Dust Village slept restlessly after the rescue. Shadows curled around hearthfires, and even the wind over the great beast's bones sounded uneasy—like breath held too long.
Evelyn didn't sleep.
She sat outside the healer's hut where Torren lay inside, his leg stretched stiff and wrapped in tightly bound leaves slick with pungent paste. The wound hadn't closed as expected. The gash from the lesser beast was shallow but burning—angry in a way that didn't feel natural.
The healer, a soft-voiced woman with long gray streaks braided into her hair, had already said the words Evelyn feared.
"It's not healing because it's remembering," she'd murmured. "Some creatures don't just cut flesh. They mark it."
Evelyn had watched the healer's fingers tremble slightly as she applied another layer of salve.
Torren stirred now, groaning. She stood and slipped inside.
His face was pale and slicked with sweat. He tried to sit up but fell back with a hiss of pain.
"You should rest," she said gently.
He glanced at her, blinking the haze from his eyes. "You glowed again."
Evelyn smiled faintly. "Not intentionally."
"You scared them." His tone wasn't accusatory—just weary. "They'll pretend to be grateful. But they'll remember that you brought fire to a buried place."
Evelyn knelt beside him. "I didn't come down here to be remembered."
"Then why did you?"
"I heard the child's fear," she said softly. "And I had power enough to answer it."
Torren closed his eyes. "That power—it changes you."
She hesitated, then reached out. "Let me see your wound."
He nodded, jaw tightening as she unwound the bandage. The gash had darkened along its edges. Not with infection—but something stranger. The veins around it pulsed faintly, as though the mark itself breathed.
"This isn't just a beast wound," Evelyn murmured.
"No," said another voice.
Vareth stood at the doorway, his face shadowed by the hanging bones of the threshold. "It's old magic. Forgotten. There are creatures in the ash that were meant to leave a trace. To remind the land they passed through that they still mattered."
"You know this?" Evelyn asked.
"I've walked the Embertrail," Vareth said, stepping inside. "There are scars older than memory along its paths. Your friend bears one now."
Torren looked at him grimly. "So what do we do?"
"You don't stay here," Vareth replied. "The wound needs a core-forged flame to burn it clean. The closest source is the Echoed Pass, three days south. Dangerous, but… it may be the only choice."
"Three days," Evelyn repeated, calculating. "And what lives there?"
Vareth's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Things that don't forget. But fewer people to watch you burn."
Torren sat up straighter, teeth gritted. "If it means this stops… if it means I can walk again without fire in my bones, then I'll go."
Evelyn turned to him. "Are you sure?"
"I'd rather face a beast than rot from the inside."
The healer, who had remained silent at the back of the hut, finally stepped forward. "There is one more thing," she said. "You'll pass the Hollow Mouth on the way. Avoid it. It sings."
Evelyn blinked. "Sings?"
The healer nodded, her face dark. "Not a song you want to remember."
Vareth crossed his arms. "We leave at dawn."
That night, Evelyn lay beside the embers of a dying fire, one hand resting lightly over the shard embedded near her heart. It no longer burned—it warmed. Like it understood she needed it to sleep.
But before dreams took her, she heard it again.
A whisper.
No words she recognized—just the syllables of her name, reshaped by an unfamiliar tongue. Not hostile. Not soothing. Just waiting.
When she finally slept, the ash in her dreams turned silver.
And the bones beneath her hummed.