The sun was rising when Torian saw the outline of the village again.
It was smaller than he remembered. Not in size—but in weight. When he had left, it had seemed like
the center of everything: the beginning, the loss, the wound that defined him.Now, it was something simpler.
It was home.
⸻
The path into the village had grown over with time. Grass and flowers had begun to reclaim the
edges, growing in the cracks of old stone and along the blackened fences. The ashes were gone.
Rain and time had seen to that.
Skarn padded beside Torian silently. His massive wings were tucked, his fur clean for the first time
in weeks. Karnis followed a few steps back, arms folded, eyes scanning the rebuilt homes like a
watchful guardian.
There were people now—new families, a handful of elders, children chasing goats in the distance.
They noticed Torian immediately.
But no one screamed.
No one bowed.
They simply… stopped.
And watched.
Torian raised a hand in greeting.
A child waved back.
⸻
He passed the place where the forge had once stood. It was now a garden.
He passed the burnt inn, now a schoolhouse with a missing roof and chalk drawings on the wall.
And finally, he stopped in front of a familiar spot: a blackened patch of earth where his childhood
home had once stood.The hearth was still there.
Stone, cracked.
But whole.
Torian knelt and touched it.
⸻
Skarn sniffed the spot and let out a low, almost musical grunt. Karnis stopped at the edge of the
clearing, silent.
"This is where it started," Torian said.
Skarn lowered his head beside him.
Karnis stepped forward, crouched, and tapped the old stones.
"Feels quiet here."
"It is."
⸻
That night, the villagers gathered around a fire in the square.
No speeches were made. No titles given. Just a flame, started by Torian's hands—not with spiral
power, but with old flint and dried twigs.
Skarn lay curled near the edge of the firelight, half-asleep but alert. Karnis leaned against the trunk
of a newly planted tree, his violet aura dim, peaceful.
Children played near the edge of the circle. One of them—a small girl with tangled hair and wide
eyes—approached Torian and held out a flower.
He took it.Not with power.
With both hands.
And smiled.
⸻
Later, as the fire died down, Karnis joined him on a rock near the edge of the clearing.
"You could have ruled the world," Karnis said softly.
"I never wanted to."
Karnis nodded. "You're the first one I've met who meant that."
They watched the coals flicker.
"People still whisper about you," Karnis continued. "Some say you're a god. Others say you're the
last bearer. A few believe you're the flame itself."
"What do you think?" Torian asked.
Karnis chuckled. "I think you're a man who walked into the fire and didn't burn."
⸻
Torian stood the next morning just outside the village, in a small clearing by a stone ledge.
He held a blade in his hand—his blade.
The one passed down through generations.
The one he had found in the rubble, the one that had saved him, protected him, helped him set
Skarn free.
Now, it had done its duty.He knelt beside the ledge and dug with his hands until the soil gave way. He placed the sword
inside, carefully, reverently.
Then covered it again.
Skarn stood nearby, watching in silence.
Karnis approached.
"You sure?"
Torian stood and dusted off his hands. "It's time for someone else to find it someday."
He looked out at the trees.
"I don't need a weapon anymore."
⸻
They walked the village's edge one final time together.
Skarn lumbered through the woods, startling birds. Karnis helped rebuild a broken wall. Torian stood
in a stream for nearly an hour, watching the water move past his fingers.
Not speaking.
Just being.
⸻
At sunset, the three of them gathered on the ridge above the village.
Torian sat cross-legged. Skarn curled beside him. Karnis stood nearby with arms crossed and eyes
toward the horizon.
"What now?" Karnis asked.
Torian took a deep breath."We live."
Karnis blinked. "That's it?"
"That's everything."
⸻
Far in the distance, on the edge of the world, the last spiral monument crumbled.
Not with violence.
But with wind.