The gate pulsed one final time, then shattered into light.
Not violently.
Not with sound.
But like a star sighing out of existence.
Torian stepped through the spiral first, Skarn close behind him. They emerged together into cool air and open sky—the wind rushing against their faces, the earth beneath their feet solid for the first time in what felt like eternity.
It was home.
And it wasn't.
⸻
The Wrong Sky
The cliffs they stood upon were familiar—black rock veins threading through dusty red hills, a ridge Torian had once flown over as a boy, wild and free with Skarn by his side.
But the sky was fractured.
Above them, clouds coiled into spirals that didn't move. The sun blinked in and out, like a flickering torch behind torn curtains. And across the horizon, cracks stretched like hairline fractures in glass—time itself, broken and bleeding through the fabric of the world.
Skarn growled low, his claws twitching.
He felt it too.
"This isn't the same world we left," Torian said, scanning the twisted sky.
"Something happened while we were gone."
He stepped forward, eyes narrowing at the far-off horizon.
Storm clouds brewed there—towering and still, pulsing with blue lightning that didn't flash… it hovered, as though caught mid-strike.
Reality was caught in a pause.
And something was waiting to press play.
⸻
Echoes in the Dust
They walked for hours.
Or maybe minutes.
Time blurred here.
The ground was scorched in strange patterns—circles burned deep into the soil, as though meteors had landed, or something much worse had crawled out.
Torian knelt beside one, brushing ash away from the center.
The mark underneath was spiral-shaped.
But it wasn't his.
The edges were jagged, the pattern warped and angry.
"Someone's been here," he murmured.
"Or… something."
Skarn's ears twitched.
They weren't alone.
⸻
The Boy Appears
A figure stood on the next ridge—small, still, watching.
Torian stood quickly, eyes locked.
The figure didn't move.
Didn't run.
Didn't breathe, it seemed.
But then—just as the wind picked up—a small foot stepped forward.
A boy.
Seventeen, maybe younger.
His body was covered in a sleek black suit of nanotech, shifting softly across his skin like liquid armor. Strange blue lines pulsed down his arms, and a faint glow leaked from behind his eyes—tech, not flame.
He looked at Torian.
Looked straight through him.
And then said, softly, clearly:
"You're too late."
"They already found your body."
⸻
Torian's heart froze.
Skarn stepped forward, bristling.
But the boy didn't move.
He simply stood there, eyes wide—not in fear.
In warning.
Torian didn't blink.
Didn't speak.
For the first time in what felt like lifetimes, he was caught not in awe or battle—but in pure confusion.
The boy's voice still echoed:
"They already found your body."
Skarn lowered his head and growled—not a snarl of rage, but the sound he made when a predator approached in perfect silence. He stepped forward once, cautiously.
Torian raised a hand to stop him.
"What do you mean, my body?" he asked, voice calm, but tight.
"Who found it?"
The boy didn't answer.
He only pointed.
South.
Toward the horizon.
Where the sky tore open like paper.
⸻
The Rift Above
Lightning forked through the air—but the bolts never touched ground. They hovered, suspended mid-flash like they had been frozen in the act of striking. Above them, a swirling rift spun slowly in the sky, a circular wound in the heavens that revealed nothing but an endless storm behind it.
Winds circled the edges, but never entered.
Torian took a step forward, eyes narrowing.
The spiral on his chest—newly reborn, harmonized with every realm he'd touched—pulsed once. It wasn't a warning.
It was a memory.
He saw flashes of the Between.
Of his corpse.
Of Velgrath.
⸻
"It's here…" he said, not to the boy.
"Somehow it followed us through."
The boy lowered his hand and spoke again, softer this time.
"This place isn't whole anymore. Time split when you died."
"But your flame didn't stop burning."
"They followed the echo."
Torian looked at him closely now.
"Who are you?"
The boy hesitated.
"Not yet."
⸻
The Spiral's Call
The sky thundered—not with sound, but pressure. Torian felt it in his bones. Felt it in the reformed spiral running through his chest. Skarn stepped beside him and looked upward—eyes scanning the rift.
Something was coming.
Not now.
Not yet.
But soon.
And they would not be ready.
Torian turned to the boy again.
"You said they found me."
"Who are they?"
The boy took a slow breath. The nanotech across his chest flared, revealing a circular insignia that blinked and pulsed like a warning.
"I'm not the first to look for you."
"But I might be the last."
Then the sky flashed again—brighter than before.
Torian turned sharply—
And saw the storm begin to move.
I. The Breath Between Worlds
The storm moved, but not like weather.
Not like anything alive.
It moved like a thought—heavy, patient, aware.
Across the fractured sky, it crawled slowly, impossibly, warping time with its passage. Lightning coiled around its center in loops, not flashing but lingering, as if held in the palm of something vast and ancient. Beneath it, the world did not quake.
It waited.
Because it knew who had returned.
Because it remembered the flame.
