Under False Skies

The shard hart’s death still echoed in him, faint as stone humming after a bell strike. Nathan’s chest buzzed with the memory of his throw—one bright arc across false sky, and it had actually mattered. One small victory at a time.

Nyx’s remark had been flat, almost bored—but she hadn’t denied it worked.
And the others hadn’t doubted him for a second.

That was what stuck. No narrowed eyes. No suspicion. They’d folded him into their formation as if Mason’s shadow didn’t cling to his skin, as if trust was something they could hand him without asking for proof.

He wanted to earn that.

Bren rechecked the bundle in her pack, fingers testing the wrap before she gave it an unceremonious pat. She caught Nathan watching.
“Guild’ll pay triple for proof like that.”

Nathan nodded. Good to know.

Tamsin’s knives whispered between her hands, quicksilver rhythm counting beats Nathan couldn’t hear. Alia adjusted her satchel, precise and calm, already onto the next wound she’d have to mend. They were scattered in a loose ring, slumped against stone, the chamber pulsing low around them — not quite camp, but a pause all the same.

Tough, every one of them. Tough enough that Mason’s murder-body hadn’t made them blink. Tough enough that a monster drinking the sky was just another night’s work.

Nathan flexed his fingers around his shield strap. He wasn’t tough. Not yet. But he’d hit once. He could do it again.

Tamsin grinned without looking up. “Normal enough. Try Calvesset clay in winter—you need a pickaxe just to dig a latrine. This is nothing.”

Bren snorted. “You whined louder than the shovel.”

“Only because you made me dig both trenches,” Tamsin shot back, cheerful as if they were trading jokes over ale instead of trudging through a monster’s lungs.

Calvesset. The name clanged against him—too familiar, slippery on his tongue. He opened his mouth, but the words tangled.

Alia’s cool fingers caught his wrist. “Stop fidgeting.”

Before he could answer, she was already smearing more salve across the cut on his arm. The stuff burned sharp—mint and something sharper, like pine needles dipped in acid. Nathan hissed.

She didn’t look up. “This root doesn’t grow in Eryndral. Cut wrong, it kills instead of heals.”

That shut him up fast. He watched her neat, precise hands tie off the bandage. Her expression never shifted—calm, exact, like she was mending fabric instead of flesh.

Behind them, Tamsin gave a mock shiver. “See? Don’t let Alia near your tea.”

Bren grunted. “Would improve it.”

Nathan couldn’t tell if they were joking.

The warding crystals in the recess throbbed faintly, washing the stone in a low hum. For a heartbeat, he let himself believe they were safe.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Nyx, pacing in a tight loop, stylus flicking against her bracer. Her eyes caught the mosslight like a hawk’s. “Not completely void,” she murmured, watching him like a puzzle. “So what are you?”

Nathan forced a crooked smile. “Just the rookie who almost puked on your boots.”

The corner of her mouth curled—not warm. She scrawled a quick glyph; the motes along the wall bent, not toward her lines but toward him. His skin prickled.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

“Enough.” Sera’s clipped voice snapped the air. She rose, shouldering her pack. “Pack it up. We move.”

Leather creaked, satchels cinched, steel slid home. The brief stillness dissolved as quickly as it came.

The tunnel narrowed, their boots falling into rhythm—Bren’s heavy step, Tamsin’s double-beat, Alia’s glide, Sera’s clipped command. Nathan tried to match them without tripping.

Nyx drifted close again, stylus balanced loose in her fingers. As they walked, she let it dip into the dust beside his step. It should have toppled. Instead, it leaned—slow, inevitable—until it tapped against Nathan’s boot.

“You flared once,” she said. “Voids don’t do that.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

Enough already. I get it, something weird happened.

“Liar.” The word landed sharper than steel.

Sera’s voice cut back: “Eyes forward.” Final.

The false sky brightened, constellations made up of motes drifting into place like a net of stars. Nathan tilted his head back, just for a breath, to let himself believe it was real.

“…marriage ties mean nothing when the mines run dry,” Bren muttered.

“Try telling that to Prince Kieran,” Tamsin answered, cheer sharp as a knife.

The word slammed into Nathan. Prince. His foot caught on stone; his heart stumbled harder.

Prince—? The sound slipped raw before he clamped his jaw, coughing into his fist as if that could erase it.

No one slowed. No one looked back. Their rhythm didn’t falter.

But when he dared a glance sideways, Nyx was already watching him. Stylus balanced, interest sharp enough to cut.

