THEY SURFACED where the river met the foot of the mountain, the water thinning out and breaking into a slow bend of slick rock and trailing vines. Mist rolled lazily off the surface, curling around the jagged tree roots that clawed at the riverbank. The land here was hushed, like even the wind had learned to hold its breath. This was Kinabuhayan, a name that carried weight in old tongues, meaning "the place of life". But here, it felt more like the edge of something older than breath itself. Sacred ground. Or haunted. Sometimes the difference was only a matter of who you asked.
Lamad floated just offshore, massive and still, his seahorse tail coiled and drifting through the shallows like ribbons of living kelp. Agta stood waist-deep beside him, arms crossed, shoulders slack. There were no words being said between them, but the way Agta kept glancing at Lamad and then back at the group said everything. It wasn't just goodbye. It was trust, paid forward.
Gray clapped Agta on the shoulder. "Tell the big guy to keep out of trouble. Preferably in oceans where people don't stab first and question never."
Agta chuckled. He looked at Troy. "He says your dog smells like burnt meat."
Kanye gave a low, offended whuff and pressed himself against Troy's leg in protest.
Amara nodded once. "Thank you," was all she said.
Agta smiled, not wide, but honest. "Nawa'y maalala ng ilog ang inyong kabutihan." Then he turned, climbed back onto Lamad's broad, slick back, and with one fluid motion, they both slid beneath the surface. The water closed without a splash.
They were gone.
Troy exhaled. "Alright. Let's get moving before I get sentimental and puke."
Amara took the lead, veering from the main trail toward a thinner path half-eaten by roots and low-hanging branches. It wasn't the wide slope used by merchant caravans and traders heading to Malaya's southern gate. It was older. Wilder. A climbing vein carved into the bones of Banahaw, tangled with brush and stubborn trees. Gray hadn't even noticed it until Amara started walking.
"The main trail to the southern gate is dangerous for the three of us," Amara said, surveying the wild trees and path that leads to darkness. "I know a trail that could get us through prying eyes."
Gray tilted his head. "There are anito outlaws here in the Sangkanituhan?" He turned to Amara for answers, but she didn't reply. Didn't even glance his way. Her shoulders were straight, her pace unwavering.
He didn't push.
Troy, of course, did. "Not really anitos," he said, grinning as he stepped up beside Gray, kicking aside a vine. "Halimaws. The city isn't that friendly to them, especially if your clan's been branded. Wrong blood, bad crime, too much power, or the wrong name at the wrong time—take your pick."
"I see," Gray muttered. And he did. A little too clearly. He looked ahead, eyes on the rising path, but his voice carried something quieter now. Not quite grief, not quite bitterness, but something scraped from the ribs of lived experience. "So the only difference between the two worlds is magic."
He didn't elaborate. Didn't need to. And there was disappointment too, in his voice. As if the world he grew up in wasn't that much of a difference from the new world he's going to enter.
And Troy noticed it. He glanced at him with something like actual consideration, like for a split second, he wasn't seeing a mouthy idiot anymore. Just a guy. Another body carrying too many bruises and too many questions.
The forest grew darker as they climbed, canopies thick with night. The kind of night that wrapped around your throat and stayed there. At some point, Amara stopped, her voice soft but firm. "We stop here. It's dangerous to keep walking."
No one argued. There was a clearing nearby, uneven ground scattered with fallen leaves and soft moss. They didn't light a fire. Didn't need to. Darkness would be their shield now. Troy volunteered to take first watch, unsheathing his kampilan and sitting with his back against a twisted tree, Kanye curled beside him like a loyal shadow.
The rest prepared what they could for the rest. Gray shuffled through the leaves, piling a decent patch of them together until they resembled something vaguely bedlike. Amara did the same, a little distance away, methodical in her movements. And for a moment, Gray felt something different about Amara's attitude towards him. It's like that tiny incident back in the katau village triggered something in her. Eventually, she lay down.
