We moved north in silence.
The wind had turned sharp by midday, slicing down the spine of the mountain path and cutting through the cloaks wrapped tightly around our shoulders.
Sylri led as always, her gait precise and unsentimental. Her blade was slung across her back with the ease of someone who never needed to draw it unless she meant to kill. Each step she took carved a clean line through the terrain, her presence cutting forward like a silent declaration that she would not be slowed or questioned.
Riven walked behind her, not trailing and not leading, her movements quiet but certain. She existed in a kind of stillness that didn't ask for attention, but refused to be forgotten. Her cloak shifted softly with each step, and though her gaze stayed forward, I could feel the weight of what she wasn't saying.
I followed with fire burning beneath my skin, the Core pulsing steadily in my chest. My body moved with new strength, sharpened by power I had claimed and refused to question. Sylri moved like a blade drawn. Riven moved like a shadow remembered. And I walked between them, burning.
I was becoming exactly what the Core had promised.
The path narrowed as it traced the edge of the cliff, the earth thinning beneath our boots while the trees gave way to sharp, broken stone. The wind had carried the cold all morning, but now it shifted, drawing a strange hush across the slope like the mountain itself had paused to listen.
And that was when I heard it.
Not the wind or the creak of my companions' gear. This was something else.
It began as a stillness, the kind that arrives not with peace but with warning, as if the very air had changed its mind about who it belonged to. Then came the sound. A single twig snapping beneath calculated weight. The faint rustle of fabric and boots moving over dry ground with too much care to be innocent.
This wasn't nature. We were not alone.
I raised my hand.
Sylri stopped without needing a word. Her stance shifted, subtle but decisive, knees bending just slightly as her weight redistributed. She didn't look at me. She already it too.
Riven moved just as quickly. Her fingers hovered at the hilt of her sword, eyes narrowing as they scanned the trees ahead. Her breath slowed, not from fear, but from discipline, as if she were preparing her body for the moment it would be required to move.
I stepped forward and pulled flame to my palm. It responded instantly, flickering into life with a low golden glow that spilled across the forest floor. The underbrush lit in soft amber, shadows dancing between the trunks of dead trees.
At first, there was nothing.
Then an arrow came.
It hissed past my cheek so fast I felt the heat of its passage. It struck the tree behind me with a hard thwack, splitting the bark wide open.
"Cover," Sylri ordered, low and sharp.
Riven was already turning. Her hand gripped the hilt of her sword fully now, eyes locked onto the dark shapes forming just beyond the light. Sylri's sword cleared its sheath with a whisper, the motion so fluid it barely made a sound.
Another footstep. Another shift in the trees.
They were coming.
They emerged from the trees in silence, their movements slow and deliberate. Five at first, then more. Their shapes half-swallowed by the shadows, stepping into the glow of the firelight with weapons drawn and faces tight with purpose.
Their armor was worn, the kind patched together through years of travel or desperation. Mismatched leathers, cloaks faded with weather and war. Their blades glinted faintly, not with soot, but with something darker. Something wet. Poison, maybe. Or something worse.
I knew them.
They weren't strangers or mercenaries. These were not nameless hunters wandering the wilds for coin. These were men I had trained with. Walked beside. Eaten beside. Fought alongside. Men who had once called me brother when I had a name that meant something in a place that no longer existed.
They had lived in my old town.
They had patrolled the same borders, shared the same barracks, sworn the same oaths. And when the Core first chose me, when my fire bloomed too fast and scorched the ground I stood on, they were the ones who turned away. Their fear had outweighed their loyalty. Their silence had buried me deeper than exile ever could.
Now they stood before me again.
Not with questions. Not with remorse. But with blades drawn and eyes that held nothing but certainty. They had come to finish what they had once feared. They had come for the fire.
Not to serve it. Only to kill it.
And I realized something as I looked at them. They hadn't returned because they were brave. They hadn't come back because they wanted justice.
They had come because they smelled strength.
And weakness always comes for what it cannot control.
"You were supposed to stay dead," one of them said, his voice low and bitter. "They said the Core would eat you from the inside out."
"They were wrong," I replied, steady as steel. "I learned to eat it back."
He raised his blade. Its edge caught the light, but the metal glistened with something darker. Not rust. Not blood. Something slicker. Thicker.
"And now you're something worse," he said. "And we're here to fix that."
Riven moved first, instinct taking her a step in front of me, but I stopped her with a glance.
"I don't need you to fight this," I said. I wasn't sure if I meant it for her or myself.
Sylri's voice cut cleanly through the tension behind me.
"They're not here for a fight. They came to make sure you don't live long enough to learn what else the Core can become."
Her meaning hit a second too late.
