The air changed first.
Not the temperature, not the wind—but the weight. It thickened, like walking into a room where something had just left or was about to arrive. Every breath Torian drew felt slower, heavier, laced with dust that hadn't moved in centuries.
Skarn stopped at the ridge.
He never stopped.
Even in the face of fire, blades, or titans, Skarn had always pushed forward with that grim, mountain-born resolve. But here—on the rise just before the great divide—he lowered his body, ears pinned back.
Torian joined him in silence.
And then they saw it.
⸻
The canyon stretched wide, easily half a mile across at its narrowest point. Its walls weren't rock, but smooth plates of layered, iridescent stone—like bone polished by storms. A river wound far below, churning black and thick like melted obsidian. Fog clung to its surface, rising in slow tendrils and spirals that shimmered oddly in the light.
There was no sound.
No birds.
No wind.
Just the subtle pulse of the river's slow, viscous current—like the heartbeat of something sleeping beneath it.
Spanning the chasm was a bridge.
Or what was left of one.
⸻
The ropes were ancient, woven from some massive fiber Torian didn't recognize. Wood planks had snapped and rotted in places. The bridge sagged badly, swaying slightly despite the lack of wind. It was anchored to two stone towers—one on their side, one barely visible through the mist on the far edge.
Torian stepped toward the edge, staring down at the abyss.
"No way around," he muttered.
Skarn growled deep in his throat.
"No way under, either."
The cliffs dropped vertically. Not even Skarn's wings would get them clean across—not with this air. Not with that fog.
Torian stepped closer.
The bridge shifted.
Groaned.
Held.
⸻
"It'll support one of us at a time," he said. "Maybe."
He looked to Skarn.
Skarn blinked once.
Then looked down at the bridge, then at Torian again.
And sat.
Torian raised a brow.
"You're not going to argue?"
Skarn simply grunted.
They both knew what that meant.
"You're too heavy," Torian sighed. "If you go first, it'll snap."
"If I go first and it breaks halfway, you might be able to jump."
Skarn nodded—reluctantly.
Torian checked the knots on the bridge's edge.
Old.
Frayed.
But magically reinforced—he could see the faint glyphs burned into the post, pulsing every few seconds with the kind of enchantment only old worlds forgot how to make.
Still…
He tied a secondary rope from his belt to the main line and exhaled.
"Okay," he muttered. "Here goes."
⸻
Crossing the Divide
The first steps were simple.
Wood creaked beneath his boots, but held.
The mist below rose slowly, lazily, like it had nowhere else to be.
Each step forward narrowed the bridge.
It wasn't perspective.
The middle planks were thinner. Weaker.
Torian's spiral pulsed in his chest—not warning, not pain.
Just… tension.
Like the flame inside him was waiting.
⸻
By the time he reached a third of the way across, he could no longer see the river directly.
Only mist.
Then the wind started.
It didn't howl.
It whispered.
Low and slow, like breath down the back of the neck.
The bridge swayed.
Torian crouched instinctively, spreading his weight, eyes scanning the canyon.
Still nothing.
But Skarn was pacing now, back on the far ledge.
Pacing meant nerves.
Torian moved faster.
⸻
Then he felt it.
A thud—not above or behind.
Below.
Like something massive had shifted its weight beneath the fog.
He stopped.
Clutched the rope.
Looked down.
The mist parted for a moment.
And something moved in it.
⸻
The First Glimpse
A shape—just a glimpse.
Pale.
Long.
Ribbed like the skeleton of a sea serpent, but with legs—six of them, each one ending in claws that didn't pierce stone, but rested on it like smoke.
A head, narrow and angled like a blade.
Horns of mist. Teeth of nothing. Eyes that weren't eyes at all—just holes where seeing once happened.
Then it was gone.
Back into the fog.
Torian stood frozen.
The bridge creaked beneath him.
Then came the sound—
A low, wet growl.
Not made from lungs or throat.
But from memory.
⸻
"Skarn—!" he yelled.
The beast erupted from the mist with a scream like a thousand bones breaking at once.
It didn't leap—it rose, weightless and massive, mist trailing from its limbs as it climbed the air like a spider up a wall.
Skarn roared and leapt onto the bridge behind him.
"No!" Torian shouted.
"Stay!"
But Skarn was already moving.
Charging.
⸻
The beast slammed into the bridge from below, tearing through ropes and boards.
Torian dropped flat as planks exploded beside him.
The bridge rocked.
Twisted.
But held.
Barely.
