The road was dark, save for the lanterns.
They stood like solemn watchmen, their glass bellies glowing amber against the endless stretch of night. Mist coiled around their iron poles, curling like restless fingers, yet the flames did not falter. Each burned steady, because someone had tended them.
That someone walked now, boots crunching gravel, staff in hand.
Eldric Ardent moved with the patient rhythm of a man who had done this many, many nights before. His cloak dragged with a whisper against the road, its edges stained in soot from the lanterns. In his hand, the ironwood staff flickered faintly at the tip, a small wick of eternal flame glowing like a watchful eye.
He paused beside the next lantern.
The glass was cracked and soot smeared the edges. Inside, the flame trembled weakly, nearly drowned by its own smoke. Eldric lowered his pack with quiet care. Oil, cloth, flint. The ritual tools of a Keeper.
As his hands moved, methodical and precise, his mind drifted, not to the present moment, but to the countless nights before this one. He remembered the smell of rain on the road, the feel of snow settling over the lanterns, the whisper of reeds in Hollowfen and the distant laughter of children long grown to adults, now children's children, who would never know how many generations of Keepers had walked this path before him.
He wiped the glass clean, oiled the wick, breathed against the pane until the glow steadied. Then, with the staff, he touched the everburning spark to the heart of the lantern. The flame caught, steady and warm, as though sighing in relief.
"Easy now." he murmured, as if speaking to a tired friend.
The road behind him gleamed with a trail of golden circles in the mist.
The road ahead lay shadowed, the next lantern a faint glimmer in the dark. Travelers had a saying:
"walk from flame to flame."
It was true in more ways than one.
He had walked this road for centuries, at least, it felt like centuries. Faces changed, villages rose and fell, forests grew and withered, but the rhythm of flame and shadow remained the same.
Eldric swung his pack back over his shoulder and walked on.
Beyond the road, the marshlands of Hollowfen whispered. Frogs croaked. Something else, too heavy, too patient, shifted in the reeds.
Eldric glanced sideways, golden eyes catching the faintest ripple in the dark water. The flame at his staff-tip pulsed softly, as if aware.
He said nothing, only walked. He had long ago learned that to name the darkness gave it power.
At the next lantern, a figure was waiting. An old woman wrapped in shawls, sitting in a crooked chair by the road. Her eyes were fixed on the lantern flame, and she did not turn as Eldric approached.
"Evening, Widow Anwen." Eldric said gently.
She smiled faintly without looking at him.
"Evening, Keeper. He didn't come tonight either."
Eldric studied the lantern. Its flame was healthy, burning bright, but charms dangled from the pole, bundles of dried herbs, little ribbons of cloth, a ring that had belonged to someone long gone. He remembered her husband: young, laughing, alive the first time he'd stood beside this lantern years ago. He remembered watching the same vigil long before she had grown old.
He bowed his head. There was nothing to say, only the flame to tend, the silence to share. He stood beside her for a while, the night pressing close, the lantern holding the dark at bay.
When he moved on, the woman's vigil did not break.
Hours later, Eldric reached the fields of Brindleford. Lanterns there leaned crookedly from years of wind, their glow falling across golden wheat that shifted in the night air. By one post, a young woman with flour-streaked cheeks stood holding a small bundle wrapped in cloth.
"Bread again, Lira?" Eldric asked as she pressed it into his hands.
"You'll eat it, Keeper." she said, grinning. "Else I'll follow you myself to make sure."
Eldric chuckled softly. He had met many Liras in his long years, he knew now. Their faces changed, their laughter new, but the warmth in the gesture was always the same.
He took the bread, warm even through the cloth and slipped it into his pack.
The flame of Brindleford's lantern wavered, then steadied as Eldric leaned close, checking the wick. Lira stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"You ever wonder what's out there?"
she asked quietly. "Beyond the last flame?"
Eldric straightened, lantern glass gleaming in his golden gaze. He thought of all the nights he had asked himself the same question. All the miles beyond Wyrmgate, all the shadows he had faced, all the fires he had kept alive for lifetimes no one remembered.
He did not answer her.
The road stretched on. The next lantern waited and beyond them all, something stirred in the dark.