The marketplace days stretched into weeks, and the four boys began to live as though the hours belonged to them alone. Draemhold went about its business—traders shouting prices, guards pacing cobbled streets, bells marking the hours—but beneath it all, something unseen pulled at their days together.
Courage sharpened his wooden staff each morning before the others arrived, as though preparing for an enemy no one else could see. Divine sketched in his journal, drawing circles and runes that even he couldn't fully explain. Nathan filled every silence with laughter, with warmth, though in quiet moments his hands still glimmered faintly, the light refusing to be ignored.
And Nelly… Nelly felt the shadows grow more familiar each day. They no longer startled him; instead, they obeyed, curling subtly to follow his footsteps, retreating when he willed them. He told no one. Not yet.
It was Divine who broke the silence first.
"You feel it, don't you?" he asked one evening as the four sat on the crumbled fountain steps. The sunset bled gold across the plaza, but his eyes weren't on the sky—they were fixed on them.
"Feel what?" Nathan asked, tossing Courage a piece of bread.
"The hum. The pull. Something threading through us, like we've been chosen."
Nelly's stomach turned. He looked away quickly.
Courage leaned back, arms crossed. "I've felt… something. Not hums or pulls, but… when I fight, when I push my body past its limit, it's like something else steadies me. Like strength that isn't mine alone."
Nathan hesitated. Then, slowly, he raised his palm. In the dim dusk, the faint glow returned—warmer this time, undeniable. It pulsed once, then faded.
"Not a trick of the light," Divine said softly, scribbling in his book. "It's us. It's pathways."
Nelly frowned. "Pathways?"
Divine nodded. "I read of them once—in fragments, scattered across a ruined text. It spoke of nine broken roads carved into the bones of the world. Power older than kingdoms. They called them the Pathways."
The word hung in the air.
Nathan forced a grin. "Sounds like a story old priests tell to scare children."
But Divine's voice was steady. "No. It's real. And somehow, each of us… we're standing at the beginning of one."
For a moment, none of them spoke. The marketplace was empty, lanterns flickering as shadows lengthened.
Finally Courage muttered, "So what does that mean? That we're chosen for something?"
Divine closed his notebook. "It means what comes next isn't chance. And it means we're no longer ordinary."
Nelly didn't answer. His reflection in the fountain's water shimmered oddly, the shadows bending as though listening. His heart thudded hard against his chest.
That night, as they parted, Nathan clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Don't overthink it. Pathways or no, we'll figure it out together."
Nelly nodded, but the weight of Divine's words lingered long after.
The Pathways had found them. And though none of them could yet name the cost, deep inside, Nelly already feared the answer.