The presence came long before the footsteps.
Trin lay half-awake on his bedroll, listening to the soft snoring from Garran's tent and the occasional rustle as Lysa turned over in hers. The embers of the campfire outside had settled to a dull, pulsing glow that painted the canvas in shades of red and shadow. Naera's wards—small sigils around the perimeter—hummed faintly at the edge of his perception, like a chorus of patient whispers.
Then something brushed against them.
It was not a sound, not a sight, but a pressure—familiar in the way that mountains are familiar, or deep oceans. A presence that existed with the same quiet certainty as gravity.
Trin's eyes opened.
He knew, even before he could name it, that whatever approached was not sneaking. It did not creep or slink or pry. It *arrived*, and the world adjusted around it.
He lay still, hands folded lightly over his stomach, breathing calm and slow. The wards stirred, recognized something older than themselves, and parted without protest. No alarms sounded. No sparks flew.
The presence moved through the camp with the inevitability of a tide. No tent flap rustled. No boot scuffed the ground. And yet, at the next breath, someone stood just beyond his canvas.
The flap stirred.
A man stepped inside.
He was tall, though not absurdly so, with a bearing that made the small tent feel even smaller. His clothing was simple in cut but rich in fabric: a long coat of deep, dark green trimmed with subtle gold stitching, a pale shirt beneath, black trousers tucked into well-crafted boots. No weapon hung at his side.
Yet there was nothing simple about him.
His hair was black with a faint, metallic sheen that caught the dim firelight. His eyes were a strange, molten amber, pupils just a fraction tighter than they should have been in this level of light. Jewelry adorned him sparsely: a ring in the shape of a curling claw, a pendant that suggested a single, stylized scale.
He smelled faintly of stone warmed by sun, of old smoke, of something like lightning.
Trin did not sit up. He watched.
The man studied him in return for a few heartbeats, then inclined his head with a courtly ease that did not quite match the wilderness.
"Good evening," he said. His voice was smooth, low, with an edge of something older echoing beneath the words. "I apologize for the intrusion. Your sentries did not object, but I thought it polite to offer one anyway."
Trin's lips curved in the ghost of a smile. "Our sentries were not designed to dispute rights of presence with beings like you."
The man's eyes brightened slightly. "You felt me."
"Hard not to," Trin said. "Subtlety is not…your natural scale."
The man gave a soft huff that might have been amusement. "Fair."
There was a brief pause, then he stepped further in and folded himself gracefully onto the crate Naera sometimes used as a seat, as if he had every right to be there.
"In this shape," he said, "I am called *Therion*."
The name sat on the air with a weight like stone.
"I thought it might be something like that," Trin said softly. "Your other form's eyes are distinctive."
Therion's smile sharpened. "So you did see me."
"You saw us first," Trin replied. "From a distance. I appreciate your restraint."
"I had no reason to roast you all," Therion said lightly. "Scouts, mercenaries, a mage with competent wards—unremarkable, as such things go. But you…"
He leaned back slightly, studying Trin more closely.
"You are not unremarkable," he said. "When you walked near my lair, the air shifted. My hoard thrummed. Old oaths stirred. And something in your presence reminded me of someone I have not seen in…a very long time."
Trin's gaze did not waver. "Althera."
The name passed between them like the toll of a bell.
"Yes," Therion said quietly. "The world's goddess. Or close enough that the difference did not matter to those who prayed."
He watched for Trin's reaction. "You know her."
"Very well," Trin said. "Better than most."
Therion's eyes narrowed, not in suspicion, but in focused interest. "When you came near," he went on, "it felt, for a moment, as though one of her footprints had been laid over yours. Not the same, but similar. As if you had walked where she walked, or she had shaped what you are."
Trin was silent for a moment, then inclined his head slightly. "Your senses are sharp."
"They have had time to practice," Therion said. "Tell me, then—who are you, whose presence brushes against hers? And what are you doing in *my* woods, walking my old roads, stirring echoes that have slept for centuries?"
Trin let out a slow breath.
"In this world," he said, "I am no one of record. A crafter. A traveler. Someone trying to begin again with less power and more care."
"And in the world before?" Therion asked gently.
Trin's eyes dimmed with old memory. "In the world before, I was…her superior. In a way." He shook his head slightly. "Creator, overseer, companion. None of the titles fit cleanly anymore. But I knew her when she was not yet goddess, when she was simply Althera—curious, stubborn, always searching for new paths to carve."
Therion's expression shifted—surprise, then something like awe. "You speak of her like one speaks of a friend—or a master—with fond exasperation."
"She inspired that often," Trin said.
Therion's gaze grew intent. "And yet she is not here with you."