The blade flashed. I felt it immediately. A sudden slash across my side, fast and low. The sting came first, sharp and immediate, but then came the warmth. Spreading too fast to be blood alone.
I staggered back, hand to my side, fingers slick with blood. The heat pulsed beneath my skin, wrong in its rhythm, spreading fast and quiet like something alive.
Riven moved like lightning. Her sword was a silver blur, catching the throat of the man who had cut me. He dropped without a word, eyes wide, body limp.
Sylri didn't hesitate. Her blade drove upward into the soft flesh under another man's jaw, angled clean through. She twisted as he spasmed, and when she pulled free, there was no sound left in him either.
The rest charged, but they were not ready for what we had become. Riven ducked beneath one man's strike and drove her sword into his gut, twisting once before pulling free with a sharp, wet sound. She turned, fluid and vicious, and used her momentum to open the throat of another. Her movements were cold and focused, but I saw it in the edge of her mouth, the set of her eyes. This was not just defense. It was fury.
Sylri moved like a shadow, efficient and unrelenting. She met every blade with the cold inevitability of someone who no longer questioned death. Her foot caught one attacker behind the knee, sending him down hard before she drove her sword into his spine. Another tried to flank her, but she stepped into his swing and slammed the hilt of her blade into his face. He crumpled under the blow, and her next strike ended him.
They fought like opposites. Riven, all heat and emotion barely held in check. Sylri, all precision and cold resolve. But together, they were devastating.
I tried to lift my hand. Tried to summon fire. But the poison twisted inside me. My palm sparked once, then failed. The Core flared in confusion. The world tilted slightly underfoot.
But by the time I staggered again, it was over.
The bodies around us stilled. Blood soaked the ground. The last enemy fell with a choked breath, and the clearing fell silent.
Riven reached me before the second breath.
She dropped to her knees in front of me, her hands already working. She tore the fabric of my tunic with swift, sure fingers. There was no hesitation in her movements, but something in her breath stuttered. Not from fear. From fury.
When she saw the wound, her jaw clenched. Her gaze flicked up to meet mine, and for a second, I saw everything she wasn't saying.
"This blade was laced," she said, and her voice was low, fraying at the edges.
I felt it now. Not just pain, but pressure, the kind that gnaws at your veins and makes your breath feel foreign. It wasn't fire. It was something that didn't belong, and the Core knew it. It screamed in silence.
"What kind of poison?" Sylri's voice came from behind me, calm as ever, but Riven didn't look up.
"It's Core-reactive," she answered. "It severs bonds. Disorients the sync. It's not meant to kill quickly. It's meant to make him unstable."
Her hand pressed into my wound harder, not cruelly, but to anchor me. Her palm stayed firm even as her fingers trembled. She didn't cry out. She didn't flinch. But her other hand lifted briefly, brushing the back of her glove across my cheek.
And then she pulled it away like it burned her.
"The sync is faltering," she said softly, almost to herself. "I can feel it flicker."
I caught her wrist before she could pull further away. My grip wasn't strong, but it was enough.
"Riven—"
"Don't speak," she snapped. But it wasn't anger in her voice. It was fear, stripped bare and reshaped into control.
One of the attackers let out a final breath behind us. A wet cough. Riven's body tensed. She stood slowly, sword already in hand, eyes burning.
Sylri moved first. Her blade found the last man's throat without a word.
But Riven didn't strike.
She walked forward and grabbed the collar of the man who still barely breathed.
"She begged us," he coughed. "Said you were cursed. Said you would burn the world if we let you live."
Riven's knuckles went white.
"Who?" I asked. My voice felt distant in my own mouth.
The man looked up at me, one last flicker of cruelty sparking behind his eyes.
"Your sister."
Then he died.
Riven didn't speak. She didn't turn to face me.
She just stood there for a moment longer, shoulders rigid, sword at her side. I saw the way her hand flexed. The way her breath shook once, almost silent, before she steadied it.
When she returned to my side, her expression was unreadable. But her movements were sharper now. Her hands no longer trembled. She slid under my arm and braced me against her shoulder without asking.
"You're not dying out here," she said. "We'll get you to the outpost. You'll survive this."
Her voice didn't shake. Not once.
But when she helped me walk, her grip stayed just a little too tight. And when she glanced away, I saw it again. That quiet ache buried beneath her calm. That stubborn, breaking thing that still refused to let go.
Sylri took point without a word.
I leaned against Riven as we moved, my body growing heavier with every step. My vision blurred at the edges, and the Core began to pulse in desperate, uneven flares. Not rage. Not strength. Just fear.
And somewhere in the pain, in the poison, in the silence that wrapped around her like a shield, I realized what Riven's touch really meant.
She wasn't holding me because I was falling.
She was holding me because she could not bear to feel me slip away.