— Illuminara of the Ash That Still Fell
The world did not end when the power slipped.
It continued.
Rhaen walked for a time after—how long, he could not later say—carried forward by momentum rather than intent. The ground beneath his feet felt firm enough, the air thin and cold, the sky distant in a way that suggested morning without confirming it. Ash clung to his boots and darkened his steps, but he did not notice when it stopped drifting and began to settle.
The warmth beneath his skin had withdrawn completely.
Not extinguished. Not gone. Simply folded so far inward that it no longer answered him at all. In its absence there was no pain, no alarm—only a quiet imbalance, like standing on a surface that had subtly begun to tilt.
He slowed.
The first sign was not weakness, but distance. Sound arrived late, dulled at the edges. His breath felt disconnected from his chest, as though it belonged to a body slightly out of alignment with his own. When he blinked, the space between one moment and the next stretched thin, elastic, reluctant to snap back into place.
He stopped walking without remembering the decision to do so.
Cold crept in next—not sharp, not biting, but pervasive. It pressed through cloth and skin alike, seeping inward until even the idea of warmth felt abstract. His fingers flexed once, twice, responding sluggishly, as if awaiting permission from something no longer present.
The pressure followed.
Not from without, but within. A dense, inward weight settled behind his eyes, along his spine, through the hollow spaces where thought usually moved unimpeded. It was not pain. It was compression—memory, sensation, and self drawn too close together, crowding one another until none could move freely.
He lowered himself to one knee.
Or perhaps he fell. The distinction mattered less with each passing second.
The ground felt colder than expected when it met his palm. Texture registered without detail. Stone, ash, soil—he could not have said which, only that it existed and supported him for the moment. His other hand hovered uncertainly at his side before closing into a fist, as though gripping something that was no longer there.
Silence deepened.
Not the absence of sound, but the removal of relevance. The world continued to exist somewhere beyond him, but its presence no longer demanded response. Breath came and went without effort or urgency. His heartbeat slowed, not faltering, merely unobserved.
He tried to stand.
The attempt did not complete itself.
Cold spread upward now, not through skin but through awareness, dulling edges, smoothing distinction. His body felt distant, a shape he remembered inhabiting rather than one he actively occupied. Weight ceased to matter. Direction lost meaning.
For a moment—brief, unanchored—there was nothing.
No pain.
No fear.
No sense of falling or being held.
Just a loosening.
Then even that slipped away.
Consciousness did not shatter or flee. It thinned, stretched, and finally drifted apart, leaving behind no clear boundary where waking ended and absence began.
Time passed.
How much, he could not know.
He surfaced and sank again, awareness flickering in fragments without sequence—cold pressing closer, then retreating; pressure easing, then returning; the distant impression of movement that might have been his own, or might not. Each time he neared coherence, it receded, unwilling to fully return.
Eventually, even the effort to surface ceased.
Rhaen lay still, unmarked and unmoving, the world carrying on around him without acknowledgment.
And somewhere beyond his reach, the ash continued to settle.
— Illuminara of Unfamiliar Hands
Rhaen returned to himself slowly.
Not with pain, but with weight.
Something pressed against his back—firm, uneven, present. Cloth brushed his skin when he shifted, rougher than he remembered, carrying a scent that was not ash. The cold was still there, but it no longer owned him completely. It lingered instead, pooled low in his limbs, reluctant to release its claim.
Light reached him next.
Not bright. Not blinding. Just enough to exist.
He opened his eyes and closed them again almost immediately, the effort more disorienting than expected. The world did not snap into place. It hovered, uncertain, as though waiting to see whether he would remain.
When he tried again, shapes resolved.
Canvas above him. Poles crossing at unfamiliar angles. Shadows moving just beyond his vision, interrupting the thin wash of daylight filtering through the fabric. The air was still, held in a way that suggested shelter rather than absence.
He breathed.
The act felt distant, as if his chest were remembering the motion rather than performing it. Each inhale dragged cool air inward; each exhale left him faintly hollowed. He waited for pain to follow.
