The plains had been kind to them these past few days - clear skies, a steady wind that kept the insects at bay, and grass that rippled like the sea under the sun. Even the caravan beasts seemed to fall into a lazy rhythm, their padded feet thumping in time with the wagon wheels. Ren had almost convinced himself that life on the road wasn’t so bad. It felt like a drawn-out picnic with fewer blankets and more arguments about who had to sleep on the damp ones.

  So of course the weather chose that exact moment to remind him why no one sane settled on the open plains.

  The storm rolled over the horizon with the subtlety of a war drum. Clouds swelled black and sickly green, shot through with veins of lightning that didn’t strike downward so much as crawl across the sky in jagged, shimmering webs. The air thickened with the coppery tang of ozone, every breath tinged with something sharp and metallic.

  “Off the wagons!” Sinclair barked. His voice cut through the rising wind, crisp and unquestionable. “Tarp the supplies! Get the beasts down and tethered - find low ground if you can!”

  The camp exploded into motion. Ren followed on instinct, yanking canvas from the wagon bed and throwing it over crates of dried grain and salted meat. He caught a glimpse of Raven standing calm despite the building gale, robes snapping around her like restless shadows. Her eyes tracked the storm like she could read its intent better than the rest of them.

  The first raindrops hit like needles - sharp, stinging, unnaturally cold. Ren swore under his breath and ducked under the tarp with two crates, only to freeze.

  The air inside glowed.

  Faint green luminescence crawled across the sacks and jars, spreading like mold in fast-forward. It flickered, pulsed, and rippled in time with the thunder overhead. Ren yanked his hands back.

  “Leo!” he shouted. “Supplies are reacting!”

  The young mage practically dove over, cloak flapping behind him. He shoved Ren aside and peered under the tarp. His eyes widened. “Storm-soaked mana. It’s seeping into anything porous.”

  “Meaning what?” Ren demanded.

  “Meaning half our food will try to kill us if we don’t purge it before nightfall.”

  Ren pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course. Because heaven forbid we have a single normal dinner.”

  The storm settled in like an unwanted dinner guest who refused to take a hint - pounding them with rain, wind, and green-tinged light for hours. Tents strained against their ropes, canvas flapping like it might tear free at any moment. The caravan beasts huddled low, eyes reflecting the mana-charged air.

  Inside a lopsided shelter made of tarps and crates, Ren set up the makeshift “kitchen.” It was a disaster. Half the rations glowed faintly green. The other half smelled like wet wool. He had one working firepit, shielded by rocks and Raven’s wards.

  “Don’t cook the glowing stuff,” Drake offered from where he sat sharpening his axe.

  “Really?” Ren deadpanned. “Here I was planning mana-glow stew. Maybe it’d sprout legs and walk itself out of the pot.”

  Drake smirked. The steady scrape of whetstone over steel filled the shelter.

  Ren crouched over a sack of flour - untouched. “Okay. Flour’s good. Dried beans… questionable. Salted pork - ” He sniffed and winced. “ - absolutely cursed.”

  He glanced over at Leo. “Tell me you’ve got a spell for fixing contaminated food.”

  Leo looked damp, exhausted, and deeply unhelpful. “Purification is cleric magic. Best I can do is slow the mana’s spread, but that might… feed it instead.”

  “So basically useless,” Ren summarized.

  Raven raised an eyebrow without looking up from her sword. “You’re the cook. Make do.”

  Ren muttered something she definitely heard but chose to ignore.

  He sorted the supplies into three piles: safe, suspicious, and actively trying to crawl away. The last pile he shoved outside with a shovel. The rain hit the glowing sacks with a hiss like acid.

  The safe pile was depressingly small.

  Still, he’d built meals out of worse. First, the flour - mixed with clean water. No glow. Good. The beans - boiled twice until the froth lost its shimmer. Less good, but edible.

  The meat was the problem.

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  Ren eyed the salted pork the way one might regard a corpse that could still sit up. “Lovely. Radioactive bacon.”

  Sinclair wandered by. “You could use the fresh kill.”

  Ren stared at him. “Would you like to explain to the expedition why we cooked one of the haulers?”

  “…Fair.” Sinclair retreated.

  The pork hummed softly under Ren’s nose - never a reassuring sign. Dangerous… but maybe manageable. He sliced a paper-thin strip and dropped it into the pan.

  It sizzled. Curled. Then released a faint green mist.

  Ren jerked back. “Fantastic. It exudes poison.”

  His Threads stirred, uneasy.

  He hesitated only a heartbeat before grabbing a jar of salt - mana-cleansed, expensive, precious. He sprinkled some over the pork.

  The mist sparked… hissed… and vanished.

