The wilderness was silent again.
Only the distant murmur of the wind through broken trees and the low thrum of unseen creatures echoed in the mist. The same mist that had watched their bond form now curled lazily, as if waiting for something it could not name.
Keros coiled around a boulder the size of a hut, his massive body half-hidden by shadow. Each of his three heads turned in different directions—one watching the still, emotionless boy, another scanning the forest's edges, and the last lowering, as if deep in thought.
Valen stood motionless, arms hanging by his side. His bare feet rested against the damp soil. His expression, as always, betrayed nothing—no curiosity, no caution, not even the instinctive wariness of prey standing before a predator.
Just silence. Cold, complete, and heavy.
The serpent's central head lifted, its fangs catching what little light managed to pierce the darkness. "You asked me to teach you," Keros said, the voice a deep vibration that resonated through the air itself. "But before you learn, you must first survive."
Valen blinked once. "Survive," he repeated quietly, his tone flat—neither question nor statement, merely acknowledgment.
Keros' three heads looked at him together now, ancient eyes narrowing. "This forest devours everything that forgets to fear," the serpent said. "I have seen power-drunk kings from the Lower Domain crawl into these trees and never crawl back out. I have seen creatures who believed themselves eternal reduced to bones and echo."
He lowered one head toward the boy.
"You have no memory. No foundation. You are weak."
There was no anger in the serpent's tone—only truth.
Valen's black, bottomless eyes met the serpent's glowing ones.
"Then I will learn," he said.
The simplicity of it startled even Keros for a heartbeat. There was no hesitation, no false confidence—just a still determination that felt older than the boy himself.
For a long moment, the serpent simply stared, all three heads watching him in silence. Then, as though deciding something, Keros' middle head turned toward the others. The three gazes met, and in the next breath, something strange began to happen.
The air shuddered.
Darkness gathered around the serpent like smoke caught in a current. The three heads began to move in unison, twisting and pulling toward the center.
Bones groaned. Scales rippled. Shadows bent and folded.
And then—with a sound like the deep hum of thunder—three became one.
A single, massive head lifted from the coils, its horns longer, its scales darker, as though each fragment of power from the others had fused into something far older.
The earth itself seemed to pause.
Valen's expression didn't shift, but his head tilted slightly, a quiet curiosity flickering in his gaze. His voice, when it came, was soft, detached.
"Why did you change?"
Keros' great head lowered until the air between them grew heavy and sharp. "It's tiring speaking in three bodies," he said at last, the faintest amusement curling through his words. "This form is efficient. Focused."
Valen blinked once. "Efficient," he murmured, the syllables tasting strange in his mouth, as though trying to remember a language he had once known.
The serpent's massive eye lingered on him. The boy's expression remained impassive, yet the tilt of his head, the faint narrowing of his eyes—it was almost human. Almost... endearing.
Keros suppressed the odd thought before it could form completely.
It was absurd.
He was the Devourer of Shadows, the Scourge of the Lower Domain. What could possibly be adorable about a child who carried the stillness of death in his eyes?
And yet, when those same eyes lifted again—deep, black, empty, and bottomless—it was all Keros could do to not flinch.
Not from fear this time, but from the uncanny calm that poured from that gaze.
It wasn't lifelessness. It was the absence of what made most creatures alive.
Keros exhaled slowly, his breath stirring the fog between them. "You truly have no memory," he said, almost to himself. "No instinct of self. No tether to what came before."
Valen said nothing. He looked up at him, his expression faintly unreadable, and for the briefest moment, something moved behind those eyes—an echo, a shadow of something vast, ancient, and watching from within.
The serpent's tongue flicked out, tasting the air. That same strange hum he had felt during the ritual still pulsed faintly around the boy, hidden deep beneath layers of restraint.
Unreachable, yet terrifying.
Keros shifted his weight. "You are quiet," he said, voice rumbling like distant thunder. "Too quiet. The forest will not give you mercy for silence."
"It does not matter," Valen replied simply. "The forest is alive. I will listen."
For a heartbeat, the serpent almost smiled. "You listen," he said. "Good. That may keep you alive longer than strength will."
His tail lashed once, cracking the earth. "Strength comes later. Survival comes first."
Valen's eyes flickered—barely. "Show me."
The serpent's jaw opened slightly, not in anger but in dark amusement. "You don't even flinch," Keros said. "Most mortals tremble when I breathe upon them."
Valen tilted his head again, his voice as steady as ever. "You are not a threat."
The serpent went still. His single eye burned like a molten sun as it fixed on the small figure before him.
"You think you know that."
Valen did not answer.
For a long, weighted moment, neither moved.
The mist swirled. The forest seemed to draw closer. Every sound became sharper—each drop of moisture falling from the trees, each shift of soil beneath their feet.
Then Keros chuckled, a sound like thunder rolling in reverse. "You are strange, little one," he said. "Even the fearless tremble before things they cannot name. You… simply do not care."
The boy didn't respond, only continued to stare, his bottomless eyes glinting faintly in the dim light.
Keros found the silence almost maddening—but also fascinating.
Finally, he lowered his great head, the motion fluid, deliberate. "Very well," he said. "You wish to learn. You will learn through pain, through instinct, through what this forest hides."
Valen's chin dipped, almost a nod. "Pain teaches faster."
The serpent's jaw tightened in a ghost of a grin. "Indeed."
He began to move again, his single form now towering higher than before. "We begin tomorrow," he said. "When the mist thins and the shadows wake."
Valen's gaze lingered on the merging of the three heads. "Why three before?" he asked suddenly, voice quiet but cutting through the mist. "You spoke with three mouths."
Keros turned one eye down at him. "Because each head once carried a different aspect of my will," he said. "But that was long ago. The longer you live, the heavier separation becomes.
The boy didn't respond. Instead, his gaze wandered to the mist, to the unseen trees beyond it. His expression didn't change, but something about his stillness shifted—an almost imperceptible sense that his mind was listening again. Listening to something beyond this clearing.
Keros watched him for a long time, his ancient thoughts unreadable. Then, finally, the great serpent settled back into the soil, folding himself into a massive coil. His scales shimmered faintly like starlight buried in tar.
"The forest doesn't sleep," he said quietly. "Neither should you."
Valen didn't reply, but his head inclined just slightly—understanding without acknowledgment.
The serpent's eyes began to dim, a sign of rest, yet his voice came again, softer this time.
"Tomorrow, boy. We begin with breath and death."
Valen's gaze remained locked on the horizon, his face blank, unreadable.
The mist caught the faintest gleam in his eyes—black and endless.
"I'll be ready," he murmured, barely above a whisper.
And as the last of
Keros' glow faded, the forest once again fell into that dreadful stillness—
the kind of silence that comes before something wakes.