The village welcomed them not with cheers but with silence—a reverent kind of stillness that followed the scent of danger, lingering like the last traces of a storm. The children who had pointed earlier now stood at a distance, eyes wide and silent. Villagers peered from windows and behind doors, watching the two warriors return, bloodied but upright.
Kaelen walked with steady steps, the blade at his side still stained with dark ichor. Selene matched his pace, though she limped slightly, favoring her left leg.
They stopped just short of the central courtyard, where a small crowd was beginning to gather. The village elder, a wiry man with thin gray hair and a spine that bent slightly to the left, emerged from his home. His gaze swept over them, pausing on the blood, the exhaustion etched into their faces, and finally resting on Kaelen's eyes.
"You did what needed to be done," he said softly.
Kaelen nodded, then turned to Selene. "You need to head back to the Pavilion. Report everything."
Selene blinked. "What about you?"
"I'll stay," Kaelen replied. "Someone needs to ensure nothing else crawls out of that forest tonight. And…"—he glanced toward the children—"…someone needs to reassure them it's over."
Selene didn't argue. She placed a hand briefly on his arm. "Don't do anything reckless."
He gave her a rare, small smile. "I only do calculated recklessness."
With a short nod, she turned and made her way toward the Pavilion post outside the village, her silhouette growing smaller with each step.
Kaelen stayed behind.
The village was small—a cluster of thatched houses, worn stone paths, and fields of swaying green wheat. The buildings bore the weathered look of age, the kind that spoke of generations stacked one atop the other. He wandered, not out of necessity, but out of quiet observation.
The tension of battle had not yet left his limbs, but the stillness was soothing in its own way.
He passed by a group of children sitting in a semicircle beneath an old willow tree near the outskirts. At the center sat an elderly man with a thick, twisted beard and eyes that still gleamed with youthful mischief.
"…And when the stars cried, the forest whispered back," the old man was saying, gesturing dramatically. "He fell—not with a roar, but with a sigh. The immortal who flew too close to the secrets of the world."
Kaelen slowed, drawn by the rhythm of the man's voice.
A small girl asked, "Was he really immortal, grandpa?"
The old man chuckled. "Ah, not in the way you think. He lived for centuries, yes. But immortality is a tricky thing. It's not about never dying—it's about never being forgotten."
One of the boys frowned. "What happened to him?"
The old man raised a finger and recited in a voice both sing-song and solemn:
The Immortal's Lullaby
From heaven's gate, the Immortal came, With star-born eyes and fate's own name. He reads the secrets skies conceal, In silent tombs where whispers kneel. Beware his rest, lest doom reveal.
The children stared wide-eyed. One whispered, "Is he still there?"
The old man only smiled and tapped his nose. "The forest remembers. Whether it forgives, now… that's another tale."
Kaelen stood silently behind them, arms crossed.
He hadn't meant to listen. But the poem—it echoed something deeper.
"HEAVENS AND FATE"
That line gnawed at him.
Eventually, the children were called back to their homes. The old man remained seated, eyes closing as he leaned back against the willow's trunk.
Kaelen stepped forward.
"Was that just a story?" he asked.
The old man didn't open his eyes. "They're all stories. Until one of them isn't."
"Do you know where he fell?"
A shrug. "Long before my time. Maybe near the old Forest. Maybe deeper. Maybe not at all. But the forest… it remembers."
Kaelen nodded and left the man in peace.
He walked further out, to the village outskirts. There, where the fields met the trees, he settled on a patch of flattened grass. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the sky was painted in hues of crimson and violet.
He unsheathed his sword slowly, laying it beside him.
Then, silently, he began his exercises.
Form after form—stances passed down from Master while also practice Primordial Bodycraft .
Each movement was deliberate.
Each breath controlled.
But his mind wasn't on the motions. It circled back to the poem.
"the Immortal came, With star-born eyes and fate's own name"
What did that mean?
Was it metaphor?
Or a warning?
Kaelen thought of the masked figure. The twisted beast. The binding circle of runes. And the power that had bled from the stones when he shattered them.
There had been more there. More than what they had uncovered.
He dropped into a low stance, sweat beading on his brow.
The Pavilion would come.
They would seal the Forest or Whatever Held there . Bury the danger. Classify it. Move on.
But Kaelen couldn't shake the feeling that something older, deeper, had been stirred.
"Talking doesn't make you stronger. But it makes the journey less lonely."
He paused, staring up at the first stars that blinked through the dusk.
Maybe the poem wasn't just a warning.
Maybe it was a remembrance.
Of someone who walked a path alone… until even the stars turned their gaze away.
Kaelen resumed his training, blade cutting through the air like a whisper.
Tonight, he would remain here.
Waiting.
Watching.
And listening—for any more broken rhymes the forest might choose to sing.
________________________________________
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