⸻
Torian stared across the broken horizon, shoulders squared, wind tugging gently at the edge of his cloak. Skarn stood beside him, massive wings still, chest rising and falling like a drumbeat of old war rhythms.
Behind them, the gate to the Between flickered—and vanished.
There was no way back now.
Only forward.
Only through.
⸻
II. The Boy with Nanotech Eyes
The boy remained silent. The last few words he had spoken still echoed like scripture in the air:
"They already found your body."
But now he stood like a sentinel—young face calm, unreadable, as if he had seen too much and not enough all at once. The nanotech on his suit pulsed with faint heat signatures—codes spiraling in languages Torian couldn't comprehend.
"I need a name," Torian finally said, voice low, serious.
"If I'm to trust you. Even a false one."
The boy looked up.
For the first time, he blinked.
"Kael," he said.
"My name is Kael."
The word hung in the air like prophecy.
Torian nodded once.
"Where did you come from?"
Kael's eyes moved to the distant storm.
"Not here," he said.
"Not yet. But I will."
Torian stepped closer.
"Did you know I'd be here?"
Kael didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
⸻
III. The Ruined Path
They walked.
For hours? Minutes?
Time no longer mattered on the scarred plains of their returned home.
Beneath their feet were ruins—villages, cities, memories—some preserved perfectly in time, others decaying mid-motion like the world had paused and forgotten how to resume. Skarn sniffed at a cracked stone well, where water still poured… but in reverse.
Everything was broken.
Every step was a reminder.
They were not walking on their home world anymore.
They were walking on the echo of its collapse.
⸻
Torian reached a cliff's edge.
Below, a crater the size of a kingdom had been carved into the land. In its center was a tower—no doors, no windows, only a spiraling mark etched in glowing white light along its outer shell.
Kael pointed down.
"That's where they found you," he said.
"That's where they took your corpse."
Torian turned slowly.
"Velgrath?"
Kael nodded.
"And the ones that came before him. Not gods. Not titans. Witnesses."
"They watched you die. Then marked your path so he could follow it."
Skarn growled low.
Torian clenched his fist.
⸻
IV. What It Means to Be Reborn
That night, they camped beneath a sky that refused to settle.
Stars blinked in and out.
The moon doubled, then vanished.
Kael sat apart from the fire. Torian sat beside it, legs crossed, staring into the flame.
It did not dance.
It did not burn.
It listened.
He thought of all he had seen:
• The ancient forge beneath the Hollow Deep.
• The forest spiral and the gift it gave him.
• The Between, and the corpse that wasn't just his—but a warning.
• The boy who wasn't a boy.
• The flame that was no longer fire, but balance.
He breathed in.
Not deeply.
Just enough.
"If I fall again," he said, "will there be another version of me?"
Kael looked up.
"No," he said softly.
"You are the last. Every thread ends with you."
"If you die again… there is no more spiral."
Torian nodded.
Skarn lowered his head beside him.
They did not sleep.
Not that night.
Maybe not ever again.
⸻
V. Dawn and a Final Warning
At first light—though the sun was just a pale circle drifting through shifting clouds—they stood together atop a ridge. Below, the spiral-marked tower stood still.
Kael faced them.
"I can't go with you," he said.
"You're not ready to face what lies ahead. But I needed to warn you."
Torian stepped forward.
"Why now?"
Kael's eyes glowed faintly.
"Because Velgrath is already here."
"And he's not searching for your flame."
"He's searching for the place it ends."
Torian didn't flinch.
"Then we'll meet him there."
Kael nodded.
He reached into a pouch on his suit and pulled out a crystal sphere—small, humming softly with layered light.
"This will lead you to the others."
Torian took it.
"Others?"
Kael began to shimmer.
His voice was the last thing left as his form dissolved into fragments of nanotech and light.
"You're not the only one who broke the spiral."
⸻
VI. The Storm Breaks
Far on the horizon, the rift opened.
Truly this time.
The storm peeled back, revealing a void beyond voids—a sky of eyes, teeth, and spirals not of fire but of silence and hunger. Something crawled forward.
Not a god.
Not a beast.
But a memory of death that had taken form.
And it had seen Torian.
And it remembered him.
And it began to move.
⸻
Torian stood tall, the spiral on his chest glowing softly—not in fear, not in rage, but in knowing.
He turned to Skarn.
"We'll need them."
Skarn growled, wings tightening.
Torian held up the crystal sphere.
It shimmered with nine points of light.
Nine souls.
Nine threads.
All waiting to converge.
⸻
VII. The Final Image
From far above, as if the stars themselves watched, the scene burned itself into myth:
A man, no longer just a bearer of flame.
A beast, scarred by time, loyal beyond death.
A world fractured by fate.
A storm that would devour timelines.
And a boy's voice, lingering in the air—
"You're too late. They already found your body."
⸻
And Torian?
He said nothing.
He simply walked forward.
Into the storm.
End of Torian: Book One