---
The wind howled flowing through the pass like a beast with too many mouths.
Lyrien didn't flinch.
He sat cross-legged beside a crackling fire—its embers dulled and sullen—hands resting on the hilt of a sword too long for a boy his age. His clothes were torn at the sleeves, patched in places where seams had given way. His boots were worn nearly to the sole. But his eyes—storm-grey and sharpened by hunger—missed nothing.
Behind him, the ruins of what once might have been a watchtower clung to the cliff like a half-buried skeleton.
Ahead, the mountain trail curved upward, lost in ice and fog.
He hadn't eaten in two days.
Hadn't slept in three.
And still he waited.
---
They were late.
The smugglers from the south—two men and a woman—had promised him coin for escort through the Frostpass. Said they feared wolves and bandits. Lyrien didn't care for their reasons.
He needed silver.
And he needed to move.
Staying too long in one place always meant trouble.
He turned the blade on his lap over, running a thumb along the edge.
It wasn't clean. It wasn't fine. It wasn't even balanced.
But it was *his*. Forged with his own hands in the ash of an outlaw forge.
And when he fought, it didn't matter how noble your birth was.
Steel still bit flesh.
Magic or no magic.
---
He looked up at the sky.
The clouds above were turning. Slowly. Like a lid being lowered over the mountains.
Snow again.
But something was wrong with it.
The flakes weren't falling—they were *hovering*. Suspended mid-air like time had paused.
Lyrien rose slowly to his feet.
His instincts—burnt into him by years in the Lower Courts—screamed: *move.*
He took one step back toward the broken watchtower.
Then he heard the whisper.
> "She wakes."
He spun.
No one.
Nothing.
But the mark on his shoulder—long hidden beneath wrappings and stitched leather—began to burn.
---
He cursed under his breath and reached into his pack, pulling out a worn strip of cloth. With practiced fingers, he rewrapped the shoulder, tightening the band until the pain dulled.
That mark had appeared three years ago. The day everything went to hell.
The day he lost his home. His name. His magic.
Now it only burned when the world shifted.
And something *was* shifting.
He didn't know how.
He didn't know *why*.
But he could feel it.
Like the air before a storm. Like a held breath.
And far, far away, a star was still burning—long after it should've gone out.
---
*Part 2 — The Smugglers*
By nightfall, the smugglers arrived.
They brought horses. Wine. One cart full of stolen goods, and another full of fear.
"You sure this pass is safe?" the older man asked, glancing up at the cliffs. "Locals say things've been… moving. Shadows on the ridgeline. Snow falling wrong."
Lyrien gave him a flat look.
"It's a mountain," he said. "Things move."
The woman—knife-eyed and silent—didn't say a word. But she watched him closely. Her hand never strayed far from her belt.
Lyrien didn't trust her.
Didn't trust any of them.
But coin was coin.
And this pass? It wasn't the dangerous part.
*He* was.
---
They made camp by the third bend in the trail, sheltered beneath a jagged overhang. Lyrien kept watch, sitting with his back to the fire, eyes fixed on the dark.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't need to.
Sleep was for the dead. Or those who didn't mind being followed.
The air shifted again.
Snow began to fall sideways—like breath drawn through teeth.
He didn't flinch.
But this time, he felt something *else*.
A ripple.
Far east. Like a rock dropped into the fabric of the world.
The mark on his shoulder blazed.
And for one brief second, his vision flickered.
---
He saw her.
A girl. Standing alone in a circle of stillness. Her eyes burning with starlight. Snow falling around her, but not touching her. She looked... *lost*.
But beneath that, something deeper.
Something ancient.
She looked up.
Right at him.
And then the vision shattered.
---
He staggered back, gasping.
The smugglers were awake, startled by his sudden movement.
"What was that?" the woman asked, hand on her blade.
Lyrien didn't answer.
His thoughts were spinning.
That girl—he didn't know her.
But his blood knew her.
Like they'd met before.
Like they were *tethered*.
He glanced east, past the ridgelines, beyond the mountains.
Something was calling.
Something older than fate.
