That was not the plan
Ember halts mid-step on the winding path, every nerve snapping to attention. Her ears twitch, catching a low, distant rumble—like a beast stirred too soon from slumber. The air thickens, heavy and oppressive, as if the forest itself holds its breath. Ancient trees shudder, their towering forms groaning beneath an unseen weight. Leaves tremble overhead, their gentle rustle now a frantic whisper.
A violent burst of wings fractures the stillness. Birds erupt from the canopy in a chaos of feathers and shrill cries, their panic slicing the air like a dying scream. They wheel and dart, frantic shapes against the graying sky, fleeing from something Ember can’t yet see. Shadows flicker as their wings blot out the sun—just for a breath—but it’s enough. The air grows heavier. Wrong.
A gust barrels past her—hot, dry, unnatural. It carries a stench that claws at her throat. Ember gags, her stomach knotting. The scent is acrid, bitter, fouled beyond recognition. It cuts through the clean forest air, sharp as rusted iron, leaving a metallic tang that coats her tongue. Her nose wrinkles against it, but it lingers—cloying, persistent. Like the forest itself has been marked... wounded.
Her claws dig into the earth, feeling the slow rot creeping beneath her feet. The soil hums, wrong somehow, tainted at its roots. A cold unease blooms deep in her chest, heavy as wet stone, settling where warmth used to be.
Her gaze jerks toward the lakeside camp.
“That’s... not right,” she whispers. The words scratch her throat, bitter and metallic.
It had been quiet when she left—just the steady clang of Grant’s hammer, the soft whirr of Twitch and Sprocket’s latest disaster-in-the-making. Predictable noise. Comforting, even. But this? This wasn’t the pulse of a forge or the hum of tinkering hands.
This was hunger. Old. Hollow.
Her tail lashes, sharp against the back of her legs. The calm that had once settled here feels brittle now, fraying at the edges. The air hums with something raw, something waiting.
But her legs root her in place, the cold creeping higher, tighter. It isn’t dread exactly—dread she knows. This is colder. Older. A hollowed-out kind of fear that settles deep, where it can’t be reached.
The wind shifts again. The stench thickens, curling around her, slick and heavy.
The camp shouldn’t sound like that.
The camp shouldn’t like that.
Her muscles snap to life.
She runs.
Ember stumbles to a halt, boots skidding on the uneven dirt, heart punching against her ribs. Her breath rasps in and out—sharp, shallow—but it isn’t just the run. It’s the cold, lead-heavy dread sinking into her gut.
The world’s wrong. Twisted. Like it’s been peeled back and something darker is bleeding through.
The lake’s scent—freshwater and rusted iron from the docks—is gone. In its place: smoke. Thick, acrid, coiling in the air like something alive. It bites her throat, claws at her nose, the tang of scorched earth heavy on her tongue. The ground feels brittle beneath her feet, like it’s been hollowed out, stripped of anything living.
But it’s more than fire.
Something fouler lingers—metallic and sharp, like blood left too long in the sun, laced with the electric sting of magic. Her fur bristles. Every instinct screams. Run. Leave. Now.
Instead, she stares.
The lakeside camp is gone.
Not destroyed. Not torn apart.
Erased.
A crater yawns before her, raw and blackened, its edges jagged where the earth has been torn open. Heat still bleeds from it, rising in shimmering waves. Veins of molten rock pulse deep below, faint, like a dying heartbeat. Ash swirls in the updraft, gray flakes catching on her fur.
The dock—where Twitch fished on lazy afternoons—snapped to splinters. The forge—Grant’s forge, always burning, always loud—gone. No wreckage. No rubble.
Just absence.
Her tail flicks, a twitchy, nervous lash. Her claws dig into her palms, sharp pain grounding her in the haze of disbelief.
No bodies.
No blood.
Only ruin.
A hot gust surges past, thick with burned metal and that bitter, ozone tang—spent magic. Wild. Untethered. Dangerous.
Her mind scrambles for logic. An accident? No. Too clean. Too final.
A purge.
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Something wanted this place gone.
Her breath shudders out. The weight in her chest tightens.
“Grant?” Her voice barely breaks the silence. “Twitch? Sprocket?”
Nothing answers.
The emptiness yawns wider.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Ember feels small—smaller than she’s ever been.
Ember drops to a crouch, her knees scraping against the rough, blackened earth. Her fingers tremble as they fumble with the straps of her pack. The leather feels wrong—cold and slick, as if it’s soaked up the stink of smoke and ruin that hangs heavy in the air. Ash coats it in a thin, gray film, the acrid scent clawing at her throat. She swallows hard, bile rising, but there’s no time for that. Not now.
