They left the camp at first light, when the mist still clung low to the roots and the trees looked like they were growing out of clouds.
Garran led, as he always did, broad back framed by the faint glint of his reforged straps. Lysa walked a little ahead and to the side, moving with that easy, gliding step that seemed to barely disturb the undergrowth. Naera kept pace near Trin, staff in hand, eyes alert but not tense.
The forest felt different once they were no longer tethered to the familiar ring of tents and cookfire smoke. The trees grew taller, older, their trunks furrowed with age and moss. The usual birdsong faded by degrees, replaced by the more sporadic sounds of deeper woods: distant rustles, the crack of a branch far off, the hush of wind weaving through layered canopy.
Trin adjusted the strap of his new pack. It was light—some rations, a waterskin, the tools he had made and a few extra scraps of leather—but the weight felt oddly significant. This was the first time in longer than he could easily name that he had walked into the world carrying only what he could reasonably lift.
"No limping," Lysa called over her shoulder without looking back. "Good sign."
"I am trying to be considerate," Trin replied. "It would be rude to slow down the escort."
"Look at that," Garran said mildly. "He's learning camp manners already."
Naera hid a small smile. "Give him a week; he'll be complaining louder than the recruits."
"I doubt that," Trin said. "I've had worse roads."
"Still not saying where those were," Lysa noted.
"Some habits die slowly," he said.
"Or not at all," she countered, but without the edge she might have used days ago.
They moved in companionable silence for a time, the rhythm of walking settling into something steady. Trin allowed himself to simply listen: to the crunch of leaves under boots, the soft creak of leather, the quiet murmur of Naera's occasional warding word when they crossed a particularly shadowed patch.
After a while, Garran spoke over his shoulder. "We're heading toward the old stone way," he said. "Used to be a proper road before the trees took it back. Easier walking, fewer surprises."
"Fewer natural ones," Naera added.
"Bandits, then?" Trin asked.
"Sometimes," Garran said. "But they've been scarce lately. Something up this way has been making trouble disappear before it gets organized."
"Comforting," Trin said dryly.
"You'd think," Lysa said. "But when even scavengers and cutthroats go quiet, it usually means something worse is nesting nearby."
"Reassuring," Trin corrected.
They found the old road around mid-morning.
It announced itself first as a subtle change underfoot: roots giving way to more regular rises and dips, stones half-buried beneath soil. Then the undergrowth thinned, revealing the ghost of a wide, cobbled path running between the trees, its edges broken and swallowed in places by moss.
"The stone way," Naera confirmed. "This used to connect border forts to the inner watchtowers. Before the crown started ignoring the borders and pretending the wilds didn't exist."
"Roads remember," Trin said quietly, studying the worn stones. "Even when those who made them pretend they don't."
Naera glanced at him. "You talk like a historian."
"History is simply a pattern of failures and adjustments," he replied. "I am…familiar with both."
Garran gave a short, amused huff. "If you ever get tired of stitching leather, you could probably make coin lecturing nobles about their mistakes. Briefly, before they throw you out."
"Tempting," Trin said.
They walked the stone way for an hour or more, the forest pressing close but not quite reclaiming it. Lysa ranged ahead, sometimes disappearing from sight entirely before reappearing with a quiet warning about a muddy patch or loose stones.
It was she who noticed the change first.
She slowed, hand lifting in a small signal. Garran mirrored it, raising a closed fist, and the group drew to a halt.
The forest had grown…quieter.
Not silent, exactly, but the soundscape had shifted. The ordinary chatter of small creatures had dimmed; even the wind seemed to move more carefully between the branches. The air carried a faint, unfamiliar tang—something metallic and sharp, like iron that had never seen a forge.
Naera's fingers tightened on her staff. "Feel that?"
"Yes," Trin said softly.
"What is it?" Garran asked.
"Weight," Trin murmured. "But not of earth. Of presence."
Lysa reappeared from the undergrowth, expression unusually serious. "There's a rise ahead," she said. "Rock formation. Looks natural at first, but the trees thin out around it. The ground's…scored. Like something big comes and goes."
Garran's mouth flattened into a grim line. "We're near the lair, then."
Naera gave him a brief look. "You really think—"
"Look around," he said. "Too quiet. No overgrown game trail, no old camp remains. Whatever is here, everything else decided it wasn't worth testing."
Trin looked from one to the other. "You expected this?"
"Not expected," Naera said. "Suspected. The disappearances in the area, the reports of burned-out clearings, melted metal, entire packs of beasts gone without a trace…"
"Dragon," Lysa said simply.
The word hung in the air like a dropped stone.
Trin let it settle. Dragons were…not unfamiliar to him. In other ages, in other skies, he had shaped creatures that might have inspired such legends, or listened as mortals gave their nightmares scales and fire. Here, though, the flavor of the presence was new—wild and particular to this world.
