The Marked Path

The leftmost tunnel swallows you whole. Cold air hums against your skin like a held breath, and your borrowed lantern throws shapes that twitch when you don't look directly at them. Hours pass — or maybe only minutes wearing the costume of hours. The walls glisten with a damp that smells faintly of pine smoke and something older.

When you finally emerge, Barylon is wrong. The town below is smaller, its rooftops thatched where you remember slate. No mill wheel turns by the river. The air tastes of a century you've never breathed.

And there, seated on a flat stone not ten paces from the tunnel mouth, is a woman in a grey traveling cloak. She does not look surprised to see you. "You took longer than I thought, Wren," she says quietly, folding her hands. She knows your name.