The cliff rose ahead of them like it had something personal against everyone involved.

  “I am going to die,” Bridget announced between ragged breaths, boots scraping against loose stone, “and when I do, I’m dragging you with me, Lancaster.”

  Trey didn’t even glance back. “Come on. You like traps.”

  “I like traps,” she snapped, hauling herself up another step, “not cliffs that actively resent my existence.”

  Luna tipped her head back, eyeing the rock face stretching endlessly above them.

  “Just so we’re clear, Trey,” she said, breathless, “when I asked for a break from combat, I did not mean this.”

  Francis muttered something about poor life choices. Reid kept moving, eyes fixed on the path ahead, as if daring it to betray them. Luna followed just behind Trey, careful with each step, the wind tugging at her sleeves like a warning.

  They climbed in silence for another minute before Bridget groaned again.

  “Remind me again,” she said, “why we agreed to this job.”

  “Because the pay was good,” Trey replied easily.

  “And because,” Reid added, without slowing, “we were the only team that didn’t refuse the route.”

  Trey glanced back at Bridget, lips curving. “Also, I figured this was the safest possible environment for us.”

  She shot him a look. “I’m exhausted and armed. Choose your next words carefully.”

  “No water,” he said, far too pleased with himself. “Long climb. Thin air.” He gestured vaguely upward. “Textbook siren weakness.”

  Bridget’s voice pitched. “Shut. Up.”

  “Ouch.” Trey rubbed one ear. “How is your voice still this high? You’re not supposed to—”

  “Trey!”

  “See?” he cut in cheerfully. “Already exhausted.”

  Luna snorted before she could stop herself.

  Her mind drifted back to that morning, when the job had still sounded reasonable.

  The enormous manor was warm in a way that felt deliberate.

  The payer stood near the hearth, framed by the glow of the fire.

  He was old—undeniably so—but not frail. Short, broad through the middle, with the kind of solid weight that suggested he’d once carried armor for a living and never quite shed the habit. His clothes were practical rather than rich, well-cut, well-worn, chosen for movement more than display. Nothing on him jingled. Nothing looked unused.

  There was an ease to the way he held himself, cane balanced lightly in one hand rather than leaned on, eyes sharp beneath a weathered brow.

  An ex-adventurer, Luna thought distantly.

  He never offered a name.

  Introductions were brief. Transactional. He preferred to be referred to only by his role.

  The payer.

  He led them into a room filled with relics.

  Too many of them.

  Glass cases lined the walls, velvet cushions displaying fractured seals, dulled weapons, and artifacts.

  “You see,” the man said, folding his hands atop his cane, “the job itself is simple.”

  He gestured vaguely toward the far windows, where the cliffs were only a suggestion on the horizon.

  “Go up there,” he continued. “Retrieve what was left behind in the abandoned village. The relics. Whatever remains.”

  Francis frowned. “You’re from the village?”

  “No,” the man replied calmly. “But I did them a favor. Years ago.”

  He spoke like it was a settled matter.

  “When animals began descending from the cliffs, I reinforced their wards. Strengthened barriers. Gave them time.” He paused. “They had no coin to offer. Instead, they promised payment in what they left behind when they moved their homes lower.”

  Reid tilted her head. “And they allowed you to retrieve it?”

  “Yes,” he said. His smile thinned, just slightly. “That was the agreement.”

  Luna remembered noticing how carefully he chose that word.

  “When they abandoned the old settlement, they believed the cliff would protect what remained,” His fingers tightened briefly around the cane. “They neglected to mention the traps.”

  Bridget raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know?”

  “Oh, I knew eventually,” he’d said mildly. “After the first team failed.”

  Then the second.

  Then the third.

  The silence that followed was thick enough to feel.

  “They assumed I would go myself,” the man continued, unruffled. “That I would trust their word. That I would die up there, and the payment would remain safely out of reach.”

  His gaze lingered on the distant cliffs for a long moment.

  “So I stopped approaching it the way they expected,” he finished. “Starshade teams draw attention. They watch the usual paths.”

  He paused, then added, almost thoughtfully—

  “There is another route up the cliff.”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone used it?” Trey asked.

  The man’s smile returned, thin and knowing.

  “I sent out a scout,” he said. “That path is saturated with traps. Old ones. Crude ones. Ones meant to thin out anyone foolish enough to try.”

