The forest never seemed to end. No matter how many hours passed beneath its canopy, the trees stretched on in endless procession, each one gnarled and frost-bitten, as though carved from bone. By the time the moon rose fully overhead, Aiden and Lyon had settled on a clearing beside a crooked oak, its roots jutting from the earth like the ribs of some fallen beast.
Aiden dropped his satchel with a dull thud and brushed snow from his shoulders. "This will do."
Lyon arched a brow, leaning his staff against the tree. "You always say that. Every patch of dirt and frost 'will do.' Until it doesn't."
Aiden crouched low, already gathering branches from the half-buried ground. "And yet, we're still breathing. Which means it does."
Lyon snorted, though he obeyed, kneeling to strike flint against steel. Sparks leapt, reluctant at first, until a meager flame licked the twigs. The fire grew, dim and brittle, but it was enough to push back the shadows.
For a long while, they sat in silence, the crackle of firewood filling the emptiness where words might have lived. Aiden's eyes reflected the flame, though the violet in them glimmered darker than warmth. He ran a hand along the edge of his cloak, thoughtful, almost absent.
"You ever wonder," Lyon began suddenly, voice breaking the quiet, "why it chose us?"
Aiden didn't glance up. "It?"
"The path. The whispers. The runes carved in every ruin we pass. The… prophecy, if you believe the old man's words." Lyon poked at the fire with a stick, sending a trail of sparks upward. His eyes flickered with stormlight in the glow. "Why us? Why two boys from a village no one remembers?"
For a heartbeat, only the forest answered—groans of wood, sighs of wind.
Aiden's jaw tightened. He finally looked across the fire, his gaze cutting through the wavering flames. "You still don't get it, do you? It's never about who deserves to be chosen. It's about who's left standing when no one else will."
Lyon laughed, but it was bitter, humorless. "That sounds like something the old man would say. You're starting to sound like him."
"Maybe he wasn't wrong."
Lyon fell quiet. His hands stilled on the stick, firelight painting shadows across his face. For once, he looked younger than his storms allowed—haunted, but fragile.
"You talk about standing when no one else will," he said finally, softer. "But what if one day, you're the one who falls?"
Aiden didn't hesitate. His voice came low, certain, a blade wrapped in velvet.
"Then you'll be there to drag me back up."
The fire snapped, scattering sparks into the night. For a moment, the phantoms in the trees seemed to draw closer, their whispers curling around the clearing. Lyon shifted uneasily, pulling his cloak tighter.
"They're watching us," he murmured.
"They always are." Aiden's hand hovered over the firelight. Darkness bent faintly at his fingertips, dancing with the flames. "But let them watch. If the dead want to sing, let them sing of us."
The fire sputtered, caught by a sudden gust of wind. Lyon's storm-grey eyes glimmered as the iron rings on his staff hummed faintly in response.
"Tomorrow," he said, breaking the heaviness, "we'll reach the ruins by the ridge."
Aiden nodded, though his gaze lingered on the shadows at the edge of the firelight, as if searching for something neither flame nor storm could drive away.
"Tomorrow," he echoed, though his tone carried more weight than hope.
And above them, the trees whispered like a choir of restless bones.
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