Vincent was now fast asleep. His breath was in rhythm with the way his chest slowly moved up and down, as his hand gently rested on his stomach.
At the same time, Cal stayed awake, keeping watch for any threats that could be lurking around. Enough time had passed to where the two had started to get hungry. They ate what they could from the stag that Cal had killed earlier and left the remainder behind. It was sloppy process, but both of them were able to get some nourishment from the meal. The fire was just enough to cook the meat.
While it was close to dawn, the night felt like it was extending on forever and ever. It seemed as if the black sky would never brighten by the allure of the sun, and would permanently remain a dark empty pitch, painted across the sky's expanse.
The pull of sleep tugged away at Cal's mind and bones. He wanted to lie down and shut his eyes away from the world. But even with all of his exertion in the past few hours, he didn't feel as exhausted as he thought he would.
It'd be nice to sleep. But... I think I can stay up for a bit longer. Given everything that I've done though, I thought I'd have struggled to even keep my eyes open. But it doesn't seem too bad currently.
The reason as to why was not lost on him either. Had a regular human done what he had done so far, they would've been dead to the world. Lost in slumber, their minds would've blissfully drifted off into their dreams.
But that was probably different for what he was. An Ecliptic.
Maybe I don't get as tired as regular human. If I really am an Ecliptic, maybe it's why I can stay awake for right now!
The thought had no time to settle until the sensation returned.
The subtle pressure bloomed behind Cal's eyes again, like a tug from inside his nerves. Not pain, but the feeling was more akin to a tightening, as though something unseen had gently wrapped its fingers around the space just behind his vision and begun to squeeze. His brow furrowed instinctively, breath slowing as his awareness sharpened.
Not again...
The feeling wasn't constant. It came in pulses, brief and insistent, then faded just long enough for him to question whether he'd imagined it at all. But each time it returned, it lingered a little longer. Pressed a little harder.
Cal immediately straightened from where he sat, with the forest now feeling more than just dark. It felt attentive.
A faint unease crept along his spine. His shoulders tensed, muscles tightening not in preparation for action, but in restraint. He listened harder, eyes tracking the spaces between the trees beyond their small camp. The defensible hollow — three thick trunks forming a natural barrier — had felt sufficient when they'd settled in for the night.
Now, it felt like nothing more than a thin barrier that could never serve as a means of concealment and protection. The tug behind his eyes sharpened again, enough to draw a quiet breath through his teeth.
That was when he saw them.
At first, the sight made Cal feel like his vision was playing a trick on him. The forest was filled with shadows, and darkness often shaped itself into things that weren't truly there. But these didn't flicker like a hallucination. They stubbornly remained in the air.
Small points of pale light drifted beyond the hollow, scattered among the trees like fallen stars caught before they could touch the ground. They were distant — far enough that he couldn't make out any defining features — but close enough that he could tell they weren't reflections or embers.
The illusory spots of light were suspended at varying heights, each casting a faint, ghostly glow against bark and leaf. The illumination was weak, but within it, Cal thought he could see suggestions of form. Not bodies. Not clearly.
Faces.
Or the silhouettes of them. They were impressions, more than anything else. Contours hinted at where eyes might be. Where mouths might open and close. But the light was too soft, the glow too diffuse to give anything definite. The moment he tried to focus on one, the details slipped away, as though the shapes refused to be properly seen.
The pull behind his intensified, with the pressure tightening even more. Then he heard the whispers.
They were very low. So much so, that it was almost wrong to call them voices. The sound drifted through the forest like breath passing through a cave, layered and overlapping with old stone. Words formed, but they weren't words Cal recognized. The language was wrong.
It wasn't warbled words, but rather something which held an ancient quality. The syllables carried a weight that made his skin prickle, sounds shaped in a way that felt older than the Empire, older than the provinces themselves. The cadence was slow, deliberate, each utterance rolling into the next like a ritual long memorized.
Cal couldn't understand anything that he was hearing. He didn't know if they were meant for him or not. Maybe they were and he simply lacked the means to comprehend them.
His hand instinctively gripped his sword's hilt, but he dared not rise to his feet. If he did so, any sudden movements could draw attention. Vincent slept on, oblivious, his breathing unbroken by the murmurs threading through the trees.
The lights drifted even closer, slowly approaching. Cal could feel his heartbeat speed up a touch more. The whispers continued, unbroken, as though they were discussing something among themselves.
The tug behind his eyes pulsed again, sharper this time, and with it came a rising anxiety he couldn't quite name. It wasn't fear, but rather the repulsive sensation of being observed by something he didn't even know if it was looking at him.
The grip on the hilt tightened. And the moment he did, the whispers faltered.
Just for an instant.
The hovering lights wavered, their glow dimming and brightening as though responding to some unseen current. Cal didn't draw the blade. He didn't even shift his stance. He simply held the weapon, grip firm, awareness sharpened to a razor's edge.
The pressure behind his eyes surged.
Suddenly, white light flashed, bursting along the length of the blade in a sudden, silent flare. The radiance was brilliant and stark against the darkness. The glow was brief, but unmistakable, casting sharp shadows across the hollow and igniting the bark of the trees with pale fire.