Skarn reached him in seconds, leaping over broken gaps and driving both paws into the beast's rising face.
It screamed.
Not in pain.
In challenge.
⸻
The two titans clashed midair—Skarn's claws slashing through bone, the beast's mist-form bleeding no blood but pulling pieces of Skarn's strength with every touch.
Torian sprinted.
The bridge was collapsing behind him.
Each step cracked the wood.
The mist thickened.
⸻
He didn't look back.
Only forward.
Running on instinct.
On survival.
On hope.
The bridge screamed.
It wasn't just wood snapping—it was the sound of ancient ropes unraveling under impossible stress, of enchantments reaching their final breath.
Torian sprinted, arms pumping, boots slipping on the wet, splintered planks.
Behind him, Skarn clashed with the creature in a savage blur of teeth and claw and ethereal violence.
The bridge jolted.
A full section behind Torian dropped, vanishing into the mist below. The sound of wood hitting the canyon's depths never came. It was too far—or swallowed.
Torian glanced back.
Skarn had one paw buried in the creature's upper spine. The beast writhed in the air like a banner torn in wind. Mist rolled off it in coils, wrapping around Skarn's limbs like grasping hands.
Then the creature twisted—impossibly, bones bending backward—and sank its gaping, misted jaw into Skarn's side.
Skarn roared in pain.
The sound was deafening.
⸻
"Skarn!"
Torian turned, his instincts screaming to return, to help—
The bridge snapped again.
A full third of it broke away beneath Skarn's back legs, plunging into the fog. Skarn lost footing. He grabbed the ropes with his forearms, his back half swinging into open air.
The beast coiled back to strike.
Torian didn't think.
He moved.
⸻
The Leap
He ran back against the tilt, toward the falling section, toward the beast and Skarn's dangling form.
Skarn's claws were tearing the bridge ropes, not intentionally—but out of sheer desperation to hold on.
Torian reached the split—and leapt.
He sailed through the gap, catching the last firm rope just as the final support gave way.
He landed beside Skarn and immediately slammed his fist into the creature's neck.
"Let go of him!"
The beast hissed, recoiling for a moment, its head rising above the bridge again.
Skarn's grip was slipping.
⸻
Torian grabbed Skarn's harness with both hands.
Too heavy.
Skarn was a beast forged in war and weight.
Torian's feet began sliding toward the break.
His spiral flickered—weak.
But not gone.
Not yet.
⸻
"Not today," he growled.
He planted one foot on the inner rope, one hand still on Skarn, the other reaching into his own chest—
"Come on."
"Come ON."
The spiral flickered.
Then flared.
⸻
The Flame Returns
With a roar, the fire burst out of Torian's body—not in full, not as it had before—but as a white-hot flare, an instinctive blast that tore through the bridge with heat and light.
It caught the ropes around him but didn't burn them.
It wrapped around Skarn like a tether.
The weight changed.
Skarn stopped falling.
Suspended.
Balanced.
Held.
⸻
Torian pulled—screaming, digging his heels into the bridge's last solid board—and with one last burst of pure will, hauled Skarn up and over.
Skarn crashed into the bridge and rolled, his claws tearing grooves in the wood, his body burned but intact.
Torian collapsed beside him, gasping, his hands still glowing.
The fire sputtered.
Flickered.
And died.
⸻
The beast shrieked in fury and lunged again—but this time Skarn was ready.
Bleeding, battered, but raging, he pounced.
They met midair.
Torian scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the far side.
The final stretch of the bridge was intact—but only barely.
He crossed it in a dead sprint, boards snapping under each step.
Behind him, Skarn and the beast tumbled.
They hit the bridge—
It snapped.
Everything fell.
⸻
"NO!"
Torian screamed, leaping the last six feet and rolling into the dirt on the other side.
He spun around, panic in his chest—
And Skarn rose from the edge, wings flaring wide, carrying the beast with him.
He flung it into the canyon wall.
It exploded in a burst of bone and mist, vanishing into the black fog below.
Skarn flapped hard—wings trembling—and landed with a crash beside Torian.
Dust flew.
And silence returned.
⸻
Aftermath
Torian knelt, coughing, his chest heaving.
The spiral in him was dim again—exhausted.
But it had answered him.
When it mattered.
He reached out and pressed his forehead to Skarn's.
"You're okay," he whispered. "You're okay."
Skarn growled low, a sound that was half pain, half pride.
They sat there in silence, listening to the broken remains of the bridge crumble into nothingness behind them.
There was no going back.
Only forward.
