The forest had stopped feeling alive.
It had been a week since Kael fled the valley, and the world still hadn't decided whether to spare him.
Each step through the wilderness felt heavier than the one before. His boots rubbed blisters into raw flesh; sweat stung the cuts that brambles had carved into his arms. His stomach had long forgotten real food—berries, sour roots, and muddy water were all that kept him moving.
He walked because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering.
By dusk, the trees had thickened into a wall of black trunks. The air hung damp and close. His breath came rough and uneven, his throat dry enough to burn. The light leaking through the leaves turned the world copper and strange.
That was when he smelled it—smoke. Not wood smoke, but the dry, metallic scent of something alive burning from the inside out.
He froze.
The sound followed—a faint crackle, the low hiss of something breathing heat.
From the shadows ahead, two orange sparks blinked open.
A shape slipped out from between the trees—small, feline, skin cracked like black stone, each seam glowing faintly from within. A soft hiss accompanied every step as it padded across damp earth.
An Emberfang.
Kael swallowed hard. A Rank 1 creature. The weakest of the forest's beasts—yet right now, stronger than he could ever hope to be.
He lifted his dagger, both hands trembling around the hilt. His heartbeat drowned out every other sound.
"Go," he whispered, voice hoarse. "Please just—go."
The Emberfang tilted its head, unimpressed. The orange beneath its skin pulsed once, twice.
Then it lunged.
---
He tried to move and almost didn't.
Blisters tore as he spun; pain shot up his leg. The creature's claws skimmed his sleeve, slicing fabric and skin. He hit the ground hard, dirt exploding around him, breath punched from his chest.
The world tilted. He rolled, barely raising the dagger as the Emberfang struck again. Sparks flew when metal scraped across its scales. The recoil numbed his arm.
It circled him, growling low. Heat radiated from its body, the air shimmering in waves. Kael's sweat turned to steam on his skin.
He could taste blood in his mouth.
He was shaking so badly he almost dropped the weapon.
Move.
He forced his feet beneath him, half crouching, lungs burning.
The Emberfang's eyes narrowed; its breath quickened.
Kael stepped left; it mirrored him.
Another step. Another echo.
Then he stumbled, boot catching on a root.
The creature sprang.
He swung upward with both hands. The dagger caught its foreleg, slicing deep. A screech split the air, loud enough to make his ears ring. Fire flashed from its jaws. Kael ducked, the heat grazing his back, singing the hair on his neck.
He gasped, chest heaving. The smell of scorched bark filled the air.
It circled again, limping now but angrier. The pulsing light under its skin brightened until its outline blurred.
Don't die here.
I have to live.
Kael's heartbeat slowed, not calm—just too tired for fear. The world narrowed to a single point: the glow of its chest, the rise of its shoulders, the rhythm before it moved.
When it leapt, he didn't think. He moved.
Instinct, raw and blind.
He sidestepped and drove the dagger forward. It struck beneath the creature's jaw. The impact jarred his shoulder; fire erupted around them. Kael shoved, teeth clenched, forcing the blade deeper until the Emberfang convulsed once, then collapsed with a crack of cooling stone.
He fell with it, landing on his side, gasping. The dagger stayed buried. Smoke curled from the beast's mouth; the orange light faded to dull gray.
Kael lay there, listening to the forest pulse in his ears. The tremor in his arms wouldn't stop. His entire body shook from exhaustion and pain.
He didn't feel victorious—only hollow.
He pulled the dagger free with shaking hands and stared at the dead creature.
It looked smaller now. Almost harmless.
"I won," he whispered. Then, bitterly, "If you can call this winning."
He sat back against a tree, every muscle screaming. The ache in his feet returned with a vengeance; his hands were raw from gripping the hilt.
His breath came unevenly. His vision blurred at the edges.
The forest didn't move. It watched.
---
A flicker of light drew his gaze.
The ring on his finger glowed faintly—green, soft, and alive.
Warmth seeped into his skin, crawling up his wrist like a pulse that didn't belong to him.
A heartbeat that wasn't his.
A whisper that wasn't from the world.
His chest loosened. The pain dimmed.
Then, through the haze of exhaustion, he heard it.
"Kael…"
The voice was faint—thin as smoke—but he knew it.
He lifted his head.
Light shimmered before him, shaping itself into a pale outline—vague, flickering, familiar. A woman's form, kneeling, hair flowing like drifting ash. Her face was blurred by light, but her posture—gentle, protective—made his throat tighten.
"Mother…?"
The glow wavered, as if she heard him but couldn't answer.
Then the warmth spread — slow and deep — through his arm, his shoulder, his chest.
His bleeding slowed. The shallow cuts sealed. The burn along his arm cooled to nothing more than a dull ache.
He felt her presence more than he saw her — love, grief, exhaustion.
The light brightened once, just enough to show her faint smile.
"Not yet…" the voice whispered. "Just sleep. you have… done well…"
He let out a trembling breath.
At least I'm not alone anymore.
Darkness took him.
The glow trembled, flickering between brilliance and collapse.
She could feel it—her own essence unraveling with every heartbeat she poured into him. The warmth spreading through his body was her life draining away, thread by thread.
If I keep going, I'll fade. But if I stop…
The thought fractured. Her gaze dropped to his face — pale, bloodied, breath shallow. A mother's instinct crushed reason beneath it.
"I can't watch him die," she whispered, voice raw with panic.
The light surged, flooding his chest, sealing the worst of his wounds. His pulse steadied, color returned to his lips.
Relief hit her like pain. Tears she no longer possessed shimmered in the air around her fading face.
Enough, reason begged inside her. You can't spend everything.
The glow around her hands faltered; she clenched them, trembling. "Just a little more," she pleaded softly, but the power cracked, turning unstable.
The world around her began to blur, the edges of her being tearing apart. She stopped herself, gasping as if she could still draw breath.
"No," she whispered fiercely. "He'll need me when he wakes."
The light softened, drawing inward until it became a faint halo beside him—dim, steady, alive. Her form wavered, translucent and trembling, but still there.
"Live, Kael," she murmured, exhaustion and love fusing into one. "I'll stay… until you can hear me again."
The forest exhaled.
Smoke rose lazily from the Emberfang's corpse, curling toward the moonlight that filtered through the leaves. The ring's light glimmered once—barely visible—and went still.
The faint soul-shade beside Kael lingered, silent and unmoving, its glow as fragile as a dying ember.
And though he slept, it stayed.
Watching. Waiting.