The air smelled different here. Thick, damp, alive. Dyego's body had barely begun to move, yet every sense was alert, stretching into the shadows, into the rustle of leaves, into the faint hum of something alive beneath the forest floor.
The knights carried him swiftly, their armor clinking softly with each step, but their voices fell away as the palace receded. Stone and candlelight gave way to the scent of earth, moss, and decay. Tiny insects brushed against his skin before he could blink, the wind tugged at the folds of his swaddling, and he felt the thrum of the forest in his chest. Not danger exactly, but expectation—the kind that prickled along the spine of everything that breathed.
The canopy thickened, blocking out the sun in patches. Light fractured into green-gold shards, falling across Dyego's small body as the knights lowered him to a clearing. Birds froze mid-song, the rustle of small animals quieted, and the forest seemed to hold its breath.
One of the knights, the tallest among them, crouched and looked at the swaddled child. "The king's orders are clear. Leave him here. Let the forest decide."
The other knights glanced at each other. A shiver passed through the group, as if even they feared the beasts that awaited. Dyego felt it too, the tension in the air, the unspoken warning thrumming around him.
His mother's voice echoed faintly in memory, soft but insistent. "Dyego… survive. One day… you will take what is yours."
And then he was lowered onto the moss, the knights' hands pulling away. Their boots crunched on the undergrowth. The shadows of their figures stretched long and dark across the clearing, then retreated. Dyego could not move beyond the weight of his own body, could not speak, could not even cry—but his mind stretched outward, drinking in every detail.
The first sound came before anything else: a rustling, deep and deliberate, in the bushes at the edge of the clearing. Dyego felt it in the vibrations of the forest floor. Small creatures moved, sniffing, scratching, testing the air. A bird took flight, wings beating frantically.
A fox, thin and wary, emerged from the shadows. Its eyes were sharp, glittering in the dim light. Dyego observed the way it sniffed the air, how it paused, how the forest itself seemed to lean toward it. The fox circled him once, twice, then turned and vanished.
Time passed, though he could not measure it. Hunger and cold began to creep into his small body, a slow burn that reminded him that survival here would be different from any life he had known. Yet even as his body quivered, his mind stretched outward, noticing: the whisper of magic in the trees, the pulse of life beneath the soil, the scent of predators lingering just beyond his sight.
A branch snapped. Dyego turned his eyes toward the sound, seeing the movement before his body could respond. A wolf emerged, sleek and black, its teeth glinting as it lowered its head and studied him.
The creature's eyes met his, and for a moment, the forest seemed to still around them. Dyego could feel the tension, the hunger, the instinct pressing against him. He could not move, yet he did not panic. Instead, he drew on the smallest spark within him, the faint echo of something in his blood that he did not yet understand: dark warmth, a pulse of power, subtle and restrained.
The wolf snarled, stepping closer. Dyego's gaze did not waver. The creature sniffed at him, tilting its head, before retreating into the shadows, leaving only a ripple in the undergrowth as it vanished.
Hours—or perhaps minutes, Dyego could not measure—passed. Hunger gnawed at his tiny stomach. Cold seeped into his bones. The forest creaked, groaned, shifted. Rain began to fall lightly, each drop a percussion on leaves above, on moss below, on his skin. Dyego lay there, eyes wide, feeling it all, noticing the changes in the air, the scent of wet earth, the faint tang of magic that threaded the rain.
And then, far off, he heard it: the low, resonant sound of something massive moving through the forest. The vibrations reached his small body before his eyes could find the source. Dyego's attention focused, sensing the rhythm of a heartbeat far larger than his own, slow, deep, and deliberate.
He could not yet fight, could not yet run. But his mind, older than the fragile body it inhabited, began to stretch toward the presence. The forest seemed to shift in response, the pulse of life around him tightening, holding him in anticipation.
The creature appeared: massive, scales glinting faintly even through the dim light. Wings folded against its sides, its head held high, eyes glinting with intelligence that pierced the forest's shadows. A dragon, far larger than any beast in any tale he had known, moved with grace and menace. Its gaze found him, and in that instant, Dyego felt a connection he could not name.
The dragon stepped forward, and the forest seemed to shrink around them. Trees bent as if leaning away from its presence, shadows lengthened unnaturally, and the pulse of magic thrummed in the air like a drum. Dyego's small body could not move, but his mind stretched outward, perceiving every breath of the forest, every tremor in the dragon's stance, every flicker of thought in the immense creature's gaze.
It sniffed, examined, and for the first time, Dyego felt a glimmer of recognition in the dragon's eyes. Not hostility, not cruelty, but curiosity. The forest held its breath. And Dyego, small and fragile, yet alive with the awareness of decades of experience, lay still.
The dragon's snout came closer, and its massive eyes studied him. Dyego felt something stir inside him—a pulse, a spark, a whisper of power that belonged to no human, that belonged to the world itself. The dragon tilted its head, its gaze lingering, and then stepped back, leaving him with a sense of anticipation that stretched beyond the forest, beyond life, beyond what he had ever known.
Night fell. The rain stopped. Dyego lay alone on the moss, listening to the distant calls of creatures, the rustle of leaves, the whisper of magic threading the air. He did not cry. He did not flinch. He waited.
The forest had spoken. And Dyego, small in body but alive in mind, listened.