And farther south, the horizon pulsed purple once again—distant trees glowing faintly in the dark.
The river canyon behind them was no longer a place.
It had become a scar.
A memory carved into the spine of the land—a line they could never cross again. The shattered remnants of the rope bridge still drifted down into the fog like ash caught in a slow, silent breeze. Every few seconds, a broken plank or shard of bone struck the canyon walls and echoed faintly before disappearing into black.
Torian stared at the void for a long time.
His boots sat inches from the cliff's edge. One more step and he'd be swallowed whole. One more mistake, and Skarn would've been lost. One more heartbeat… and the fire might never have come back.
"It took everything," he muttered.
Behind him, Skarn was lying flat, chest heaving, wings spread wide like a broken shield. His fur was scorched in places, marked by bites that hadn't bled properly—because the beast had stolen heat instead of blood.
Even now, the burns were healing slower than normal.
Whatever that creature was, it hadn't belonged to this world.
It had been sent.
⸻
Torian sat down slowly, legs folding beneath him.
The sky above had changed since they crossed. The clouds here weren't gray, but violet, tinged with hues of gold and deep magenta, like the edge of a painted dream. It didn't feel like dusk or dawn. Time didn't flow the same this far south.
Skarn stirred and dragged himself to Torian's side, letting out a low groan.
Torian placed a hand on his broad neck.
"I told you to stay," he said with a smirk.
Skarn snorted in reply, then promptly collapsed onto his side, tail flicking once in defiance.
Torian chuckled softly.
It was the first real laugh he'd allowed himself in days.
⸻
The Spiral's Hunger
Later, when the stars began to show through the strange sky, Torian opened his palm and tried again.
Just a spark.
Just a flicker.
He focused—not on rage, not on pain, but on need.
He closed his eyes.
Slowed his breath.
Listened.
And then—
A flame.
Small. Steady. Orange-gold.
No surge. No roar.
Just warmth.
He held it there in silence, letting the heat curl around his fingers, letting it speak to the spiral embedded in his chest.
"You're still with me," he whispered.
"Even if you're tired."
The flame dimmed, then vanished.
But it hadn't died.
It had rested.
⸻
Skarn watched, golden eyes half-closed.
Torian turned to him.
"We're close now. I can feel it."
"The stories said the forest where magic was born lies just beyond these cliffs."
"But it's not just magic I'm looking for."
He stood.
Looked out over the jungle-like sprawl now visible in the distance. The purple forest stretched far and wide, glowing faintly between rising plumes of mist. Towering trees swayed without wind. Light drifted between the trunks—lanterns, spirits, something else entirely.
"Whatever's there knows what I am."
"What we are."
⸻
The Trail of the Marked
Before they moved again, Torian took time to walk the edge of the cliff, observing old markings carved into the stone. He found symbols—three spirals in a triangular pattern, etched into rocks and outcrops, all pointing south.
Some were fresh.
Others were ancient.
All bore the same absence: no flame.
"They feared it so much," he said. "They erased it from everything."
Skarn padded up beside him.
Torian turned to face the forest.
The ground ahead turned soft—dirt instead of stone, roots instead of rock.
A new land.
A new threshold.
And no way back.
⸻
"Let's go," he said.
Skarn didn't need to be told twice.
Together, they descended from the cliffs into the final stretch before the forest. The path wound through overgrown grass and shattered ruins half-buried in moss. Statues lined the trail—twisted humanoid shapes with blank faces, arms outstretched in poses of worship or fear.
Each one had a spiral carved into its chest.
Wind.
Water.
Stone.
No fire.
⸻
As they passed the final statue, Torian paused.
He pressed his palm to its spiral and whispered.
"You're missing one."
Then he stepped past it—and the wind shifted.
From the forest ahead, a sound echoed.
Low.
Distant.
Like a drumbeat muffled by layers of time.
Torian and Skarn froze.
The spiral in his chest pulsed once.
And then they kept walking.
⸻
At the Threshold
Night fell.
And the trees of the purple forest finally loomed before them.
They were vast—some easily three hundred feet tall, with glowing veins that pulsed gently from root to tip. The air hummed with magic. Not flame. Not any one element.
But origin.
Torian stood at the edge.
Behind him lay battles, betrayal, broken bridges, and sealed temples.
Ahead lay truth.
Power.
Possibly a way home.
⸻
He looked to Skarn.
"This is it."
"If we step in… there's no more hiding."
Skarn's tail twitched.
"Yeah," Torian said.
"I'm done hiding too."
He stepped forward.
And the forest opened.