Serel was already brimming with excitement about exploring. Vera didn’t even need to hear her say it. It was clear in the sparkle of her eyes, the way she rocked on her toes, and the little grin she failed to hold back.

  So Vera brandished Stillwake, and off they went. Mark of Hollow Reach tore reality open before them, and she decided their first stop should be somewhere half-familiar. They stepped through the tear into the massive vaulted hall of carved bone and black shale they’d glimpsed on their descent. Pale lights shimmered above, casting faint illumination over heaps of colossal skeletal remains piled in cracked tiers.

  Serel let out a soft coo at the sight.

  Vera glanced down. That was a new sound. It was… dangerously cute.

  She resisted the sudden urge to scoop the girl up and coax more of those noises out of her like she was some kind of doll, and instead looked around. They stood at the base of a giant skeleton, its shape vaguely serpentine. The skull was half missing, one side collapsed inward, pieces jutting like broken pillars.

  It had cost a fair bit of Resonance to bring them here directly, but still well within Vera’s capacity. The stone and bone between their last position and this chamber didn’t appear to have made the transfer any more expensive.

  “Mommy, Mommy, look!” Serel cried, pointing deep across the hall, past dozens of other titanic remains.

  Vera narrowed her eyes until she caught what the girl meant. “Huh. Would you look at that. Want to see it up close?”

  Serel nodded hard. “Mmm!”

  “Alright then. Howl, come on out.”

  From Vera’s shadow, a stream of wisps rose into the air, coalescing into the Echoshade Howler. The wolf stood nearly three times Serel’s height, its spectral frame flickering faintly with every breath.

  Serel squealed, dashing forward to hug the wolf’s leg and press her face into its misty fur. “Howlie! Welcome back!”

  The wolf dipped his head, nudging her shoulder gently.

  “He’s been here the whole time,” Vera said with a light chuckle, “but I’m glad you’re happy.”

  She stepped forward, hooked her arms under Serel, and lifted her up, drawing a surprised but delighted giggle as she set the girl onto Howl’s saddle. Patting the wolf’s side, she pointed ahead. “Would you mind bringing us over there?”

  Howl lowered his head again. Vera vaulted onto his back, settling behind Serel and wrapping her hands around the saddle’s grips.

  Then the wolf leapt forward.

  They shot across the hall, Serel laughing as the spectral beast bounded over fallen bones and ducked beneath ribcages that curved like ruined arches. Even with Howl’s speed, it actually took a few minutes to cross the distance, but eventually, they slowed before a sheer wall of black shale veined with pale marrowbone.

  Serel tilted her head back, nearly tipping into Vera’s arms, as she gazed up at a skeleton lodged in the wall. It was smaller than the largest remains in the chamber, but still five or six times bigger than Howl.

  “Mommy, it’s a dragon!”

  Vera steadied her before she could fall. “It is. Do you like dragons?”

  Serel leaned back even farther until she was looking at Vera upside down. “Mmm! They’re so cool!”

  “What a coincidence. I was just thinking the same thing.”

  Good to know that kids’ appreciation for dragons in this world mirrored hers.

  Vera turned her gaze up alongside Serel’s. The dragon’s bones stretched along the wall, half-buried in the shale. Its spine curved upward through the rock, ribs jutting out like a collapsed fan, and the skull was wedged high above, jaws frozen open.

  Ashen Legacy might have leaned more toward the gothic and grim, but it wouldn’t have been a proper fantasy world without dragons. That said, they were pretty rare—usually reserved for bosses or important questlines. Not the sort of creatures you saw players riding around on as mounts. She’d always liked that. Dragons should feel special.

  Although with Serel apparently so taken with them, she couldn’t help but imagine how cool it would have been to show off a dragon mount.

  “Mommy, how did it die?” Serel asked suddenly, her voice more subdued.

  “I don’t know,” Vera replied. “Everything down here is so old it’s impossible to say. This one’s smaller than most dragons, though. It probably wasn’t that old.”

  “Small?” Serel turned wide eyes on her. “Have you seen bigger ones?”

  “Sure I have. Even fought some, technically.”

  Wonder bloomed in the girl’s face. “Did you win?”

  Vera smiled. “Of course I did.”

  “Wow…” Serel breathed. She studied Vera for a few seconds, then turned back toward the bones. “I want to see a real dragon as well!”

  “Well, maybe we can arrange that at some point. But they’re rare, and feisty. Dragons are kind of infamous for not liking humans, other than as snacks.”

  “Snacks?”

  “Yep. Especially little girls like you.” Vera lifted Serel just a fraction, both hands on her sides. The girl wriggled, giggling hard as she tried to fend her off.

  “No, stop! They won’t eat me!”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Noooo!”

  Vera laughed, letting her go. She turned in the saddle, scanning the chamber for where to head next.