"No," Trin said softly. "She is not."
A quiet settled between them, broken only by the muted crack of an ember outside and the faint rustle of canvas.
Trin looked at his hands, then back at Therion.
"She took another path," he said. "One that does not circle back to this world. What remains of her here is bound in the shape of what she made. And in those who remember her."
Therion's jaw tightened. "So she is gone."
"In the way you mean it," Trin said, "yes."
Therion's shoulders sank a fraction, some of the regal composure slipping. For a moment, he looked less like a creature of legend and more like an old being bearing an absence no one else remembered.
"It has been…" he began, then stopped, recalculating. "More than a millennium, by this world's reckoning, since I last saw her. She came to my mountain then in a form not unlike yours now—humble, scaled down, amused by the need to stoop."
Trin's mouth quirked, imagining it. "That sounds like her."
"She spoke of threads and futures," Therion continued, gaze distant. "Of a world that might one day be able to stand without the constant hand of its maker. I did not entirely understand. I only knew that, for a time, it was…pleasant to speak with someone who remembered how old the bones of things were."
He fell quiet for a heartbeat. "I had thought, perhaps, that if she walked near my lair again, I might speak with her once more before I slept for the long winter. Hear whether this world had pleased her."
"I am sorry," Trin said simply. "That you will not get that chance."
Therion studied his face, weighing the sincerity there. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him.
"You said she took another path," he murmured. "And that she brought *you* here as a final act."
"Yes," Trin said. "When she fell, when our old world tore itself apart under arrogance and rebellion, she set in motion a failsafe. She had grown her own creation, outside the direct reach of what we once controlled. When the Choir died and Lucifer tried to unmake me, her last work pulled me here. To her world. To yours."
Therion's eyes widened slightly. "Then you are…her legacy. In some form."
"I am her last…assignment," Trin said. "She bound me to this place, to what she made, so I could watch over it. Not as its god, not as its unquestioned master—but as a caretaker who knows how badly things can be broken if left unattended."
Therion regarded him in thoughtful silence.
"You offered condolences before you explained any of that," the dragon said at last. "As if *I* had lost something greater than you had."
Trin's gaze softened. "Loss is not a competition."
"No," Therion agreed. "But it is a measure of connection. You were closer to her than I. Yet you grieve for the dragon who only saw her once every few ages."
"Your grief is not smaller for being rarer," Trin said. "If anything, it is sharper, because each meeting carried more weight."
Therion's eyes burned a little brighter.
"You speak like one who has watched mortals count their lives by sunrises," he said.
"I have watched many things," Trin replied. "Some lessons were learned late."
Therion inclined his head slowly. "You said you knew her before she was goddess. Tell me, then—if I cannot speak with her again, give me at least a story. Something she did that made you…proud, was it?"
The word tasted unfamiliar on his tongue, but not unpleasant.
Trin was quiet for several breaths.
"In the early days," he said finally, "when everything was still new and every star felt like a question, Althera was…reckless. She tried to walk every path at once. It frustrated me. I wanted order. Structure. A clean pattern."
Therion's lips curved faintly. "I can imagine."
"Once," Trin went on, "she came to me with a map of routes that did not yet exist—threads linking worlds that had not finished stabilizing. She wanted permission to open them. I refused. Too dangerous. Too much risk. I told her to let them lie until the foundations hardened."
"And did she listen?" Therion asked.
"No," Trin said, a small smile touching his eyes. "She waited until I was occupied stopping another disaster, then she went anyway. Quietly. Carefully. She opened only one of the paths. Just one. It linked a tiny, fragile world to a slightly older one, allowing a single flicker of influence to pass between them."
He remembered that moment now with a clarity that stung: the first time a mortal child who had never seen the stars heard a story from a far-off land and dreamed of walking among them.
"The result was…unexpected," Trin said. "No worlds collapsed. No great catastrophe. Just a little shared breath between two places that would never have met. Stories crossed. Ideas crossed. And both worlds grew just a fraction more…possible."
Therion listened, eyes half-lidded.
"At first, I was furious," Trin admitted. "She had disobeyed. She had taken a risk I had forbidden. I confronted her. Demanded to know why."
"And?" Therion asked.
"She said," Trin replied, voice softening in imitation, "'You created so much space, Trin. Someone has to introduce your children to each other, or they will grow up lonely.'"
Therion's breath caught—a subtle, almost soundless thing.
"I realized then," Trin continued, "that her paths were not just doors. They were…bridges. Ways not only to move, but to connect. And in that moment, I was proud. Because she had taken what I made and used it for something I had not thought to do myself."
