The days passed slowly, like mist dragging across the trees.
Kael had always marked time by the changes in the forest—the chirik birds sang when rain came, moss grew thicker just before frost, and the leylines beneath the soil pulsed brighter near full moonlight. But since Liora had come into his world, the forest had begun to shift in unfamiliar ways.
The air felt heavier, charged with something just out of reach. Sometimes, when she touched the trees or stepped too close to a ley-knot—those jagged intersections of ancient magic—Kael swore he saw the bark shimmer, like it was remembering something.
He said nothing.
She was just a child.
And he had seen enough strange things in Velhara to know that the world didn't always need answers. Sometimes it only offered questions.
They settled into a rhythm.
Kael hunted in the early mornings, leaving at first light with his spear and a handmade sling. Liora stayed near the fire, gathering kindling and drying herbs he'd shown her how to recognize. She was silent most of the time, but her silence was no longer hollow. It was thoughtful. Listening.
When he returned, she would help him skin birds or gut fish, her small hands surprisingly steady. He never asked what she had done before this, or how she'd learned to be so calm in the face of blood. Some questions weren't fair to ask—especially when the answers lived in old scars.
Still, she smiled now. Tentatively. As if learning how.
She mimicked his words, syllable by syllable, her accent odd and fluid—never quite matching his. One night, as they sat near the fire and shared hot roots roasted on flat stone, she pointed at him and whispered, "Kah… el."
He blinked, stunned for a moment.
Then nodded. "Kael. That's right."
She said it again. "Kael."
And when he smiled, she did too.
One evening, after the sky had turned a deep indigo and the moons were starting to rise, Liora stood beside the stream with her feet in the cold water. Kael watched from the nearby rocks, sharpening a bone knife. She had wandered a little further than usual but stayed within sight, dancing her toes along the ripples.
Then she froze.
Her head tilted slightly, as if hearing something distant.
Kael lowered the knife.
"Liora?"
She didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on a patch of reeds where the stream bent sharply, forming a shallow pool. A soft hum began to rise from the air around her. Not sound, exactly—more like pressure. A tension Kael could feel in his teeth.
"Liora," he said again, this time standing.
That's when he saw it.
The water near her ankles began to glow. Faint, blue-green light, swirling like ink. The current had stilled completely.
Liora didn't move. Her hands were open at her sides, fingers twitching as if tracing something only she could see. Her eyes were distant—glowing faintly once more, like they had the night he found her.
Kael rushed toward her, sloshing through the water, grabbing her shoulders.
The moment he touched her, the light snapped out.
The hum vanished.
The stream resumed its gentle flow.
And Liora blinked up at him, confused.
She didn't remember any of it.
That night, Kael barely slept.
He sat by the fire long after Liora had curled beneath her blanket, staring into the flames.
He had seen magic before. Raw magic. Wild magic. In Velhara, it bled through stones and whispered in forgotten languages. But this—this wasn't like any leycraft he knew. No chant. No sigil. No invocation.
It had come from her. Unbidden.
He stared at the back of her head as she slept, curled in the hollow of the furs.
Was she cursed?
Tied to something?
Or maybe—just maybe—was this why she had been left behind?
Kael didn't know. But a cold thought had begun to settle in his chest, like a splinter he couldn't dig out.
If he had seen it… someone else might too.
And Velhara was not kind to those who stood out.
Three nights later, his fears proved true.
They came without warning.
Kael was out hunting, further than usual, following a set of deer tracks through the soft underbrush near the edge of the Ashglass Grove. Liora was safe back at the shelter—or so he thought.
He never heard the first cry. Only felt it.
A ripple in the air. Like the world flinching.
Then the birds stopped singing.
And the sky darkened.
Kael turned, heart in his throat, and ran.
He was fast—faster than most—but the path was uneven, roots clawing at his boots, brambles scratching his legs. He ignored it all.
When he reached the clearing, his blood turned to ice.
The shelter was half-collapsed. The fire pit kicked over. And Liora was gone.
Burn marks scorched the trees nearby, deep and black, as if something had carved them with fire—not normal fire. Arcane.
He searched the clearing, the perimeter, the stream.
Nothing.
Only silence.
Then… a sound.
A muffled sob.
From beneath the old cedar.
He rushed toward it, dropped to his knees, and tore away the ferns and fallen branches.
There—curled in a ball, her hands over her ears, eyes wide with terror—was Liora.
He pulled her out, clutching her tightly.
"I'm here," he whispered. "I'm here."
She shook violently.
Then spoke one word. Just one.
"Eyes."
Kael stared at her.
"What?"
She looked up, and he saw it.
Something had changed in her gaze.
Not fear. Not pain.
Recognition.
As if she knew what had come. As if she had seen it before.
They didn't sleep that night.
Kael rebuilt the fire, sharper this time, stacking protective stones around the edges—an old trick he'd seen traveling hedge-mages do to mask magic traces. He kept his spear within reach and a short blade tucked into his belt.
Liora didn't speak again. She just sat close, watching the fire with an expression far too old for her face.
By morning, the forest had quieted, but the air still felt wrong. Twisted at the edges.
Something had found them.
Something had left a mark.
Later that day, they found a trail.
Small, silver motes clung to the trees along the northern ridge. Arcane residue. Tracking magic.
Kael didn't know much about spells, but he knew enough to understand one thing:
Someone had been searching for power.
And they'd found her.
They couldn't stay.
Kael packed what he could—dried meats, herbs, firestones, the carved bone tools he'd spent months perfecting. He wrapped Liora in his cloak and held her hand tight as they left the only home he'd built in this world.
They moved south, toward the deeper wilds where the leylines tangled too tightly for spells to track. It was dangerous—twisted beasts, warped terrain, memories that didn't belong to you—but it was also invisible to those who hunted.
And Kael would rather take his chances with monsters than the men who sent eyes through the trees.
Liora didn't complain. Didn't cry.
She walked beside him in silence, steps small but steady.
And as the forest closed behind them, Kael knew something else had changed, even if he didn't want to admit it.
They were no longer just surviving.
They were being drawn.
Far to the west, in the spires of Aeltherin—capital of the Ember Court—a scryer's mirror cracked.
A child's name echoed through the crystal, whispered by things that lived in the cracks between magic and memory.
And in the Hollow Peaks, beneath a sky that forgot how to sleep, a monk opened a scroll and muttered a single line.
"The fallen star walks."