Kaelion blinked, his royal composure faltering for a single, unguarded moment.
Evren's grip on his sword tightened, his every instinct screaming that this was wrong. No child wandered these cursed woods alone, laughing, smiling, waiting.
"Waiting for us?" Evren echoed, his tone colder than the mountain wind. "Why?"
Lioran gave a little twirl, arms outstretched as if dancing in an invisible spotlight. "I don't know. But I knew you'd come. I've dreamed about you." He pointed a slender finger at Kaelion. "You always look angry." His gaze flicked to Evren, sharp and knowing. "And you never stop looking like you're one breath away from stabbing someone."
Kaelion raised a single, skeptical eyebrow.
Evren did not smile.
"What are you, truly?" Kaelion asked, his voice calm but probing, the voice he used in interrogations. "No child lives out here alone."
"I'm not alone," Lioran said, his playful tone softening. "I have the forest. The wind. The stars. Sometimes… the wolves come, too. They don't bite unless I tell them to."
Evren stepped forward, his patience a frayed thread. "Enough games. What's your story?"
Lioran's grin faded.
For a second, a flicker of profound pain crossed his face so fast Evren wasn't sure he'd truly seen it.
"I had a home once," Lioran said, his voice small. "Then men came with fire. Took it. Burned it. I ran so far I forgot where I was running from."
Kaelion's expression shifted. Subtly. But Evren noticed the slight tightening around his eyes.
"Where are your parents?" Kaelion asked.
Lioran didn't answer. Instead, he looked up at the canopy and whispered, "I think the trees ate them."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Then the boy's smile returned, bright and unnerving. "But it's fine. You're here now."
Kaelion exchanged a glance with Evren, and for the first time, Evren felt a strange, unwelcome weight in his chest. Pity? No something softer. More dangerous.
Lioran yawned and rubbed his eyes with small fists.
"Can I come with you?" he asked, looking small and lost for the first time.
Kaelion didn't hesitate. "Yes."
Evren turned sharply. "Are you mad?"
"He's a child."
"No one is just a child in these woods."
Kaelion looked at Lioran again, his gaze assessing. "We keep moving at first light. Stay close. And do not lie to us again."
Lioran smiled and gave a little mock salute. "Aye, your grumpiness."
That night, the wind howled like a chorus of the dead.
But near the fire, Lioran curled up between them as if he had always belonged there.
And as Evren turned over, pretending to sleep, he saw it.
Where the firelight should have cast Lioran's form against the stone, there was nothing.
The boy had no shadow.
The fire crackled low. Evren didn't sleep.
His eyes were fixed on the small form lying just a few feet away Lioran, his breaths soft and even. But that shadowless truth clung to Evren's thoughts like a burr.
Kaelion, resting on the other side of the fire, had his eyes closed, but Evren could feel the alert tension in his frame.
"You saw it too," Evren finally said, his voice a low rasp.
Kaelion opened his eyes, the fire reflecting in them. "Yes."
"Then why bring him?"
"He is not a threat. Yet."
Evren scoffed. "That is not comforting."
Kaelion turned his head, staring at Lioran with an unreadable expression. "If something in this forest wanted us dead, it would not wear the skin of a lost boy. It would strike. But he has not. He is alone… as we are."
Evren didn't like it. Trust did not come easily to him, especially for strangers who appeared mysteriously in cursed woods, spoke in riddles, and lacked a fundamental trait of the living.
But as the wind screamed outside their shelter, Lioran stirred.
In his sleep, he murmured, "He's watching…"
Evren's hand was on his sword in an instant.
Kaelion sat upright, his movement silent and fluid.
"Who?" Kaelion demanded softly, leaning closer.
Lioran flinched, his voice trembling even in dreams. "The One Who Watches… through the trees… behind the veil… he's always always watching-"
"Wake him," Kaelion ordered.
Evren grabbed Lioran's shoulder. "Lioran."
The boy woke with a small gasp, blinking rapidly as if surfacing from deep water.
"You were dreaming," Evren said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't remember," Lioran whispered, hugging his knees to his chest. "I never do."
There was a new kind of fear in his eyes now one that hadn't been there when they met him.
Evren leaned closer, his voice low and intent. "Who is he? The one you were talking about?"
Lioran shook his head, a frantic little motion. "No one. I must've… imagined it."
Evren didn't believe him.
And Kaelion didn't push him.
But outside, in the forest that never slept, something shifted in the darkness. Leaves whispered secrets to each other, and a pair of unseen eyes blinked once, slowly.
The One Who Watches had noticed.
The journey resumed at dawn.
Mist clung low to the forest floor, coiling around their boots like serpents as they walked. Lioran walked between them, oddly quiet, his playful demeanor extinguished like a flame snuffed out overnight.
Evren noticed how the birds had fallen silent here.
"How long do we have to stay in this cursed place?" he muttered, his eyes constantly scanning the tangled, watchful trees.
Kaelion didn't answer immediately. His gaze was locked ahead, where the forest grew darker instead of lighter. "Until we find the ruins. There is something there we need."
"Of course there is," Evren replied under his breath. "Because nothing is ever simple with you."
Suddenly, Lioran stopped.
He stared at an enormous tree with bark as black as polished obsidian. It rose impossibly tall, its branches twisting like skeletal fingers against the gray sky. Etchings strange, pulsing runes glowed with a faint, sickly light along its trunk.
"The Tree of Whispers," Lioran said, his eyes wide and distant. "It remembers everything."