He looked down at his hands again. "She made the cosmos kinder, in small ways. Even when I was too afraid to try."
Therion sat very still, as if afraid that moving would break the fragile thread of memory between them.
"You were her superior in authority," the dragon said quietly. "But not in…heart."
"No," Trin said. "She surpassed me there often."
They sat in shared silence for a time—one god-diminished, one dragon-disguised, both holding an absence between them like a fragile relic.
At last, Therion straightened slightly. "Thank you," he said. "For that."
"You're welcome," Trin replied.
Therion studied him anew. "So," he said, tone turning a shade more practical, "you are here now. Bound to this world she tended. Traveling with mercenaries, mending their straps, walking old roads."
"For the moment," Trin said.
"And yet you clearly know what I am capable of," Therion went on. "You know that if I were to grow…restless, the nearest towns, the border forts, even the capital would not withstand my full attention for long."
"Yes," Trin said simply. "I know."
Therion tilted his head. "Are you here to ask me not to?"
Trin met his gaze. "I am here to ask you to consider that this world is still becoming what she hoped it might be. Its people are flawed, frightened, easily cruel—but also capable of small kindnesses and stubborn hopes. She risked much to give them space to grow without constant divine interference."
He nodded toward the camp beyond the canvas. "These three I travel with? They are not blessed champions. Not chosen heroes. They are…working. Walking into danger so others do not have to. Trying, in their small way, to keep things from breaking."
He returned his eyes to Therion. "If you were to slaughter the nearby towns, burn the roads, tear down the forts—it would not just be blood. It would be the unraveling of a pattern she wove with care."
Therion's gaze was steady, unblinking. "You ask much," he said.
"I ask you to let them write their own disasters," Trin said. "They will manage that well enough without your help."
A slow, unexpected chuckle escaped Therion's chest. "Mortals do have a talent for that."
"Yes," Trin said. "They do."
Therion's expression grew more serious again. "For what it is worth," he said, "I have no current plans to raze your townships or test the mettle of your king's armies. I have slept long. I prefer, for now, to watch. To see how this age unfolds."
"That is good to hear," Trin said.
"But," Therion added, "dragons are not in the habit of taking orders. Not even from those tied to forgotten gods."
"I am not giving orders," Trin said. "I am making a request. One she would have approved of, I think."
Therion considered that, then nodded slowly.
"Very well," he said. "In honor of the paths she walked, and the memory you carry, I will give you this: so long as this world has not proven itself irredeemably poisoned, I will not be the one to end it. I will not slaughter your nearby towns for sport, nor burn your cities simply to hear them scream."
Trin's shoulders eased a fraction. "Thank you."
Therion lifted one hand, flexing it as if testing the fit of his human form. "If they come to me with spears and siege engines, that is another matter."
"That is their choice," Trin said. "And yours in answer. I would hope to…discourage such encounters from both sides."
Therion smiled faintly. "You are ambitious, caretaker."
"It is a stubborn habit," Trin replied.
For the first time, the dragon's eyes softened into something almost like camaraderie.
"If you find," Therion said quietly, "that this world's guardianship becomes…heavy, know that there are those of us who remember the hands that first shaped it. We are not numerous. But we are not all indifferent."
"I will remember," Trin said.
Therion stood, the motion fluid, his presence drawing back like a tide preparing to withdraw.
"One last question, Trin," he said. "Do the ones you travel with know what you are?"
"No," Trin said. "And for now, they do not need to. They know enough: that I can mend leather, walk beside them, and try to keep them alive a little longer. That is the shape of my truth at their scale."
Therion nodded slowly. "Althera would approve," he said. "She always did favor walking alongside those who never knew her full height."
He turned toward the tent flap, then paused.
"If you ever wish to speak of her again," he said without looking back, "you know where my lair lies. Knock politely."
"I will," Trin said. "And if you ever wish to hear how her paths ended elsewhere, I can share what I know."
"I may take you up on that," Therion murmured.
He stepped out into the night. The canvas fluttered once, then stilled.
The heavy presence receded, not vanishing so much as folding itself back into the shape of the distant mountain and the deep, stone-buried hoard.
Outside, Garran shifted in his sleep, oblivious. Lysa muttered something and rolled over. Naera's wards flickered once, then resumed their steady hum.
Trin lay back on his bedroll and stared up at the dark curve of the tent roof.
The world's goddess was gone. But her echoes remained—in dragons who remembered her, in roads that still held her footprints, in a worn creator trying to mend small things in a small camp under an unremarkable sky.
"Thank you, Althera," he whispered into the quiet. "For introducing your children to each other. Even now."
The embers outside pulsed once, as if in answer, and the night went on.