They didn't speak until the marsh thinned into dry ground.
Even then, the silence between them wasn't awkward — it was heavy, like the air after a storm.
Erynd's steps were steady, but the shadow under him moved with an unsettling precision.
It no longer clung or flickered; it followed him like a disciplined soldier.
Lira kept glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
"You're different," she said finally.
He didn't answer right away.
"I left something behind."
Her gaze flicked to his burned hand. "That's not all you left."
The village's lights were visible ahead, small against the dark horizon.
A watch fire burned near the outer huts, and faint voices carried on the night air.
Erynd slowed his pace. "If I go back in there, people will notice."
"They already notice," Lira said. "The difference is now they'll wonder if they should be afraid."
They skirted the edge of the huts, moving toward a small shed where she kept supplies.
Inside, it smelled of dry grass and old wood. A battered lantern sat on a crate, throwing warm light over the cramped space.
Lira poured water from a clay jug into a bowl and set it in front of him.
"Wash the burn."
Erynd obeyed, the cold water biting against raw skin.
When he looked up, she was watching him with a sharpness that wasn't entirely suspicion.
"What did you see in there?" she asked.
"Three things. None I can explain without sounding insane."
She smirked faintly. "I've seen worse than insane."
He studied her face. "Then why help me?"
Her expression shifted — the faintest crack in her calm. "Because the last one I saw with your mark didn't make it out. I want to know why."
They spoke little after that.
Erynd stretched out on a pile of furs in the corner, but sleep didn't come easily.
When it did, it was full of strange dreams — not of chains or darkness, but of a ribbon tied around a child's wrist, and a mother's voice telling him to keep the lantern, not the chain.
At dawn, the shed's door rattled.
Lira was already awake, bow in hand.
A man stood outside, face pale in the early light.
"You need to come," he told her. "Something's wrong by the east road."
The three of them walked quickly.
A crowd had gathered where the dirt road met the grasslands.
Whispers rippled through them.
At the center of the road lay a corpse.
It wasn't a villager.
The body was clad in armor that didn't belong to this continent — lacquered plates, etched with curling sigils, a short curved blade still sheathed at the hip.
Lira crouched beside the corpse. "Never seen this style."
Erynd had. Not here, not in this life — but in some deep, wordless place, the patterns on that armor stirred unease.
The dead man's skin was pale, lips cracked. No wounds.
No blood.
"Drained," someone murmured behind them.
Erynd's shadow pulsed faintly.
He glanced toward the open grasslands beyond the road. The wind moved the tall grass in uneven waves, as though something large was sliding through it.
The villagers didn't notice — not yet.
Lira did. Her hand closed around his wrist. "Tell me you see that."
"I see it."
The thing broke the surface of the grass without warning — a segmented shape, pale as bone, each section rimmed with jagged spines. No eyes, just a circular maw lined with teeth.
It moved fast. Too fast.
The crowd scattered, shouts breaking into panic.
Erynd stepped forward, spear in hand.
The shadow bled up the shaft, eager.
"Erynd—" Lira began, but stopped when she saw his stance.
The creature lunged.
He sidestepped, the spear's point biting into one of the softer joints between its plated segments. The shadow hardened the blow, driving it deeper.
The beast shrieked — a high, metallic screech — and whipped its body, throwing him back several steps.
Lira's arrow buried into the gap near its mouth. The beast recoiled, twisting violently before retreating back into the grass, vanishing as quickly as it had come.
Silence fell, broken only by ragged breathing.
The villagers looked at Erynd differently now.
Some with awe.
Some with the kind of suspicion that turns to fear.
Lira stepped close, keeping her voice low. "That wasn't from here. Neither was the dead man."
Erynd glanced toward the grasslands. "Then it means this continent isn't as closed as they think."
Her eyes met his. "And if that's true, you're not ready to stay in one place."
They returned to the shed in silence.
Erynd sat on the crate, turning the curved blade they had taken from the corpse over in his hands.
The sigils shimmered faintly in the dim light.
Lira leaned against the wall. "If you're leaving, I'm coming with you."
He looked up. "Why?"
"Because you're going to get yourself killed before you reach the Third Circle. And because…" She hesitated. "I think you might be the key to something bigger than this village."
Erynd studied her for a long moment. Then he nodded once. "We'll need supplies."
That night, he dreamed again.
Not of shadows or circles — but of an endless chain of pillars across a black sea, each one crowned with a ring of fire. Twenty-five of them, stretching into the distance.
And far beyond, something watching from the dark, patient as a tide.
When he woke, the mark in his palm pulsed once — slow and deliberate.
"The Third Circle waits," the voice whispered. "But so does the world."