Evren turned sharply. "You know what this is?"
"No," Lioran answered too quickly. "I mean- I think I read about it. Somewhere. In a dream, maybe…"
Kaelion stepped toward the tree and, without hesitation, laid his palm flat against the black bark.
Instantly, his eyes went glassy and vacant.
"Kaelion?" Evren took a warning step forward.
But Kaelion didn't move.
A low hum vibrated from the bark, a deep, ancient voice whispering through wood and time. Lioran backed away, his small face pale.
"He's listening," the boy whispered, his voice trembling. "They all listen if you touch it."
Evren reached out to grab Kaelion but the moment his fingers brushed Kaelion's shoulder
He saw fire.
Bodies piling high.
A crown of obsidian shattering.
A scream that was not a sound, but a soul tearing in two.
Then
Darkness.
Evren stumbled back, gasping as the vision released him.
Kaelion blinked slowly, returning to himself, and turned. "It showed me… a path. The right one. But it comes with a price."
"What kind of price?" Evren asked, his heart still hammering.
Kaelion looked down at Lioran.
And for a moment just one breath his regal expression faltered.
Not with pity, not with doubt.
Just…a deep, resigned sorrow.
"The kind we cannot pay without bleeding," he said.
They didn't speak of the tree again.
Even Lioran usually a source of endless chatter kept to himself as they moved deeper into the forest. But something had shifted. Evren felt it like a stone lodged in his chest.
Kaelion walked ahead, a silent, watchful sentinel.
Evren finally caught up to Lioran and nudged him lightly. "You okay?"
The boy looked up, startled, then forced a smile. "Of course I am! Just… thinking about how much I miss honey tarts. I'd kill for one."
'You don't have to pretend," Evren said, his voice low. "Whatever that tree did it shook you, too."
Lioran hesitated. His eyes darted toward Kaelion's back, then back to Evren. He leaned in closer and whispered, "I think Kaelion saw something worse than either of us did. Something that's already happening."
"What do you mean?"
Lioran's smile didn't reach his eyes this time. "It's in his eyes. That kind of sorrow it doesn't come from the past. It comes from knowing the future."
Before Evren could respond, Kaelion suddenly raised a fist, signaling them to stop. His voice was a sharp, quiet blade. "We're not alone."
They turned as one, weapons drawn.
Rustling from the thicket.
Then
Out stepped a woman cloaked in deep, blood-red robes. Her face was hidden by a silver veil, but her voice was smooth as poisoned silk.
"Prince Kaelion. I didn't think you'd be foolish enough to return here."
Kaelion's jaw tightened. "And yet, here I stand. Countess Virelle."
Evren exchanged a glance with Lioran. "Friend of yours?"
"Not in the slightest," Kaelion said flatly. "She serves the High Circle."
The woman stepped closer, her veiled gaze flicking toward Lioran.
"And what's this?" she purred. "A stray?"
Evren stepped smoothly in front of the boy, shielding him. "He's with us."
Virelle chuckled softly, a sound like dry leaves scattering. "Then you've already made your first mistake. The forest devours those it favors most."
Kaelion didn't move a muscle. "State your purpose."
"I came to warn you," she said. "The Circle knows what you seek in the ruins. And they are coming."
Kaelion's fingers twitched at his side. "Let them."
"No," she said, her tone shifting to one of genuine warning. "You don't understand. They're not coming to stop you."
A deliberate, heavy pause.
"They're coming to kill what you're about to awaken."
The silence that followed her warning was heavier than any thunder.
Lioran clutched Evren's sleeve, no longer trying to hide his fear. Kaelion, on the other hand, remained preternaturally calm but Evren noticed his hand was clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone bone-white.
Evren narrowed his eyes. "What exactly do you mean by that? Kill what?"
Countess Virelle tilted her head, the veil shifting. "What do you think lies beneath the ruins you're so eager to reach? Power? Truth? Salvation?" She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "What sleeps down there is older than your kingdom, older than your bloodline, Kaelion. It is not a tool to be wielded."
Kaelion's voice was ice. "You never answered why you care."
"I don't," she replied simply. "But I owe your mother a favor."
That, finally, made Kaelion flinch.
Lioran blinked. "Wait- you knew his mother?"
The countess didn't answer. Instead, she stepped backward, her form already dissolving into mist and shadows. "Go, if you must. Just remember this you were not meant to be the key."
Then she was gone.
They moved again, more cautiously now. The path narrowed as they reached a crumbled stone bridge overlooking a vast chasm, ancient vines thick as pythons curling around shattered marble.
Evren couldn't take the silence anymore.
"What the hell did she mean, 'you weren't meant to be the key'?"
Kaelion stopped at the very edge of the bridge, looking down into the abyss. "She meant what she said."
"Explain."
The prince turned to him then truly looked at him, and Evren saw the weight of kings and prophecies in his gaze. "The old texts… they never mentioned a name. Only that a soul, bound by magic and sacrifice, would awaken the gate."
Evren froze, the pieces clicking into place with dreadful clarity. "You think that's me?"
"I know it is you."
Lioran stepped forward, his small voice cutting through. "But… why you? Why not the prince?"
Kaelion smiled, a bitter, broken thing. "Because I was born with a burden. He was chosen by it."
Before Evren could form a reply, a deep rumble tore through the ground. From the bottom of the chasm below, light a searing mix of black and gold began to rise like a swarm of malevolent fireflies.
Something ancient had stirred.
And the gate… was beginning to open.