The moon was gone when Torian opened his eyes.
Only the memory of its light remained—a pale echo across his vision, like a dream he'd almost remembered. Everything else was pain.
His back throbbed. His ribs flared with every breath. Cold seeped through the torn threads of his tunic and into the blood still leaking down his side. He lay half-curled against a rock in the shadow of a ridge, the forest around him silent and vast.
A shape hung above—sharp-edged, broken—a cliff that rose like a wall of black teeth into the sky. Trees bent along its edges. A few loose stones tumbled lazily down the slope.
Torian blinked.
He didn't know how far he'd wandered in the dark.
He didn't care.
He was still breathing.
Still alone.
Still hunted.
He sat up slowly, pressing a hand to the gash on his back. The blood had begun to clot, but it stuck to his skin like fire. His legs shook when he stood. His knees nearly gave beneath him.
He swallowed.
Ahead, the cliffside beckoned.
It wasn't safety—but it was higher ground. A place to see. To breathe. To be above the things that hunted in the trees.
He limped forward.
The base of the cliff was rough and uneven, covered in spiraling roots and moss-coated rock. Cracks ran up the stone face like veins. Old carvings peeked through the grime — half-buried spiral symbols, and grooves like the outline of fingers reaching skyward.
He ran his hand along one.
Something about it felt wrong.
But the path above didn't wait.
He climbed.
Slowly.
Hand over hand, boot over boot, scraping skin against rock, dragging himself upward as the wind picked up around him. Loose dust shook loose beneath his fingers. Bark crumbled in his grip.
He climbed higher.
Ten feet. Fifteen.
He paused to breathe.
The wind tugged at his hair now, cold and rising. The forest below stretched out beneath him in crooked shapes and rustling shadows. Moonlight broke briefly through the clouds, lighting the world in silver.
And for a moment, Torian saw it all.
The vastness.
The wild.
The ruined kingdom of trees and forgotten bones.
Then—the cliff gave out.
⸻
It happened fast.
The rock beneath his left boot cracked like brittle glass. His fingers scrabbled for another hold—but the root above snapped. He shouted—just once, sharp and startled—and then he was falling.
The drop wasn't clean.
He struck the wall hard—his shoulder, his side, his leg. He tumbled down a steep groove, half-sliding, half-tumbling, as stone gave way beneath him. Dust clouded the air. Roots lashed at him as he dropped, slapping his arms, cutting his face.
Then the ground vanished entirely.
He plunged into open air.
The earth was simply gone.
And the sky above shrank as he fell into darkness.
⸻
He didn't know how long he dropped.
The air around him grew colder, thicker. His ears popped. His limbs flailed, but there was nothing to catch. The world turned to noise and blur—wind and heartbeat and nothing else.
Then—impact.
Not bone-breaking.
But brutal.
He hit something wet and thick—vines, roots, a canopy of growth hidden in the dark. They snapped and slowed his fall, tearing at him like claws. He crashed through layer after layer, bruised and bleeding again, before finally slamming into stone with a grunt of pain.
He rolled once.
Twice.
Stopped.
And lay still.
⸻
Silence returned.
Not the silence of the surface, where wind moved and trees whispered.
This was deep silence—the kind that felt carved into the stone. Old. Hollow. Like the world had buried its voice long ago.
Torian groaned and turned onto his side.
The fall had knocked the breath from him. His ribs were screaming again. The cut on his back had reopened. His right arm stung badly — something might've cracked. His sword lay nearby, miraculously unbroken, though the wrapping had torn half free.
He pulled it toward him.
The floor beneath him was stone, not dirt. Smooth, weathered, lined with spiral markings.
And around him, in the dim light filtering through the broken vines above, rose walls.
Massive.
Curved.
Carved.
He wasn't in a cave.
He was in a ruin.
⸻
He rose slowly.
The air was damp, heavy with the scent of moss, decay, and something else—metal, maybe. Old rust. The ceiling above was lost in shadow, though he could see the shaft of moonlight far above where he'd fallen.
The ruin stretched out ahead in every direction, open and circular, more like a chamber than a corridor. Vines hung from the walls like curtains. Strange symbols were cut deep into the stone — spirals, flame-marks, and other shapes that meant nothing to him.
At the center of the space stood a monolith.
Taller than a house. Covered in glowing green veins that pulsed faintly. Not bright, but enough to see by. Vines curled around its base, but they didn't grow across its surface. As if something pushed the plants away.
Torian stepped closer.
The ground beneath his feet shifted.
Soft.
Unstable.
He looked down—and saw bones.
Dozens.
Maybe more.
Scattered, broken, half-buried in moss and mud. Some were human. Others not. Some long. Some cracked. Some pierced by old spears or black metal shards.
This place wasn't just old.
It was a grave.
⸻
A sound echoed through the chamber.
A breath.
Not his.
Slow. Deep. Rumbling like stone dragged across stone.
Torian turned fast, lifting the sword despite the pain.
The sound came again—from somewhere deeper in the dark. A low vibration. Not a growl. Not speech. Just… presence.
