The wind had changed.
Coker felt it before he heard it. The kind of wind that didn't just pass through the trees but whispered to them—whispered old things, buried things. The soldiers stood in silence, watching him not as a boy, but as a leader returned from legend. Their faces were worn, tired, many scarred from wars that history had already forgotten.
But Coker... he had no memories of leading them. Only flickers. Feelings. Dreams that tasted like blood and sounded like screaming skies.
He clenched his fists.
The air was too heavy.
Even Lilin, who always seemed calm, now stood stiff with worry.
"What is it?" he asked her quietly.
She tilted her head to the sky. "The balance is cracking."
Above them, the stars were no longer still. They shifted. Danced. One of them bled—a thin line of red light falling slowly toward the earth like a thread unraveling from the sky.
Coker stepped forward, watching it. "I did that?"
"You remembered," Lilin said. "That was enough."
---
The soldiers began to move again, making camp near the edge of the cliff. No tents. No fires. Just stillness and watchful eyes.
Coker stood near the sleeping Fate Warden. Its breathing was slow now, like a mountain sighing in its sleep. The black chains around its arms no longer dragged; they coiled softly in the grass, twitching like snakes dreaming of freedom.
He placed his hand on its cracked stone skin again. It was warm.
Alive.
"You were sent to kill me," he whispered. "And now you sleep because I asked you to."
He didn't know if that was mercy… or power.
Or both.
---
Lilin approached, brushing hair from her face.
"There's something else I need to show you," she said.
He didn't ask where they were going. He just followed.
They left the camp behind and walked through a narrower trail winding into the woods. This part of the forest didn't burn or tremble—it held its breath. Even the birds were silent here. The trees leaned in close like they didn't want to miss a word.
After a long walk, they came to a clearing filled with mirrors.
Tall ones. Short ones. Some cracked, others smooth as water. Dozens of them, standing upright in a circle.
Coker paused. "What is this?"
"The Hall of Echoes," Lilin said. "It shows you… what you've been. What you've become. What you still might be."
Coker stepped forward.
The first mirror he looked into didn't show his face.
It showed a man—older, taller—his own eyes glowing like stars. Behind him, kingdoms burned. He stood on a mountain of bones.
Coker turned away.
Another mirror showed a version of him kneeling, hands bloody, crying into the earth.
Another showed him smiling with friends he didn't recognize.
Then he saw one that stopped his heart.
It was him.
Now.
But surrounded by shadows that wore familiar faces.
One of the shadows stepped forward and stabbed him through the chest.
He gasped and stepped back.
Lilin placed a hand on his shoulder.
"These are not fates," she said gently. "They are possibilities. Your future is still your own."
"But they all end in blood," Coker whispered.
She didn't argue.
---
They walked back slowly.
The path behind them seemed longer now. Like time had stretched.
When they returned to the camp, night had fully arrived—but the stars were wrong. They shifted. They pulsed. Some dimmed, others moved too fast.
The soldiers had noticed too. They whispered. A few knelt in prayer. One stood silently sharpening a blade that hummed.
Coker sat by the edge of the cliff, watching the dark valley below.
He thought of Mina.
Of her voice.
Her smile.
The way she had always looked at him like he mattered, even when no one else did.
He closed his eyes.
"I miss you," he whispered.
---
Far away, in the village, Mina stirred in her sleep.
She sat up, hand on her chest, breathing fast.
"Coker…" she whispered.
The old woman from the bakery sat in the corner of her room, watching quietly.
"You still feel him?"
Mina nodded. "He's hurting."
The woman stood and walked to the window. "He's walking the path again. The one that breaks gods."
---
Back at the cliff, the ground shook.
Coker stood.
Soldiers leapt to their feet, weapons drawn.
Then a voice boomed from the sky—cold, sharp, and familiar.
"Devourer," it said. "You walk again. That is a mistake."
Coker narrowed his eyes. "Show yourself."
A light split the sky.
Another chariot, this one darker than the first, descended with crackling thunder. At its helm stood a figure cloaked in smoke, face hidden, but the air around them twisted like it couldn't breathe near their presence.
Lilin's voice dropped to a whisper. "A Death Herald."
The figure stepped forward from the chariot and floated above the earth.
"Return to your sleep," the Herald said. "Or we will put you back."
Coker's eyes lit with silent flame. "Try."
---
The Death Herald raised a hand.
The earth beneath Coker split.
Dark tendrils erupted, trying to pull him under. But before they touched him, he stepped aside—and with a wave of his arm, the tendrils turned to ash.
The Herald snarled.
"You do not know what you risk by remembering."
Coker's voice was calm, quiet.
"I remember enough."
He raised his hand.
The mark on his chest flared.
The sky twisted.
A circle of black fire opened behind him, and from it, more of the stone warriors began to rise—these ones not even fully human. Some had wings. Others had horns. All wore armor that pulsed like living metal.
The Herald faltered.
"You would call *them*?"
"I didn't call anyone," Coker said. "They woke on their own."
---
The battle didn't begin with a scream.
It began with silence.
Then came the strike—a beam of pure death magic aimed at Coker's chest.
He caught it.
Held it.
And crushed it between his fingers.
Soldiers charged.
The Herald's forces, shadows with burning eyes, rained from the sky.
Coker walked calmly through the chaos, hands glowing. Each step he took, the earth reshaped—turning solid under his allies, soft under his enemies.
He didn't shout.
He didn't command.
He simply moved forward.
And the world moved with him.
---
Lilin watched from the cliff.
She didn't fight.
But her bell rang softly, once for every soldier that fell, like she was counting something even she didn't fully understand.
At the end of the battle, the Herald was on one knee, armor cracked, cloak torn.
Coker stood above him.
"You were warned," the Herald hissed.
"And I listened," Coker said. "But I'm not sleeping anymore."
He struck the ground.
The shockwave shattered the Herald's form into dust.
---
When it ended, no one cheered.
The soldiers stood silently, watching him.
Waiting.
Coker looked at his hands again.
The glow was fading.
But something else remained.
Resolve.
He turned to Lilin.
"We're going to the top of that cliff," he said. "Tonight."
She nodded.
---
As they climbed, the sky bled red again.
Not from the sun.
But from something deeper.
The cliff path was long and broken, overgrown with roots that pulsed faintly.
Coker touched one.
It shivered and moved aside.
He was being *welcomed*.
Or warned.
At the top, an ancient stone gate waited.
It was cracked in the middle. A faint hum leaked from it.
The moment Coker stepped before it, the gate glowed.
Words appeared on the stone—written in no language he knew.
But he understood them.
*"To enter is to become. To remember is to change. To change is to lose."*
He stepped closer.
The mark on his chest flared again, harder than ever.
His knees buckled.
But he didn't fall.
He pressed his hand to the gate.
It opened.
---
Inside was no room.
Just a void.
Dark.
Empty.
And in the center, a throne made of roots and bone.
On it sat…
Himself.
But older. Wiser. Terrifying.
The other Coker opened his eyes slowly.
"So," he said with a crooked smile. "You've finally arrived."
Coker stared, unsure.
"Who are you?"
The other version stood.
"I'm what you buried. What you sealed away. I am you… without fear."
He stepped down from the throne.
"Now the question is… will you join me? Or fight me?"
Coker's heart pounded.
The cave began to shake.
The sky outside screamed.
And Coker knew—
This was not the end.
This was the real beginning.