The forest was gray when Kael opened his eyes.
Not dawn-gray, but the pallid, lifeless gray of exhaustion. The fire had died to a scatter of ash, and the lantern rested beside him, its cracked glass dull. For a moment he thought he had dreamed it all—the beasts, the stranger, the light that had poured out of him like blood.
Then the ache in his veins returned, and he knew it had been real.
He sat up slowly, clutching his side. Every muscle trembled as if he had run for hours. The resonance inside him was quiet now, but its silence was uneasy, like a predator crouched in the grass, waiting.
His first night beyond the village walls had not killed him. That truth felt less like a victory and more like a debt yet to be paid.
"You're awake."
Kael spun toward the voice, heart hammering. The cloaked figure from the night before stood at the edge of the clearing, as if they had simply stepped out of the shadows again.
Kael scrambled to his feet, hand reaching instinctively for the lantern. It did not answer. His fingers closed on air.
The stranger chuckled softly. "Easy. If I meant harm, you would not be standing."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Then why are you here?"
The figure moved closer, the embroidery on their cloak catching the weak light—the same thorn-entwined ladder symbol. Their hood shadowed their face, but Kael glimpsed pale eyes, sharp and watchful.
"To see if the ember would burn," they said. "And it did. That lantern—it is not a common relic."
Kael's throat tightened. "What do you know about it?"
The figure tilted their head. "Enough to know that men would kill for it. Enough to know that you are already marked."
Kael's hands curled into fists. "You talk in riddles. Who are you?"
The stranger paused, then tugged back their hood. Their face was lean, marked by faint scars across the jawline, like brands pressed into the skin. Their hair was black streaked with silver, and their eyes were a pale gray, almost colorless.
"I am called Seris," they said simply. "Once a hunter. Now… a watcher."
"A hunter?" Kael asked warily.
"Of resonance beasts. Of men who misuse what should not be touched. Of things older still." Seris's lips curved in something not quite a smile. "But tonight, I was your shadow. Call it… curiosity."
Kael did not relax. "If you're a hunter, then why help me?"
"Help?" Seris gave a soft laugh. "Do not mistake survival for my charity. You lived because you chose to bleed your resonance into that lantern. That was not my hand—it was yours."
Kael's gaze dropped to the cracked relic. It lay faintly glowing beside the ash, as if listening.
Seris followed his eyes. "Where did you find it?"
Kael swallowed. "I didn't. It just… appeared."
That seemed to interest Seris more than anything so far. Their eyes sharpened. "Ah. Then you are more dangerous than I thought."
Kael bristled. "Dangerous?"
"To yourself. And to anyone foolish enough to stand close."
They let the words hang. Kael's pulse pounded in his ears. Part of him wanted to scream at this stranger, demand answers, demand why his life had turned into exile and whispers and monsters in the night. Another part wanted to ask questions—endless questions—about resonance, about the world beyond the forest, about why his veins burned like fire.
Before he could speak, Seris reached into their cloak and tossed something toward him. It landed in the ash with a dull clink.
A coin.
Kael picked it up cautiously. It was heavy, darker than copper, stamped with an unfamiliar crest: a rising sun split down the center. One side of the coin was scarred, as if it had been deliberately scratched through.
"That," Seris said, "is a Crown. The common tongue calls it Sol. Currency of the southern kingdoms. Worth enough for bread, too little for a blade. Traders spill rivers of it across the land, but for you it is worth more—it is proof that the world outside your village exists."
Kael turned the coin over, his brow furrowed. "Why show me this?"
"Because you are stepping into that world whether you wish to or not. Best you know its weight before it crushes you."
The forest wind shifted. Kael smelled damp earth, pine, and something bitter beneath it—ash still clinging to his skin. He pocketed the coin despite himself.
"You'll leave me, then," Kael said quietly.
Seris studied him for a long moment. "If I leave, you die by the week's end. The beasts smelled you last night. They will come again. You burn too bright to walk alone."
Kael clenched his jaw. He had already been cast out once. To be told he could not even survive exile—it was a cruelty too sharp to swallow.
"And if I go with you?" he asked.
Seris's pale eyes glinted. "Then you begin to climb. Slowly. Painfully. Perhaps never to the top. But you will climb."
Kael's hand tightened on the lantern. His pulse beat like the echo of a distant drum. The village was gone to him. The forest would not shelter him. And this cloaked hunter with their riddles and scars—perhaps they were a liar, perhaps a predator, but they were the only path forward.
He drew a slow breath. "Then take me."
Seris nodded once, as though they had expected no other answer. They pulled their hood back into place and turned toward the trees.
"Keep up," they said simply. "The world does not wait for stragglers."
Kael hesitated only a moment before following, the coin heavy in his pocket, the lantern faint at his side.
Behind them, the ashes of the Hollow Night smoldered quietly, as if marking the end of one life and the fragile beginning of another.