  Reid’s gaze sharpened. “The villagers know about it.”

  “Oh, they were the ones who planted them,” he replied. “That’s why they don’t bother watching. Anyone who takes that route is expected to die long before reaching the settlement.”

  Silence followed.

  “That,” he said at last, “is the route I suggest you take.”

  His eyes lifted to meet theirs.

  “I only ask that you retrieve what was promised to me,” he said. “And come back.”

  The thought dissolved as Luna’s boot slipped on gravel.

  Trey grabbed her arm and steadied her instantly.

  “Careful.”

  The cliff narrowed ahead, the path pinched between sheer rock and open air. Iron frames were set directly into the stone—old, deliberate placements—some shattered, others still embedded at angles that suggested they’d been forced open rather than dismantled. Hairline grooves scored the rock where mechanisms had once slid into place.

  Wind rushed past the drop to their left, carrying the dry scent of dust… and iron.

  Bridget dropped to one knee.

  She pressed both palms flat against the ground, fingers splayed, eyes unfocusing as if she were listening to something no one else could hear.

  “…There,” she murmured after a moment. “And there. Pressure beneath the path. Old, but still live.”

  She shifted slightly, tracing an invisible line between points only she could feel.

  “They want you to step here. Then here. Miss either, and the cliff does the rest.”

  Only then did she lift her hands.

  “These aren’t deterrents,” she said quietly. “They’re positioned to funnel you. Force you exactly where they want.”

  Reid followed the line with her eyes. “Toward the cliff.”

  “Toward failure,” Bridget corrected.

  Francis exhaled slowly. “So this route was never unguarded.”

  Luna glanced back up the cliff, her stomach tightening.

  They moved carefully after that. One step at a time, feet landing only where Bridget indicated.

  The traps along the path revealed themselves reluctantly. Rusted iron jaws folded into the rock, mechanisms designed to maim or shove rather than kill outright.

  Functional. Brutal. Simple.

  The kind of traps meant to thin numbers, not test intelligence.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Then the ground leveled.

  The iron frames grew fewer. The grooves faded into weathered stone. The wind softened, no longer screaming past open air but sliding low across the path like a held breath.

  Bridget slowed.

  “…That’s new,” she murmured.

  “What is?” Trey asked.

  She paused. Listened. Shifted her stance a fraction.

  “Nothing’s trying to push us anymore.”

  Reid’s gaze lifted. “Meaning?”

  “No idea.”

  They took a few more careful steps forward.

  And the village appeared all at once.

  Not ruins—not quite. Stone foundations still stood where houses had once been, low walls half-swallowed by grass and moss. Doors were missing, not broken. Roof beams lay collapsed inward, as if dismantled with care.

  It was quiet in the wrong way.

  Bridget straightened slowly, not from relief, but caution. Her gaze swept the ground, then the spaces between buildings.

  She paused, eyes narrowing as if something didn’t line up.

  “…Something shifted,” she said.

  Trey stilled. “Shifted how?”

  “The mechanisms,” she replied quietly. “The logic’s different here.”

  She stepped forward. Her focus went distant, brow furrowing.

  “The ones on the path were crude,” she went on. “Same idea repeated over and over. Push people off. Make it look like an accident.”

  She took a careful step back.

  “This?” Her mouth tightened. “This wasn’t made by the same people.”

  Reid’s jaw set.

  “The tolerances are tighter,” Bridget went on. “Layered triggers. Redundancies. Whoever built these knew traps. Knew how to punish mistakes.”

  Her grin widened, eyes bright.

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “This is going to be fun.”

  Trey huffed. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”

  “Absolutely,” Bridget said. “Now watch your footing. And don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.”

  She flicked a pebble forward.

  The response was immediate— hidden seams split, blades snapping out in a brutal cross-pattern.

  “MOVE!” Trey shouted.

  Steel rang as his sword came up, Quanta rippling through it and shattering one blade mid-flight. Reid’s flames flared, heat warping another blade into molten slag before it reached them. Luna twisted aside, spear flashing as she knocked two more away.

  The knives buried themselves in stone behind them, quivering.

  Trey spun on Bridget. “Did you just test it?”

  “No,” Bridget replied coolly. “I tested you.”

  “You could’ve warned us!”

  “I did,” she said flatly. “I said don’t touch anything.”