The response was almost instantaneous. The lights recoiled. Not in panic or in a violent manner, but rather they drifted back, retreating a short distance as though they had encountered an invisible boundary. The whispers grew softer, layered voices slipping into something quieter, more cautious.
So that was it. Aggression drew a response.
His grip tightened even more, but he resisted the instinct to draw. The blade's glow faded, leaving only the faint shimmer of its presence lingering in his senses. The hovering lights remained at a distance now, their movements slower, more deliberate.
Vincent stirred beside him, shifting slightly in his sleep. His brow creased, and one hand twitched before settling again. The sound of his movement cut through the whispers like a stone dropped into still water.
One of the lights then leaned forward, like it was listening in on something. It inched closer than the others, with its glow around it brightening marginally. The suggestion of a face sharpened, edges pressing closer to definition before blurring again.
Vincent's breath then changed. A subtle hitch sounded from him, barely noticeable beneath the hush of the forest. Cal caught the sound immediately, however. His spine stiffened, grip tightening imperceptibly around the hilt as Vincent shifted beside him. The boy's brow furrowed, lips parting as he drew a deeper breath, then another. His fingers twitched against the ground.
Then his eyes opened.
"Mmh... Cal? Is something wrong?" Vincent asked hoarsely.
Vincent didn't sit up right away. He stayed still for a few heartbeats, eyes unfocused as they adjusted to the darkness. But his gaze quickly found Cal's silhouette, rigid and upright, shoulders set at an angle that spoke of readiness rather than rest.
"Cal? Are you alright?" he murmured.
Cal didn't answer initially. Meanwhile, Vincent pushed himself onto one elbow, eyes narrowing as he took in Cal's posture more fully. The way his weight was balanced forward. The tension running through his arms. The fact that he hadn't turned at the sound of Vincent's voice.
"You don't look okay," Vincent followed up quietly. "Did you see something?"
Cal exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. "You hear anything?" he asked instead.
Vincent paused, straining his ears to catch whatever Cal has noticed. The forest was still — unnaturally so. No insects. No wind through the leaves. Just the faint crackle of the dying fire and the sound of his own breath.
"No? I can't hear anything. What can you hear?" Vincent replied.
Cal finally shifted, just enough to angle his head slightly toward Vincent. "Don't move too suddenly," he said.
Vincent followed Cal's line of sight.
At first, he saw nothing but darkness — the familiar lattice of tree trunks and shadow beyond the hollow. Then his eyes adjusted, and his breath caught.
Lights.
Small. Pale. Hovering beyond the three trees, scattered through the forest at varying heights. Not firelight. Not reflections. They glowed softly, like embers submerged in fog, each one steady in a way that felt wrong.
"What... What in the world?" Vincent asked in puzzlement and awe. The sight was one of dazzlement and yet it bore a sense of dread. Vincent rose a little higher, careful not to disturb the ground too much. His gaze tracked the lights slowly, taking in their spacing, their stillness. The way they seemed to hang in the air without drifting, without swaying.
As if in response, one of the lights pulsed faintly — a subtle brightening, then a return to its former glow. Vincent felt the hairs along his arms rise.
His eyes shifted back to Cal, which then froze.
"...Your sword," Vincent said quietly.
Cal glanced down at the blade. The metal was still emitting a faint radiance, barely more than a thin wash of pale light tracing along its length. It wasn't flaring like before. It wasn't reacting violently. But it hadn't gone dark either.
"It keeps activating at any moment," Cal replied. "I don't know what it means anymore! But this isn't important for now. Are those things up there a threat?"
Vincent glanced back up at the illusory lights, asking himself the same question as Cal. "I'm not sure. But we should stay quiet."
"They're testing us," Cal replied. "They moved when I reacted. Pulled back when the blade lit up. Now they're waiting."
Crack!
A sound cut through the stillness. It was faint at first and the sound was sharp. Brittle, almost. Cal snapped his head in the direction of the sound, Vincent following it as well. The sound was crystalline to him. Something heavier followed it as well.
Scrrrrk!
The sound of ice grinding against something solid. The lights reacted immediately, brightening and drifting subtly toward the direction of the sound. Their spacing shifted, no longer centered solely on the hollow.
"...Ice? Like from that tree?" Vincent whispered.
Another sound followed — a long, drawn-out scrape, like frozen stone being dragged across rock. The noise carried weight, the kind that suggested mass and intent rather than accident.
Cal felt the tug behind his eyes surge sharply, pressure tightening until his teeth clenched.
"Yeah," Cal agreed. "That's what I think too."
The sound came again.
Crk—skrrrrrk!
Closer this time.
The lights shifted further, their attention divided now between the hollow and whatever was moving through the forest beyond. A few lingered, hovering in place, but others drifted away, drawn by the disturbance.
The spots of luminescence hovered, their pale light flickering as they turned their attention fully toward the sound, faces blurring and sharpening in restless succession.
Cal didn't move. Neither did Vincent.
They could do nothing but wait to see what would come next from the glowing specks. The forest held its breath — and whatever was coming did not slow.