The first light of dawn began to filter through the trees, long golden shadows stretching across the battered forest floor. The tension from the day before still clung between them, thin but taut, a thread stretched just shy of breaking. Yet neither spoke of it. They just walked, slow and steady, Kaiser’s stride matched to Aria’s smaller steps, his crimson gaze flickering forward, always searching for the next move.

  Aria hesitated, her boots scuffing against the dirt. Kaiser caught the shift instantly, his instincts prickling. He watched her kick at a loose stone, her face folded inwards, locked away behind thought.

  Then, in a voice so soft it barely touched the morning air, she asked, "Can we… go to the graveyard? I wish to see the resting place of my parents."

  Kaiser blinked once, a small frown tugging at his mouth. "The graveyard?" he repeated. "I didn’t even know there was one around here."

  "There is," Aria said, her words almost swallowed by the breeze. "It’s close to the edge of the forest."

  He studied her in silence for a moment, weighing the request. There was something brittle about the way she said it — not weakness, but something close. Grief, perhaps. Regret. He exhaled through his nose, slowly. This wasn’t a battlefield. Not exactly. But he could see the cracks, and he knew when and where to lean.

  Still, curiosity gnawed at him. "Wait. Hold on," he said, his voice lowering slightly. "How were they even buried? I thought everything happened so fast… you were left behind. Alone." He left the uglier part unsaid..

  Aria turned away, crossing her arms over her chest like she was holding herself together. "It was a few weeks after," she said, voice thin. "An exploration party came into the forest. They were looking for the knights."

  Kaiser’s jaw tightened. "An exploration party?" he echoed, suspicion threading into his tone. "How the hell did they make it through the spiders?"

  "I allowed them," Aria said simply, turning her hollow gaze back toward him.

  Kaiser narrowed his eyes. "You allowed them." He mulled it over. The girl who had turned a forest into a graveyard of silk and bone... chose to let strangers through. "And yet when I showed up," he added, tilting his head slightly, "You tried to make those damn spiders eat me."

  Aria’s lips twitched in something close to amusement. "You didn’t exactly make a good first impression," she said. "Charging at them with a stick doesn’t scream ‘good intentions.’"

  Kaiser let out a low grunt, the kind that could’ve meant anything — irritation, agreement, or just a man's pride refusing to bend too far. A smirk edged its way onto his face, thin and razor-sharp. "Fair enough," he said, voice rough with dry humor. "Next time I see a giant spider, I’ll make sure to walk up nice and slow and try to pet it. Might turn out they’re not all bad."

  He cast her a sideways look, the faint glint of mischief in his crimson eyes making it clear he wasn’t entirely joking, and that he knew exactly how ridiculous the image was. A spider the size of a horse curling up like a dog under his hand. He could almost hear the madness of it.

  Aria gave a soft snort of laughter, genuine and a little startled, and for a heartbeat, the world around them didn’t feel quite so heavy. "Noted," she said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

  For a few heartbeats, they walked without speaking, the moment lingering like smoke between them.

  "So," Kaiser said eventually, steering them back toward steadier ground. "What happened after those explorers got through?"

  "They found the bodies," Aria said, voice dipping into something colder. "Everyone. The knights, the villagers. They brought them to the graveyard and buried them all. Even the ones who didn’t deserve it."

  Kaiser’s smirk faded, replaced by a thoughtful grimace. "And you never went to see them?"

  Aria shook her head. "I was too afraid," she said. "Afraid of what I would feel. Or worse… That I’d feel nothing at all."

  He studied her again, quietly, taking her measure as he had a hundred enemies and a thousand allies. "All right," Kaiser said at last, shrugging one shoulder like the decision meant nothing. "We’ll go."

  Aria’s head snapped up, blinking at him. "Just like that?"

  "Yes," Kaiser replied easily, already turning to resume their path forward. "You want to go, and that’s enough of a reason." His voice was simple, unbothered, but in the back of his mind, the real reason was already taking shape.

  ‘It wouldn’t cost me much, just a short detour and a few hollow words of support, but it would buy me something far more valuable.’ Kaiser thought. Letting her confront her past, letting her believe he understood, would bind her closer than any order ever could. ‘And loyalty earned by kindness always held longer than loyalty taken by force.’

  Kaiser’s mouth twitched into the barest ghost of a smile as he moved ahead, the calculation filed away neatly in the corner of his mind. ‘Small investments that bring big returns. That was how kingdoms are built.’

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  He took a few more steps before realizing Aria wasn’t beside him. He turned, finding her still rooted to the spot, watching him with a peculiar expression. "You don’t know where it is, do you?" she asked, a spark of amusement lighting her voice.

  Kaiser arched an eyebrow, unbothered. "Details," he said with a smirk. "I’ll find it eventually."

  Aria laughed, a short, genuine laugh that seemed to fully break some invisible barrier between them, and without waiting for permission, she reached out and grabbed his hand, tugging him gently but firmly toward the correct path.

  "You’re weird," she said, smiling.

  Kaiser let himself be led without resistance, though inwardly he scoffed. ‘Weird?’ Maybe. Or maybe just willing to do what others weren't. Whatever she thought of him now didn’t matter — not yet.

