Metoria always woke slow. Not with birdsong, but the low creak of iron carts, the sigh of cooling slag, the cough of steam vents cracking open as the district stirred to life.

  Caelum walked the same route he had every morning since he was ten: past the soot-caked rail line, across the narrow footbridge over the drainage trench, through the alley behind the old furnace yard where children still chalked crude runes on the brickwork.

  But today, his pack was full. His staff thumped against his back with every step. And today, he wasn't coming back.

  The sky was a muddy gray, already smeared with smoke from the upper forges. The sunrise would come late — if it came at all. Caelum stopped at the overlook near the rim of the crater and stared out across Metoria one last time.

  The whole town sat like a burned-out heart in a bowl of rock and steel. He’d grown up in that soot. Learned to read spell runes between gear schematics. Practiced meditation with a man everyone called crazy and prayed to gods who hadn’t answered in centuries.

  Now he was walking into the wild because that man said it was time.

  Footsteps behind him.

  “You forgot your walking stick,” Jonas said.

  Caelum didn’t turn right away. “I didn’t.”

  “Well, I brought it anyway,” Jonas added, holding out a length of polished pipe wrapped in leather. Not a mage’s staff. Just something solid. Practical. Like him.

  Caelum glanced at it, then up at his oldest friend. “You’re really coming.”

  “Didn’t say that.”

  “But you’re here.”

  Jonas shrugged and leaned against the railing, eyes scanning the town like he didn’t care. “Heard you were leaving. Figured you’d get eaten by vines or fall into a mana pit within the first mile. Thought someone should be around to haul your corpse back.”

  “That’s a lot of trouble for a body you don’t care about.”

  “Didn’t say I didn’t care,” Jonas muttered. “Just said you’re an idiot.”

  Caelum smiled a little. It didn’t feel good, exactly, but it felt real.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in any of this,” he said.

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  “I don’t,” Jonas replied. “But I remember when you did.”

  That shut him up for a bit. They stood in silence, watching as the first wave of workers trudged toward the eastern stacks, lunch tins rattling. Some nodded to the two young men. Most didn’t look up.

  Jonas finally broke the quiet. “So, this pilgrimage... It’s real? Like, you’re really doing it?”

  Caelum nodded. “Master Veyne says it’s the last rite. Concord tradition. Before a mage becomes… something more.”

  “Or nothing at all.”

  “That too.”

  Jonas scratched the back of his neck. “And you’re just walking out there? Into the Wound?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  There was a pause. Then Jonas said, “Guess I’ll walk with you a while.”

  “Thought you didn’t believe in it.”

  “I don’t,” Jonas said. “But I’d like to see what you find when you get there. If it turns out to be a pile of dirt and a wild chicken, I want to be the first to laugh.”

  Caelum snorted. “You’re a bastard.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” Jonas said. “So yeah. We deserve each other.”

  They turned from the overlook and headed down the slope toward the ley-house. The city around them slowly churned to life — steam carts screeching along tracks, shouting from vendors, the hiss of pressure gates slamming shut.

  They passed by Daya’s cart near the old station arch. She was stacking loaves into baskets, hair tied up in a greasy scarf, face already dusted with flour.

  “Well look who’s off to die in the woods,” she said with a crooked grin. “Got room for one more fool?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a sword and no sense of direction,” Caelum said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got bread.”

  “That might be better.”

  She handed him a small blackseed loaf wrapped in oiled paper. “For the road. In case the gods still pretend to care.”

  Caelum took it with a quiet nod. Jonas got a roll thrown at his chest.

  “For morale,” Daya said.

  The ley-house was waiting.

  Master Veyne’s home had once been part of a proper Concord tower — three stories, full library, ritual basin, ley-channeling rings. Now it was two walls, a collapsed roof, and a mosaic floor half-swallowed by moss and broken glass.

  Inside, Veyne was humming tunelessly and balancing a lit candle on the end of his staff. He looked up when they entered.

  “Well, there you are. Thought the rail line got you. Or the bakery.”

  “You said today,” Caelum reminded him.

  “I say a lot of things,” Orrin replied, letting the candle drop and catching it just before it hit the floor. “But yes. Today. Good. You brought the pessimist.”

  “Jonas,” Caelum corrected.

  “Same thing.”

  Veyne lit three more candles — one blue, one green, one deep amber — and set them in a spiral on the cracked stone. He motioned for them both to kneel.

  Jonas looked at Caelum. “You serious?”

  “You’re already here.”

  He knelt. So did Jonas, with much more eye-rolling.

  Veyne muttered old words in a language neither of them knew. Then he drew a spiral on Caelum’s palm with ash and wax. Then Jonas’s. Then his own.

  “Three embers,” he whispered. “One for the breath. One for the root. One for the fire.”

  Jonas whispered under his breath, “One for the road.”

  “Quiet, Crick,” Veyne said without looking. “The world is listening.”

  The ritual wasn’t long. When it was done, Veyne stood and took up his cloak and staff.

  “Wait,” Caelum said. “You’re coming?”

  “Of course I’m coming,” Veyne said. “Wouldn’t let you boys get eaten by mushrooms without supervision.”

  Jonas looked at Caelum. Caelum looked at Veyne. No one argued.

  They left the ley-house in silence.

  The sun was trying to break through the smoke, just a pale smear behind the eastern rim. Ahead lay the road. And beyond that — the Wound.

  Caelum didn’t look back.