It did not.
Instead, there was presence.
Not one—several.
He turned his head and immediately regretted it. The motion sent a dull pressure through his skull, not sharp enough to stop him, but enough to remind him how little control he had regained. Still, he forced his eyes to focus.
Figures stood nearby.
They were close enough that he could see the details of their clothing, the way light caught on metal and fabric alike. Close enough that retreat would have been impossible even if his body had obeyed him.
They were watching him.
Not with hostility. Not with relief.
With assessment.
They spoke.
The sound reached him clearly, but meaning did not follow. The words moved past one another too quickly, shaped by a rhythm he did not recognize. He listened anyway, instinctively searching for something familiar in the cadence, a hook he could use to orient himself.
There was none.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Not silence—effort without result. His throat tightened around the attempt, rejecting it as unnecessary. He tried again, slower this time, but the sound died before it formed, swallowed somewhere between intention and breath.
The figures noticed.
One of them shifted closer. A hand rose, palm open, moving carefully as if approaching something that might startle. Rhaen tensed instinctively, then realized too late that the reaction cost him more than he could afford. His muscles responded sluggishly, the effort sending a brief wave of vertigo through him.
The hand stopped.
Words followed—quieter this time, slower. The tone changed, softening at the edges, though the language remained as impenetrable as before. The speaker gestured toward a container near the ground, then mimed the act of drinking.
Rhaen hesitated only a moment before nodding.
The vessel was brought to him. Water, cool and clean, touched his lips. He drank carefully, aware of how fragile the act felt, how easily it could tip into nausea or worse. The liquid settled without protest, spreading warmth where the cold had not yet released its hold.
Food followed.
Simple. Solid. Real.
He ate because his body accepted it, not because hunger demanded it. Each motion felt deliberate, considered, as though he were relearning a language that did not rely on sound.
No one pressed him.
They spoke among themselves again, occasionally glancing his way, but no one demanded answers he could not give. No blades were drawn. No restraints were placed upon him. Whatever decision had been made before he woke, it did not include immediate harm.
When exhaustion crept back in, it did so gently.
His eyes closed without resistance this time, the world dimming rather than vanishing. The presence of others did not recede when he did. He could still sense them—moving, breathing, existing within the same enclosed space.
For now, that was enough.
Rhaen slept again, not because he had been dismissed, but because the world had decided he was not finished with it yet.
— Illuminara of the World Still Moving
Morning did not announce itself.
It arrived in increments—light thinning the dark, cool air shifting its weight, the muted sounds of movement growing more frequent and less cautious. Rhaen woke to these changes rather than to a single moment of awareness, his body surfacing from sleep in fragments.
The shelter above him was already being dismantled.
Canvas rustled. Poles were loosened and stacked. Footsteps passed near enough that the ground responded with faint vibration. He lay still for a time, watching the shapes overhead shift and disappear as the structure opened to the sky.
The light was pale and distant. It carried no warmth.
He sat up slowly, expecting resistance from his body and finding it only in pieces. His limbs responded, but with delay, as though checking for permission before completing each motion. The pressure behind his eyes had receded, leaving a dull echo that pulsed faintly with his heartbeat.
Someone noticed him.
A figure crossed into his line of sight and spoke, gesturing outward, then down, then back toward him. The meaning was lost, but the intent was not. They were leaving. Whether he would follow had not yet been decided.
Rhaen rose to his feet before the question could be asked.
The act drew more attention than he intended. He swayed once, caught himself, and remained upright through effort rather than balance. The ground beneath him felt firm enough, though the sensation traveled strangely through his boots, as if his weight arrived a moment after his foot did.
No one stopped him.
They moved soon after, the camp dissolving into carried shapes and redistributed weight. Packs were lifted, straps tightened, tools secured with practiced motions that spoke of habit rather than urgency. Rhaen stood at the edge of it, watching how they reassembled themselves into motion.
