The wind changed when they left the cliffs behind.
Torian noticed it first — not by feel, but by what was missing. No birdsong. No rustling leaves. Not even the steady whistle of the mountain air brushing against the glider on his back. The breeze had become hollow, like breath exhaled from a mouth too old to speak.
He shifted slightly atop Skarn's shoulders, tightening his legs against the beast's wide back. The motion was automatic now. Familiar. Safe. His fingers rested lightly against Skarn's fur, warm and coarse beneath the dawn-gray light.
They were descending into a wide valley that uncoiled like a basin of forgotten breath. The land sloped low, blanketed in dense white mist that rolled and pulsed in slow, unnatural waves, shifting and returning as if caught in a rhythm older than the wind itself.
Torian blinked at it.
Then glanced toward the horizon.
No trees. No cliffs. Just the fog — everywhere.
Skarn rumbled low in his chest, not stopping, but slowing his pace.
The ground beneath them had changed too. What had been firm earth was now stone — cracked, ancient, and scarred with strange markings. Not Spirals exactly, but worn battle etchings, melted and buried by time.
Torian looked down over Skarn's shoulder.
The mist grew thicker the deeper they moved.
And the silence became unnerving.
Not peaceful.
Dead.
⸻
They passed a half-collapsed stone spire on the path, nearly overtaken by lichen and creeping vines. Torian's eyes were drawn to a weathered plaque on the side — the metal long rusted out, but a faint emblem remained: a half-Spiral broken through the center, like a wound that never closed.
Torian's chest stirred.
The Spiral within him pulsed — faint, soft, not in heat, but like a muscle twitching in memory.
He pressed his palm to his chest unconsciously.
Skarn paused for a breath. Then kept walking.
They continued into the valley.
The mist swallowed the horizon completely now. The air felt thicker, harder to breathe — not because of altitude, but because it was full of something. Not smoke. Not magic.
Emotion.
Like sorrow had been soaked into the ground and now exhaled slowly back into the world.
Torian said nothing.
But he knew.
This place remembered the dead.
⸻
The first shapes appeared at the edge of vision.
Faint. Flickering. Nothing solid. Just glimpses: a shoulder turning, a hand reaching, a head bent low. They didn't move when Torian looked at them — only when he wasn't.
He clutched Skarn's fur tighter.
"…Did you see that?"
Skarn said nothing.
But his tail moved slightly. His wings twitched once.
Yes.
They saw it too.
⸻
They moved further down, the valley narrowing now. The cliffs on either side sloped upward into shadow, swallowed by the gray.
And then, beneath the low hiss of the mist, Torian heard it—
A whisper.
So soft he thought it might have been breath.
"…Torian…"
He stiffened.
The name came again.
From nowhere.
"…Torian…"
A child's voice. Faint. Familiar.
He turned his head sharply. "Who said that?"
Nothing.
Just the fog.
And then—
A sound like footsteps in ash.
A woman's voice, far off:
"Get to the house! Now!"
Torian's heart leapt into his throat.
"…Mother?"
He looked down over the side of Skarn's neck.
There was nothing.
Just mist.
Skarn stopped.
Torian's hands were shaking now.
The Spiral in his chest pulsed again — a slow flare of grief and memory. Not enough to burn. Just enough to stir the past.
"I don't want to remember this."
His voice cracked.
Skarn looked up at him — just for a moment.
Golden eyes steady.
Not questioning.
Just present.
Torian blinked hard.
And sat straighter.
"I'm okay."
Skarn moved forward again.
But the mist was thicker now.
And the whispers were closer.
As if the valley was breathing them back into being.
The mist closed in like a hand around the throat.
What had been thin and ghostlike before now curled thick around Skarn's limbs as he walked, rising up his fur in gray coils, clinging to Torian's clothes. It had weight to it now — not cold, not hot, just heavy, like it didn't want them to move further.
Torian sat upright on Skarn's back, his knees tight, breath shallow. The Spiral at his chest hadn't surged, but it hadn't calmed either. It sat under his skin like a second heartbeat. A tremor of something—not power, not yet. Just pressure.
The voices came clearer now.
No longer whispers.
Words.
Names.
A girl's voice called first:
"Torian! Hurry up, we're going to miss the story!"
He knew it instantly.
His sister.
He couldn't move.
Another voice — firm, older, warm:
"Get inside! Now!"
His father.
Then… a scream.
His mother.
Short. Cut off.
Torian's hands clenched into fists.
He bent forward against Skarn's back, pressing his forehead into the beast's shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. The air around him pulsed with memory. With moments. They weren't dreams. They weren't ghosts.
They were echoes.
