The stars had begun to fade when Torian stirred.
He blinked slowly, lashes heavy with sleep, and reached up to rub his eyes. Skarn hadn't moved. The beast still lay beside him, wings curled loosely around his massive form, the tip of his tail twitching faintly in dreams. The sky above was beginning to bleed into early light — a pale blue halo cresting over the trees, soaking the world in soft color.
Torian didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
He sat up quietly and retrieved his glider from the grass where it had been folded neatly nearby. The fabric was still cool with dew, the ribs whispering with stored wind. He brushed a hand across the etched braces and slung it over his shoulders.
A quiet yawn escaped him.
His body ached from the day before, but not in a way he hated. This pain meant something. He climbed up onto Skarn's back without a word. The beast didn't even lift his head — only grunted once in low acknowledgment before rising to his feet, lifting Torian easily into the air.
They moved through the trees, slow and steady, as birds began calling out the dawn.
Torian leaned into Skarn's fur, head tilted to one side, arms resting loosely at his sides. His eyes fluttered between waking and sleep. There was peace in the silence. A rhythm in Skarn's pace that didn't need to be spoken.
Until the air changed.
⸻
They smelled it before they saw it.
Smoke — not fresh, but old. Burnt stone, scorched bark, the kind of scent that lingers long after the fire has gone out. Skarn's pace slowed. His head lowered. His wings twitched once.
Torian sat up straighter.
They came to a clearing surrounded by broken stumps and blackened trees. Charcoal-gray stones ringed a hollow where grass refused to grow. At the center of the clearing stood a crumbled altar carved from obsidian. Spiral markings were etched all across it, warped and melted.
But what drew the eye…
Was the flame.
A single, vertical column of fire burned straight out of the altar — silent, unmoving, perfect. It didn't flicker or twist. It simply rose, as if held in place by something that refused to die.
Torian slid down from Skarn's back.
He took a step toward it.
Skarn growled.
Not loud. Just enough.
Torian glanced back. "It's okay…"
But the beast took a step forward too, low and wary, his muscles tense.
Torian turned again and walked toward the flame.
Each step brought a subtle pressure, like air thickening around him. The Spiral on his chest — normally dormant — began to prickle faintly beneath the skin.
When he reached the altar, the glow intensified.
Torian raised a hand.
His fingers hovered just above the flame.
Then—
He touched it.
⸻
The world exploded.
⸻
There was no heat. No pain.
Just power.
The Spiral ignited across his chest in a burst of searing light — not red or orange, but white, threaded with gold. His eyes flew open wide, and a soundless roar tore from his lungs. Fire erupted from his back, his arms, his legs — not as jets or weapons, but as violent expulsions of raw force.
The ground cracked beneath his feet.
Skarn recoiled, leaping backward as the clearing filled with impossible wind. Leaves spun into the air, dust ignited mid-flight. The trees bent away from the altar, groaning against a pressure they couldn't contain.
Torian rose into the air.
Not by choice.
His limbs slack, head tilted back, eyes blank with power, he hovered, spinning slowly as fire lanced in every direction.
It wasn't an attack.
It wasn't anything.
It was the Spiral recognizing itself.
Skarn crouched low, wings spread wide, claws dug into the dirt to keep from being flung away. His golden eyes locked on the boy — wild with confusion, maybe even fear. This wasn't flame like the beasts wielded. This was something deeper, older, untouched by command or reason.
Then—
It stopped.
⸻
The fire snapped inward.
Torian's body stilled.
A ring of flame ignited around him — quiet, steady, glowing like a sun fallen to earth. For a single, breathless moment, he hung at its center, kneeling in the air.
Then the ring dimmed.
The light collapsed.
And he dropped like a stone.
Skarn surged forward and caught him before he hit the ground, setting him down gently.
Torian lay still.
Smoke curled from his fingertips. His eyes were closed, his chest rising shallow and fast.
Skarn circled him once.
Sniffed the air.
Took a step back and watched.
Watched hard.
As if the creature in front of him might not be the boy he had just flown with.
