Light flared, sharp and blinding, then softened into familiar gold.
Ed stepped forward onto springy grass that gave beneath his boots with the exact spring he remembered from a hundred years ago. The scent hit him first—wild clover, sun-warmed earth, the faint green sweetness of young birch leaves. A breeze stirred, carrying the distant trill of skylarks and the low murmur of a stream somewhere to his left.
He stood on the same wide plain where he had first arrived.
Back then the grass had seemed impossibly bright, almost artificial, the way everything in this world had felt too vivid, too alive compared to the gray concrete of home. Now it looked the same—endless rolling green under a sky so blue it hurt to look at. The low hills in the distance still wore their crowns of dark pines. A thin ribbon of road wound toward the horizon, exactly where it should be.
For one fragile second, Ed allowed himself to believe.
Ten years. The Demon Lord defeated. Villages rebuilt. Children playing without fear. The hero's party celebrated in every tavern from the capital to the borderlands. Maybe they even raised a statue of Kyle somewhere, sword raised, cloak billowing in bronze.
He smiled—small, tentative, the first real one in what felt like forever.
Then he noticed the silence.
No birdsong anymore. The larks had stopped mid-note. The breeze still moved the grass, but it carried no other sound—no cart wheels, no distant hammer strikes from the town that should have been visible just over the next rise, no lowing cattle, no children shouting.
The quiet pressed against his ears like water.
Ed's smile faded.
He turned slowly, scanning the plain. Nothing moved except the wind. No smoke rose from chimneys that should have dotted the valley ahead. No laundry snapped on lines. The road that used to carry merchants and pilgrims lay empty, its packed dirt already softening back into meadow.
His stomach tightened.
He started walking.
The town had been called Lirien's Rest—small, prosperous enough, the kind of place that had welcomed the hero's party with bread and ale and wide-eyed children tugging at cloaks for stories. Ed remembered the market square: cobblestones worn smooth, a fountain shaped like a leaping fish, stalls selling honey cakes and dyed wool.
He crested the final rise and stopped dead.
The town was still there.
What remained of it.
Roofs had caved inward like broken eggshells. Blackened timbers jutted at strange angles. The fountain lay in pieces, its stone basin split and dry. Weeds grew thick between the cobbles, tall enough to brush Ed's knees. Char marks climbed the surviving walls in ugly streaks. Windows gaped like empty eye sockets.
No bodies. No blood. Just absence.
Ed walked forward numbly. His boots crunched on broken slate. The air smelled wrong now—old ash, wet rot, something faintly metallic underneath.
He passed the inn where they'd stayed their first night. The sign—The Traveler's Lantern—still hung by one chain, swaying in the breeze. The painted lantern was cracked, the gold leaf long since flaked away.
He reached the market square.
The fish fountain lay on its side, mouth open in a perpetual gasp. Someone had tried to rebuild part of the well once—fresh mortar, newer stones—but the work had been abandoned halfway. Tools rusted beside it: a trowel, a bucket with a broken handle.
Ed crouched, touched the mortar. It was cold, set hard. Months old at least. Maybe years.
A sound—soft, scraping—came from behind a collapsed stall.
Ed straightened instantly, hand dropping to the short sword at his hip.
An old man stepped out from the shadow of a half-fallen wall. Thin, stooped, wrapped in patched wool that had once been fine. His beard was long and gray, eyes sunken but sharp. He carried a burlap sack over one shoulder and a walking stick in his free hand.
The old man stopped when he saw Ed. His gaze flicked over Ed's clothes—still the same travel-worn tunic and cloak from the expulsion night—then to the sword, then back to Ed's face.
"Young man," he said, voice rough but not unkind. "What are you doing in a place like this? There's nothing left here worth taking. You were lured by false rumors of treasure, weren't you?"
He reached into the sack, pulled out a small cloth bundle, and tossed it lightly toward Ed's feet.
"Take it. Bread and dried fish. Be more careful from now on. Roads aren't safe anymore."
Ed stared at the bundle without moving.
"Sir," he said slowly. "What happened here?"
The old man tilted his head, studying Ed as though trying to decide if he was mad or simply ignorant.
"What are you talking about? This place became a ruin two years ago. The demon army came through. Burned everything. Killed most who didn't run fast enough."
Ed felt the words land like stones in his chest.
"The demon army?" His voice sounded distant, even to himself. "Two years ago?"
The old man snorted. "You really are from far away, aren't you? They've been marching and burning for years now. Where the hell have you been?"
Ed's mouth moved before his brain caught up.
"But… the hero. Alexis. The prince. He was one step away from defeating the Demon Lord ten years ago. Everyone said—"
"Ohhh." The old man's expression softened into something close to pity. "The hero. Right. Prince Alexis." He scratched at his beard. "He died in battle against the demon army five years back. Took a bad wound at the Battle of Ashen Vale. Didn't last the night."
Ed's knees nearly buckled.
"Dead?" The word came out cracked. "That's not possible. He was the hero. He had the holy sword. He—"
The old man shrugged, weary.
"No matter how much you want to deny it, boy, this town is proof enough. If the hero were still alive, maybe this place wouldn't be ashes. Maybe a lot of places wouldn't be."
Ed's gaze drifted across the destruction again. The fountain. The inn. The market stalls reduced to charcoal skeletons.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"His companions… there were two others in the party. The monk, Okasa. The mage, Tia. What about them?"
The old man sighed.
"Who knows? Probably died with him. I haven't heard any news of them surviving. It's sad, isn't it? All that hope, all those songs… and it ends like this. We kept hearing they were unstoppable. Turns out even heroes bleed."
He shouldered his sack higher.
"Anyway. Prince or hero, dead is dead. That's all there is to it."
He turned to leave, then paused.
"Farewell, young man. I suggest you get out of here quick. The roads aren't kind to dreamers anymore."
The old man shuffled away, stick tapping against broken stone.
Ed didn't move.
He stood in the ruined square until the sun slid lower and the shadows grew long. Wind moved through the empty streets, carrying the faint smell of old fire.
Somewhere deep inside, a small, stubborn part of him still refused to believe.
But the silence was louder than any argument.