Smoke choked the air. Not the clean grey of hearths or pyres, but a cloying black that clung to lungs and lashes alike, heavy with the stench of burning flesh.
The village of Millhaven was dying piece by piece.
He was not sure how long he had been crawling. Minutes? Hours? The ash-dusted cobblestones had worn raw patches through his palms, and his left leg — useless thing that it was — dragged behind him like an anchor. Every breath was a struggle. Every heartbeat felt borrowed.
The Drayth's claws had missed his throat by inches, but the fall had done what the creature could not. Something in his chest felt loose, wrong. When he coughed, copper painted his lips.
Not much time.
The thought came with curious detachment, as if he were observing someone else's approaching death. Perhaps he was. He had been watching himself stumble through this burning maze for what felt like hours. Strength was leaving his body quicker than the hope to make it out of this hell. But he must keep crawling, even if it meant tearing every muscle and ligaments in his body. Toward the edge of the village, there he would be safe.
Something tugged at the corner of his vision. A strip of fabric — white, maybe, under all the soot —fluttering where the air still shimmered with heat. It clung to a jagged beam like a banner of surrender. Movement, again. But this time, not the fabric. Beneath it. A small hand, bloodied. Fingers twitching like a dying insect.
He turned his body toward it without thinking, dragging his mangled leg through the ash. The rest of her came into view in fragments. A cheek pressed against the stone, eyes open. Hair tangled and darkened with soot. The remains of a summer dress, torn across the back and drenched in something that had already begun to dry.
The child was perhaps eight years of age, pinned beneath a fallen beam that had once supported the baker's awning. Her small hands were scraped raw from clawing at the debris, fingernails broken and bleeding. Her green eyes were staring into nothing, glassy. The way someone looks after seeing too much death in too little time.
The child did not move or make a sound as he got closer. Not even when the timber above her creaked. Not even when, above them, the Drayth growled — low, wet, hungry.
Perched on the collapsed roof like a carrion beast, its limbs shifted between smoke and sinew, too fluid to be flesh. Where a face should have been, there were teeth. Only teeth. And eyes — dozens of them — blinking across its torso, none of them human.
He should leave. He was dying already. What difference could a cripple make?
But those green eyes...
A glint of metal caught his attention — a broken knife, half-buried in ash near the beam. Probably dropped by whoever had been trapped here before the child. He dragged himself closer.
"Hey," he whispered, his voice barely carrying over the distant sounds of battle. "Look at me."
The child's gaze snapped to him. The Drayth's attention followed.
What happened next would replay in his mind for days afterward. The world flickered. Just once.
[Trajectory Recalibrated.]
Then, the creature lunged. His useless leg buckled. His fingers closed around the broken knife as he fell — blindly, desperately. The blade struck home. Too clean. Too deep. Black ichor pooled around the dissolved remains. The child stared at him with something approaching awe.
"You... you killed it."
"Luck," he responded, forcing a faint, reassuring smile. He struggled to his feet, his leg screaming in protest. "Are you hurt?"
She shook her head lightly, then remembered the beam. "I can't move."
He knelt beside her, studying the debris. His hands moved with surprising gentleness as he tested the weight, found the leverage points. The calculations came unbidden — angles, force vectors, probability of success.
"When I lift this," he said, "you roll toward me. Can you do that?"
She nodded.
He braced himself against the beam, gritting his teeth as he forced weight onto his mangled leg. Fire shot up his spine. His vision blurred. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest as he pushed with everything he had left — shoulders, back, even the damaged limb that sent lightning bolts of agony through his entire body.
For a moment, nothing happened. His strength was failing, darkness creeping at the edges of his sight.
Then, with a sound like breaking bones, the wood shifted just enough.
The child rolled free.
They sat together in the ruins of the bakery, catching their breath. Around them, the sounds of battle grew closer — clashing steel, shouted orders, the inhuman shrieks of Drayths. But here, in this small pocket of stillness, there was only the quiet rasp of two people learning to breathe again.
The child leaned against him, small and shivering despite the heat from the fires. Her dress was torn and stained with ash and worse things. "My mama," she whispered, her voice cracked. "She was in the market when they came. There was so much blood, and she wasn't moving, and her eyes—"
The words broke off into a sound that wasn't quite crying, wasn't quite breathing.
He had no words for that. No comfort that would not be a lie. So, he simply sat with her in the wreckage. Her small hand curled into his, sticky with dried blood — hers or someone else's, he could not tell.
"You're safe now," he replied, though the words felt strange in his mouth, as if they belonged to someone else. Safe. Was anyone truly safe? The thought came with curious weight, as if he had asked himself this question many times before.
Before he could respond, the world exploded into light.
A figure wreathed in golden radiance descended from the sky like a falling star. His armor gleamed despite the ash and blood, and the sword in his hand sang with holy fire. Where his feet touched the ground, the shadows recoiled. Caelus — that had been his name once, though few still uttered it. Now, they called him only what he had become.
The Hero.
The Drayths fell like wheat before a scythe. His blade carved arcs of pure light through the air, and where it passed, the creatures of darkness simply ceased to exist.
It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was everything the ballads promised and more.
When the last monster fell, the Hero turned to survey the survivors. His gaze found the nameless man and the child huddled together in the ruins, and something in his expression softened.
"You're safe now," he said, and his voice carried the weight of absolute truth. This was a man who had never failed to keep a promise, who had never met a darkness he could not drive back with light. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner."
The cripple looked up at him with an expression of perfect gratitude. Something swelled in his chest. Like seeing a star he had once navigated by, long ago.
The Hero helped him to his feet with the casual strength of someone who had never known weakness. "Can you walk?"
"I can manage." His limp seemed more pronounced now, his movements more labored. The adrenaline was fading, leaving only pain and exhaustion. "Thank you."
"What's your name?"
The question felt loaded with weight he couldn't understand. He opened his mouth, then closed it. What was his name? The knowledge felt distant, important, just out of reach.
"I..." He frowned, pressing a palm to his temple. "I'm not sure."
The Hero's expression grew gentle, touched with the particular sadness of someone who had seen too much suffering. "Head injury?"
"I think so." The lie came easily, naturally.
"Well," the Hero's smile was warm, genuine. "Names are just words carrying the feelings of parents for their children. But you can earn many names in your lifetime". He gestured toward the child. "Because you chose to save her, you'll be known to her and those who will know of your actions today as this child's savior. This name will carry all their gratitude".
"I was just in the right place."
"The right place, doing the right thing." The Hero clapped him gently on the shoulder. "That's what heroes do."
The word landed strangely. Hero. It felt both foreign and familiar. "I'm not a hero."
"Perhaps," the Hero agreed, already turning toward the next crisis, the next desperate cry for help. "Hero's a heavy word. The child's saviour suits you better."
As the Hero strode away, the nameless man remained in the ruins with the child. He watched the Hero disappear into the smoke with an expression that might have been reverence, or careful study. Or something else entirely.
"Are you going to follow him?" the child asked. He had already begun to limp in the direction the Hero had taken moments ago, as if pulled by an invisible force.
The question hung in the air.
Follow.
Yes. That felt... right. Natural. Like a river remembering its course.
A flicker passed behind his eyes.
[Subroutine Assigned: Follow Caelus.]
"I suppose I am," he said.
"Will you be okay?" Her voice was small. Fragile.
He smiled, and for the first time since waking up in this burning village, it felt genuine.
"I will now. And so will you."
He clasped her hand in his — not to comfort her, but as if to seal something unseen. Then turned away and followed after the Hero, moving with more determination than before.
And somewhere deep inside, something ancient stirred.