The cave was dark, but not silent.
A low wind hissed through cracks in the stone, curling along the floor like breath through hollow ribs. Somewhere deeper inside, water dripped in slow, echoing intervals — the kind that made minutes stretch. The kind that marked time by grief.
Torian stirred.
His eyes opened into blackness.
No fire. No stars. Just the ache of his body and the weight of stone above him.
He groaned and shifted, then winced sharply as a pulse of pain threaded down his ribs. Every muscle screamed. His shoulder throbbed where the Spiral had exploded outward. His hands were scraped raw from the impact. His entire chest felt like it had been carved from cooled iron — stiff, heavy, hollow.
He blinked.
Shapes began to form.
Stone walls. The jagged mouth of the cave faintly lit by distant moonlight.
And beside him—
Skarn.
Curled against the wall, breath shallow. Wings folded tight. One leg twisted unnaturally beneath his frame, his side stained dark with blood.
Torian's breath caught.
He crawled — slowly, weakly — toward him.
"Skarn…"
The beast didn't move.
Not at first.
But when Torian touched his fur — warm, matted — one of Skarn's golden eyes slid open.
Still alive.
Still watching.
Still here.
Torian exhaled. His hand trembled as he dragged it down Skarn's shoulder, fingers tracing old scars and new wounds.
"You're… stupid," he whispered. "You should've run."
Skarn grunted softly — a low, rattling breath through cracked ribs.
Torian sat down beside him and leaned back against the wall. His body throbbed. His head felt light. His Spiral flickered once beneath his skin — faintly, like a coal under ash.
Not gone.
But tired.
⸻
He didn't speak for a long time.
Didn't need to.
The pain said enough. So did the silence.
Eventually, he glanced down at his hands.
They still shook.
The fire that had poured out of him in the sky… it didn't feel like power. It felt like surrender. Like something old breaking free for the first time — not because he'd called it, but because he'd let go.
He hadn't controlled it.
He'd barely survived it.
His gaze shifted to the Spiral-forged rod at his side.
Two fragments.
Not three.
He shut his eyes.
They'd come so close.
They were right there — on the threshold of the third seal — when Kaelgor came down like the hand of a god.
And he took it from them.
Not just the seal. Not just the progress.
The moment.
The control.
Torian's jaw clenched.
He didn't feel like a hero.
He felt like a boy who'd been lifted into the air, strangled to the edge of death, and flung back down to the dirt like nothing.
And yet…
He'd hit him.
He'd hit him.
Torian opened his eyes again.
He looked over at Skarn.
The beast was asleep now — or unconscious. His massive head rested across his front paws, wings wrapped loosely around his body like tattered banners of bone and muscle.
Torian pulled the glider off his back and laid it aside. The wings were scorched. The straps frayed. It would need repair. If it even still worked.
He laid down beside Skarn.
Didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
But for the first time since that burning night in the village, he let himself feel still.
He was alive.
Skarn was alive.
And the fire inside him — whatever it was — hadn't died.
⸻
Torian closed his eyes again.
The last image before sleep took him wasn't Kaelgor's face.
It was the crater.
And the look in Skarn's eyes when he found him in the center of it.
Like he wasn't sure what kind of creature he was bringing home anymore.
Torian woke to wind.
Not violent. Not cold.
Just steady.
It whispered against the edges of the cave mouth, carrying the scent of pine and ash. Pale morning light spilled across the stone, golden and fractured, revealing the dust that hung in the air like memory.
Skarn was still breathing.
Torian sat up slowly, joints aching, muscles stiff. The Spiral beneath his skin hummed faintly—not burning, but present. Like it was watching. Waiting.
He rolled his shoulder. Pain lanced through it. His ribs still felt bruised from the inside out. But he could move. That was enough.
He looked to Skarn.
The beast hadn't stirred.
His breathing was slow, deep. One wing was bent at an odd angle, but it had folded closer to his side during the night. Blood crusted along his flank. His fur was torn in several places, some of the wounds too deep for a boy to fix.
But he was alive.
Torian crawled closer and pressed his hand gently to the thick fur along Skarn's shoulder.
