The Domini saga

Kynes, Bren, and Slaan step off the road into cool shade beneath broken stone arches. Moss softens the ruin, and the afternoon noise of the highway falls away.

Slaan kneels by a flat slab and lays out her notes, fingers tracing inked branches beside the violet sigil’s split line.

Bren leans against a cracked pillar, relaxed but alert, her gaze sweeping the open grass beyond the arches without tension.

The three of them pause over the slab, the wind turning pages of Slaan’s notes while the arches hold the afternoon still.

Kynes draws out the journal and lays it beside Slaan’s notes. The old weave pattern lines up with her branch marks, confirming the same kind of careful reading.

Slaan tips her charcoal to the page, then glances from the journal to Kynes with a brief, satisfied nod.

Bren lowers her watchful gaze from the grass and reaches for the edge of Slaan’s notes, making room for the new comparison.

Slaan folds one note over the other and starts tracing the next leg, while the branch on the page settles into a readable route.

Kynes lifts his chin toward the dim line beyond the arches, and his shadow stirs at his feet.

A black-feathered crow peels out of that shadow, smaller than a raven, its eyes catching the light like polished coal.

The crow settles on Kynes’s wrist, then takes the words as if they are a scent.

It snaps its beak once and vanishes into the roadside shade, following the faint pull of Nhal’s absence.

The crow’s vanishing leaves the bend quiet, and Kynes lets the silence hold for a breath. Then he gestures toward the road, the message clear enough without more force: the bird will find Nhal, and if Nhal wishes, it will bring their location back too.

Bren’s shoulders ease at that, and she gives the road a once-over before settling into readiness. Slaan folds her notes against her palm, already measuring the space between the arches and the ditch line.

Kynes does not hurry them. The roadside marker keeps glowing at the bend while the open journal and Slaan’s spell notes settle flatter in the wind, as if the route itself is content to be read rather than chased.

By the time Bren and Slaan begin testing their steps in the grass, the hidden record of the road has become legible enough to carry forward.

Bren keeps her place on the line, and Kynes lets the moment stretch. Slaan rechecks the road’s curve against her notes, then glances up as if the answer has finally settled into the ground itself.

Kynes points to the arch, then vanishes in a blink of shadow and cold air. He is simply there at the bend, close enough to touch the stone, and the glowing marker seems to hold its breath.

Void-light folds around him, then snaps shut. A heartbeat later he is back at Bren and Slaan’s side, staff steady, the arch now measured from both ends of the pause.

Bren shifts her weight on the grass verge, watching Kynes as if confirming he really returned. Slaan lifts her notes again and draws a short line beside the exposed marker, the route’s shape settling into place.

Below the broken stone, the shallow root-pocket lies open and harmless now, its edge readable instead of hidden. Bren glances toward the road, waiting for the next move, while Slaan keeps her page ready.

Kynes gives Slaan the timing in plain words, and she nods once, already tracing the idea against the bend. Her notes settle open in her hands as Bren watches the road and waits for the next measured step.

Kynes sends the question along the shadow line, and the answer comes back at once. The crow has found Nhal.

Above the bend, the bird’s dark shape slips back toward the arches, and Slaan’s pencil pauses over her notes as the route finally has a next point.

Kynes leaves Outside Phandelver behind and arrives at Nhal.

Nhal meets them where the road thins into dark grass and broken stone, a quiet fold of shadow beyond Phandelver’s last arches. The crow settles above with a rough feather-shake, and the air feels cooler here, as if the ground remembers old shade.

Kynes arrives without haste, staff steady, and reads the place in one glance. The map-work in Slaan’s notes still matches the lay of the land, but now the route has a body to point toward.

Slaan lowers her pencil at last, then turns the page so the next leg is visible in the open. Bren shifts from the arch-shadow to Kynes’s flank, giving the newcomer a measured, unthreatening look.

Nhal’s gaze drops to the notes, then lifts to the road behind them. She answers with a small nod that changes the whole shape of the pause.