Shadows of the dead, born again by the Spiral's proximity to the place they'd burned.
Skarn stopped walking.
Not frozen.
Just… bracing.
His golden eyes scanned the thickening fog.
Figures were appearing now.
Everywhere.
Some stood still — silhouettes of warriors holding massive weapons, their Spiral flames dim and flickering. Others knelt beside fallen beasts. Still others were black-armored shapes, half-formed, locked in the act of killing.
They didn't move like the living.
They shifted, flickered, repeated — loops of death, trapped in time.
Torian stared at one figure ahead: a Spiral-bearer, arms outstretched, a spiral staff glowing between his palms. Across from him — a soldier with a burning axe frozen mid-swing.
They were still, yet somehow alive.
Torian's throat closed.
"I didn't make it."
His voice came out raw.
"They called for me, and I didn't—"
The Spiral in his chest pulsed harder. Not light. Not fire.
Just grief.
"I was too slow. I didn't get there."
He leaned forward, curling slightly now, clutching his shirt over the flame buried under his skin.
"I saw them. I saw them burn."
Another scream echoed from the mist. His mother again.
"Torian—!"
He let out a choked sob and buried his face against Skarn's shoulder.
The beast didn't flinch.
Didn't move.
He stood like a mountain — unmoving beneath the weight of the valley, unmoved by the ghosts crawling through the mist. But his wings curled inward slightly. Protective. Unfolding like a wall between the boy and the specters that now stood surrounding them.
Torian's breath hitched again.
"They died because I wasn't fast enough."
His voice was breaking.
A long pause.
Then—
"You left us."
A voice behind him. Small. Broken.
His sister.
He turned sharply.
A figure stood in the mist — child-sized, hands at her side, eyes hollow light.
"I—I tried—"
"You didn't come."
"I ran—"
"You left me in the fire."
Torian reached toward her.
She vanished like ash.
He froze.
And screamed.
A raw, broken sound — not rage. Despair.
"I tried to save you!"
The Spiral in his chest flared suddenly, a white-hot flash bursting out through his ribs in every direction like a heatless wave of light.
The ghosts paused.
All of them.
And in that one moment, Torian saw every face around him — warriors, children, Spiral-bearers, his family — staring at him.
Not accusing.
Not angry.
Just seeing.
And then…
The light dimmed.
The Spiral faded back to stillness.
And the mist began to drift again.
⸻
Torian collapsed forward against Skarn, chest heaving, eyes hollow. His body shook with each breath, his tears spent but his grief still rising like steam from a broken core.
Skarn didn't move.
Didn't roar.
Didn't run.
He just stood there.
Still. Solid. Real.
And let the boy grieve.
The mist didn't move like fog anymore.
It moved like a veil.
Drawn back slowly by unseen hands.
The valley began to reshape itself. The crumbling cliffs faded, replaced by walls he knew too well. The path twisted, narrowed, became familiar — grass where ash had been, trees where ruin once stood. A house emerged in the distance.
His house.
The village returned.
But not as it had died — as it had lived.
⸻
Torian slid from Skarn's back.
His knees buckled, but he didn't fall.
The Spiral on his chest was glowing faintly — not bright, not wild, just steady. Like a coal beneath skin, pulsing with breath.
Skarn didn't stop him.
He simply watched.
As the boy walked into his own past.
⸻
The first thing he heard was laughter.
His sister's.
Chasing through the woods behind their old home. Her voice full of joy, calling to him to hurry. She was always faster. Always braver.
Then the hammer —
Clang. Clang. Clang.
His father, Arel, working iron on the forge beside the house, sweat on his brow, fire in his eyes. The rhythm of a man who held a village on his shoulders.
And then—
His mother's voice.
Low. Gentle. Calling them in for supper.
Torian stood in the middle of the village square.
Every building stood where it had. The torches weren't lit yet. Smoke from cooking fires drifted up in straight lines, soft and calm.
He turned.
The streets were full.
People walked past him — his friends, his neighbors, the merchants and the old storytellers. They didn't see him.
Because this wasn't a dream.
This was a memory.
One locked deep inside the Spiral.
⸻
He walked forward slowly.
Down the same path he'd run through screaming when the soldiers came. Past the tree his sister used to climb. Past the stand where his father bought bread on market days.
He came to his home.
The door was open.
Arel stood inside — tall, strong, laughing.
Torian stepped onto the threshold.
And the world stopped.
⸻
The sky turned red.
The light dimmed.
A scream tore through the village — his mother's again, this time from the real night.
"Get to the house! Torian, run!"
He turned — and there he was.
Himself — younger, terrified, sprinting toward the door. The soldiers at his heels. Fire falling from the sky.