Garran adjusted his shield strap. "We're not here to hunt it," he said firmly. "We're just confirming what's nesting in the area. We go close enough to see, far enough not to die, and then we go back and let people with worse judgment make poor decisions about it."
"That sounds like an excellent plan," Trin said.
Lysa nodded. "I scouted up to the lip of the clearing," she said to Garran. "Didn't go over. Felt like walking into an open throat."
"Show us," Garran said. "Carefully."
They moved with more deliberate caution now. The stone way curved slightly, then began to slope upward. Trees gave way to sparser growth, the underbrush thinning. The scent in the air intensified: smoke, but not campfire smoke. Something older. Hotter.
As they neared the top of the rise, Lysa motioned for them to duck low. They obliged, and she led them to a cluster of rocks and scrub at the edge of a broad, rocky shelf.
From there, the view opened.
The forest fell away into a wide, shallow basin carved into the hillside, its floor mostly bare stone. Scorch marks marred the rock in sweeping arcs, blackened and fused in places into glassy swirls. A few twisted shapes lay at the edges—charred remnants of something that might once have been trees, or perhaps something else entirely.
At the far side of the basin yawned a cavern mouth, vast and dark, its upper edge lined with jagged stone that suggested teeth. The rock above it had been blackened by countless out-breaths of heat.
Naera exhaled slowly. "Well," she said softly. "That answers that."
"We've seen enough," Garran said. "We mark the location, we—"
Trin's gaze was fixed on the cavern.
The presence he had felt earlier pressed more strongly here, like a warm, slow heartbeat under the stone. It was not the boundless hum of cosmic creation, nor the sharp wrongness of infernal power. It was…dense. Rooted. Older than the kingdom that had drawn its borders around this forest.
Something shifted in the cave.
It was subtle at first, a flicker of deeper darkness within the shadow. Then twin points of light kindled there—amber-gold, slitted, immense.
The dragon's eyes opened.
Even at this distance, the scale was clear. Each eye was larger than Trin's head, their glow casting faint reflections on the cavern's upper lip. The pupils contracted, focusing, and the weight of that gaze swept slowly across the basin.
It passed over scorch marks, over stone, over the broken silhouettes at the edges.
Then it found them.
For a moment—no more than a handful of heartbeats—the world narrowed to that line of sight.
Those eyes held no immediate hunger, no sudden surge of rage. What Trin felt most keenly was…awareness. The simple fact of being seen by something that existed very firmly and very comfortably in its own power.
Beside him, Lysa held perfectly still, not even breathing. Garran's hand eased closer to his sword hilt without drawing it. Naera's grip on her staff tightened until her knuckles paled.
Trin did not reach for power. There was little enough to grab. Instead, he met the gaze with a quiet, respectful stillness.
The dragon's head remained obscured by shadow, only the eyes and the faint impression of massive horns or ridges visible. Its nostrils flared once; a thin plume of smoke escaped and drifted upward.
Then, just as slowly, the great eyes blinked.
They drifted away, back across the basin, losing interest. The sense of direct pressure eased.
Naera released a very careful breath. "I think," she whispered, "that's our cue to leave."
"No argument," Garran murmured. "Back the way we came. No sudden moves, no loud words."
They retreated, keeping low until the edge of the basin fell out of sight. Only when the trees closed in again and the sounds of the ordinary forest began to creep back did they straighten fully.
Lysa was the first to break the silence with something like her usual tone. "So," she said, "good news: we found your 'something worse,' Garran."
"Yes," he said dryly. "I noticed."
"Bad news," she continued, "is that if it decides to go for a walk, that stone road will funnel it straight toward the border forts."
Naera nodded, expression serious. "We need to report this. The crown won't like it, but ignoring a dragon tends to go worse than acknowledging one."
Trin walked a few paces with his thoughts turned inward.
The dragon's presence still lingered at the edges of his perception—not actively, just as a memory of weight. There had been no malice in its brief regard. No affection, either. Just a slow recognition that something unusual had wandered close to its domain.
"You didn't flinch," Lysa said suddenly.
Trin blinked, coming back to the moment. "Pardon?"
"When it looked at us," she said. "You didn't flinch. Most people I've seen near larger predators, let alone something like that, twitch at least a little."
He considered. "I have been seen by worse," he said.
"Worse than a dragon?" Garran asked skeptically.
"Different," Trin amended. "But I do not recommend the comparison."
Naera shot him a sidelong glance. "Still not clarifying any of this, I see."
He offered a faint smile. "You asked for fewer mysteries, not none. I am…adjusting."
"You're talking more," Lysa said. "That counts."
"Does it?" he asked.
"For us, yes," she said. "It's easier to trust someone who jokes back."
