouldn't help me," she said quietly. "I've killed for less than what you've seen."
"I've been betrayed for less than what I gave," he murmured.
Their eyes met.
Something raw passed between them.
And then, without another word, Riven laid back, watching the stars through the gaps in the trees.
Kael lay beside Ash.
And for the first time since exile… he didn't dream of Lyra.