  She led them through the village in short, deliberate paths, never straight, never twice over the same ground. When she stopped, it was never without reason.

  Sometimes she tested stone with the tip of her boot.

  Sometimes she tossed pebbles.

  Each time, the village answered.

  Blades snapped from walls without warning. Weighted beams crashed where a spine would have been. Barbed wires sang through the air at neck height.

  Trey barked orders on instinct. Reid burned corridors through danger. Luna learned quickly—duck, twist, move when Bridget said move, trust her even when it made no sense.

  None of it felt random.

  The traps weren’t built for one person. They were layered. Designed to punish hesitation. To overwhelm groups.

  And Bridget triggered every single one on purpose.

  They hadn’t gone far when she slowed.

  “…Hold.”

  Everyone froze.

  Near the remains of a collapsed doorway lay bone—human, weathered and scattered. No armor. Just scraps of cloth caught on rusted nails, hands curled as if they’d fallen while running.

  More appeared as they moved on.

  At thresholds.

  Near broken gates.

  At the edges of paths that led down the mountain.

  Luna swallowed. “Are these… from Starshade?”

  Francis knelt near one of the bodies, eyes narrowing as he focused. He squinted, not at the bones, but the space around them.

  “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “I’m not seeing Quanta traces. No residue.”

  Luna frowned. “So… villagers?”

  She hesitated, the question turning sour in her mouth.

  “Why would they attack their own people?”

  Trey straightened, gaze sweeping the ruined paths. “Could be villagers,” he said. “Could be outsiders. Bandits. Anyone desperate enough to try. We don’t know for sure.”

  Reid’s voice cut in, low and sharp.

  “This place wanted people gone.”

  They moved on.

  Not quickly. Not slowly either. The kind of careful pace that wears on your nerves. Bridget guided them through narrow lanes and half-collapsed courtyards, her hand lifting now and then to halt them.

  The traps kept coming—predictable once you learned their rhythm, but relentless. The same logic, repeated with minor variations. Pressure here. Release there. A village that had decided, collectively, that anyone who came back didn’t deserve mercy.

  Time stretched. The village offered nothing but empty houses and silence.

  Then Bridget stopped.

  She stared ahead, then down.

  Half-buried near the remains of a collapsed wall lay another skeleton, armor long since rusted away. A few steps farther, and another.

  A Starshade badge glinted faintly among the debris.

  No traps around them.

  No warning.

  Just bodies, arranged not by chance, but by where they’d fallen.

  Bridget didn’t smile this time.

  And the rest of them hadn’t moved for a long moment.

  “…They made it far,” Trey said quietly.

  Francis crouched beside the remains, careful not to disturb them. His eyes narrowed—both at the bones themselves, and at the air around them.

  Then he stood abruptly and turned.

  Before anyone could react, he grabbed Trey by the collar.

  “Whoa—hey—” Trey blinked. “Easy, healer. I know this is scary, but I’m right here. You don’t have to—”

  Francis shoved him aside without ceremony and grabbed Reid instead.

  Trey staggered back, offended. “Rude.”

  Francis’s hands hovered just above Reid’s back and neck, Quanta threading through her in careful, clinical strands. His brow furrowed.

  “…That’s it,” he muttered.

  Reid stiffened. “Francis?”

  He released her and stepped back, already reaching into his pack.

  “The air,” he said. “It’s poisoned.”

  Silence snapped tight.

  Luna’s stomach dropped. “What?”

  “Low concentration,” Francis continued briskly. “Inhaled. Accumulative. You don’t notice until exertion pushes it over the edge.”

  Bridget sighed. “So that’s why they stopped?”

  “Yes,” Francis said. “They didn’t fall. They just couldn’t keep going.”

  Trey frowned. “And us?”

  Francis finally looked at him. “You’re breathing it too.”

  He thrust small vials into their hands. “Antidote. Universal neutralizer. Swallow it.”

  Trey uncorked his and sniffed. Immediately grimaced, but drank it anyway.

  Bridget eyed the bottle. “You always carry this?”

  Francis didn’t look at her. “It’s the reason I’m here.”

  The air didn’t change. The danger didn’t vanish.

  But the invisible clock ticking inside their lungs finally slowed.

  Francis straightened, gaze hard now.

  “This place doesn’t stop intruders,” he said quietly. “It lets them in and slowly takes them down.”