Then they began to walk.
He followed.
The land stretched out ahead in uneven folds, neither welcoming nor hostile—simply present. Ash still dusted the ground in places, thinning as they moved farther from wherever he had fallen. Stone broke through the soil at irregular angles, fractured but not ruined, as though the earth had been interrupted mid-thought and then forced to continue.
The group moved with purpose.
Spacing was maintained without discussion. No one strayed too far from another, yet no one crowded. When the terrain narrowed, they adjusted instinctively, their formation compressing and expanding with quiet efficiency. Rhaen noted this without fully understanding why it mattered, only that it did.
They spoke as they walked.
The sounds wove in and out of the rhythm of movement—short exchanges, occasional laughter, longer stretches of conversation he could not follow. The language remained closed to him, but tone carried what meaning it could. There was no fear in it now. No urgency. Whatever danger they expected lay ahead, not behind.
He watched their hands when they spoke, the way gestures accompanied certain sounds. He watched their faces, trying to catch intention in expression alone. It was imperfect, but it was something.
Hours passed.
The land shifted gradually, almost imperceptibly, until the ground grew more compacted beneath their feet. Paths emerged—not carved, but worn, their existence suggested by repetition rather than design. Rhaen noticed the change only when structures appeared ahead, interrupting the horizon.
A settlement.
Not large. Not fortified. But occupied.
Buildings stood close enough to one another that their shadows overlapped, the materials unfamiliar in combination if not in isolation. Smoke rose in thin lines from several points, drifting lazily before dispersing into the pale sky. Movement flickered between doorways and along narrow paths, purposeful and unremarkable.
As they approached, Rhaen felt it.
The wrongness.
It did not strike all at once. It crept in through comparison—this against memory, that against expectation. The shapes of tools were almost right. The cut of clothing echoed something he half-remembered. Voices carried patterns that brushed against recognition without ever settling into it.
He slowed without meaning to.
The group did not stop, but they adjusted around him, allowing space without drawing attention to the change. No one pushed him forward. No one pulled him back.
People noticed them as they passed.
Eyes lifted, lingered briefly, then moved on. Some faces showed curiosity, others indifference. None showed alarm. Whatever the group represented, it belonged here well enough to be unremarkable.
Rhaen watched everything.
Hands exchanging objects. Children moving between adults without concern. A figure kneeling to adjust something metal near the ground, sparks flashing briefly before dying away. It was life—functional, contained, continuing.
And yet.
None of it aligned.
The world he remembered had not been like this. Or perhaps it had, once, long ago, before memory had begun to fold in on itself. He could not tell whether the dissonance came from loss or change. Only that standing here, among these structures and sounds, he felt like a shadow cast at the wrong angle.
They did not stay.
The group moved through the settlement without pause, gathering nothing, offering no greeting he could understand. Soon the buildings thinned and fell away behind them, replaced once more by open ground and the steady rhythm of travel.
Rhaen exhaled, only then realizing he had been holding his breath.
The land opened again, rougher now, the paths less certain. Whatever comfort the settlement had offered—real or imagined—did not follow them.
Ahead, the terrain rose and fractured, the air sharpening with distance and elevation. The group's focus shifted subtly, their attention turning forward, outward.
Rhaen walked with them, carrying with him the uneasy knowledge that the world had not ended while he slept.
It had simply moved on. And he was moving with it now, whether he understood it or not…
— Illuminara of the Narrowing Path
The road narrowed until it could no longer be mistaken for anything else.
Trees gathered around it—not in rows, not with intention, but as though they had grown toward one another and then stopped, their branches knotting overhead in slow, patient arcs. Roots broke through the ground at uneven angles, gripping stone and soil alike, twisting the path into something that demanded attention with every step.
Mist lingered low among them.
It did not roll or drift. It clung.
Rhaen felt it brush against his boots, cold and thin, carrying the scent of damp earth and old bark. The air beneath the canopy was heavier than it had been in the open land, pressing close to his skin, muting sound before it could travel far. Even the group's footsteps seemed unwilling to echo here.