So did Gray. And for a time, all he did was stare up at the sky. The stars were different here. Brighter, maybe. Or maybe just louder. Like they wanted to be looked at, not admired from afar but actually seen. He didn't know any of their names. No constellations. No old stories. Just cold light, and endless distance. Somewhere up there, Kalualhatian, the realm of the gods, watched and remained silent. Somewhere up there were deities who made promises not to intervene. Somewhere down here was Gray. A thief. A liar. A nobody caught between bloodlines he didn't understand and wars he never asked to be part of.
He thought of his grandmother. Of the way she used to hum when washing dishes, always off-key. Of the house with its cracked windows and slanted floor. Of his mother, faceless in memory. A name. A whisper. A question. He thought of the anting-anting he still didn't have. He thought of Troy, a half-god who pretended to be angry so no one would guess he was anything else. He thought of Amara, the way she had looked at him earlier. Just for a moment. Not warmly. Not affectionately. Just clearly. Like she had seen him.
That was somehow worse. And better.
And in the middle of it all, in the quiet where the night breathed and the stars blinked like distant, disinterested gods, Gray remembered his grandfather.
His Lolo trained him for this. That much he understood now. The bruises, the drills, the endless repetitions—parry, strike, disarm, breathe—those weren't just relics of old habits. They were instructions. Quiet ones. Warnings wrapped in love. Lessons disguised as games. His Lolo never said what it was for. Just told him to listen, to focus, to remember. At the time, Gray thought it was just his grandfather clinging to some past life of heroism or fear. But now, in a world of anitos and halimaws, of gods and ancient rules, it made sense in the worst way. The kind of sense that hurt. The kind that made you wish you had asked more questions before the silence took someone away.
His Lola had told him stories. Always about his mother. How brave she was. How she fought for what was right. How she vanished one day, leaving Gray in her arms with nothing but a name and a weight that somehow grew heavier the older he got. But never once did she mention gods. Never once did she say anything about this other world, this realm of magic and myth lurking just beneath the skin of reality. Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe she did, and thought silence was a shield. Now, she was all Gray had left. And even that was gone.
She was out there somewhere. And he had no idea how to get her back. No map. No plan. No heroic bloodline to lean on. Just the fading scent of the house she used to clean, the echoes of lullabies never fully in tune, and the stories that painted his mother as a myth and left his father as a void. So, for now, all he could do was learn. Watch. Adapt. Understand this world that kept twisting around him like a dream he hadn't asked to wake up into. And if there was any way back to her—any path, any hope—he would find it.
Gray closed his eyes. The leaves rustled. The wind moved. And everything around him were movements. Finally, he stood, brushing the leaf-dust from his arms.
The cold had settled into the earth now, soaking into the soles of his feet and the joints of his knees. He wandered a few paces from the patch of makeshift bedding, stepping carefully around roots and stones, until the moonlight opened up through the canopy and revealed Troy, perched a little farther ahead near the edge of a rocky incline. He sat with his kampilan across his lap, slow deliberate motions guiding the whetstone down the blade's edge. Steel whispering against stone. Over and over. Rhythm, more than purpose. He hadn't noticed Gray. Or maybe he had, and didn't care.
Gray stopped beside him without a word and stared out over the abyss. Below, the forest spilled down the slope of Mount Banahaw like a dark ocean frozen mid-collapse. A thousand treetops tangled in one another, black and blue in the moonlight. Somewhere out there were the towns and villages. The roads. The mountains and rivers and people who didn't know or care who they were. It looked far. Distant. Almost unreal. Like they weren't just standing on a mountain, but hovering above a different world altogether.
"Couldn't sleep," Gray said, arms crossed.
Troy didn't glance at him. Just dragged the whetstone again. "Who?" he said.
"Huh?" Gray turned to him, confused.
"Who asked?"
Gray blinked. His brows pulled together, equal parts confused and annoyed. "For once in your life," he muttered, "have you tried being not a jerk?"
The whetstone paused. Troy's fingers stayed on the blade for a moment, as if weighing something in the metal. A beat passed. Then he lowered the kampilan slowly into his lap. He didn't look at Gray. Just kept staring outward.
