Ruvan woke to warmth.
For the first time since the raid, he wasn't shaking from cold or clenching his teeth against pain. His eyes flickered open, adjusting to the dim golden glow of dawn filtering through pine boughs. Soft birdsong drifted in the distance. He lay on thick furs, their scent a mix of smoked leather and crushed herbs.
His chest ached, but not with the raw, tearing pain from before. Carefully, he sat up. The hollow pine shelter around him felt small and comforting, woven with dangling charms of polished bone, feathers, and translucent crystals that pulsed faintly like sleeping fireflies.
"You're awake."
Elion knelt nearby, grinding herbs with a stone pestle. His pale hair was tied back, revealing the lavender tattoos curving down his temples and neck, intricate symbols that flickered with faint light when he moved. Today, Ruvan could see them clearly – they seemed to shift subtly, as if alive under his skin.
"How… long was I asleep?" Ruvan rasped. His voice sounded like dry gravel.
"Almost a day," Elion replied without looking up. "You lost a dangerous amount of blood. The fever brew kept you alive long enough for my weaving to take hold."
He sprinkled the crushed herbs into a steaming clay pot, stirring with a carved bone spoon. A fragrant scent filled the hollow, mint and bitterroot blending into something almost pleasant.
"You should drink again," he said, handing the pot to Ruvan.
Ruvan sipped carefully. The liquid burned down his throat, sending heat blooming through his veins. His muscles felt loose, almost too relaxed. He slumped back against the furs, staring at Elion as questions burned through his fogged mind.
"Who are you… really?" he whispered. "You're no simple healer."
Elion smiled faintly, though sadness shadowed his golden eyes.
"No," he said softly. "I am… or was… something more."
He set aside the pestle and moved closer, kneeling beside Ruvan. His long fingers brushed against Ruvan's bare chest, feeling the edges of the wound he had sealed. Where torn flesh had been, only faint pink lines remained, warm under Elion's touch.
"I used Lightweaving," he explained. "A form of latent magic – the old scholars called it Threads of Aether. Most wounds take days or weeks to heal naturally. Lightweaving closes them in hours. But it takes… from me, each time."
Ruvan watched as Elion's shoulders slumped. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. His tattoos pulsed dimly, as if their glow had been drained.
"Why?" Ruvan asked. "Why risk yourself… for me?"
Elion didn't reply immediately. He sat back on his heels, staring at the flickering crystals lining the hollow's walls.
"When I was young," he said softly, "I trained at the Saphren Monastery. We studied the Old Tongues, the Songs of Binding, and the silent histories of the world before the Sundering. My gift manifested early. I could see… threads connecting all living things."
He raised his hand, and for a moment, Ruvan saw faint silver strands shimmer between Elion's fingertips and the mossy floor, like spider silk catching dawnlight.
"When the forest showed me your coming, I saw your thread woven with Solrend's," Elion continued, his voice low. "I saw fire and ash. Destruction… and rebirth. So I left the monastery and came here, waiting for the one who would bear the Broken Blade."
Ruvan's grip tightened instinctively on Solrend's hilt. The sword lay beside him on the furs, its fractured edge wrapped in cloth. Even now, it seemed to hum softly under his touch.
"I don't understand," he whispered. "I'm just a blacksmith's apprentice. I wanted to forge swords, not wield them."
Elion's smile was sad.
"No one chooses the weight the world gives them," he said. "But you are no mere apprentice, Ruvan. Not anymore. The throne room you saw… the chained Devourer… the crowned figure calling you 'Heir of Ash'… these are echoes of Solrend's memory."
Ruvan froze. His blood turned cold.
"You… you know my dreams?" he asked.
Elion nodded. "Solrend's bearers are marked by visions. The blade's spirit carries fragments of its former wielders' hopes and fears. If it showed you the Chained One, then the seals are weakening faster than we thought."
Ruvan shivered despite the shelter's warmth. He tried to rise, but his body trembled too violently. Elion steadied him with both hands, then moved to his satchel and drew out a small crystal shard, dull grey with swirling silver veins inside.
"This is an Anchor Stone," he said, pressing it into Ruvan's palm. "Keep it close when you sleep. It will stabilise the blade's aura, slowing the dreams. Without it, Solrend's spirit might consume your mind before you awaken its true power."
Ruvan clutched the stone tightly. It felt cold at first, then warmed to his touch, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"What… happens now?" he asked. "The raiders will be searching. I can't fight them. I can barely stand."
Elion regarded him calmly, then extended his hand. Threads of faint golden light streamed from his palm, weaving into symbols that floated in the air between them.
"You will learn," he said. "Lightweaving, sword forms, the Old Tongues. All that I can teach, I will."
Ruvan stared at the glowing symbols. They twisted into shapes resembling coiled serpents, rising suns, and layered blades. He reached out and felt warmth brush his fingertips.
"But… why me?" he whispered.
Elion's eyes burned bright in the dim hollow. For a moment, Ruvan saw something vast and ageless behind them – a sorrow deeper than the endless forest.
"Because," Elion said softly, "no one else is left."
He closed his fist, and the symbols vanished. Then he turned away, busying himself with another set of herbs and bandages.
"Rest today," he said. "Tomorrow, we begin."
Ruvan lay back on the furs, staring up at the dangling bone charms. His chest still burned with lingering pain, but another sensation pulsed deeper – a flicker of something he hadn't felt since before the raid.
Hope.
But as he drifted into sleep, clutching the Anchor Stone to his chest, a final whisper brushed his mind:
Rise, heir of ash. For the world burns, and only you shall forge its salvation.
And in the darkness beyond his closed eyelids, he saw Solrend's shattered edge gleaming with pale blue light, like moonfire waiting to be reborn.