Part 1: Ashes of Dawn
The dawn broke in thin ribbons of grey, seeping through the canopy as if the forest itself was still dreaming. Aeris sat near the cold embers of last night's fire, his leather-bound journal open across his knee, pen scratching softly.
"When the world forgets how to sing,
Little lights will still remember.
I am the hush before the dawn,
The ember in the dark forever."
The words were Liora's, sung in trembling whispers the night before. She had curled against Aeris's side, her small voice weaving the melody into the drifting smoke, her silver bell chiming with each breath. Now, Aeris wrote them down carefully, the lines becoming a promise etched onto the page.
Liora sat nearby, humming softly, drawing small flames in the dirt with a stick, glancing at Aeris with storm-grey eyes that still held echoes of visions she could not explain.
"You're getting stronger," she whispered.
Aeris glanced at her, the ember pulsing beneath his ribs. "Or the ember is getting louder."
Mira stirred the pot of morning broth, the scent of thyme and smoked root cutting through the cold air. Evin checked the perimeter quietly, pausing only to watch Aeris for a moment, eyes narrowing, measuring the tremor in Aeris's hands as he closed his journal.
Today, they would walk deeper, toward the Tree of Embers.
And the forest was watching.
Part 2: The Bleeding Grove
The forest darkened as they entered the grove, where sap bled red from the trees in thick, slow rivulets, pooling into dark veins along the moss. Each drop was a heartbeat in the hush.
Liora stopped, her hand hovering over a crimson drop, tears in her eyes. "It's crying," she whispered.
Evin placed a protective hand on her shoulder. "Don't touch it."
Aeris knelt beside a bleeding root, the ember inside him pulsing in sync with the tree's slow weeping. When his fingers brushed the sap, visions flashed across his mind—a towering tree burning blue, a forest of flame, screams, and whispers tangled into a single note of sorrow.
The ember burned painfully, searing through his veins, and he gasped, pulling back as Mira knelt beside him.
"Aeris!" she snapped, pressing her hand to his chest, whispering a cleansing spell to calm the ember's flares.
"I saw it," Aeris whispered hoarsely, his eyes flickering gold for a breath before settling back to grey. "The Tree of Embers is crying."
Mira's face was pale, her jaw tight. "We need to move."
The forest pressed in around them, shadows shifting, the red sap glowing softly as if veins of the forest's own pain were guiding them forward.
Above them, the wind carried faint whispers that only Liora could hear, calling Aeris's name in a voice like rustling leaves.
Part 3: Campfire Confessions (Evin's POV)
Night fell heavy and cold, pressing against the small fire that Mira managed to coax to life beneath the leaning boughs of an old oak.
Evin sat with his sword across his knees, staring into the flames, letting the quiet crackle fill the spaces between his breaths. Mira moved beside him, her hands busy with grinding herbs, the scent of sage and sharp resin weaving around them.
"Can't sleep?" she asked softly.
"Never could," Evin muttered.
He was silent for a long moment, watching the shadows dance along the blade's edge, until he finally spoke, his voice low enough that only Mira could hear.
"First time I saw the Blight, I was fifteen," Evin began, eyes distant. "Village outside the southern pass. It came in like a sickness, slow at first. Then it started taking people's minds before it took their bodies."
Mira's grinding paused, but she said nothing, letting him continue.
"I was supposed to protect them. I was the captain's son, carrying a sword too big for me, thinking I could save everyone." He swallowed, his jaw tight. "I couldn't even save my mother."
The fire popped, embers drifting upward like lost stars.
"She begged me, Mira. Begged me to stop the whispers. She was already gone by then. Her eyes were… wrong. She smiled at me while she burned."
Evin's voice cracked, just once, before he regained it.
Mira reached out, her hand resting on his, grounding him. "You were a child, Evin."
"That doesn't matter," he said quietly. "What matters is that I won't let that happen again. Not to her—" He glanced toward Liora, who slept with her head on Aeris's lap, the silver bell chiming softly with her breaths. "And not to him."
Mira nodded, her eyes softening. "We won't let it happen again."
For a while, they sat in silence, the fire a fragile barrier against the cold, each of them watching the embers drift upward, whispering prayers they didn't dare say aloud.
Part 4: Whispers Before Dawn
Near dawn, Aeris sat with Liora's song open in his journal, the words faintly glowing where the ember's warmth touched them.
"Even light can fade,
But in the dark it learns to sing,
And where the forest weeps,
The ember learns to bring…"
The last line was unfinished, Liora's song caught in her throat when she had tried to sing it the night before.
A soft wind moved through the camp, stirring ashes and lifting the corner of Aeris's journal, the song whispering against the forest's breath.
Liora stirred, sitting up, her storm-grey eyes reflecting the embers of the dying fire. "They're calling," she whispered. "The tree is calling you, Aeris."
He closed the journal softly, pressing it to his chest as the ember inside him flared, hot and cold, as if it, too, was listening.
"We'll answer," Aeris said softly, rising as Mira and Evin began to pack their gear, the small camp folding into their bags, the ash swept aside.
As they stepped into the misty forest, the last embers of their fire faded, but the warmth remained, carried in the rhythm of footsteps, the weight of unspoken promises, and the song of a small girl who believed that even light, fading, could teach the dark to sing.
"We're coming," Aeris whispered to the dawn, the ember pulsing in reply.
As they moved deeper into the forest, the mist began to thin, revealing a dark line of trees rising like sentinels in the dawn.
Between them, Aeris saw a faint, cold flame flicker, blue against the grey.
The Tree of Embers was waiting.
And they were coming.