Morning came without sunrise.
The fog didn't lift so much as rearrange itself, pulling into vertical columns that twisted slowly in place. The village's paradoxes were quieter now, as though the whole settlement had been holding its breath overnight and was only now letting it out in slow, invisible threads.
Oriven stood at the edge of the wooden walkway, fastening a leather strap around his wrist. His pack was already on his back. "We leave before the paths fold."
Viridion glanced toward the mountainside. The route they had taken into the village was gone. In its place, a lattice of wooden bridges stretched out into the fog, crisscrossing and spiraling downward like someone had tried to draw geometry with a trembling hand.
"How do you know which way to go?" Viridion asked.
"I don't." Oriven's answer was calm, almost amused. "But the Engine knows which way it wants us to go. The difference is whether you fight it or let it think you're following."
They set off.
The walkways groaned underfoot, not from weight, but from memory — the sound was like the echo of footsteps that weren't there anymore. Viridion found himself matching Oriven's pace exactly, unsure if it was choice or inevitability.
They had gone perhaps twenty minutes when Viridion saw it: a single black feather lying on the boards ahead. It didn't rest on the wood, but hovered a hair above it, trembling slightly as if resisting an unseen pull.
Oriven stopped. His gaze sharpened. "Don't touch it."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not here for you."
Viridion frowned, but before he could ask more, the fog ahead split like curtains drawn by invisible hands.
A figure stood there.
Tall, lean, and draped in a coat lined with ash-gray feathers — the same as in the stairwell's lantern-vision. Their copper eyes held the weight of someone who had seen not just years, but choices calcified into centuries.
They stepped forward, each motion deliberate, as if the air needed to be convinced to let them through. The black feather rose from the walkway and drifted into their hand.
"I was wondering when you'd start walking my path," the figure said, voice low and resonant.
Viridion's chest tightened. "You— You were in—"
"Yes." The figure's gaze didn't leave him. "And you will see me in many more places you have not yet been."
Oriven's posture shifted — not defensive, but… acknowledging. "You're far from your reach, Lyrik."
The name hung in the air like a blade.
"Not far enough," Lyrik replied. "The Engine has been humming differently. He's the reason, isn't he?" A tilt of the head toward Viridion.
Viridion opened his mouth to speak, but Oriven's look was enough to silence him.
Lyrik tucked the feather inside their coat. "We will meet again, apprentice. When you understand that some feathers refuse to fall — not because of gravity, but because they haven't yet chosen the ground they belong to."
And just like that, the fog closed, and Lyrik was gone.