As the last cinders of the Stalker drifted into the blackened canopy, the silence pressed down with unnatural weight.
Edrin's chest heaved as though each breath were borrowed from someone else's lungs. His legs shook, the silver threads that had danced along his skin now dim and fading. He dropped to one knee, the hilt of his sword digging into the ashen earth to hold himself upright.
The forest smelled of ruin. Burnt bark. Blood. Sweat. And beneath it all, something subtler—like the acrid sting of coal smoke trapped inside a furnace.
Selene leaned heavily on her staff, sweat rolling down her temple. Her golden wards sputtered in and out, faint sparks snapping from her fingers.
She whispered words of binding—not spells, but prayers. Edrin couldn't tell anymore whether she prayed to gods, to the Beacon, or to herself.
Liora sat on a rock half-sunk into the ashen soil, one hand pressed against her bleeding arm. Her blade rested across her lap, edge still humming faintly with silver light. She stared at the smoldering remains of the Stalker until her knuckles whitened.
When she finally spoke, her voice cracked but carried iron.
"That thing wasn't just a beast. It fought with intent."
Selene nodded grimly. "The Council does not craft simple monsters. The Stalker was made to test more than strength—it was made to study. Every strike you gave it, it learned. Every strike it gave you, it measured."
Edrin's throat tightened. He remembered the way the ember-core had resisted his spear, as though it had known what he was about to do.
He forced the thought down. "It's gone now. That's what matters."
Selene's gaze snapped to him, sharp and unyielding. "No, Edrin. It is not gone. The ashes return to their masters. Even in death, the Council sees what their hounds have seen."
The silver pulse inside his chest stirred uneasily, as though echoing her words. He pressed a hand against his sternum, grimacing.
Liora saw the motion, her eyes narrowing.
"It's burning you again, isn't it?"
He hesitated. The truth pressed at his throat. The Beacon did burn—but not with fire. Its hunger was stranger. It wanted use. Every time he fought, it grew louder, sharper. And every time he tried to ignore it, he felt it coil tighter, waiting.
Instead of answering, he forced a smile. "I can handle it."
"Liar." Her tone was flat, but beneath it quivered something raw.
Edrin looked away.
They did not move again until the moon had clawed its way across the sky. The forest, once writhing with Ashen hounds, had sunk into a stillness that felt almost staged.
When Selene judged that their strength had returned enough, they set out again. Their path bent deeper into the charred woods, where every tree was black as bone, and every step crunched over brittle earth.
Ash clung to them like shadow.
Hours passed.
Liora broke the silence. "When you said they'd send worse, Selene—what did you mean?"
Selene walked with measured strides, her staff tapping softly. "The Council does not waste effort. First, they tested spirit—in the Grove. Then survival—in the Hunt. The trials escalate. Each one strips away more illusion, more safety, more mercy. The next will aim not at your body, but your bond."
Edrin frowned. "My bond?"
Selene's eyes flicked between him and Liora, then settled on the horizon. "You will see soon enough."
That night, when they stopped by a stream turned black from ash, Edrin could not sleep. He sat with his sword laid across his knees, staring at the way the silver threads coiled faintly along its steel.
The Beacon pulsed, steady as a heartbeat, but when he closed his eyes, he felt something else beneath it—another rhythm. Slower. Deeper. Like the breath of something vast, watching from beyond.
You bind, you strike, you survive.
The whisper was not Selene's. Not Liora's. Not his own.
Edrin's hand trembled against the hilt. "Who are you?" he breathed.
Not who. What you already are.
He opened his eyes, gasping. The silver light along the blade flared briefly before dimming again.
Liora stirred from her spot near the stream, half asleep, but she caught his movement. Her voice was groggy, laced with worry. "Edrin? What is it?"
He forced his voice steady. "Nothing. Just… listening."
She studied him for a long moment, then turned away. But even in the dark, he felt the weight of her unshed words.
Far away, beyond the forest, in a chamber of stone lit by walls of fire, the Council watched.
Twelve thrones formed a circle, their occupants cloaked in shifting shadows. Embers burned where their faces should have been.
Above them, suspended in a lattice of flame, hovered a sphere of ash. Inside it flickered visions—the battle, the silver light, the shattering of the Stalker's ember-heart.
One voice, deep as cracking stone, rumbled. "The boy binds. He learns quickly."
Another, sharp as steel drawn from sheath, replied, "Too quickly. The shard bends for him as if he were its forge. He will become a danger."
A third voice, colder, softer, whispered, "Or a vessel. If he survives the next trial, we may no longer need to resist. We may use him."
The council's voices overlapped—agreement, dissent, hunger.
Finally, the eldest voice cut through, a roar of flame.
"Then we test his bonds. Break them, and he will break with them. If he endures… then he will carry our fire into the world."
The sphere of ash darkened, swallowing the vision.
By dawn, the travelers reached the edge of the Ashen Forest. Beyond lay a valley where the air shimmered with heat though no sun touched it. The grass grew gray, the stones cracked with veins of ember.
At its center stood ruins—pillars melted and warped, their carvings half-consumed by fire.
Selene stopped at the ridge, her expression grim. "The Emberfall. A graveyard of oaths. Once, this was a temple where bonds were sealed—between warriors, between lovers, between gods and mortals. Now it is where bonds are unmade."
Liora's face paled. "Unmade?"
Selene's gaze lingered on Edrin. "This is the Council's next hunt. They will not come for your flesh, Edrin. They will come for those tied to you. To sever, to tempt, to break."
The silver pulse inside him throbbed hard enough to make him stagger.
Liora caught his arm, steadying him. "We'll face it. Together."
Her touch was warm, grounding—but the Beacon burned hotter beneath his ribs, as if rejecting even that comfort.
Edrin met her eyes. She looked fierce, unyielding, but behind the fire, fear lingered. Fear not of the Council, but of him.
And in that moment, he wondered if Selene was right. That the greatest danger ahead was not the trials, not the hunters, not the Council.
But himself.