The chamber exhaled cold, walls etched with old sigils. Nyx planted her stylus upright in the dust. It should have toppled. Instead, it leaned—slow, inevitable—until it tapped against Nathan’s boot.

The others didn’t notice. Of course they didn’t. The chamber had a hundred louder questions.

“Useful,” Nyx murmured. “Fed.”

Nathan made himself breathe. In. Out. Three in, two out, the way Tamsin drilled him. Copy the rhythm, let it wash over Nyx’s scratching stylus and muttering theories. Hands open. Shoulders loose. Pretend this was calm. Pretend this was practice.

The mosslight above flared once—just for a breath—like they’d caught his pulse. Then dimmed again. Nyx’s gaze sharpened, hawk-hungry.

Prince. The word still itched at the back of his throat, raw and unanswered. He forced it down, but it stayed, stubborn as grit behind his teeth.

The false sky dimmed to its ember phase, moss constellations thinning until the stone looked almost honest black. Sera called the halt with a flick of her hand, and the column broke without a word.

Alia unstoppered a vial and set it in a ring of rocks—her version of a campfire. The glow was faint green, nothing like flame, but Nathan squinted at it anyway. Close enough. He wanted the vibe: weary heroes, warm light, maybe a little camaraderie. A quiet break, just once.

Instead, a pebble bounced off his shoulder.

“Hey!” He glared across the circle. Nyx already had another between her fingers, expression flat.

She flicked it. The pebble arced midair, curved like it had second thoughts, and tapped him square on the forehead.

“Ow. Okay, what the hell?”

Nyx tilted her head, stylus ready at her bracer. “Gravity doesn’t usually curve like that.”

Nathan rubbed his brow. “Great. I’m a pebble magnet. Living the dream. Girl, you are really freaking me out right now.”

Tamsin cackled. “Careful, rookie—she’ll start throwing knives next.”

Bren didn’t even look up from oiling her shield. “Would improve his reflexes.”

Alia, calm as ever, sipped from her cup. “If he survives.”

Nathan threw his hands up. “You people are nightmares. Where’s my wholesome campfire bonding episode?”

“Wholesome?” Tamsin perked up. “Alright. Story time. First beast I killed was a cave-wolf. Guts everywhere. Smelled like rancid stew for weeks—”

“Too much detail,” Nathan cut in. “Wholesome, not traumatic.”

Bren deadpanned: “Rat.”

Nathan blinked. “…What?”

“My first kill.” Bren shrugged. “Big rat.”

Tamsin nearly fell over laughing.

Beyond the faint green circle, Sera kept her post at the tunnel mouth, one hand resting on her weapon. She didn’t join the stories, but every so often her eyes flicked back, counting them like beads on a string. When Bren muttered “Big rat,” Nathan swore he caught the faintest tug at the corner of her mouth before it was gone again, swallowed by shadow.

Nathan turned to Alia, desperate. “Please tell me yours is normal.”

She considered. “It bit me. I dissected it.”

Nathan slumped back. “Fantastic. I’m surrounded by a psycho, a rat-slayer, and a knife goblin.”

Nyx flicked another pebble. It curved, tapped him on the nose.

“Don’t forget me,” she murmured.

Nathan groaned. “And the mad scientist.”

But when the laughter rippled—yes, even Bren cracked a ghost of a smile—he couldn’t help it. For one moment, with their laughter spilling easy, he almost felt like he fit.

Then Nyx crouched too close, stylus tapping against her bracer. The fire’s green glow carved her face into sharp planes.

“Voids don’t flare,” she said.

Nathan blinked. “Cool. Neither do lightbulbs when you smash them. Guess we’re both broken.”

She ignored the joke. Drew a glyph in the dirt—simple loop, harmless. The light held steady until she nudged it closer. Then the curve bent inward, threads tugging toward his boots.

Her eyes narrowed. “Not empty. Fed. Once. Something poured into you. Enough to scar.” She tapped the glyph. “That’s why your absence bends instead of cancels. You’re a vessel that remembers.”

The vial popped behind them, glass contracting in the cold. Nathan forgot to breathe. She was right. She was too right.

For a heartbeat, hope sparked stupid-bright in his chest. So… you can send me home?

Nyx tilted her head. “No idea. But fascinating.” Not to him—just to herself.

Nathan groaned, collapsing back on his bedroll. Glad my existential crisis makes for quality lab notes.

The vial fire hissed, throwing its pale glow over packs and bedrolls. Alia crouched with a satchel open, neat as a surgeon at her table. She set out a collection of roots, fungus caps, and something that looked unsettlingly like raw crystal shards.

Nathan squinted. “So… dinner is gravel.”