  Once Serel finally had her fill of staring at the dragon, Howl carried them onward. They wove deeper into the ossuary, sometimes running, sometimes leaping, Serel’s laughter echoing through the hollow halls and Vera occasionally checking for people with Mark of the Stillbound Veil. Where they didn’t find open routes, she used Mark of Hollow Reach, and where they did, they followed bone-carved passages branching away from the first hall.

  Their wandering turned into a small adventure of its own, each new chamber holding skeletons of strange beasts, some small and twisted, others even larger than the first they’d seen. To Serel, every single one was a marvel. Like the bone-carved houses of Marrowfen above, these remnants of some ancient past kept her rapt far longer than Vera thought any child could stay fascinated with the same thing.

  Riding Howl only added to the thrill. Racing through cavernous vaults on the back of a giant wolf faster than most horses was likely not an experience Serel would soon forget. And Vera was finding plenty of enjoyment in it as well. Both the sights and the freedom. There was something humbling about standing so close to the remains of creatures that had once dwarfed castles. She also found the faint Resonance seeping from them oddly fascinating, each with its own subtle flavor. Up above, she hadn’t paid much attention to this apparent sense of hers, but down here it was constant, and she couldn’t help but notice.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  They probably explored like that for a couple of hours—pausing to inspect bones, using Hollow Reach to bypass dead-ends—before reaching the first chamber Vera actually recognized. Howl padded out of a narrow passage onto a stone outcrop that overlooked a sheer drop into darkness.

  From the opposite side stretched a broad bridge of bone-veined obsidian, lit by globes of pale white Resonance. It led to the chamber’s center, where a wide circular platform waited, its floor engraved with cracked rings of glyphwork. Scattered across it were dozens of still figures, glinting faintly in the cold light.

  Overlooking them from a dais stood a high-backed throne of pure white bone, shaped more like a funerary monument than a seat. Behind it, ribs arced upward, forming a vaulted canopy that made the whole space feel half-cathedral, half-tomb.

  Vera’s gaze lingered on the throne. Then she called Stillwake and opened a rift, stepping them out onto the platform itself.

  Serel’s head swiveled, her eyes going wide at the sight of the motionless figures surrounding them. They looked like knights, clad in bone-forged plate with helmets sealed shut, but their bodies had been calcified under a smooth crust of pale marrow. Each stood frozen mid-gesture, weapons at their feet, caught in some eternal tableau. There was also a tension to the silence in the air that felt heavy, almost as if warning them away.

  Not that Serel seemed to notice.

  The girl wriggled to be let down, and Vera obliged, landing lightly on the floor herself. She kept her eyes fixed on Serel as the girl approached one of the figures without any fear, studying it with childlike curiosity.

  “Mommy, what are these?”

  “These…” Vera’s eyes slid over the still knight. “Are the Silent Votaries.”

  Serel blinked at her, looking confused.

  Vera stepped closer, pointing to markings etched into the figure’s chestplate—a sigil shaped like a struck-through tongue, paired with Hollow glyphs. “That’s the mark of silence. And the Hollow sigils beside it. We have similar ones in Sablewatch Hollow, but these aren’t tied to House Hollow. They’re the emblems of the Silent Lords. The Silent Votaries were their personal guards.”

  Serel tilted her head. “Who are the… Silence Lords?”

  Vera smiled faintly. “Bad guys, to put it simply. They served the Hollow King, who tried to destroy the world about ten years ago.” She gestured around them. “This place is where the leader of the Silent Lords was defeated. These guys are what’s left.”

  That was why she recognized this chamber. It was the final boss room of the Chamber of the Quiet Vow, which had been a major raid in Marrowfen during the first expansion. The boss had been Silent Lord Veyrith, Vowpale Ascendant. Lore-wise, these areas were supposed to have become unreachable after the fight, ‘locked away’ from intruders. Interesting that she and Serel had managed to stumble across it like this.

  Serel looked between Vera and the unmoving knights. “Who defeated them, Mommy?”

  Vera arched an amused brow. “I did.”

  At least, if the monument she’d found was to be believed.

  Serel squinted at her. “Really…?”

  “Really.”

  The girl looked from Vera back to the frozen figures. “…Did Mama help?”

  Vera paused. “…Maybe. I can’t quite remember.”

  A slight frown tugged at Serel’s brow, but she soon turned away, stepping toward another knight for a closer look.

  Vera continued watching her for a moment longer, then turned to Howl. “Keep an eye on her, would you?”

  The wolf dipped its head, then lumbered after Serel, standing watch as she started moving between the Votaries.

  “Oh, don’t touch anything sharp,” Vera called out after the girl, realizing how it looked letting a kid walk around among a tiny arsenal of fallen weapons. Serel gave her a nod before continuing.

  Vera turned her attention to her nearest knight. It was strange seeing them like this. In the game, they’d kept spawning throughout the fight until the boss was beaten, then froze forever. Thinking about it, she, or rather Veralyth Mournvale, would have been directly responsible for them ending up this way.