The warmth beneath it was steady.
A low, soft rumble echoed beneath the skin.
"I know," Torian whispered. "I wasn't ready."
Skarn didn't open his eyes.
But his tail twitched once.
⸻
Torian moved toward the glider he'd left propped against the wall. Its arms were warped slightly. The Spiral-work across its frame was scorched. The cloth was half-burned through.
He ran his fingers across the alloy. It felt like regret.
He turned it over and pulled one of the bands taut.
Still held.
The thing could fly again—just not yet.
Maybe like him.
⸻
Later, Torian stepped out to the mouth of the cave.
The ridge where they'd been ambushed was visible in the distance, just beyond a stand of blackened trees. A scar still cut through the mountainside where Skarn had been thrown. The earth hadn't stopped bleeding since.
Torian sat on a ledge and took the Spiral-forged rod from his back.
Two bands.
Two voices sealed.
His thumb hovered over the third slot—the one that should've been filled.
He let out a long breath through his nose.
Then looked down at his palm.
The Spiral flickered softly.
"We were so close."
But they hadn't made it. Not really.
Kaelgor had taken that from them. Torn it away.
They could go back now—Skarn could fly if they waited long enough. Torian still had strength. They could sneak in. Search the ruin again. Push deeper.
But…
No.
Kaelgor would be watching.
That place belonged to him now.
And they weren't ready.
Not yet.
⸻
Torian turned and walked back into the cave.
Skarn was watching him now.
Both eyes open. One ear flicked in his direction.
Torian sat down beside him.
"We're going to skip it," he said.
Skarn blinked.
Torian nodded to himself.
"We'll come back for it. Later. Stronger."
He looked down at his hands again.
"I need to be more than fire. I need control. And the next seal might be farther… but it's not guarded by a god."
He looked at Skarn.
Skarn grunted once. Low and approving.
Then shifted, dragging himself up onto one elbow.
The Spiral in Torian's chest responded in kind—sparking once in agreement.
They were aligned.
⸻
That night, Torian marked a Spiral glyph on the cave wall using soot from his fire and the edge of a blade.
Not a seal.
Not a warning.
A promise.
We will return.
The fire was gone by dawn.
Torian stood at the cave's mouth, watching the sun pull itself over the horizon like a blade dragged through gold. The wind was back. Still light, but restless now. It stirred the trees below and danced across the stone with a whisper that sounded almost like breath.
Behind him, Skarn stirred.
The beast had slept without groaning once. His wounds were still raw, but the Spiral inside Torian pulsed in time with the slow, rising certainty that they were healing. That both of them were.
Torian adjusted the strap across his back. The glider—damaged, but functional—rested beneath his cloak. The Spiral-forged rod was secured against his shoulder, two seals locked in place. The third slot sat cold and empty, its alloy waiting.
Waiting for return.
He looked out across the mountains.
They had changed since yesterday.
The clouds moved differently.
The air felt heavier.
And far to the southeast, beyond a broken curtain of cliffs and sunken forest, thunder rolled—not from storm, but from something deeper. Something alive.
The fourth.
The Spiral tugged faintly in that direction now.
Not urgent. Not afraid.
Just… calling.
Torian turned.
Skarn stood behind him, wings half-open, massive body casting a long shadow across the cave wall. His side was wrapped in cloth Torian had torn from his own clothes. His left horn was chipped. But he looked stronger.
Awake.
Ready.
Torian stepped closer and laid a hand on the beast's jaw.
Skarn leaned into it, just for a breath.
Then crouched low.
Waiting for him to mount.
Torian climbed onto his back and pulled the glider tight across his chest.
He took one last glance at the cave. At the Spiral mark he'd left behind. A blackened glyph drawn in ash.
We will return.
Then Skarn launched.
⸻
They flew low over the ridgeline at first, wings strained but steady. The wind hit hard—unforgiving—but they didn't falter. Torian's arms locked around Skarn's fur as they dipped over shattered stone and passed over the ruin that had nearly become his tomb.
He didn't look down.
Neither did Skarn.
The ruin would wait.
The fire inside him had survived the fall.
And now…
It was time to rise.