The village was called Marrowick—a small, forgotten speck nestled in the fold of two green hills and guarded by thick pinewoods and silence. The kind of place where time moved slower, and people lived without asking too many questions.
Perfect, Kaelrith thought bitterly, for a god's punishment.
Liora walked ahead of him, humming as she led him from the shed where he'd been recovering to the main cottage. Her home, apparently. Simple and clean, with herbs drying from the rafters and the scent of fresh bread lingering in the air.
"You really don't remember anything?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Kael hesitated. "No."
He hated how the lie felt in his throat. But truth here would only bring torches and pitchforks.
She didn't push. Just gave a soft, understanding nod. "Well… you're safe now. You can stay here until you're better. The village elder won't mind. We've got too much space and not enough hands these days anyway."
He frowned. "Why would you help me?"
Her smile faltered—but only for a heartbeat. "Because someone once helped me when they didn't have to."
A simple answer. But the words stayed with him.
The days passed like drifting leaves.
Kael struggled with the basics of human life. His once-mighty strength had been replaced by aching limbs and a frustrating lack of coordination. He could barely lift a bucket without wheezing. His hands blistered with each attempt to chop wood. And his pride—once sharper than dragonsteel—took blow after blow.
But he learned.
He listened.
And he watched Liora.
She was strange to him. Gentle, yes—but not soft. She spoke to plants as if they were old friends, and the village children treated her like a favorite older sister. She had a scar down her right arm—long, curved like a claw—but she never spoke of it. Just tugged her sleeve down when she thought no one was looking.
Sometimes, he caught her staring at the sky. Not like she admired it—but like she remembered something it had once taken from her.
Kael didn't ask. He knew better than anyone how silence could be armor.
One Night he couldn't sleep.
The dreams had returned—visions of a burning sky, wings blotting out suns, the screams of dying armies. A girl with a silver crown crumbling to ash beneath his talons. A voice whispering from beyond:
"Do you regret it yet?"
Kael rose, slipping out into the night air. The village slept, but the moon was high—full and ghost-pale. He walked to the edge of the pinewood and stared into the trees, his senses on edge.
And then… he felt it.
Something wrong. A tremor in the world, like a heartbeat skipping.
The shadows between the trees seemed to twist. Not move—but reshape. Something old stirred in that darkness. Something that remembered him.
"You should not be here, Kaelrith."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Whispered and roared.
Kael spun, eyes wide. "Who's there?!"
A shape stepped from the trees—humanoid, draped in black flame, with no face. Just two empty sockets where eyes should be. The ground beneath it withered.
"The seal weakens. She wakes. And so do we."
Kael's breath caught. "Nytheris."
The name made the shadows pulse.
"You should never have been allowed peace. Your soul is the key. And the key is breaking."
The thing lunged.
Kael raised his arm, expecting claws, wings, flame—
But he was human.
Weak.
And then—light.
A flash of emerald fire arced across the clearing. The creature shrieked as it was struck by a burst of magic—real magic—and dissolved like smoke in wind.
Kael fell backward, coughing.
A figure stood where the light had come from.
Liora.
Her hands still glowed faintly, and her green eyes—wide with fear and fury—looked nothing like the gentle girl from before.
She didn't ask who he was.
She just whispered, "What are you?"