At Scorchlight, the sky never quite turned black.
It hovered just above the edge of midnight—dim, indigo-gray, moonless. Stars blinked in and out like they weren't sure they belonged here. The light was wrong. Like the heavens had skipped a page.
By their second day, the group stopped calling it "evening." It was just time.
Inside the outpost, nothing decayed. Nothing aged. Yet everything felt old.
Kael kept glancing at his shadow. Sometimes, it lagged behind him.
Jace stopped trusting the direction of sound. He heard footsteps he knew weren't real—but still flinched.
Sylva hadn't slept. Her sword stayed across her knees, her eyes scanning the dark like a soldier waiting for a siege that hadn't started yet.
Coren? Coren watched Raka.
Raka stood at the edge of the old war room, staring at the spiral burn on the floor. The mark hadn't dimmed. In fact—it pulsed. Breathing like a second heartbeat.
He didn't touch it.
Not this time.
Instead, he closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
And the room changed.
Stone towers under siege. Banners burning. Screams of a dying legion.
He walked through ash, but left no footprints.
A child sat in a chair too large for her, weeping quietly as blood pooled beneath it.
On a distant hill, a figure stood—himself, cloaked in tattered gold, one hand wrapped in flame, the other in chain.
"You're not supposed to remember this," the other Raka said.
Then he turned and walked away.
Raka opened his eyes.
Kael was watching from across the room, face unreadable.
Later, Sylva pulled Coren aside in the gear hall. Her voice stayed quiet—but it carried weight.
"You've been staring at him for two days."
Coren didn't look away. "He talks to the shadows when no one else is listening."
"He listens to the things that would rather stay hidden. That's different."
"Different doesn't mean better."
"Raka hasn't led us wrong once."
"Not yet."
Sylva's eyes narrowed. "You're afraid of him."
Coren didn't deny it. "You should be too."
That night, the group set camp in what remained of the outpost's upper barracks—once filled with beds, now just stone slats. No dust. No decay. Like the room refused to rot.
Jace lit a low flame for warmth, shielding it with his sleeve. "Don't like the feel of the dark here," he muttered. "Feels... aware."
Kael sat near the door, blades resting beside him. "You say that like it's a metaphor."
"I don't think it is."
Sylva said nothing, eyes on Raka again.
He was seated apart, back against the wall, gaze lifted toward the ceiling where the beams had twisted—not cracked, but curved, as if bowing toward some forgotten pressure.
Then—softly—Raka began to hum.
A low tune. Slow. Measured.
A lullaby.
Kael's head tilted. "Where'd you learn that?"
Raka blinked.
The tune caught in his throat.
"I... I don't know."
Jace's face paled. "That was my sister's song. She used to sing it after her Spiral contact. Said it was stuck in her teeth."
Everyone went quiet.
The flame flickered.
Outside the window, the stars vanished—snuffed like candles.
And from deep below the outpost, a voice whispered:
"Bridge."