  She spent a few minutes studying the figure, trying to attune to the faint Resonance it gave off. It reminded her of her own. That made sense, she supposed, since the Hollow King’s power had always been adjacent to House Hollow.

  A sharp laugh pulled her attention back. Serel had left the knights and made her way to the throne. She’d climbed into it, her legs dangling far above the floor, while Howl crouched low in front of her like some sworn vassal. Serel sat there grinning.

  Vera blinked a few times at the sight. That was… something.

  Serel giggled, raising her arm like a queen giving orders. “Howlie, bring me everything shiny!”

  The wolf rose, padded to a fallen shield, gripped it carefully in its teeth, and laid it before the throne. Serel squealed and demanded another, and another.

  As Vera watched the girl command her spectral ‘vassal’ to fetch offerings, she felt a mix of amusement and exasperation. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was supposed to be raising a bright little girl or if this was a tiny tyrant in the making.

  A spark of inspiration hit her.

  Almost without thinking, she’d sat down on the floor, parchment and a charcoal stick in hand, taken from the kit she’d bought Serel. Before she realized it, her fingers were moving, sketching the sight of the girl perched in her too-large throne with her loyal wolf standing at attention. The motions felt strange and familiar all at once, like a habit she’d forgotten yet somehow remembered again. She hadn’t drawn in over three years, and she wasn’t sure Veralyth ever had, but the lines still came easily, smudging her fingertips black as the girl’s rough face took shape on the page.

  It was when she traced the smile on that face that her hand stopped.

  Vera looked up from the sketch. Serel hadn’t stopped smiling, still lost in her little game of thrones.

  That smile… That was what had inspired her. That was why she’d kept finding excuses to draw it out of the girl these last few days. Beyond just the warmth it stirred in her chest, there was something else there she hadn’t recognized until now. A spark of something deeper, something she thought had died in her. Even if her body wasn’t wracked with pain anymore, she didn’t think that would return so quickly.

  But…

  Somehow, putting that smile to paper felt wrong.

  She couldn’t properly explain why. Only that it felt as if she didn’t have the right to capture that smile, to pin it down into permanence. That moment of happy, childish innocence.

  …Was she doing alright?

  The doubt crept in before she could stop it.

  The day had been going smoothly. She thought their moments together had been good. Almost natural, despite how some of them scared her. Far better than she would have ever expected. But… last night had still happened. And the truth of it all hadn’t changed. The reality of their situation. The unnaturalness of it. The suddenness of Vera becoming a guardian of a child she barely knew.

  If it were only her own awkwardness, her own inexperience, then maybe it wouldn’t matter so much. But that wasn’t all, was it? Because while Serel had her childish moments like this—moments that undoubtedly filled Vera with warmth—there was also another side to the girl. Glimpses of hurt, of quiet, and a careful maturity.

  And those were the moments that made Vera doubt now.

  She didn’t understand that side of Serel. It terrified her, for more reasons than she could name. And she couldn’t help but wonder if she could really sit here and bask in the warmth of these playful moments when she had no idea how to face the other ones?

  Was she doing the wrong thing by leaving them untouched as she had? By not trying to reach further into Serel’s worries and fears?

  Everything she knew about parenting—even if it wasn’t much—told her that she was. That those were the things a parent was supposed to magically solve. That it was their responsibility.

  But she was afraid of digging into it. Afraid that it might open doors better left closed.

  She knew how unhealthy that sounded. She didn’t necessarily have the best relationship with her own mind, or with others. But when she’d been growing up, she had faced plenty of problems she couldn’t fix, so she’d learned to bottle them up, to ignore them until they dulled or disappeared. And it had genuinely been a workable method of coping for her. Maybe it hadn’t always been the best way forward, but she knew several situations where it had been better than the alternative. Because sometimes, trying to face things head-on just meant everything blew up in your face, and that rarely improved anything.

  For her, time had always been the better cure. Even her night terrors had grown far less frequent with it.

  She was convinced there were things with Serel that still needed to be resolved—worries and hurts on both their sides that lingered. But focusing on the good, clinging to it, was its own reassurance. A promise that this was how things could be.

  And promises could heal.

  Vera honestly believed that.

  So why, then, did she feel so damn hesitant to finish sketching Serel’s smile all of a sudden?

  She sighed, lowering the charcoal and parchment in her lap. Her gaze stayed on Serel.

  The girl’s legs swung idly above the floor, and when her eyes drifted over Vera, she raised a hand and waved with bright enthusiasm. “Mommy, look!”

  Vera let the sound of her laughter wash over her. And just like that, her hand was moving again, pressing charcoal to parchment to capture that smile. The hesitation in her chest didn’t quite ease, and she knew she still had a lot of questions to find answers to. But for now, she was simply glad that—even in this new world she’d been unceremoniously dropped into without warning—she was allowed something small like this.

  She thought that, at least for today, this was enough.