"I was unaware we were joking," he said.
Naera snorted softly. "You're doing it now."
They walked on, the encounter with the dragon receding behind them, though its implications remained heavy in the air between the trees.
After a time, Garran asked, "What did you make of it, Trin? You looked…interested."
"Would you prefer I looked terrified?" Trin said.
"I'd prefer you looked like you understood the danger," Garran replied.
"I do," Trin said. "That creature is old, powerful, and disinclined to move for anything less than a significant reason. It could reduce a small army to ash before they crossed the basin."
"Comforting," Naera muttered.
"But it also did not move when it saw us," Trin continued. "We were not its concern. Not today."
"You're sure?" Lysa asked.
"As sure as I can be," he said. "If it had wished to act, it would have. That was not the gaze of something deciding whether to attack. It was the gaze of something…taking inventory."
Naera nodded slowly. "That matches what little scholars say," she said. "Dragons are territorial, intelligent. Some see people as food. Others see them as annoyances. A few see them as…potentially useful."
"Let us hope we fall into the second category rather than the first," Garran said.
Trin walked a few more steps, then said, "The road concerns me more than the dragon."
"Why?" Naera asked.
"Because roads are invitations," he said. "They connect things. If the dragon ever chooses to follow it, your border stands very much in its path."
"That's why we're here," Garran said. "To make sure the people who pretend borders are safe are reminded that they are not."
Lysa tilted her head. "You sound almost approving, Trin."
"I approve of honest work," he said. "Especially when it studies danger rather than pretending it doesn't exist."
Naera considered him. "You know," she said, "for someone who won't tell us where he's from, you're strangely well-suited to our sort of employment."
"Walking into problems and then walking back out to tell people about them?" he said.
"Exactly," she replied.
He thought briefly of the ashen plain, of Lucifer's howl of frustration as the portal closed, of Althera's gentle insistence in the void.
"Yes," he said softly. "I do have experience with that."
Lysa frowned slightly, catching the tone. "You say things like that," she said, "and it sounds like you're half a step away from telling us something important. Then you don't."
"Old habit," he said.
"Bad habit," she countered.
"Perhaps," he allowed. "I am…working on it."
Naera looked ahead, where the forest began to open again, the light brightening. "You don't owe us the past," she said, surprising him. "Not if it hurts to carry. But you're here now. That part we can share."
He looked at her, at Garran's steady stride, at Lysa's restless scanning of the trees.
"I can tell you this much," he said. "Where I was before I came here…ended poorly. Where I am now has not ended yet. I would rather put my words into the latter."
"That's more than we had before," Lysa said.
"Progress," Garran added.
Naera smiled slightly. "We'll take it."
They made camp that night well away from the stone way, choosing a sheltered hollow between three thick-trunked trees. Garran oversaw the setup with practiced efficiency, making sure sightlines were clear and escape routes open. Lysa laid out perimeter markers. Naera etched a few quiet sigils into the dirt around the fire.
Trin helped where he could—driving stakes, checking knots, adjusting a tarp so it would shed rain more easily.
As they ate, the conversation flowed more easily than it had their first days together. Lysa told a story about a merchant so convinced his goats were cursed that he tried to hire them to exorcise them. Garran countered with a tale of a noble who fainted at the sight of his own blood during a training exercise. Naera added a dry aside about a senior magus who once set his own beard on fire mispronouncing a basic spell.
"And you?" Lysa asked Trin at last, poking at the fire with a stick. "Any embarrassing stories?"
He considered. "Most of my mistakes were…on a larger scale," he said.
"All the better," Garran said. "We love a large-scale disaster."
Trin thought of stars that had burned out sooner than intended, of worlds that had drifted slightly off their axis, of a fallen choir and a dragon-eyed tyrant on an ashen plain.
"Another night, perhaps," he said gently. "When the disasters are farther away."
Naera studied him for a moment and let it go. "We'll hold you to that," she said.
"I'm beginning to realize you hold many things," he said.
"Mostly each other," Lysa said lightly. "That's how we're still alive."
He looked at them—their faces lit by firelight, ringed by the ordinary sounds of a living forest—and felt, for the first time since the void, a small, cautious warmth that had nothing to do with embers.
"I am…glad to be here," he said quietly.
Garran raised an eyebrow. "With us, specifically, or just in a place that isn't on fire?"
"Both," Trin said.
Naera smiled. "We'll take that too."
Above them, the sky stretched dark and unfamiliar. Somewhere to the northeast, beyond hills and trees and the curve of the world, a dragon slept in its lair, coiled around its hoard, aware now that something strange had passed near its domain.
Here, by a small fire among three worn tents, a fallen creator shared a simple meal with three mortals, saying little of his past but giving a little more of himself with each passing hour.
For now, that was enough.