  Kaiser and Aria kept walking, the heavy silence of the webbed forest slowly breaking down behind them, like a bad dream beginning to fade. Kaiser didn’t miss the subtle shifts: the air growing lighter, sharper. The dampness that had clung to their skin for days lifted, replaced by a crispness that hinted of pine and old moss.

  Above them, the canopy thinned. Shafts of sunlight broke through the trees like golden lances, scattering warmth across the ground. The webs, once thick and suffocating, were now reduced to thin strands clinging stubbornly to distant branches. And then — they were gone entirely.

  The transformation was slow but undeniable. Kaiser breathed in deeply, feeling the difference settle into his bones. ‘Funny,’ he thought, ‘How you only realize you’ve been drowning once you finally reach air.’

  Somewhere ahead, a bird called, a real bird, not the strange silence of the spider woods, and Kaiser exhaled, a sharp breath of relief that he would never admit had been held too long. “We’re finally out,” he muttered under his breath, glancing back once over his shoulder. The dark line of the spider-choked woods still loomed, a smear against the world, but every step away made it feel smaller. Less important.

  The trees ahead parted, not just thinned, but split open like a wound, and beyond them was something that made Kaiser stop dead in his tracks.

  It was a mountain. No... a grave.

  Rising before them, stretching far beyond sight, was a mountain entirely cloaked in graves. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them, stacked in impossibly neat rows that climbed the slopes like soldiers frozen mid-march. It wasn’t random, it was deliberate and it was terrifying in its perfection.

  Some stones were simple markers, worn smooth by time and wind. Others were grand, adorned with figures of angels, beasts, and unfamiliar symbols, monuments to the lives now dust beneath them. Wildflowers burst between the stones in stubborn patches, color defying the sea of gray. Mist rolled at the base, weaving through the headstones like something alive.

  Kaiser could only stare. He had seen cities fall. Kingdoms burn. He had crossed blood-soaked fields littered with corpses, yet he had never seen anything like this.

  “What... is this place?” he asked, barely more than a whisper.

  Beside him, Aria said nothing at first. She simply reached out, slipping her small hand into his. Her fingers were warm against his calloused palm, steady and unafraid. “It’s the resting place,” she said quietly. “For everyone. Villagers. Knights. Anyone who died in these parts.”

  Kaiser’s eyes narrowed, his gaze dragging over the endless rise of graves. ‘This shouldn’t exist. A place like this, this monument to the dead… It would have been legendary. Kingdoms would have fought over it. Priests would have claimed it as sacred ground. And yet here it stood, silent, untouched, forgotten by the world... How the hell does something like this slip through history?’

  The mist curled tighter around his boots as the wind picked up, not harsh, but whispering, almost like the mountain itself was sighing in its sleep. He shook his head. “How could anyone build this? Who would even try?”

  Aria’s voice drifted back to him like smoke. “Explorers. The same ones who came after my village fell.”

  Kaiser turned his head slowly, his eyes sharp. “You keep saying ‘Explorers,’” he said, his tone edged with skepticism. “But that’s just a fancy name, isn’t it? There is no way simple explorers that I am thinking of could accomplish this?”

  She gave him a small, knowing smile. “They were mostly known as ‘Explorers’ in these parts, because that’s mostly what they did. You might not believe this, but this forest still isn’t fully explored, it’s much larger then it seems. But their true name to the rest of the world is something else. Liberators.”

  The word was simple, but it hung heavy in the air.

  “Liberators?” Kaiser repeated, a slight lift of his brow betraying mild interest rather than skepticism. “You’re telling me there’s a group of people out there whose mission is to chase ghosts and bury nameless men?”

  There was no disbelief in his voice — just a low, amused cynicism, the kind that came from seeing the world too clearly for too long.

  Aria nodded, her voice steady. “They aren’t just a band of body collectors or explorers. The Liberators are something else. They are a large organization, filled with people who are respected and feared. It’s a name you don't forget once you hear it. Some of them chase gold, others chase glory, but none of them kneel to the crown. They go where armies won't march and take the jobs no one sane would accept — crossing cursed lands, unearthing relics from dead cities, dragging the lost back from places swallowed by the dark. If something's truly beyond saving, it’s the Liberators you send.”

  Her voice wasn’t preaching. It was reverent. Like someone speaking about an old, half-forgotten hero. Kaiser listened, arms loosely crossed over his chest, his gaze drifting back to the endless field of graves stretching into the mist.

  “They sound more stubborn than smart,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Then, with a small shrug, he added in a louder voice, “Still. Could be worse ways to waste your life.”

  Aria gave him a sideways glance, the faintest ghost of a smile tugging at her mouth. “You don’t fool me, you know. You’re not half as callous as you pretend.”

  Kaiser arched a brow at her, unimpressed. “And you’re not half as smart as you want people to think.”

  That earned him a genuine laugh, quiet and fleeting.

  As her laughter faded into the mist, Kaiser let his eyes linger on the grave-covered slope a moment longer. Liberators... Another factor he’d never heard of, hidden in the cracks of the world. But if Aria was right, if they served no crown, no master, and some among them were driven by gold rather than honor, then perhaps, just perhaps, they could be more than relic gatherers and corpse buriers. Maybe they could be useful. Kaiser allowed himself a thin, private smile.

  ‘Everything could be bent if you applied enough pressure.’