Threshold of Convergence

The wagon wheels groaned as they rolled over uneven stones, the sound slicing through the stillness of the forest road. The escort caravan moved steadily forward, its horses snorting clouds into the cool air. Sunlight filtered weakly through the canopy, long bars of gold slicing the shadows into trembling shapes. It should have felt peaceful. It didn’t.

Luneth sat at the front of the lead wagon, her posture steady, her hand resting lightly on the wood beside her. She didn’t speak, didn’t smile. The others had fallen into a low chatter behind her — Daelric cracking a joke about Kaori’s spell precision, Kaori reminding him she was still carrying healing salves for his reckless swings — but Luneth’s eyes were fixed ahead, sharp gaze moving constantly between the trees and the narrowing path.

Her fingers tapped once, twice, against the wood. A rhythm, small but precise. Kaori noticed it, even while pretending to watch the treeline. The tapping meant Luneth was already mapping three exits, two ambush points, and a kill zone. They trusted her. They always had.

A sudden caw overhead broke the silence — a raven launching from the branches in a flutter of wings. Daelric stiffened. “Bad omen.” Luneth didn’t turn. Her voice was calm, even cold: “No omen. Just a bird.” But her hand lingered near her staff a second longer than necessary. For a while, the forest settled again. The wheels bumped and rattled, leather bridles creaked softly, and the lantern hanging from the side of the wagon clinked gently against its hook. Somewhere deeper in the wood, something splashed once in unseen water and then went still. Every sound felt too distinct, as though the silence beneath it waited to swallow it whole.

Luneth breathed out slowly. She could feel something faint in the air — not the immediate prickle of danger, but the subtle tightening that came before. A distant tremor, echoing from deeper in the woods. A pattern only someone like her recognized. 

Far from the caravan, Shin moved along a smaller forest path, his boots sinking into damp earth. He’d left the guild early, the quest paper folded in his pocket, its ink already smudged with sweat from his palm. His task was straightforward — investigate disturbances reported in the Western Vale. Farmers spoke of livestock missing, of claw marks on their barns and howling at night. But Shin knew better than to believe it would be so simple.

The Abyss stirred faintly in him, threads of pressure against his skin like invisible cobwebs brushing along the curve of his jaw. His steps slowed. He crouched, tracing the grooves in the dirt — wagon wheels. Recent. And not just one cart; at least three, steady and closely spaced together.

He looked up, narrowing his eyes.

The Abyss whispered something he couldn’t quite grasp — more sensation than sound. A subtle pull in the back of his mind. As if the path ahead was not merely a direction…but a knot, tightening.

He exhaled sharply. Was it warning him… or calling him forward?

There was no answer. Only the faint rhythm beneath his ribs that wasn’t his own.

Back on the road, the caravan jolted violently. A shriek tore from the forest — guttural, wrong. Dark shapes burst from the brush, claws catching the sunlight.

Demons.

The drivers cried out, yanking reins as the horses reared. Kaori reacted first, leaping down and slamming her palm to the ground — a wall of searing flame roared up, cutting off half the creatures. Daelric drew his sword in a hiss of steel and charged. Luneth didn’t shout. She simply moved—and the movement itself cut like a blade through the chaos.

Two demons fell before anyone had even seen her raise her staff. Lightning cracked through the forest, its white-blue arc leaving a scorched path where the beasts had stood. She pivoted smoothly, every step calculated. Her focus wasn’t on the demons — but on the empty spaces between them, gauging the rhythm of the attack the same way a musician gauged an unseen beat. The clash was sharp and brutal. Daelric ripped through one creature with a flame-coated swing, its body bursting into acrid smoke. Kaori blocked another that lunged for the wagon driver, her blade glancing off its thick hide before she twisted and buried the edge in its throat. Within minutes, the ambush was broken. What remained of the demons hissed and crumbled, foul black smoke curling into the canopy like spoiled incense.

Kaori caught her breath. “Too organized…” she muttered. “They were waiting.”

“Not for us,” Luneth murmured. She wiped her blade clean with a strip of cloth, eyes distant. “Something drove them this direction. Pushed them down this road.”

Kaori fell quiet at that. Even Daelric spared a glance toward Luneth — because she rarely speculated. When she did, she was never wrong.

Miles behind, Shin knelt beside a spatter of black ichor soaking into the roots of a tree. Still warm. His chest tightened. He pressed his hand against it, feeling the thrum of the Abyss winding through his veins. It pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, faster, sharper. Something flashed in the edges of his vision: threads — dark and thin — weaving through the air like spider silk. They twisted around the broken forest, tightening, converging on a single point somewhere ahead. He blinked, and the vision vanished. Only trees. Only blood. Only silence.

He forced himself to stand. His shadow stretched long across the ground — and, for the briefest heartbeat, he thought he saw two shadows there. One his own… and one standing just behind him.

He spun. Nothing.

Only wind and leaves, whispering something he could almost understand but not quite.

The caravan pressed on. Tension still clung to every step. Daelric walked ahead, muttering curses beneath his breath, sword still drawn. Kaori kept glancing at Luneth, waiting for some calm reassurance to settle the air — a joke, a soft order, anything. But Luneth only stared down the road, silent.

She wasn’t tense. She was ready.

The ambush hadn’t been about killing them. She was certain of that now. Her mind had already reconstructed their movements — the hesitation of the leading demon, the way the others hung back until Daelric had committed his swing. They were waiting, probing, collecting information.

Her lips parted, no louder than a feather caught on wind. “…Soon.” But the word was swallowed by the squeal of a wagon wheel turning over stone.

Shin moved deeper into the trees, following the trail the Abyss seemed to carve for him. His hand brushed against the hilt of his sword, though he still didn’t draw it. The silence around him wasn’t merely empty — it was listening. With every step, the air seemed to press closer, like an unseen crowd closing in.

He paused at a fork in the road. Ahead, the ground was torn up — claw marks, horse tracks, scorch marks still smoking faintly. He knelt near a burned patch and ran his fingers through the ash. It was warm.

Kaori’s flames.

He didn’t who used it here, but the magic was unmistakable. Someone else had fought here. And not long ago.

The Abyss pulsed again, sharper this time. Pain lanced behind his eyes. He sucked in a breath and steadied himself. …Something is waiting, he whispered into the empty air.

Still — he did not turn back.

He walked on.

Night slipped quietly into the forest, draping shadows across the road like a veil. The caravan had found a clearing and made camp. Firelight flickered against the trees. Kaori leaned against the wagon wheel, staring at the small flames, Daelric hunched nearby sharpening his sword in slow, deliberate strokes. Sparks jumped with each pull of the whetstone.

Luneth sat several paces away beneath the wide roots of a pine, her back to the tree, her knees drawn lightly up. She did not speak. She did not eat. Her eyes were fixed on the road they’d traveled, as though listening for footsteps only she could hear.

Far behind, Shin froze mid-step. Something cold traced the line of his spine; a presence — faint but undeniable — brushed against the edge of his perception. He turned sharply, staring into the darkness. No one there. No sound but wind. But he knew.

Someone else had just looked back at him.

He clenched his hand around the hilt of his sword and forced himself forward, the whisper of the Abyss threading through his thoughts like a black ribbon.

The roads were converging.

The threads were tightening.

And whether it was the Abyss, fate, or something else entirely… neither he nor the caravan could escape what was waiting.