Something else was down here.
Something alive.
And it had just started moving.
The breath came again.
Low. Deep. Trembling through the stone beneath Torian's feet.
He froze.
The glowing veins on the monolith pulsed—just once—then faded back to their quiet thrum. The greenish light bled out across the moss-covered floor, casting strange shadows across the ruin's walls.
Then something shifted.
A vine pulled tight against the ceiling. Another coiled inward on itself. Across the far side of the chamber, a web of roots twitched, shuddering in place like muscles contracting.
Torian took a step back.
Then another.
His boots scraped bone.
He turned—too fast—and nearly slipped on a jagged rib. He caught himself against the cold stone wall, heart hammering.
Something was in here with him.
Something massive.
He looked up.
The vines in the ceiling above the monolith had begun to separate.
Slowly.
Wetly.
A long mass unraveled from the shadows—twisting in silence as coils of vegetation peeled away from it like decaying skin. What Torian had mistaken for a wall was not stone at all.
It was a body.
⸻
It hung upside down, suspended by a tangle of pulsing roots and thorny limbs, its form obscured by the centuries of moss and earth wrapped around it. Huge. Hulking. Covered in knotted fur and shattered pieces of blackened armor that bore the spiral mark—but twisted. Broken. Warped by time.
One massive wing, leathery and torn, shifted in the dark.
The other hung limp.
Then—eyes.
Two glowing slits snapped open in the dark, amber and full of ancient fury.
Torian staggered backward.
His sword shook in his hand.
The creature growled—not like an animal, but like stone crumbling inward. Its head tilted, only slightly, and a line of roots slid free from around its jaw like shackles breaking.
It sniffed once.
And then the ruin exploded.
⸻
Vines snapped and sprayed soil in all directions as the creature dropped—slamming into the floor with a force that cracked the stone beneath its claws. Dust spiraled up in a storm. Bones scattered. The monolith pulsed once—violently—then dimmed to black.
Torian raised the sword but didn't swing.
He couldn't.
The creature was already towering over him.
It was a beast, but nothing like the ones that had hunted him before.
Its frame was massive—larger than a warhorse, covered in dark, armored fur. Its wings were bat-like, but thick, more like the sails of a sky leviathan than anything that should exist on land. Its tail was long and heavy, ending in a bladed ridge of bone. And its face—part beast, part nightmare—held too much awareness for anything wild.
It snarled.
And paused.
Its ears twitched.
Its nose flared.
And its head tilted.
Not as a predator sizing up prey.
But like it recognized something.
⸻
Torian didn't move.
The sword in his hand was barely steady. His whole body screamed from the fall, the blood loss, the gash on his back. His breathing came in short, sharp gasps.
And yet…
The beast didn't strike.
It stepped forward once, slowly, claws dragging through the vines. It sniffed again. A low growl rumbled in its chest—but not anger.
Curiosity.
Or confusion.
The glow in its eyes narrowed. It looked at the sword. Then back at Torian. Then the spiral etched into the far wall.
A sound—half-snarl, half-chuff—escaped its throat.
Then it lunged.
Not to kill.
But to test.
Torian dove aside as claws raked the floor where he'd stood. The beast turned with shocking speed, tail whipping through the air as it smashed the monolith behind them, sending cracks racing through the stone.
Torian rolled, came up coughing, sword raised again.
The beast circled.
Faster now.
Breathing harder.
As if it expected something from him.
Torian shouted—pure rage, pure fear—and charged.
He swung the sword.
The blade struck fur and deflected.
Too dull. Too weak.
The beast knocked him aside with a single motion—barely even a strike. Torian hit the ground hard and slid across the dust, crashing into a vine-wrapped pillar.
The sword flew from his hand.
He didn't rise.
He couldn't.
The beast approached.
Its head lowered.
It stepped forward until its snout was inches from Torian's chest. Breath like smoke poured from its nostrils.
And then…
It stopped.
It looked at him.
Held the gaze.
And did not kill him.
⸻
The silence that followed stretched forever.
Then—a noise from above.
A faint crack. A distant tremor.
The hole he'd fallen through — collapsing.
The chamber shook as dirt rained from above. Roots twisted. The far wall began to fracture. The ruin groaned like a buried giant awakening from sleep.
The beast turned, sniffed the air again.
And without warning—
It moved.
Fast.
It lunged past Torian, grabbed him by the shredded remains of his cloak with its teeth, and with a beat of its massive wings, it leapt into the crumbling shaft.
Stone shattered.
Roots broke.
The air screamed around them as the beast climbed—up through the ruin, dragging Torian in its jaws like a wounded pup.
The light above grew larger.
The wind stronger.
And with one final beat of its colossal wings—
they broke free.
The ruin collapsed behind them.
And for the first time in days—
Torian flew.
Bloodied, broken, and barely conscious, he hung limp in the jaws of a creature unlike anything he'd ever imagined.
But somehow… somehow…
He wasn't afraid.
Not anymore.