The village square was alive with morning bustle. Pots clanged, smoke curled from the baker's oven, and children darted between legs with shouts of laughter. Hurukoya lived simply, but it lived with fire.
Envelon sat at the center, the old storyteller, his voice carrying like a wind-worn drum.
"Once, the heavens cracked," he told the children, hands lifting with deliberate slowness, "and from the fracture fell the first flame. That flame was Enso. Not gift. Not curse. Just a reminder."
A boy asked, wide-eyed, "Reminder of what?"
Envelon leaned close, voice like gravel. "That we are fragile. That the world does not owe us balance."
The children shivered, half-scared, half-delighted.
From the forge's edge, Tosa muttered, hammering out sparks. "He always makes them afraid."
Mira, tending to herbs nearby, only smiled. "Better to be afraid and alive than bold and burned."
Rei lingered at the outskirts, listening, but Kaien shoved his bow into his arms. "Don't just stand there. If you're not going to hammer, you're coming hunting."
"I'm not…" Rei started, but Kaien was already dragging him along, laughing.
They slipped into the forest, the sound of birds and rushing water swallowing them. Kaien crouched low, notching an arrow. "Listen, Rei. Out here, Enso doesn't matter. You either breathe with the forest or the forest swallows you."
Rei frowned. "Then why bring me?"
Kaien grinned. "Because you don't listen. And maybe one day, you'll hear something worth listening to."
His arrow loosed. A rabbit fell still. Simple, clean. Rei felt both the weight of death and the ease of survival.
By the time they returned, the square had shifted. Mira was arguing with Envelon, her voice sharp.
"You tell stories of fragility," she said, "but you never tell them of strength. Of how we've survived storms, raids, even famine. We're more than just fragile."
Envelon's cloudy eyes flickered with something colder. "You speak of strength as if it lasts. Strength is a lie the young tell themselves. Even Enso is only a crack in the heavens, not the heavens themselves."
The children pressed closer, sensing his mood. One finally asked, hesitant, "But… is there more than Enso?"
Envelon was quiet for a long time. The firelight caught the lines of his face like carved stone. Then he whispered, almost as if afraid of the words:
"There are whispers. Of God Enso, the form no mortal should touch. A power higher than anything you know, but no ordinary wielder can ever reach it. It must be awakened by something else, something beyond us. And beyond even that… an Awakening. A flame so absolute it could burn through time itself. A power that could unmake gods. Rewrite history."
The square stilled. Even the forge hammer fell silent.
Rei's unstable Enso pulsed faintly, betraying the storm in his chest. For a moment, eyes turned to him, the boy whose power cracked instead of sang.
Mira stepped closer, putting herself between him and the stares. "Even fragility can burn if cornered. Remember that."
Kaien nudged Rei, whispering, "See? Not everyone thinks you're a curse."
But Rei wasn't sure. His hands still shook. His Enso still stuttered. And deep down, Envelon's words clung like fire to dry wood.
Awakening. God Enso. He doubted it all. Fairy tales, nothing more.
That night, Hurukoya glowed with firelight, laughter spilling from doorways. Yet above, the sky felt too wide, too watching.
And in that endless dark, Shira stood alone at the river's edge, silent guardian of a village that did not yet know it was already marked.