By the time the world colored itself blue with the promise of another storm, they'd already run the day's gauntlet: mud that pulled at boots, air wet enough to crawl inside lungs, hunger being the only certainty that lingered between the three suns of the mountains' shifting ridgelines. The river, new with last night's rain, snarled over dead branches and relic-bones and the memory of mercies that never found their end.
He woke stiff, curled tight around cold embers. Jun was already moving, fire-bright in the weak light—untying their last dried apples, checking the knife she'd sharpened against yesterday's edge, her silence the scabbard sheathed in bone. He watched, not with hope, but with that knotted ache that comes from having survived more mornings than should ever be asked of one young enough to still crave the taste of wild fruit.
The relic at his chest was a stone. He pressed it, wishing for quiet. If the mountain gods ever slept, it was never when he begged them to.
"You dream?" Jun asked, eyes on the washed-out road, voice too sharp for sleep to cling.
He shrugged, flexing the crook of his arm where the cold had settled. "Nightmares with teeth. Sometimes with names."
She snorted, but her hand brushed his shoulder as if to say not alone, not ever again. Even if she'd never speak it out loud.
The road west was worse by daylight—every stone slick, every shadow alive with last night's regrets. Bits of the outcast group trailed them, some barefoot or bandaged, faces raw, souls battered thin. Faith rode their heels. Faith, and the rumors that the relic-blessed boy—curse or miracle—could make the bones of storms remember mercy.
He didn't want to see their faces. Didn't want to see anything but the line of Jun's back as she cut through tall burrgrass at the river's edge, past the wild tangle of shrines broken open to the weather—hundred names for the same lost god.
But the mountain had chosen, and it chose by the law of storms: those who stand beside you are either altar or witness and every choice costs blood, hunger, or memory.
They moved through ruins. Statues canted at cruel angles, heads missing, hands raised not in blessing but in defense; prayers graven so shallow that the next hard rain would erase them along with half the names etched into his bones.
Among the ruins, two children played, sticks as swords, laughter clear as glass. They stopped when Jun appeared, blades raised, then decided she was too tired to be a threat. One of them—barefoot, hair wild—held out a fistful of river-polished stones.
"Want to trade?" she asked. "For a story?"
Jun knelt—slow, no threat. "Stories cost. What do you have?"
The girl thrust the stones forward, proud. "They're from the god-bone bank. They talk at night."
He accepted one, feeling the relic at his chest pulse in response—quick, eager, the way it reacted to blood or danger or the kind of loneliness that gets into the marrow. The stone was light but hummed with a memory not his own.
He closed his eyes, let the relic taste. For a blink, he was somewhere else—a cold river, another war, two voices calling a third never to come home. The pain was simple, uncluttered, very old.
He opened his palm, handed the stone back. "Keep it. Good stories should stay where they're strongest."
The girl beamed. "Will you tell us one?"
He looked to Jun, who rolled a shoulder. "He's better with truth than tales."
He thought about lying. Instead, he said, "When you're older, ask the mountain why people leave and sometimes come back."
The children ran, leaving them among the statues, silence returning thick and sour.
Later, clouds sagged lower. The sun gave up. The outcasts—twenty, maybe less—huddled around Jun and him, looking for leadership or at least the illusion of forward. The woman from the ruins, now known by the relic she bore, stepped ahead, eyes hollow with last night's miracle.
"You bled for us," she said, voice hoarse. "Does it always hurt?"
He nodded, unwilling to make gods of kindness. "Everything worth keeping costs more the second time."
A murmur through the crowd, some grim with recognition.
One of the bandits, old scar puckered across his lip, spat. "We got chased long enough. Mountain doesn't want us. Sects don't, either. You—curse-boy—you're the only damn thing that listens. Rely on that, or run."
He didn't answer. The relic pulsed, hungry for meaning, for shape.
Jun stepped in, knife easy in her hand—not a threat, a promise. "He's not your god, just the only one dumb enough to stay when you ask."
A younger girl with braids and raw, wind-split hands piped up: "What's your name, really?"
That question—always that—chilled him. Names meant belonging, or debt, or something even gods couldn't trade back.
He met Jun's gaze. She gave the barest nod.
