Chapter 5: Echoes of the Bound
The dawn after the raid brought a brittle quiet. Arin woke to the sound of children calling for water and the soft creak of rope as platforms shifted in the wind. The treetop village seemed to breathe around him — a slow, guarded inhale — but in that small hour of morning, Arin felt the weight of what Selene had said pressing into him like stone.
You must choose, she had told him. Run from what you are—or learn what these eyes were meant to see.
He sat on the edge of the platform watching the valley below. Mist curled between the trees like pale fingers; somewhere beneath, a river glinted silver. The wounds of the raid still smoked along the distant tree line, blackened stumps jutting up like teeth. Arin had learned to read the light differently now: it told him more than shape. It told him hunger, remorse, hunger again. He felt each thread of life hum.
Leira emerged from a narrow ladderway with a small bundle in her arms. Morning had made her cheeks softer, the lines of fear tucked away; she smiled at him with an attempt at normalcy that never quite reached her eyes. "They brought bread and dried fish," she said. "Some of the elders thought you should speak with them today."
Arin shook his head. The thought of standing before a circle of elders, being pointed at or pitied, made his stomach churn. He was not sure he wanted to be a spectacle. Yet the villagers were already whispering; Kael's earlier gossip had spread like sun-heated smoke. Some looked at him with awe; others with thinly veiled fear. He knew Selene would urge him to face them. The leader's words had authority and expectation — she believed they had a choice, and now the village watched him for what that choice would be.
The elders' platform was a wide plank strung between two great trunks. Elder Horsa, bent as a walking stick, cleared his throat and gestured for Arin to sit. Around them, hands folded, eyes polite but searching. The air smelled of pine, resin, and boiled root. Arin sat, Leira by his side, her fingers lacing his until he could feel her heartbeat steady his own.
"Child," Horsa began, voice like dry leaves, "we have sheltered you and yours. But our safety rests on what lies beyond these trees. Tell us—what did you see?"
Arin swallowed. Words stumbled. He tried to tell them of the fire and the raiders and the frozen blades suspended in air, but language felt clumsy compared to the torrent inside him. So he spoke of what he could: the colors threaded through people, the faint hum like trapped music, and the way certain shapes flared with hunger when touched by other shapes. He kept the worst for himself: the man with burning eyes, the fields of broken statues. Names would only make listeners fearful.
When he finished, a hush fell. Horsa tapped his staff on the planks. "These are old signs," he said slowly. "Eyes that see beyond have turned nations." He looked at Selene. "You say this boy might be bound to something dark?"
Selene's face held no surprise. "Not necessarily dark," she answered. "Bound, perhaps. Connected. We have seen marks like this before—carvings in caves, songs half-remembered by keepswomen. The world has threads we do not always cut. One who sees them can follow or be dragged."
A woman at the back muttered, "Drag us along with him?" Kael snarled back, "We kept you so far; don't start now." Voices rose, thin and anxious as taut strings. Leira's grip tightened around Arin's hand until it hurt. He looked at her and felt a surge of protective heat. He would not be the cause of their ruin.
After the meeting, Selene led Arin away to a narrow bridge that drifted to a small watchtower. They sat on rough-hewn seats that overlooked the valley, its slow river cutting like a silver ribbon. The wind moved through the leaves in a rhythm that reminded Arin of old lullabies, and he let himself breathe for the first time that day.
"You're quiet," Selene observed. "You carry a storm inside."
"I don't know what I am supposed to do with it," Arin said honestly. "I see everything — the lives, the hurts. Sometimes I see the future like a flicker. I feel connected to people as though strings bind us. It's too much."
Selene watched him with a gaze that was kind and sharp. "Many with gifts first fear them. Some choose to hide and deny; others learn craft, and they become healers, guides—some become shields." She paused. "There is a place," she said slowly, "where those who are marked seek understanding. It is called the Hollow Archive—an old place where maps and memories are kept. It is far, and the path will not be easy."
