The first time Alfon noticed the old man, he thought he was imagining him.
He stood across the river.
Still.
Watching.
Emberfall was small enough that strangers were obvious. Travelers passed through sometimes — merchants, wandering preachers, soldiers collecting grain tax — but they never stayed long.
This man stayed.
Three days.
Always near the river.
Always at dusk.
Alfon was the only one who seemed to notice.
"You're staring again," Kaelen muttered, tossing a stick into the water.
"I'm not."
"You are."
Alfon didn't answer.
Across the river, the old man stood exactly where he had the night before. Cloaked in gray that looked neither rich nor poor. His beard long but well kept. His posture straight.
Not like a beggar.
Not like a merchant.
Like someone who had once commanded something greater.
"You know him?" Kaelen asked.
"No."
"Then stop looking like you do."
But the strange thing wasn't the man.
It was the air around him.
The river breeze never seemed to touch his cloak.
The grass at his feet never bent.
And once — just once — Alfon could have sworn the reflection in the water showed something taller behind him.
Something not human.
That night, Alfon dreamed.
He stood in a vast plain of ash. The sky cracked with lightning that did not strike the ground. Shapes moved in the distance — towering, luminous, terrible.
Spirits.
One burned like the sun.
One coiled like a storm.
One knelt, fractured, in gray.
And behind them all—
Darkness.
Not absence of light.
Presence of hunger.
Alfon woke gasping.
The next day, the old man was waiting on his side of the river.
"You see more than you speak," the man said calmly.
Alfon froze.
"I don't know you."
"No," the man agreed. "But I know what is coming."
Kaelen stepped forward immediately, placing himself slightly between them.
"And what's that?"
The old man's eyes shifted — and for a flicker of a second, they were not old.
They were ancient.
"Fire."
Silence.
The village behind them laughed. Farmers shouted. Life continued.
"You're a prophet now?" Kaelen asked flatly.
"I am a witness," the old man replied.
"To what?" Alfon asked.
"To repetition."
He looked toward the mountains.
"Once, long ago, spirits ruled the sky and sea. We were the first breath of the Creator upon the earth. We shaped wind. We guarded flame. We sang mountains into place."
Alfon felt the dream crawl back into his mind.
"And then?" he asked quietly.
"And then humans were made."
Kaelen frowned. "We've always been here."
"No," the old man said gently. "You were chosen."
Something shifted in his tone.
"Some of us rejoiced. Some did not."
The river grew strangely still.
"One spirit envied you most of all. Not because you were stronger."
"But because you were loved."
Alfon's chest tightened.
"The war that followed nearly unmade the world."
Kaelen shook his head. "This is madness."
"Is it?" the old man asked.
He looked at Alfon.
"You feel it already. Something changing."
Alfon did.
The air had felt heavier these past months. The sky quieter. Like birds had stopped singing for a reason no one else noticed.
"The King has climbed where he should not," the old man continued.
"And what does that have to do with us?" Kaelen demanded.
The old man stepped closer.
Up close, his presence felt… layered.
Like standing near deep water.
"Because when the ancient enemy stirs… it does not begin in palaces."
He looked at Emberfall.
"It begins where hope is weakest."
A long silence followed.
Then he extended his hand.
"My name is Maelor."
The wind finally touched his cloak.
"But once, I was called something else."
His shadow flickered behind him —
For a split second, enormous wings of pale light unfolded.
Then they vanished.
Kaelen stepped back.
Alfon did not.
"What do you want from us?" Alfon asked.
Maelor studied him carefully.
"I do not choose champions."
"I prepare survivors."
The bells of Emberfall's chapel rang in the distance.
Evening.
Peaceful.
Normal.
Maelor's expression darkened.
"You will need to leave soon," he said quietly.
"Leave?" Kaelen repeated.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Maelor turned his gaze toward the road leading into the village.
Far beyond the fields, barely visible —
Dust.
Rising.
Hooves.
Alfon felt it then.
Not fear.
Certainty.
The old man looked at him one last time.
"When the fire comes," Maelor said, "do not look back."
And for the first time —
Alfon believed him.