Smoke still danced above Solmor's ruins, painting the sky in war's first brushstrokes. Jade crouched low beneath shattered beams, his breath visible in the icy dusk. His fingers trembled—not from fear, but exhaustion. Time-weaving had limits, and he was at its edge.
Then he heard it.
A cry. Muffled. Young.
He turned swiftly, eyes narrowing, scanning the fallen shadows of the village shrine.
A boy. No older than ten. Pale hair tangled, hands bound behind him, mouth gagged. Soldiers had missed him—perhaps a prisoner, or bait. Jade approached, wary, his instincts old and sharpened from another life.
The boy didn't flinch.
Their eyes met—one pair glowing with midnight ink, the other a striking amber.
Jade slit the ropes with a shard of frozen glass. The boy pulled the gag free and whispered, "You're the one they're hunting."
No fear. No awe. Just a calm observation.
Jade didn't answer.
"I'm Rael," the boy said, brushing soot from his sleeves. "I pick locks. I steal bread. I've escaped worse than this, but I can't fight generals. So thanks."
He grinned, then paused. "You don't speak?"
Jade shook his head slowly.
Rael nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"Good. Fewer lies."
He turned toward the horizon, then back. "Where are you going?"
Jade pointed—south, into the Whispering Pines. Away from the capital. Away from the prince.
Rael followed, whistling.
"You saved me. That makes us something. Friends. Or... accomplices. I'll take either."
Jade didn't smile.
But he didn't push Rael away.
Later that night...
They sat by a fire of green flame, fed by the strange bark of the pinewoods. Rael was sketching something in the dirt—runes he half-remembered, taught to him by a fugitive monk once.
Jade watched him.
And for the first time in years, he wasn't alone.
But deep in the trees, beyond firelight and frost, the prince's hunters whispered of a new order:
"Bring me the thief too. He walks beside the Echo. He will bleed to make the boy speak."