Chapter Three: The Thornpath
Kael didn't sleep.
He sat in the dark with the dagger in his lap, the fire's last warmth fading from the stones. The name echoed in his head like a drumbeat behind his ribs.
Ashren.
It didn't feel like a stranger's name.
Dawn broke cold and silver, light filtering through the trees like strands of ghost-spun silk. The forest had shifted while he rested—trees leaned in closer, paths he remembered from childhood now twisted or gone entirely. Still, his feet moved with purpose. Something in him knew where to go.
By midday, he reached a clearing where the trees gave way to stone. A single path—carved of pale gray rock and etched with curling runes—slithered through the forest like a scar. The air above it shimmered faintly, the way heat bends the horizon.
Kael reached out.
The moment his boot touched the stone, something awoke.
The trees fell utterly still. Birds scattered in a frantic chorus. The runes flared red, then dimmed to a faint, pulsing glow.
"The Thornpath," said a voice behind him.
Kael spun, knife raised.
An old man stood at the tree line, leaning on a gnarled walking staff wrapped in iron rings. His cloak was made of stitched crow feathers, and where his eyes should have been, there were polished stones—obsidian black, reflecting nothing.
"Only blood of Hollowthorn may walk it."
Kael didn't lower the blade. "Who are you?"
The man stepped forward, and the trees behind him groaned. "I was the Thornwarden. Before the fall. Before the burning." His mouth curled into something like a grin. "I've been waiting a long time for you, Ashren."
Kael's throat tightened. "Stop calling me that."
"It is your name." The Thornwarden's voice was soft now, like rustling leaves. "A name bound to oath and ruin. You walk a path that ends in either a crown… or a grave.
Kael glanced down the glowing trail. "What's at the end?"
The Thornwarden's grin vanished. "What remains of Hollowthorn. And those who guard it."
He tapped his staff twice against the stones. The path groaned, rising slightly, as if answering.
"But be warned, boy—each step will remember you. And so will the things beneath."
Kael stepped forward anyway.
As his foot pressed fully onto the Thornpath, the sky darkened—not with cloud, but with wings. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Black birds poured from the treetops in a silent storm, spiraling upward.
Behind him, the Thornwarden whispered into the wind:
"The heir walks. The dead remember."