---
*Part 3 — The Hollow Men*
They ambushed them two nights later.
Not bandits.
Not soldiers.
Something worse.
The snow had stopped. The moon was full. And the trail curved around the edge of a frozen lake when the horses panicked.
They reared, screamed.
And then the *Hollow Men* came.
Figures in black. No faces. No breath.
They moved like smoke and struck like ice.
Lyrien didn't hesitate.
He dropped from his saddle, sword already drawn, and met the first one head-on.
The blade passed through its chest.
Nothing.
No blood. No wound.
But it staggered.
Then shrieked.
---
The smugglers panicked.
The old man died first—his throat opened like parchment.
The woman fought back, knives flashing—but they passed through the Hollow like air.
"*Steel won't work!*" Lyrien shouted.
But they didn't listen.
He drew a second blade—smaller, curved—and whispered a word he hadn't used in years.
> "Nael."
The rune on his wrist flared.
The blade *burned*.
Not with fire—but with memory.
The Hollow reeled back.
Lyrien struck—once, twice—and it collapsed into ash.
---
He turned, just in time to see the last of them vanish into the trees.
Gone.
Just like that.
No bodies. No blood.
Only silence.
And snow.
The woman lay gasping on the ground, a deep wound in her side.
"Wh-what were they?" she whispered.
Lyrien stared at the trees.
His breath visible. His eyes hard.
"Hunters."
"Whose?"
He didn't answer.
Because deep down, he knew the truth.
They weren't hunting *him*.
They were searching for something.
For someone.
---
*Part 4 — The Eastern Road*
He left the smugglers at dawn.
Took what coin he'd earned. Left enough firewood for the woman to live if she was lucky.
Then turned east.
Toward the forests.
Toward the vale.
He didn't know the girl's name.
Didn't know why he saw her.
Didn't care.
Something was rising in the world.
And it scared him.
Because when magic moved like this—when the old signs returned—it meant something had changed.
Something was *breaking*.
The Echoes were stirring.
And the war no one believed in anymore was about to begin again.
---
He touched the mark on his shoulder.
For the first time in years, it didn't burn.
It *hummed*.
---
*Part 5 — A Whisper in the Trees*
That night, Lyrien entered the forest.
Not just any forest.
This one had a name—one that had been erased from most maps.
Virelen.
The Singing Grove.
Old magic lingered here, thick and sweet like sap.
The trees were taller. The light thinner. Sounds didn't echo here. They were absorbed.
He moved carefully, blade sheathed, boots silent on moss and root.
The air felt *watched*.
Every step he took stirred the dust of stories long forgotten.
He passed stones etched with runes. He saw a skeleton wrapped in roots.
And once—just once—he saw a light ahead.
Flickering.
Warm.
Like a campfire.
---
He didn't approach.
Didn't speak.
Just stood at the edge, hidden in the dark, and watched.
A girl.
Alone.
Cloak drawn tight.
Hair catching the firelight.
Her hand resting on something—no, *clutching* something—beneath her cloak.
Lyrien didn't breathe.
He didn't know her.
But something in his blood *recognized* her.
And in the next moment, her head turned.
Eyes met his.
And he *knew*.
---
The girl from the vision.
She saw him.
And she wasn't afraid.
She stood slowly, walked to the edge of her circle.
"Who are you?" she called out.
Lyrien didn't answer.
Couldn't.
He took one step forward.
And then—
The circle flared.
A wall of silver flame.
A woman appeared beside the girl, blade drawn.
Lyrien stepped back.
Fast.
The flame hissed.
And in the blink of an eye—
They were gone.
---
The girl.
The fire.
The circle.
All vanished.
Like a dream.
Like a warning.
---
Lyrien stared at the place they'd been.
The snow fell again, soft and strange.
And deep within him, something shifted.
This wasn't just a journey anymore.
This was fate.
This was war.
And he had already chosen a side.
---
> Arinthal never believed in prophecy. She believed in books, stars, and the old winds. But when the veil breaks and the voices return, she'll have to decide: protect what she knows, or chase what she can't understand.
---