Torian awoke to the scent of earth and ash.
The air was colder now, not the biting wind of winter but the quiet cold that seeped into his bones,
heavy and still. Mist crawled low across the forest floor, curling through roots and stone like it had
nowhere else to be. The embers of their small fire glowed faintly, casting pale light onto Skarn's
dark fur where he lay—motionless, but not asleep. His eyes were open. Always open.
Torian sat up slowly, careful not to disturb the silence. His ribs still ached from where the Watcher
had struck him. The bruising was deep, but something worse had taken hold—a subtle, vibrating
awareness that hadn't left him since the blast of light had erupted from his blade. He'd felt power in
that moment, raw and terrifying. But it wasn't his. It had moved through him, like lightning through a
tree. He hadn't controlled it. It had used him.
He wasn't sure whether that made him chosen or simply next.
Skarn's golden eyes followed him as he stood. The beast stretched, muscles rippling beneath his
armored hide, wings twitching once before folding back tight. There was something in the way
Skarn moved that morning—more alert, more… tense. He wasn't the only one who'd felt something
change.
Torian doused the coals, tied his cloak tighter, and adjusted the sword on his back. "Let's move," he
said quietly.
Skarn didn't grunt this time. He simply rose and followed.
They walked east, or what Torian assumed was east. The sun hadn't truly shown itself in days. What
little light filtered through the canopy was diffused by fog, painting the world in dim blues and
grays. The forest here was older. The trees were wider, thicker, like giants frozen mid-stride. Some
had roots that rose taller than Torian's head. Moss clung to everything—stone, bark, even the air
itself felt layered.For a while, there was only walking. Torian's boots squelched in the damp soil, and the occasional
gust of wind carried scents he didn't recognize—strange flowers, stale fire, bloodless decay. He
tried not to dwell on them.
Skarn led the way without speaking, but it was clear he was steering them around something.
Occasionally, he would stop and sniff the air, wings rising slightly as if to catch scents in a current.
Then he would veer off the subtle trail and lead Torian through a thicket or over a rock ledge, eyes
always watching.
It wasn't until midday that Torian noticed the pattern.
Stone markers.
The first was nearly hidden—just a flat slab half-buried in moss, its edge chipped and worn. But the
spiral etched into its face was unmistakable. Not carved, but burned.
The second marker appeared three hundred paces later, leaning at an angle, its spiral clearer.
Then a third.
Then five more.
Each was placed with intent, marking a line through the forest where there should have been none.
No path connected them. No road remained. But the flame-shaped spirals all pointed the same way
—forward.
Torian knelt beside one and ran his fingers over the charred grooves. As before, he felt it: warmth.
Faint. Familiar.
Alive.
He looked back at Skarn.
The beast stood still, eyes fixed not on the stone, but on the trees ahead.
"You knew they'd be here," Torian murmured.Skarn didn't respond.
But his silence was confirmation enough.
They followed the trail for hours. The terrain grew uneven—slopes that shifted beneath their feet,
stones that sank into the earth when touched, tree roots gnarled like the fingers of giants. Torian's
legs burned. His shoulders ached from the sword's weight. But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Then, the forest broke.
It didn't open into a meadow, but a space—a clearing so perfectly circular it could not have been
natural. The trees surrounding it were blackened, twisted, their trunks cracked and leaning outward
as if recoiling from the center.
At the clearing's heart stood a tree.
Or what remained of one.
Its bark was scorched, the branches bare and skeletal, its trunk split from base to crown as if
something had erupted from within. The ground around it was barren—no grass, no moss, only dust
and ash.
Torian stepped forward slowly.
The air changed. Grew hotter. Thicker.
Beneath his boots, the soil crunched with the sound of brittle bone.
He reached the edge of the tree's shade and stopped.
"This place was burned," he said aloud.
Skarn didn't follow him in.
Torian turned. The beast remained just beyond the clearing's edge, tail flicking, muscles tense."You've been here before," Torian guessed.
Still, no answer.
Torian turned back toward the tree—and saw something.
A stone slab, hidden behind the roots. Flat. Rectangular. Cracked down the middle.
He brushed the ash aside.
It was an altar.
At its center was a melted blade hilt.
Just the base. The rest had been destroyed—consumed in heat. But the guard was intact, and the
spiral was carved into the steel, identical to the one on his father's sword.
Torian touched it.
It was warm.
Not from the sun.
From something else.
A memory.
He stood there for a long time, hand resting on the ruins of a weapon, trying to understand what it
meant.
Others had come before.
Others had carried the flame.
And something had broken them.
"Is this what happens to everyone who takes it?" he whispered. "They burn?"A gust of wind stirred the clearing.
The altar creaked.
Behind him, Skarn made a low, warning sound.
Torian turned sharply.
Nothing moved.
But he didn't feel alone.
Not anymore.
They camped just outside the clearing that night, under the shelter of a fallen tree's root system.
Torian couldn't sleep. His dreams were strange, tangled things—smoke and spiral fire, stone halls
and laughter that turned to screams.
But one voice remained.
"If you are to hold it," it said, "you must not break."
He woke before dawn, slick with sweat, sword gripped in his hands.
Skarn was awake.
The beast always was.
⸻
They moved on.
By midday, they reached a rise of stone that stretched like a natural stairwell up the side of a cliff.
Torian climbed carefully, using handholds in the wet rock. Skarn leapt up behind him with ease, his
claws carving into the surface like it was bark.
At the top, the world changed again.Before them, carved into the mountainside and half-buried beneath vines, was a massive gate.
Not a door. A gate.
Twice Torian's height. Made of stone and iron, fused into the rock itself. Runes lined its arch, though
time had worn most away. At the center, just above eye level, was the spiral.
Torian stared at it.
"This is where it leads," he whispered.
The spiral on the gate glowed faintly.
He reached out—and the ember in his chest flared in response.
He gasped.
The stone warmed beneath his hand.
A low vibration moved through the earth.
And then the gate opened.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Beyond it, stairs descended into darkness.
Torian turned to Skarn.
The beast stepped forward without hesitation.
And for the first time in days, Torian smiled.
"I guess we're really doing this."
They stepped into the dark together, leaving the forest behind.Whatever waited below wasn't wilderness.
It was purpose.
And the flame within him burned brighter than ever.