The air between them grew heavy, filled with a strange sort of quiet. Not uncomfortable. Not quite yet. Just... suspended. Like something unspoken was waiting, unsure if it was welcome. The sound of insects faded behind the wind, and even Kanye, curled near a tree, remained still, eyes closed and motionless. The mountain held its breath.
Then Troy spoke.
"All my life," he said, voice quieter now, stripped of its usual bark, "I was led to believe that the only path for greatness in this world is to please the gods." There was a subtle tremor under the words. Not emotion exactly. Just the kind of hesitation that came from pulling a truth up from the gut.
"My mother was an anito." He exhaled, soft but sharp. "She was everything to me. The only person who made sense of this place. Who looked at me and didn't see either a mistake or a missed opportunity. She taught me how to survive. How to fight. How to endure." The words hung there for a second. Then he continued. "I did everything for her. And for the gods. To prove I could be worthy of both. I joined the hunts. I trained under great bayanis who treated me like something they scraped off their sandals. I learned every rule. Broke none. Because I thought if I gave enough, I'd earn a place."
Gray listened without interrupting.
"I asked her once who my father was." Troy's voice shifted again, steel softening into rust. "She wouldn't tell me. Not at first. But I kept pushing. Then she broke." He swallowed. "Dumakulem. The god of the mountains and the hunt. That was him." Troy's jaw tightened, but he didn't look angry. Not exactly. Just... tired. "She loved him. You could see it in the way she said his name. Even after all the silence. Even after everything."
He closed his eyes. "She said he came to her like a dream. Said he stayed for a season. Promised things. Made her feel like she wasn't small. And then, he left. Never came back. Never wrote. Never sent anything. Just vanished. Like a rumor. Like a mistake."
There was silence again.
"When she died, I was with her. Sitting on the floor beside her bed. Her skin was like parchment. She couldn't move. Could barely breathe. But she kept whispering his name." His voice cracked, just a little. "Not even mine."
He went quiet. The stars above blinked quietly through the canopy, unbothered by the gravity below. "So no," Troy said eventually, voice steadier but lower now. "Being a jerk isn't a mistake. It's a response. It's a wall. It's survival. Because if you let the world through, it'll hollow you out." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, kampilan resting between his boots like a second spine.
Gray didn't answer right away. There was no wisecrack. No grin. Just a breath. Then another.
They stayed like that for a while. Two silhouettes at the edge of the world. Not talking. Not fighting. Not fixing anything. Just existing, next to each other, for once without making it a contest. And up above, the stars turned in their slow, silent way. Watching. Distant. Waiting.
It was the voice that pulled them out of the silence. A small sound at first, barely above the wind curling down from the slope of the mountain. The trees swayed gently, moonlight pouring through their leaves like silver smoke, and for a moment, Gray thought he had imagined it. But then it came again. A word. A name.
"Rome."
Soft. Ragged. Torn from the fibers of sleep. Amara's voice, trembling as if trying not to break.
Both Gray and Troy turned.
Amara lay just a few paces away on the bed of dried leaves and bundled cloth, her back turned to them. One hand curled near her face, the other twitching slightly against the ground. She didn't look like the battle-forged anito she always was. No gleaming poise, no steel in her jaw, no frost in her eyes. Just a girl caught in a storm she couldn't fight, and didn't know how to escape.
Gray took a step forward, instinct moving before thought. But just as his boot touched the soil near her, Amara jolted upright with a sharp breath. Her eyes snapped wide and scanned the dark. Her fingers curled, almost reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. She caught sight of the two boys watching her, Gray closer, Troy still near the rocks, and blinked as if piecing together where she was.
"I need some air," she said quickly, and stood without waiting for a reply. She moved away into the woods, vanishing into the shadows between trees without another word.
Gray turned to Troy and gave a shrug, unsure what else to say. It didn't seem like the kind of moment that welcomed jokes. Not yet.
Troy looked off after her, but his mouth stayed shut. The whetstone moved again across his blade, slower now.
