The sky had turned to bronze.
Not from sun. Not from dust.
From something deeper—older.
The clouds rolled in wide, heavy layers across the open basin, dragging with them a haze that made the world below look melted. Torian clung to Skarn's back as they rode the upper winds, but even up here, the heat was strange. Not natural. It didn't rise from the land. It pressed down from above.
Skarn's wings beat slower.
More cautious.
Beneath them, the terrain unfolded in long stretches of dead earth—flat and cracked, veins of black glass spiderwebbed between scorched-out hollows. The last of the forest had vanished hours ago. Now it was just scar tissue. The bones of something that had once burned alive.
A battlefield, maybe.
Or worse—a warning.
⸻
Torian leaned low against Skarn's fur.
He wasn't breathing hard, but the Spiral in his chest had been pulsing irregularly for nearly a full hour. Not frantic. Not afraid. But off-rhythm.
Like something else was beating just beneath it.
Like two flames trying to burn in the same body.
Skarn rumbled under his breath—soft, unsure.
"Yeah," Torian whispered. "I feel it too."
They banked slightly westward, circling low.
The wind no longer whistled.
It dragged.
⸻
Then they saw it.
A ridge of obsidian cliffs, tall and curved like a black ribcage, rising from the plain like the spine of something buried beneath. At the base of the ridge, smoke coiled in faint, steady strands from the ground. No fire. No movement. Just ash.
Skarn dropped lower, wings folding in tight arcs. The wind fought back. Not with force—with weight.
They landed hard.
Dust rolled out from under Skarn's claws.
The silence hit like a hammer.
Torian dismounted slowly. His boots crunched glass beneath them. The ground here was burned too clean—like the fire hadn't just passed through. It had decided to stay.
A few steps ahead, set into the basin wall beneath the ridge, stood a monolith of flame-scorched stone.
Not Spiral-crafted.
Not carved.
It had been melted into place. Its surface was rippled and twisted like liquid frozen mid-boil. Glyphs scorched into it curled unnaturally, jagged and serpentine—not the elegant spirals Torian had come to know.
These were Verdant.
Wounded fire.
Perverted memory.
Skarn growled—deep and sudden.
The Spiral flared once, hard and sharp, like it was about to scream.
Torian spun.
And the smoke behind them—
Shifted.
⸻
He stepped from it like he'd always been there.
Not walking.
Not striding.
Reappearing.
Kaelgor.
He moved like the world around him didn't exist. The air bent inward toward his form, distorting with heat, but his cloak didn't stir. His armor—blackened steel over green flame—gleamed like wet oil. Cracks still ran across his helm.
The one Torian had made.
The fracture split across one side like a spider's fang.
Torian froze.
His Spiral burned hot, but it didn't speak. It knew.
So did Skarn.
The beast didn't roar. Didn't charge.
He stepped between Torian and Kaelgor—
And lowered his head.
Wings tucked tight.
Every muscle primed to die.
⸻
Kaelgor stopped ten paces from them.
And stood.
Not attacking.
Not charging.
Just…
Watching.
Then his voice came.
Smooth. Slow. Like molten stone cracking against a frozen world.
"Still alive."
Skarn's claws scraped once against the stone.
He didn't roar.
Didn't move.
He simply stood between Torian and the god.
The god did not care.
Kaelgor's helm tilted slightly—his gaze not on Skarn, but through him, to the boy beyond.
"You've come farther than I thought you would," he said.
His voice wasn't thunderous.
It didn't echo.
It was calm.
Precise.
Like a memory that had forgotten how to fade.
⸻
Torian stepped forward.
Only half a pace.
Skarn growled low, a warning—don't.
But Torian laid one hand against his fur.
It was shaking.
So was his.
"I'm still standing," he said.
Kaelgor inclined his head, as if studying a moth on a battlefield.
"You think this means you've won something."
Torian didn't answer.
Kaelgor stepped once to the side. Ash shifted under his boots but left no trace. The glyphs behind him hissed softly in response—like they were alive only when he breathed.
"Three seals now. And still, you burn like a child."
The Spiral in Torian's chest flared hot in anger. He could feel the fire responding—not in fear, but defiance.
"You came for the next," Kaelgor continued. "But that seal is gone. You'll find only ash where it once burned."
Torian's jaw clenched. "We'll find the others."
"You'll find pieces of them," Kaelgor said. "Fragments. Regret. You'll kneel at the graves of men and women who thought fire would make them more than they were. You'll carry their shame like a torch. And it will burn you the same."
⸻
Skarn snarled, stepping forward.
Kaelgor didn't flinch.