“Mana tubers,” Alia corrected, already shaving them into a pot with precise flicks of her knife. “Boiled long enough, the bitterness leaches out. Dungeons grow their own ecosystems. What survives here belongs here.”

Nathan cautiously inquired, “Mana? Is that safe to eat?”

Tamsin leaned over his shoulder, grinning. “Don’t worry, rookie—if it kills you, Alia’ll dissect the body. Educational and efficient.”

Bren stabbed a stick into the soil and propped her shield against it. “You’ll live. Worse things in the army mess.”

Nathan muttered, Yeah, like meatloaf Thursdays, but his stomach growled loud enough for all of them to hear.

As Alia worked, a faint chirrup skittered along the wall. Nathan turned—and his heart melted.

A little thing, no bigger than a squirrel, scampered across the rock. Its fur glowed faint blue, tiny antlers branching like coral. It froze, nibbling at a scrap of fungus.

“Okay,” Nathan whispered, eyes wide. “Finally—cute dungeon wildlife. Studio Ghibli would be proud.”

Tamsin’s knife flashed. The creature bolted, antlers bouncing. She pouted. “Fast little snack.”

“Snack?!” Nathan sputtered. “That thing was adorable. You can’t just—”

Bren cut him off, deadpan. “Stringy meat. Not worth it.”

Alia didn’t even look up. “Toxic glands under the ribs. Lethal raw, bitter cooked.”

Nathan slumped. “Cool. Glad everyone here is a Disney villain except me.”

The smell of boiled tubers filled the camp—sharp, earthy, faintly metallic. Alia poured the steaming mash into small tin bowls and passed them out.

Nathan poked his portion. It looked like gray mashed potatoes with sparkles. “Question. Is this food or alchemy?”

“Both,” Alia said.

He braced himself, scooped a bite—and blinked. It wasn’t bad. A little bitter, but warm and filling. Almost like chestnuts, if chestnuts had been left under a radiator.

Tamsin slurped hers with gusto. “See? Dungeon food’s not all poison and despair.”

Nathan grinned despite himself. Finally. My food episode.

Then the mosslight above flickered, and his grin faded.

He risked a glance sideways. Nyx was already watching him. Stylus balanced loose between her fingers, eyes bright with an interest that felt sharper than any blade.

He looked away first.

The march stretched on. Even Tamsin’s knives went silent, hilts muffled in her palms. Only the hum of the warding crystals and the scrape of boots marked time. Nathan forced himself to breathe with the rhythm—Bren steady, Alia smooth, Sera clipped. He was off-beat, but he didn’t drop out.

They rounded a bend where the ceiling sagged low, the mosslight gone thin as breath on glass. The air changed—sweet, almost candied, like someone had boiled sugar over wet rock.

A sound answered the sweetness. Pip. Then another. Pip-pip.

“Anyone else hearing—” Nathan began.

The wall shivered. Pebble-small shapes peeled from the stone, dozens at first, then scores. They weren’t pebbles. They were round little bodies the size of plums, glossy as if dusted in frost. Pink, yellow, lavender, pale blue—together they shimmered like a spilled candy dish. Each one chimed a soft pip and blinked faceted eyes that caught the mosslight and threw it back in glittering stars.

Nathan’s grin tugged crooked. “A cozy travel-episode moment, at last. I knew the dungeon had one in it somewhere.”

Tamsin’s whole face went soft. “Oh no. They’re adorable.”

Nathan’s chest unclenched. Finally—harmless. One of the mochi-things, this one with a faint yellow tint, rolled to his boot and squeaked up at him. “Hey, little guy,” he whispered, ridiculous warmth blooming. “You are so—”

It butted his boot with surprising enthusiasm.

A spark of heat pricked through the leather.

He jerked back. “Ow—hot! It’s—” He squinted. Not just glossy. Crystallized. Its “skin” was sugar-glass clear over needle-fine points, a whole armored rind of pretty razors. The yellow one pip-pipped again and scooted closer like a cat demanding pets.

“Okay,” Nathan said carefully, retreating. “Boundaries.”

“Crysplings,” Alia said, voice calm. “Hatchlings seek heat and salt. They feed on sweat. They cut.”

“Of course they do,” Nathan muttered. “Weaponized candy.”

“Hold formation,” Sera said, already stepping sideways to widen the path. “Don’t stop. Don’t stomp unless necessary.”

“Define necessary,” Tamsin said, dancing a step as three more crysplings skittered around her boots. Their tiny chimes overlapped in a music-box chorus. It would have been cute if not for the way they left hairline scratches in the stone wherever they rolled.

