The Crossing of Roads

The morning fog hung low across the valley, quiet and pale. The sound of boots, of wagons creaking and voices calling orders, carried through the mist like ghosts learning to speak.

The king’s soldiers had come at dawn.

Dozens of men — farmers, traders, brothers, and sons — gathered near the edge of the main road, where the banners of Oxia fluttered, cold and bright against the gray sky.

Satorin stood among them, his pack slung across his back, the chill biting at his fingers. He looked down the line and saw the same expression on every face: fear, disguised as duty.

He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, his mind still caught on the image of his sisters crying by the door, his mother’s trembling blessing whispered through tears. He had left before sunrise so they wouldn’t see him falter.

He thought he was alone in that. Until someone beside him spoke.

“First time?”

Satorin turned. A tall man stood there, his hair tied back, his coat worn from labor. He had the strong, sun-browned face of someone who’d spent his life outdoors.

“Not quite,” Satorin replied. “You?”

The man gave a tired smile. “No. But I was hoping it’d be the last.”

He extended his hand. “Jorai.”

Satorin shook it. “Satorin.”

⸻

They fell into step together as the soldiers called for formation.

“My family lives west of the river,” Jorai said after a moment. “Small house, nothing grand. My sister’s… fragile. My father’s older than he admits. I didn’t want them to worry.”

Satorin’s chest tightened. “My mother’s the same. And I’ve five sisters who think I can’t be killed.”

Jorai chuckled faintly. “Then we’re already doomed — too many people waiting for us to come home.”

Satorin smirked despite himself. “You speak like a poet.”

“I’m just a farmer,” Jorai said. “But you start to sound poetic when the only thing left to talk to is the wind.”

⸻

The line began to move.

They started down the long dirt road east, the village shrinking behind them with every step.

The mist parted slowly, revealing the pale morning sun breaking through the clouds. For a fleeting moment, it bathed the men in gold — as though blessing them before swallowing them whole.

Satorin glanced at Jorai. “If we’re to die, might as well make a pact,” he said lightly.

“A pact?”

“If one of us makes it home, he’ll tell the other’s family what became of him.”

Jorai’s eyes softened. “That’s fair.” He extended his hand again.

They shook once more — the kind of handshake that felt like the binding of something sacred.

Then the horn sounded.

And the march began.

⸻

Far behind them, in a quiet house warmed by a small fire, Junari Fengari watched the sky from her window. The clouds were moving eastward, slow and deliberate, like a tide she could not stop.

Somewhere beyond the hills, her brother was walking into that same horizon — and though she could not see him, she whispered a prayer to the wind all the same.

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