"She's one of our best," Troy muttered eventually. "Probably would've been a bayani in another year or two. Despite everything stacked against her."
Gray glanced back down at the place Amara had been sleeping. Her outline was still faint on the leaves, like the night hadn't caught up with her departure yet. "What do you mean, 'stacked against her'?"
Troy kept sharpening, though the blade was already plenty sharp. "Her godline's from Idianale. The goddess of labor and good deeds. Not weak, but not flashy either. And Amara... she's from a lower angkan." He shrugged slightly. "You know how it is. Our world loves power, but it worships pedigree. Doesn't matter how skilled you are. If you don't come from the right ancestor, you have to work three times as hard to get noticed."
Gray didn't answer. His mind flicked briefly to the world he'd come from. The alleyways, the busted windows, the cracked voices behind doors. The scholarships he never got. The jobs that went to other kids with straighter backs and cleaner names. Different world. Same rules.
"She doesn't talk about it much," Troy went on. "I've never really known her that much. But in the academy she's always quiet. Always outpacing the rest of the students. Girls and boys alike. But she had that look in her eye, like she was always chasing something no one else could see."
Gray thought of that look. He had seen it too.
Troy paused, wiped the kampilan down with a cloth from his belt, then turned it in his hands to inspect the edge. "There's something I've been meaning to ask her ever since I saw her in that cell."
Gray looked at him.
"What the hell is she doing in the Sangkatauhan?"
Gray blinked. "What do you mean? I thought she was with Ishmael and the others."
"No," Troy said. "Ishmael and his group are aninos. Amara's not with them." He tilted his head slightly. "She's a student. She doesn't belong down there. Not unless she was looking for something."
That thought hung in the air like morning mist. Unclear. Not yet settled.
Silence.
Then Gray, almost absently: "Who's Rome?" The guy paused mid-wipe. His brow furrowed. "Rome," Gray repeated. "That name she keeps saying in her sleep. It's not the first time I've heard it."
Troy went still, the cloth loose in his fingers. He let out a low breath. "There was a guy. In the academy. Rome. Son of the sky god."
Gray's eyes widened. "You mean..."
Troy raised his eyes towards him with a smirk. "Yeah. Bathala himself. Rome is our golden boy. Youngest to become a bayani. One of the fastest track in history."
Gray blinked. "She knew him?"
"They were in the same team," Troy said. "Here, we're assigned teams when we enter the academy. You keep the same group until you finish. You train together, fight together, live together. You learn to survive as a unit, not a solo act."
Gray nodded slowly, picturing it. The intensity. The pressure. A life built around cohesion, trust, and interdependence. He couldn't imagine it. He barely trusted anyone.
Most of his life was spent dodging the world, not walking beside it. He wasn't built for teams. Never was. The idea of relying on someone else, putting your life in their hands, felt like borrowing trouble. In the mortal world, that got you hurt. Gray had always moved like a lone thread trying not to get caught in the weave. And yet, here, everyone seemed part of something. Bound to a tribe, a team, a lineage.
"Rome was their leader," Troy continued. "Had every gift a person could ask for. Power. Bloodline. Charisma. A smile that made the elders listen and a swing that made monsters kneel. But he asked for more. Took on a mission outside of academy protocol. Wanted to prove something. To himself. To the gods. I don't know."
Troy's face darkened. "They left the city. Five of them. Amara included. Only four came back. No one talks about what happened. And ever since then..." He let the sentence trail off.
Gray followed the silence to its edge, staring into the same forest path Amara had taken. He thought again of those strange dreams. The ones that didn't feel like dreams at all. The forest. The girl. The blur of shadow and gold. He'd always assumed it was some artifact of magic leaking into his subconscious. But now...
Now the pieces started shifting. Rome. Her captain. The loss. The weight of something unspoken. Then the leaves rustled. Gray stood slowly as Amara began to emerge from the trees.
But something was wrong.
Her hands were raised. Palms open. Not in greeting. In surrender. And that was when Gray's eyes dropped lower, and saw the silhouette standing just beyond the trees.
Bow drawn. An arrow aimed at her.