He drew breath, felt the relic spike. "I am who storms spit out. My name's nothing to sell. But if you follow, you do so as your own, not as mine."
It wasn't what they wanted, but it was proof: exile can be a braid, not a chain.
Past noon, the sky broke open—rainfall as fierce as last night's memory. They found shelter under a collapsed shrine, stone ribs and a roof that barely held but was enough to make a home out of ruin. The outcasts huddled close as night began to tug at the edges of the day, trading food, grudges, secrets.
He shared a crust of bread with a girl who'd lost a finger to frost years before. She offered him a story: "My father said the relics are just bones that never died properly."
He pressed a hand to his chest. "Some bones hold more than others."
She nodded as if she'd known that all her life.
Jun watched from the shadows, carving a stick with her knife. "You let them get too close. Remember what happened last time?"
He understood. He'd seen how safety curdled into expectation—and how quick a crowd turned on a savior who couldn't gift enough miracles per day.
He pressed the relic, not pleading, just letting it be. Felt the ache rise—not pain yet, but warning.
A voice, low from the darkness, called: "If you have a miracle left, there are sick ones at the far shrine. They'll die by morning else."
A hush—a kind of prayer—a hope.
He stood, leading with weakness. "It's not a trick I can pull twice, not without paying."
Someone else: "We'll pay. Memory, names, whatever the gods want."
Jun's face tightened, but she said nothing; she knew when resistance was worth it.
The relic burned at his collarbone, a feverish gnaw. He strode into the ruin's shadow, knelt beside three children: fever-paused, ash-skinned, eyes burning out. Their breaths shallow as forgotten wishbones.
He pressed the relic, let the risk bleed out. Bright and fierce, pain coiling in every muscle.
A vision—shattered, brilliant, hot with sorrow. The room spun, and he tasted someone else's childhood: cold, alone, loved but left behind. The relic drank it down, spit back a gentle warmth, a glow that pulsed outward.
The children gasped. Breath steadied. Skins flushed, color returning.
He slumped, visions snapping behind his eyelids—old voices, a song about bones and mountains, loss and home.
From behind, applause. Ragged hope. Even Jun, who never clapped, let her hand fall against his back. "Don't die on us today."
He smiled, teeth gritted.
The woman, her relic-blade strapped safe, nodded at him. "A real leader," she said—soft, the kind of respect no former sect ever gave.
He wasn't their leader, not really. But out here, in the ruins and the rain and the long memory of lost things, anyone who could make the sick breathe easy was owed a claim.
Sick children pressed in. Orphans knelt. Bandits called him "curse-brother" and meant it kindly. Even Jun let her stoicism crack, just a sliver, just enough to show she'd allow herself to believe in warmth.
For the first time since exiled from every home, he felt halfway toward a belonging that didn't ache quite as sharp.
Night fell hard and absolute, with rain lashing the stones and voices fading to slow, steady song. Some slept. Some tried. He lay beside Jun, relic cool at last, heart quieter.
"You give too much," Jun said—not an accusation, just a truth spoken to keep the dark honest.
He rolled onto his side, eyes fixed on a slice of moon. "It always comes back, one way or another. Pain or hope or both."
She grinned—almost. "Just don't forget your own name by the time they start writing legends."
He punched her arm—their oldest joke, the one with teeth. "You'll remember for me."
The storm howled. The ruin held.
For a while, he drifted near sleep. Dreams came—soft, not cruel: children's laughter, outcast fireworks, relics pulsing not with hunger but with pride. He dreamt of a dawn where shelter wasn't borrowed, and every exile ate together under one long, battered roof.
When he woke, rain still bruised the sky. Jun was already up, kindling fire, eyes bright.
"We move south today," she said, voice sure. "Sect patrols will be close after the noise we made."
He pushed upright, feeling yesterday's price in every muscle.
The outcasts stood ready, food and stories packed, faces different—no longer afraid, carrying his hope as carefully as their own names.
He caught Jun's gaze, let it fill him.
"Let's see if the gods want to test us again," he said—and, for once, it was not a curse.
They left together, bones and hearts, name and memory, storm and shelter.
And the mountain—unchanged, silent, watching every step.