A warm pressure slid over Nathan’s ankle. He looked down. Five—no, seven—had gathered, pressing to his boots, his greaves, chiming happily like he was a buffet.

“Because of course the pebble magnet is also the snack bar,” he muttered.

Nyx drifted closer, eyes bright. “They like you.”

“They like my electrolytes,” Nathan said through his teeth. One found the seam between his glove and bracer and nuzzled in. Needles kissed skin. He hissed.

Bren moved without comment. Her shield dropped, a low, patient sweep that shunted the cluster away from Nathan’s legs with the gentleness of a snowplow. The crysplings rolled, chimed—then came right back.

“Persistent,” Nyx murmured, sketching a quick loop in the air. The glyph shivered. The nearest cryspling paused, nose—did it have a nose?—tilting toward the light.

“Repel,” she said, flicking the glyph toward the swarm.

It worked for exactly one heartbeat. The crysplings pip!-ed in alarm, rolled back—then the loop bent, threads tugging… toward Nathan.

Nyx’s mouth tilted. “Of course.”

“Because I’m a cursed salt lick,” Nathan said. “Fantastic.”

A bold pale-blue cryspling launched a hop and stuck to the leather over his knee like a suction cup made of knives. “Okay,” Nathan said, very calm. “This is me being zen.” He pried. It pricked deeper. “This is me failing to be zen.”

“On your left,” Tamsin sang, and flicked. The flat of her dagger kissed the cryspling and spun it off without slicing—until it bounced, split, and blossomed into a glitter of razors that hissed across the floor.

“Don’t cut or crush,” Alia warned, voice sharp and sure. “Disperse them. Shattered shells release razors.”

“Noted,” Nathan said quickly, hopping back as three pip-pipped toward his boots. “So basically I’m in a deadly game of dodgeball with jawbreakers.”

Nyx’s stylus snapped bright in the air, glyph sparking like a caught star. The crysplings chimed in chorus and rolled toward it—until the glow bent, threads tugging not to her but to him.

Her mouth tilted, fascinated. “They resonate with you.”

Why always me? Nathan thought bitterly. Because something inside me’s humming too loud to ignore.

“Fantastic,” he said aloud, sidestepping as one latched for his shin. “Dungeon candy likes me. Exactly the legacy I wanted.”

Bren rumbled, dipping her shield, not a smash but a patient sweep that sent two caroming into a puddle. Steam curled, the little bodies squealing—pip, pip!—before retreating, their glossy sheen gone dull.

Alia’s calm voice cut through. “Moisture dispersal. They dislike cold water.”

“Music to my ears,” Tamsin grinned, and drop-kicked her waterskin. A spray fanned wide, and the front rank scattered like startled ducklings. Half fled; the rest regrouped—only to surge for Nathan again in an eager, chiming tide.

“Why me?” he demanded, skittering sideways.

Nyx’s stylus tapped against her bracer, her tone too pleased. “Heat. Salt. And resonance. You’re a map marker.”

“Love that for me,” Nathan groaned, swatting at a bold one nosing for his knee.

“Keep moving,” Sera snapped, steady as iron. “We don’t feed them.”

They moved. The crysplings followed, pattering like rainfall made of bells, brushing, testing. Every time one stuck, Bren’s shield bullied it off; every time three tried to wedge into a seam, Tamsin’s boot nudged them toward puddles with a footballer’s precision. Alia tossed a pinch of powder that hissed into a chill mist, and the mist made the swarm shiver back with unhappy pip-pip-pips.

One last yellow cryspling persisted, beelining for Nathan’s wrist again like a tiny, determined Roomba of pain. Yellow ones seemed to like him best—always back for another try.

“Don’t,” he warned it.

It pip-ed.

He sighed, lifted his shield, and gave it a firm, merciful bump. It pinwheeled into Nyx’s drifting mist, squealed, and zipped away at last.

The rest of the swarm hesitated, chimed a few uncertain notes, then dispersed in a glimmering scatter—rolling back to their wall-nests, tucking into cracks like pearls into oysters. The sugary smell thinned.

Silence, except for boots and breath.

Nathan blew out slowly. So much for wholesome. “I take back everything nice I said about mochi.”

“Good protein if you parboil,” Alia said, entirely serious. “Unpleasant, but edible.”

“Par—what? No. Absolutely not,” Nathan said.

“Forward,” Sera said.

They went. The tunnel swallowed the last pip, and the hum of the warding crystals took the beat again. Nathan matched it—one step, then the next, then the next—off-beat but stubborn.

How much longer?