⸻
The clearing was dead quiet.
No wind.
No birds.
Only the faint hiss of steam rising from cracked earth.
Torian stirred.
Rolled to his side, groaned, and blinked hard at the sky.
"…What happened…?"
He sat up slowly, wobbling slightly, and looked around.
Skarn stood nearby, still watching.
"…Did I pass out?" Torian rubbed his eyes. "Feels like I passed out…"
He looked up.
The flames were gone.
Only the blackened altar remained.
He turned to Skarn and gave a crooked smile.
"I wish you could talk."
Skarn said nothing.
But didn't look away.
⸻
Torian stood on shaky legs.
Walked to where his glider lay propped against a stone.
He paused.
Then tightened the strap across his chest and looked back to the sky.
"Alright…"
"…let's fly."
The wind had changed.
Not in sound, or speed, or scent — but in something deeper. As if it had seen what happened in the clearing and now moved differently around him. Like it carried memory.
Torian didn't notice that at first.
He was too focused on the glider.
He stood at the edge of a wide slope that dropped down into a green valley lined with trees. The sky above was deep blue and open — clouds stretched long and slow like brushstrokes over glass. A perfect current flowed up from the valley, cresting over the ridge.
Torian adjusted the glider's straps again.
Checked the braces.
His muscles still ached. His arms trembled faintly from the earlier surge — whatever that had been — but he didn't care. He couldn't afford to. Not when this was what he needed now.
He exhaled.
Stepped back.
Skarn stood off to the side, wings half-drawn, watching silently. The massive beast hadn't taken his eyes off Torian since the explosion. He didn't look afraid anymore.
He looked ready.
Torian broke into a sprint.
The wind rushed up to meet him.
He leapt—
—and the glider caught.
⸻
This time, he didn't spin.
Didn't stall.
The frame flexed perfectly with his weight, the wind folding into its bones like it had been waiting for him to return. The air lifted him higher—higher than before, past the slope, past the trees, into the open sky.
Torian gasped.
Laughed once.
Not out of surprise.
But out of joy.
The Spiral on his chest glowed faintly — not burning, not surging, just warm. Balanced. Steady. A heartbeat, no more.
He pulled the glider slightly to the left and caught a crosswind that curved him into a spiral. The wings adjusted with him. He was flying, truly flying now, not as a mistake, not as a stunt.
As a choice.
Below, Skarn ran.
Then jumped.
And his wings spread wide.
⸻
Skarn rose in three thunderous beats — earth cracking beneath his leap, air tearing around him as his black-and-silver wings snapped into full span.
He reached Torian's height in seconds.
They flew together now.
The beast and the boy.
Wind whistled past them. Clouds drifted beneath them. The world below shrank into colors and movement — the green trees, the gray cliffs, the blue stretch of lake.
Torian shifted his weight again, dipping into a gentle roll. Skarn mimicked it effortlessly, gliding beside him like a shadow.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
For the first time, they weren't escaping something. They weren't being hunted. They weren't surviving.
They were soaring.
Together.
As if they'd always been meant to.
⸻
They flew until the sun tipped toward dusk again.
Torian finally dipped low, catching a smooth curve of wind toward a wide plateau covered in soft moss. He landed gently, glider folding mid-step as he touched down.
Skarn followed a moment later, wings beating once before he landed behind Torian in a soft quake of muscle and dust.
Torian turned, breathing hard.
Face flushed.
Eyes bright.
"That was… that was it."
Skarn padded forward.
Torian stepped closer and reached up, resting a hand between the base of Skarn's neck and shoulder.
"You saw that, right? I actually did it."
Skarn blinked once.
And leaned his head down, letting Torian rest his forehead against his.
A breath.
A bond.
Not born in battle.
But in the sky.
⸻
Above them, the last light of day scattered gold across the glider's frame.
The Spiral on Torian's chest pulsed once.
Faint.
Dormant.
Waiting for the next time it would be called.
But for now…
For now, the boy could fly.
And he was not alone.