Thalion had managed to escape from the crew not because he didn’t want them, but because he knew it was for the best.

He had left while they slept, his bare feet silent against the grass, his silver hair hidden beneath a hood he had scavenged from a abandoned cart. He didn’t look back. If he looked back, he would falter. If he faltered, he would return. And if he returned, Tauriel would find Jason through his eyes.

"I cannot be the reason he dies."

Thalion walked through the night, putting distance between himself and the only people who had shown him kindness in centuries. The moon was high, casting pale light across the rolling hills. His body ached. His mind screamed at him to turn around. But he kept walking.

By noon, he had reached a muddy stream. He knelt at the water’s edge and scooped up handfuls of dark earth, mixing it with water until it formed a thick, brown paste. He smeared it through his silver hair, working it into the roots, coating every strand until the pale metallic sheen was gone. His hair looked brown now.

He tore a strip of cloth from his already tattered shirt and wrapped it around his head, covering his pointed ears. The fabric was loose enough to look accidental, tight enough to hide what lay beneath.

"I look like a vagrant," he thought. "Good. Vagrants are invisible."

He stood and continued walking.

The region he was heading toward had no official name on any map. Locals called it the Bleak Marrow—a jagged stretch of badlands where the soil was grey and the trees grew twisted and bare. It crawled with some of the most dangerous criminals in the world. Murderers, slavers, mages who had been exiled for crimes too terrible to speak aloud.

Even the city enforcers didn’t dare walk there.

But Thalion had heard rumors. Whispers in the dungeon. A name that surfaced every few years, carried by prisoners who had once belonged to something greater.

The Velveteen Watch.

His old guild. Some of them might still be alive. Some of them might be hiding in the Bleak Marrow.

Why? They were terrible individuals with zero to no empathy.

Or they might be dead. And Thalion needed to know which.

---

He reached the border shortly after, traveling all day.

The change was immediate. One step, and the air grew colder. The birds stopped singing. The grass beneath his feet turned grey, brittle, crunching like broken bones.

Ahead, the landscape opened into a wasteland of crumbling rock and twisted trees, their branches reaching toward the sky like grasping hands.

Thalion pulled his hood lower and stepped through.

He had been a terrible person in his past life. Very terrible. He had manipulated, stolen, killed. He had used his magic to take what he wanted and destroyed anyone who stood in his way. The dungeon had been his punishment—but also his prison. And somewhere in those dark years, something had changed.

He wanted to redeem himself.

"One step at a time." Thalion reminded himself.

The path wound between boulders and dead shrubs. Thalion’s eyes scanned the shadows, his senses alert. His body was still weak—his magic far outpaced his physical condition.

He could blow up a head, yes. But his muscles ached. His lungs burned. His heart raced from exertion that should have been easy.

"There’s a reason my body can’t keep up with my magic," he thought. There was a reason yet to be revealed.

He needed to find something, the thing that would fix all of this mess.

The path opened into a small clearing.

And a figure stood in the center.

Thalion froze, not in fear but in anticipation. He had no idea why there was a gatekeeper.

The creature was tall—seven feet, at least—clad in ragged robes that hung from its thin frame. Its skin was grey, the color of ash, stretched tight over bones that seemed too sharp, too angular. Its hands hung at its sides, fingers unnaturally long, tipped with claws that clicked together slowly.

But its face was the most striking thing.

It had no eyes.

Empty sockets. Hollow pits where eyes should have been. The skin around them was smooth, unbroken, as if they had never existed. Yet the creature turned its head toward Thalion with perfect precision. It had no eyes, but with the way it moved, it was clear it didn’t need them.

"What are you doing here traveler?" A voice questioned but Thalion didn’t respond to him. He looked past him and into the path he wished to go to.

"I seek passage," Thalion said bluntly, without showing a hint of fear.

This creature here was the watcher, it was the thing that existed at the entrance of this terrible place to act as a gatekeeper.

Thalion claimed to be from The Velveteen Watch but for him to know this place, it showed this was something that was a part of his life once upon a time.

The truth was, The Velveteen Watch was the last guild they had slaughtered, Thalion never belonged to a guild.

The opposite, he belonged to one of the most wanted dark guilds that graced this world, and the only reason he was captured was because a curse was placed on him by one of the members of The Velveteen Watch before having her head ripped apart.

Thalion lowered his hoodie, the muddy hair didn’t change the fact of who he was, the creature could feel him the moment his hoodie was lowered.

"I’m Thalion and the leader The Bloodthorn Reavers. If you do not step aside, I will kill you," The moment Thalion said this, the creature dropped to its knees with its head buried into the ground.

"I-I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you!" The creature said but Thalion sighed, there was no point to any of this.

He needed to abandon this body and he needed to do so fast.

"Welcome back Thalzor," The eyeless creature said but Thalzor kissed his teeth in irritation.

"Do not call me that, watcher," Thalion said before walking past him.