  Francis squinted again, this time at the faint traces that lingered around the remains.

  “There,” he said, pointing toward a sturdier structure near the center of the village. “Residual Quanta. Old. Weak, but deliberate.”

  Bridget was already moving.

  The path Francis indicated led them to a structure that didn’t fit the rest of the village.

  Part home, part hall.

  Thicker walls. Foundations sunk deeper into the ground.

  Bridget slowed as they approached, drifting a step left, then stopped.

  “…Huh.”

  Trey glanced at her. “That a good huh or a bad huh?”

  “No active traps left here.” She said, stepping inside carefully.

  The interior opened into a space that felt divided by purpose rather than walls. The front half was broad and open—what had once been a gathering hall. A long hearth ran along one side, cold and choked with ash, its stone rim worn smooth by countless hands. Broken benches lay stacked against the walls, not smashed but moved aside, as if someone had cleared the space deliberately.

  Beyond it, the structure narrowed.

  The ceiling dropped. The stonework grew tighter, more precise. Doorways branched inward, leading into what had clearly been living quarters. Private rooms, storage alcoves, and at the back, a smaller chamber set apart from the rest.

  A study.

  Bridget angled toward it without comment, boots light. She paused at each threshold, fingers hovering, then pressing flat, reading what the stone had remembered. Satisfied, she moved on.

  Luna watched her work for a moment, then hesitated.

  “What do you actually channel, anyway?”

  Bridget didn’t look up.

  “Stress. Tension. Nothing useful.”

  Luna blinked. “That’s not—”

  “I don’t make things move, nor do I weaponize any of them.” Bridget said.

  “But I make them admit where they’re about to break.”

  Trey had wandered toward a half-collapsed shelf when he stopped.

  “What’s this?”

  He tugged a brittle scroll free from between two warped planks. The parchment resisted, then gave with a soft, unhappy sound. He held it like it might disintegrate if he breathed wrong, ink smeared and faded almost beyond recognition.

  Francis glanced over. “Why are you holding it like that?”

  “Because,” Trey said, squinting harder, “this looks exactly like your handwriting.”

  Francis stared at it for half a second.

  Then flicked Trey squarely on the forehead.

  “Ungrateful idiot.”

  Reid appeared behind them, her gaze already fixed on the faded ink.“Old mountain dialect,” she said slowly. “I only recognize fragments.”

  “As always.” Trey stepped aside, still holding it out toward her. “Here you go, our savior.”

  She read aloud, halting, careful.

  “Cliff. Trap….Weapon— This one I don’t know. Intruders? Escape. Passage.”

  “Wow,” Trey said flatly. “Incredibly helpful scroll.” He shifted as if ready to toss it aside.

  Reid frowned, scanning again. “…Garden.”

  Bridget’s head snapped up. “Garden?”

  “I think,” Reid said, “that’s what this word means.”

  Luna turned, pointing through a cracked archway at the back of the structure.

  “There?”

  Behind the structure lay a terraced garden, stone-lined and sheltered from the wind. It had grown wild with time, but the shape of it was unmistakable—paths once tended, walls once trimmed with care. At its center stood a dry fountain, its basin carved with symbols worn smooth by countless hands.

  Bridget approached the fountain slowly. The others fell in behind her without comment.

  “Garden’s an odd word to tuck into that list,” she said, eyes never leaving the stonework. “And by odd, I mean suspicious.”

  She circled the basin. The fountain didn’t look broken—just… finished. Like it had done what it was built to do and been left that way.

  Trey folded his arms. “You say that like you’ve seen this pattern before.”

  “I have,” Bridget replied. “Gardens don’t belong on warning lists unless they’re hiding something.”

  She crouched, studying the worn carvings along the basin’s rim. “And this one’s been touched too often to be decorative.”

  Luna leaned toward Francis.

  “Do you think the people who lived here were Quanta users?” she asked softly. “The ones outside the system?”

  Francis didn’t answer right away. His gaze stayed on the ground, unfocused, as if he were reading something only he could see.

  “I don’t think so,” he said finally. “The traces I’m picking up are too thin. Fragmented.”

  He shook his head once. “They belong to Starshade teams. Not a whole village.”

  Luna frowned. “So they weren’t defending themselves with Quanta.”

  “No,” he replied.

  “And somehow… they still won.”