The words echo hollow in her head, thin against the rising panic. Her hands ignore them, jerking the pack open with too much force. The straps creak—almost a scream—and the contents spill out, skidding across the scorched ground.
Knives—sleek, silvered blades glinting weakly beneath the ashen sky. She grabs one on instinct, the cool metal biting into her palm. It feels light. Pointless. She tosses it aside.
She digs deeper.
Rations, hard and stale, wrapped in cloth now blackened with soot. Trinkets, small enchanted things, their glow guttering like dying fireflies. She pushes them away——the urgency clawing at her ribs.
Her breath shortens, sharp and quick, the heat pressing in. Sweat beads along her brow, mingling with grime as it slides past her temple. The air feels thick, waiting, heavy with some unspoken threat.
Her pulse pounds, each beat loud and jagged in her ears.
Then—there. Her fingers scrape leather. She yanks it free—
Empty.
The pack hangs inside out, limp in her grasp.
“No. No, no, no—” The words fall out in a thin, broken whisper. Her throat tightens. “It was here.”
She was . She had checked before leaving camp. Felt the weight.
So where—
Her mind claws backward. Before the explosion—she’d been at the supply crates, shifting things around, sorting—had it slipped out then? Or—
A cold weight drops in her gut.
It’s what was inside.
The small blue pouch. The Broker’s gift. Communication gems—enchanted to spy, to listen, to watch. A leash, disguised as a favor. Her Mistress had ordered her to keep it close.
Her tail lashes, sharp and erratic.
The thought tastes bitter, coppery.
If the bag’s gone——someone else knows. Knows what it could do. Knows what could do.
Her throat tightens.
“Am I disposable now?” she whispers.
The idea crawls under her skin, hot and raw. Her claws dig deep into her palms, the sting grounding her.
If the Broker’s done with her—if the Mistress has cut the thread—
Then what is she now?
A loose end?
Or something worse
A rustle slices through the stillness.
Ember freezes. Breath caught, muscles coiled tight. The wind shifts, stirring the heavy scent of damp soil—but there’s something beneath it. Sharp. Electric. Like a storm hunched low, waiting to strike. A faint hum vibrates at the edge of her senses, thin and cold, crawling along her skin.
Her ears twitch. Every hair stands on end as her eyes sweep the twisted treeline. Her heart hammers—too loud, too fast—each thud a drumbeat in the suffocating hush. She presses herself into the shadows, the jagged bark of a scorched tree biting into her back. Its limbs curl above her, skeletal and blackened. Smoke coils through the air, heavy and bitter, stinging the back of her throat. She ignores it.
Focus.
Her fingers move—quick, precise—tracing sigils into the air. Lines. Curves. Sharp angles. The concealment spell blooms beneath her touch, cold and eager. Shadows rise in thick, oily ribbons, twining up her arms, slick and heavy as tar. They slither over her skin, greedy and clinging.
She lets them.
The demonic magic sinks into her like a second skin—weightless, seamless. She vanishes. Not gone, but hollowed out. A shadow inside shadows.
The forest holds its breath.
Ember listens.
A twig snaps. Heavy. Close. The earth shifts under the weight of it—something big. The hum thickens, sharp as copper on her tongue.
“Boss? Boss? Where’d the camp go?”
Scraps. His voice, high and panicked, splits the quiet.
Another answers—lower, tense. “Somethin’ big did this. Feel that magic? Wrong kinda magic.” Rocky. Usually loud. Carefree. Now? Careful. Watching.
Ember narrows her eyes as shapes emerge from the smoke.
Scraps. Rocky. Nibbler. Chonk.
The raccoon-like quadruplets shuffle into the clearing, their striped fur bristling, beady eyes wide. But they’re different—bigger. Where once they barely reached her knees, now they stretch to her waist. Muscles bulk beneath their fur. Claws glint like hooked daggers. Magic flickers around them—raw, unstable—crackling in the air like a storm about to break.
Her stomach sinks.
A new figure stumbles into the clearing.
Round. Dirt-smudged. Sprouting leafy green tufts.
Mr. Spuds.
The sentient potato hobbles forward, stubby root-legs dragging against the scorched ground. His beady eyes dart, leafy sprouts twitching like antennae on high alert.
Ember exhales, slow and shaky.
They’d grown.
Not just bulked up—evolved.
Her claws dig into the bark.
Grant.
If they’ve changed—if the bond still holds—then...
Her heart kicks against her ribs.