Didn't blink.
His next words weren't addressed to Skarn at all.
"The Spiral chose you."
"Do you think that's a gift?"
Torian swallowed. His heart thundered in his chest.
"You weren't the first to survive what you did. You weren't the first to burn. But you may be the last."
Kaelgor took another step forward.
The space between them didn't shrink. It folded. Like the world was too afraid to exist between these two flames.
"Do you know what the Spiral was before it became a weapon?" Kaelgor asked.
Torian didn't answer.
"It was a promise," Kaelgor said. "A vow that we would carry fire together. That none of us would burn alone."
His voice darkened.
"But we do burn alone. Always."
"Because when the fire grows too bright, those around us run from the light. Or they try to steal it. Or they die trying to contain it."
Kaelgor reached up.
Touched the crack in his helm.
"This… is not madness. It is what's left when the world asks you to be fire—and then forgets what it feels like to burn."
⸻
Torian's hands were shaking now.
But not from fear.
From rage.
"You don't scare me," he said.
Kaelgor's head tilted. Slowly. Like a man watching an ember pretend it's a star.
"Good," he said. "I don't want to scare you."
"I want you to listen."
"You are not strong enough to defeat me."
"You never were."
He turned his back.
Took a step away.
The world didn't breathe again.
It held its breath tighter.
"But the Spiral still remembers you," Kaelgor said. "That makes you dangerous."
"Too dangerous to kill now."
"So I will let you live."
⸻
He looked over his shoulder.
Green flame rippled behind him like a dead aurora.
"Keep going, boy. Burn brighter. Let the world believe in you."
"And when the sixth seal shatters…"
His voice dropped.
A whisper between gods.
"…I'll be waiting at the end of it."
⸻
Then he vanished.
No fire.
No wind.
No explosion.
Just absence.
Like the world had closed a door behind him.
⸻
Torian stood frozen.
Skarn turned slowly to look at him.
The Spiral in Torian's chest was still flaring—angry, afraid, uncertain.
But alive.
Torian reached up and pressed his hand to his chest.
And whispered:
"I won't be like him."
They didn't speak.
Not at first.
Skarn walked slowly, favoring his right side. His wing still ached from the crash days ago, but he didn't complain—not even in breath or grunt. Torian stayed close beside him, both hands clenched in his sleeves, boots kicking at loose rock with every step.
The basin fell behind them.
So did the smoke.
But not the silence.
Not the weight Kaelgor had left behind.
⸻
By dusk, they reached a high bluff overlooking the scorched valley. The sky had cooled. The clouds had thinned. But Torian's chest still felt tight, like the Spiral inside him wasn't sure how to beat anymore.
They made camp beneath a crooked overhang of black stone.
Skarn curled up, as he always did, coiled just enough to shield Torian from the wind.
Torian didn't lay down.
He sat with his knees pulled up to his chest.
Staring at nothing.
⸻
Kaelgor's voice wouldn't leave.
Not the words—but the stillness between them. That quiet conviction. That terrifying calm.
"Too dangerous to kill now."
"Let the world believe in you."
"I'll be waiting at the end."
He had meant every word.
Not as a bluff.
Not to break Torian's will.
But to mark the path.
Torian was no longer a threat worth destroying.
He was a threat worth watching.
And if he failed…
The world would burn behind him, just like Kaelgor wanted.
⸻
The Spiral ached beneath his ribs.
Not because it was weak.
But because it was changing.
Adapting.
Responding to something it couldn't name.
Torian pressed both palms against his chest.
"I won't end like him," he said softly.
Skarn shifted, opening one massive eye.
Torian stared at the fire they'd built between them. It was small. Just sticks and sparks. But it danced.
Flickered.
Grew.
Just enough.
⸻
He reached into his pack and pulled out the Spiral-forged rod. Three bands of light burned along its surface. The fourth space sat cold. Waiting.
He turned it slowly in his hands.
"I know we're running out of time."
Skarn blinked once.
Torian stood.
He walked to the edge of the bluff and looked out over the horizon.
Black peaks stretched far ahead.
The next bearer was out there.
The next seal.
The next decision.
And Kaelgor would be watching all of it.
⸻
The wind lifted his cloak.
Torian closed his eyes and whispered:
"I'll burn brighter."
He opened them.
"And I'll remember who I am."
⸻
Behind him, Skarn rose.
He stretched once, wings catching the last threads of moonlight.
Torian strapped the glider to his back.
Turned.
Met the beast's eyes.
Neither spoke.
Because nothing needed saying.
They walked forward.
Together.
And left the ash behind.