They slowed as they entered.
Not stopping—never stopping—but adjusting, as though the forest required a different agreement from those who passed through it.
Rhaen walked behind them, his eyes tracing the path as it bent and vanished ahead, swallowed by trees that leaned inward without urgency. The light here was fractured, broken into pale strands that filtered down through overlapping branches and settled unevenly on stone and root alike. Nothing was fully illuminated. Nothing was fully hidden.
The road felt old.
Not abandoned. Not ruined.
Used.
He watched the others as they moved.
The one who walked at the front carried a wide piece of metal strapped to one arm, its surface worn smooth by use rather than neglect. His build was solid, compact, the kind that seemed to press downward into the ground with each step. He placed his feet carefully, the weight he bore angled slightly forward, as if expecting resistance even from empty air. There was no strain in him—only a steady insistence that the path be held rather than hurried.
Close to him moved another with longer strides and a narrower frame, a long-bladed weapon resting across his back. His boots found purchase where root and stone seemed determined to deny it. He watched the ground ahead and to the sides with equal attention, nostrils flaring subtly as though the forest carried information that did not travel by sound alone. Whatever he was listening for, it never quite left him.
Behind them, one moved with less weight and more absence. A curved length of wood rose over his shoulder, a smaller blade riding low at his side. His steps made little sound, his gaze lifting often toward the branches overhead before returning to the path without pause. His hands stayed near his weapons, ready but uncommitted, as if waiting for something to reveal itself rather than seeking it out. Rhaen had the sense that this one understood the forest in ways the others did not.
Near the center of the group walked another whose presence carried warmth without flame. Her clothing was lighter, layered for movement rather than protection, and a short blade hung unused at her hip. Rhaen felt the heat before he noticed her hands—fingers flexing occasionally, as though testing how the air responded to her. When she spoke, her voice cut more sharply than the others', even softened by bark and distance.
There was one who stayed slightly behind the rest, wrapped in darker cloth that blurred his outline against the trees. Twin lengths of metal rested at his sides, their grips worn smooth. He did not watch the forest so much as the spaces between the others, his steps timed to fill gaps rather than announce themselves. When Rhaen glanced back once, briefly, he found the man's attention already elsewhere, as if it had never settled on him at all. The absence felt deliberate.
The last walked close to the packs, slender and careful, a satchel shifting lightly at his side. He carried no obvious weapon, or if he did, it remained hidden. Now and then he paused to brush his fingers through empty air, the motion small and precise. Rhaen could not tell what the gesture meant—only that the space around them seemed to steady when he did it, like a surface smoothed by repeated touch.
They spoke less here.
When words passed between them, they were short, contained, shaped to fit the forest rather than rise above it. Rhaen listened without understanding, his attention drawn instead to the way sound behaved—how quickly it softened, how easily it was taken.
The path curved inward on itself, looping gently as though unwilling to allow a clear view of what lay ahead. Trees pressed close enough that Rhaen could feel their presence even without touching them, their bark pale and scarred, marked by age rather than damage. Some leaned at unnatural angles, roots exposed and gripping stone like fingers that had never learned to release.
He felt watched.
Not by eyes.
But by weight.
The forest did not threaten. It did not welcome. It endured, allowing passage without promise. Rhaen sensed that whatever happened here would not be sudden. It would be layered, accumulated, remembered by the ground long after those who walked it had gone.
When they stopped briefly to drink, no fire was lit. Water was passed hand to hand in silence. Rhaen drank and felt the chill deepen, settling low in his chest, a reminder that warmth here would have to be earned.
They moved on.
The road ahead bent again, vanishing into mist and branch, offering no clear end—only continuation. Rhaen followed, his steps steady now, his body responding more readily than before.
He did not know what waited beyond the next turn.
Only that the forest had accepted their presence.
And that, for now, it was letting them pass.