  Ren blinked. Tried again. Same result.

  A grin spread across his face. “Alright, storm. You want to play alchemy? Let’s dance.”

  Hours later, the shelter smelled of fresh, unevenly baked bread and a thick bean stew laced with carefully neutralized pork. Herbs and foraged wild onions masked the faint metallic tang. The bread was dense and slightly burnt, but no one complained.

  Drake inhaled half his bowl. “Could use more salt.”

  Ren lifted the ladle in a threatening manner.

  Sinclair chuckled. “Not bad, Chef. Truly.”

  Raven didn’t say anything - she didn’t have to. She went back for seconds.

  Leo, exhausted but smiling, added, “You may have saved us from starvation. Not bad for a cook.”

  Ren wiped his hands and sank beside the fire. The storm still roared, but for now there was warmth, food, and something like camaraderie.

  Not peace. But close enough.

  He wondered - only briefly - how many storms, literal or otherwise, he’d be expected to cook them through before this journey ended.

  The night was clear after the storm, but Sinclair felt its weight pressed into his ribs. The caravan rested across the plain, firepits burning low, embers snapping like brittle bones. He stood at the outer ring of defenses, hand on his sword’s pommel, watching the wind ripple the tall grass.

  Ren had turned in hours ago, though Sinclair doubted he slept. The boy was still too young for real rest in these lands. Sinclair exhaled slowly, but his breath always circled back to the same ache:

  Ethan should have been here instead of him.

  Reckless, infuriating Ethan - who had carried them through worse. Who had laughed in the dark when everyone else shook. Ethan was bones under stone now, buried in a cavern that would never remember his name. Sinclair had survived - if survival meant dragging yourself forward because stopping would hurt worse.

  He glanced toward the wagons. Ren’s cooking fire had still been warm when he’d passed by earlier - a ridiculous, stubborn little beacon. Ren had made a meal out of disaster tonight. He’d coaxed laughter out of the others. Even Raven had smirked over her bowl.

  For a moment, Sinclair had almost forgotten how doomed this expedition felt.

  Almost.

  His mind drifted to Perrin - bright, hopeful, newly evolved Perrin - who had torn through cultists like a starving wolf and then vanished into the storm of this cursed journey. Something about it all felt wrong. Too fast. Too sharp. Like Perrin had been reshaped by forces none of them understood.

  He drew his blade an inch, checking the edge. Clean. Steady. Yet he still stared at it, half expecting rot to bloom along the steel. Corruption seeped into everything these days - stone, beasts, people.

  He let the sword slide home with a quiet click.

  Hours stretched thin. Every whisper of grass sounded like a footstep. Every flicker of shadow looked almost like a shape.

  He thought of Ren. How quickly the boy had grown. When they’d met, Ren fought with pure instinct and panic - more luck than skill. Now he moved with intent. Not mastery, but something blooming. Something dangerous.

  Sinclair had seen this before: prodigies the world tried to shape into weapons. They burned fast. They burned bright. And they burned out.

  Would Ren survive long enough to become whatever he was meant to be?

  Ethan would have believed in him. Ethan believed in everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it. Sinclair wasn’t sure whether that made Ethan a visionary or a fool.

  Either way, Ethan wasn’t here to bet on Ren’s future.

  The burden fell to Sinclair.

  And he wasn’t sure he could bear it.

  Every morning, he woke with the certainty that he wouldn’t survive this expedition. Soraya had sent him here for a reason. Too many recruits. Too much risk. Too many ghosts behind him already.

  Ren, Perrin, Leo - kids, all of them. Too full of hope. Too certain they’d defy the odds.

  He wasn’t ready to bury more of them.

  He stared at the grass, remembering faces - young, trusting, gone. The weight of command pressed cold against his ribs.

  “They’ll have to learn not to need me,” he murmured.

  “Perhaps,” Raven said from behind him. “Or perhaps they’ll surprise you.”

  He hadn’t heard her approach. She never made a sound unless she wanted to.

  She turned and walked away, her silhouette swallowed by darkness. Firelight slid over her robes, then vanished. His hands tightened uselessly.

  She would never be his. She would never look at him the way he looked at her. The ache of it sat heavy, stubborn as old bruises.

  He thought again of the young ones - Ren cooking through disaster, Leo chasing knowledge, Perrin laughing too hard at everything. Too young for this world.

  And he was too old. Too worn. Too full of the kind of knowing that rotted hope.

  He looked up at the endless sky and wondered whether Ethan was somewhere among the stars, watching.

  If he was, Sinclair hoped he wasn’t laughing.

  Because Sinclair didn’t expect to live through the end of this road.

  But maybe - just maybe - someone else would.

  And for now, that had to be enough.