Arin's chest tightened. "Will they help me?" he asked.
"They will teach you to read what your eyes show without letting it swallow you." Selene's voice was steady. "But the Archive is not a sanctuary from consequence. It is a place of truth. And truth asks a price."
The simplicity of that answer steadied him and frightened him. To leave would be to wander, to place Leira in danger if the raiders pursued. To stay could mean the treetop villagers would be hunted as long as they sheltered him. The choice Selene had put upon him felt less like freedom and more like a blade with two edges.
That afternoon, Arin walked with Kael through the marketplace platforms. Kael moved with the bored swagger of someone who had seen little consequence and much bravado. Merchants with woven belts and jars of waxed honey nodded at them, some glancing at Arin as if deciding whether he was a blessing or a curse. Kael pointed out small details with an easy mouth—where the best figs were kept, which path avoided the squirrel nests. The light fell through the leaves in strips, making the world look woven. Arin found a strange solace in small things: the feel of a wooden railing under his palm, the bark's rough grooves, the way a sparrow flicked from one post to another.
That night, around the fire, Maera the storyteller returned to the old tales—but this time she told of the Hollow Archive in riddles. "It sits where the earth opens to memory. Scribes keep its doors, and its halls wind like rivers of stone," she murmured. "Those who enter must leave behind illusions." The elders nodded, their faces lit by the fire like carved masks. Arin listened and felt a strange pull; for the first time since his eyes opened, he felt the stirrings of purpose. Perhaps this was not merely a curse but a path.
Sleep came hard. When he drifted, his dreams were not only of fire but of pages and long rooms filled with carved maps. He woke with the taste of dust in his mouth.
In the morning, he found Leira on the edge of the platform, looking down where smoke still rose in the far distance. "If we go," she said quietly, "we go together." The clarity in her voice steadied him. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. "Together," he promised.
They began to prepare. Selene gathered those willing to travel and spread the word to the elders. Kael ran between platforms, rallying a few who had the climbing skill and the willingness to risk the road. Some volunteered; others trembled and stayed. Goodbyes were quick—no dramatic farewells, just a set of eyes here, a pressed hand there. The village seemed to breathe differently, less a cage and more a ship setting sail.
As they left, the forest closed behind them like a curtain. The path Selene chose wound down through old deer tracks, crossed a small stream by stepping stones and curved around the hollowed roots of an elder tree. It was not a road marked on any map Arin had seen in memory, but it felt right—like a hand guiding him where it had been before.
Night fell as they camped in a high hollow. The sky above was thin and star-bright. Arin lay on his back and let the constellations burn into him. He wondered what the Archive would be like. Would it be dusty and cold? Or warm and welcoming? He thought of the man with burning eyes, of the army's torches, and of the whisper he had heard—The eye that sees beyond must not remain unbound. The whisper had become a drumbeat in his head.
In the distance, over the hill where the river split, a sound rose like a low chant. The travelers around him grew still, straining to hear. It was faint at first, then clearer: voices, many, in a cadence that made the ground hum. Arin sat up, heart lurching. The chant was not from the raiders they had faced earlier. It was older, colder, shaped around words he could not yet name.
Selene stood and peered over the slope. Her hand went to her knife, steady as a bird. She did not look surprised. "They're coming," she said, her voice low as a stone dropped into deep water. "Not all enemies move with flame, Arin. Some come with songs that bind."
Arin felt those words like frost. He pressed his hands to his eyes, not to hide them but to feel them. He had seen much, but there were depths his eye had not yet fully shown. The chorus on the wind rose again, and this time he thought he heard words: bind the sight, bind the bearer.
He had not chosen this. But the world already had designs. And at the edge of the clearing, under the thin cold stars, the travelers settled around their fire with a new urgency: tomorrow the road would begin, and with it, a longer journey—toward the Archive, toward truth, and toward a fate that might demand everything he had left.