Arel reached out from the doorway.
Torian remembered this part.
This was when the burning boulder fell.
When the house exploded.
When everything ended.
He waited for it—
But it didn't come.
The fire paused mid-air.
Suspended.
Like someone had pressed time between fingers and held it still.
Torian stepped forward.
His younger self remained frozen — arm outstretched, eyes wide, feet about to leave the ground.
Torian walked through him.
And into the house.
⸻
His mother stood in the kitchen.
His sister by the window.
Arel turned, eyes full of hope—not yet knowing he would die reaching.
Torian stood before them.
He didn't cry.
He didn't run.
He whispered, "You're gone."
They didn't move.
He stepped closer.
"I carry you every day. Every hour. Every time I close my eyes."
Still, they said nothing.
"But I can't burn with you anymore."
The Spiral on his chest flared, and fire danced in the air — not heat, not wild, but clean, golden, like light bent through glass.
"I remember you."
He reached out and touched the table.
"I always will."
And then—
He turned around.
And walked back out the door.
⸻
The world cracked.
The memory fell.
The fire resumed its fall—
—but this time it hit nothing.
Because Torian was already gone.
The vision shattered around him like glass hit by wind.
And the mist of the valley swallowed it all.
⸻
He stumbled back to Skarn, legs trembling, eyes dry.
He climbed into the saddle of fur and bone without a word.
Skarn looked at him.
Torian looked straight ahead.
And whispered:
"I'm ready."
Skarn walked forward.
No ghosts followed.
They left the broken memory behind them.
The mist began to recede.
Not all at once — not like fog burning away at dawn — but slowly, like breath exhaled after a long cry. The shapes faded first: the houses, the shadows of the fallen warriors, the looped ghosts locked in dying screams. One by one, they unraveled into the gray, pulled back into silence.
Only Skarn's footsteps remained.
Steady.
Unshaken.
Each one deliberate. Heavy. Real.
Torian sat upright on his back again, arms draped loosely around the beast's neck, fingers open and quiet. He didn't shake anymore. His eyes didn't dart. His breathing had leveled. He wasn't empty.
He was just… still.
They reached the end of the valley when the last of the mist finally peeled back.
And there, rising from the center of a flat stone field, stood a single sword.
⸻
It was buried in the earth to the hilt, standing at a perfect angle — untouched by weather, time, or hands. A long blade, wide and thick, its edge dulled, its handle wrapped in scorched black leather. Etched into the flat of the steel was the Spiral.
Not glowing.
Not alive.
Just there.
Torian slid down from Skarn's back.
His boots touched stone, warm from the sun now beginning to reach over the cliffs. He stepped forward slowly, hands at his sides, no fear in his chest. Only a question.
He came to the blade.
Knelt beside it.
Stared at the Spiral mark burned into the metal — a different pattern than his own, but clearly the same family.
A weapon meant to burn.
A weapon made to protect.
He reached out.
Touched the hilt.
And the sword crumbled.
No sound. No flash. Just dust, black and fine, falling like ash into the wind.
Torian stared as it scattered.
Not in shock.
But in understanding.
"…It's gone."
He stood slowly.
The Spiral in his chest gave a single pulse — not in grief, not in sorrow, just… presence.
He turned to Skarn, who stood behind him, still as the stone.
Torian whispered:
"They're all gone."
The wind picked up slightly, lifting the last of the dust into the sky.
"But I'm not."
He placed a hand over his chest.
"And I'm not done."
⸻
Skarn moved forward.
He didn't say anything — couldn't — but Torian didn't need words.
The massive beast lowered his head.
And pressed his brow gently into the side of Torian's chest.
Torian didn't flinch.
He simply stood there, arms at his sides, head bowed against the fur.
They stayed that way for a long time.
Not in pain.
Not in mourning.
Just together.
⸻
When the moment passed, Torian climbed back onto Skarn's back.
The mist was almost gone now.
The cliffs rose up ahead, steep but climbable.
And beyond them: the next unknown stretch of their journey.
Torian looked over his shoulder one last time at the valley.
There were no ghosts behind them.
No whispers.
No screams.
Only the sound of wind brushing across stone.
He turned forward again.
The Spiral no longer burned.
It pulsed.
Steady. Ready. Alive.
Skarn spread his wings.
And leapt.
⸻
They soared up the cliffs, the valley falling away below.
When they reached the crest and the sky broke open in gold, Torian leaned forward into the wind and smiled — not because he was happy.
But because he wasn't afraid.
And as the last mist vanished in the rising sun, he whispered to no one but the wind:
"I did not leave them behind.
But they no longer walk in front of me."