The easternmost pier of Coralhaven stretched like a finger into the quiet waters of Lake Evenwell, its timbers slick with mist. Dawn had only just begun to lift the veil of night, painting the lake’s surface in hues of lavender and pearl. In that pale light, the water shimmered with an uncanny brilliance — like silver drinking the sky.

Boaz stood at the edge of the dock, the Sigil shell pressed beneath his tunic, its weight suddenly unfamiliar. It hadn’t changed, but something inside him had. Behind him, the others waited in silence — Lyra with her arms crossed, Jaxson looking out across the lake as if he could see what awaited, Theo bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, Kiera whispering something to Thorne, who sat beside her like a shadow. Aldryn and Cayden stood to one side, heads turned to one another, conversing silently.

The Aguan elders were all up as well, gathered together in a group. Some early morning Aguan risers also were huddled near the fringes of the crowd, looking expectant. Merran approached from the boathouse, his expression unreadable. He bore no weapon or tool, but walked up to Boaz, looked up into his eyes as if weighing him, then continued to the end of the pier where a narrow vessel waited at the end — a long, curved Aguan skiff carved from pale wood and reinforced with coral inlays. It glistened faintly in the half-light, as if it too belonged to the water. Boaz followed him.

“No need for words,” Merran said quietly. “Not now.”

Boaz nodded. Merran stepped into the stern of the boat first, and reached out to hold the pier piling. Boaz stepped into the boat, careful not to upset its balance. It rocked beneath his weight, but Merran steadied it with a practiced hand. Once Boaz was seated in the middle by the oars, Merran pushed off. He directed Boaz to take up the oars.

The lake was still. No breeze, no bird song. Only the gentle dip of oars in water and the occasional creak of the skiff. Around them, the lake stretched into vastness, ringed by forested hills and low mist — but Boaz barely noticed. His eyes remained fixed behind at the gathered crowd, the cabins, the pier, and the shoreline, all growing smaller, and his back to their destination. When he glanced behind him, he thought he saw a faint shimmer that marked their destination.

“Is it far?” Boaz asked, his voice too loud in the hush.

Merran did not answer immediately. Boaz rowed in silence for several strokes, propelling the boat a bit clumsily. He had never really had much practice with even small boats such as this. Forlon was a land-bound village, albeit with two converging rivers.

“The distance isn’t measured in strokes,” he said at last. “It’s measured in what you’re willing to give.”

That made no sense to Boaz, but he shrugged any questions out of his mind. Merran was clearly not going to tell him much of use. He glanced down at the water. Here, even the depths reflected the pale dawn — a mirrored world beneath their own. The phrase echoed in his mind: “where the silver drinks the sky.” This was the place the crazy old man in Cirol had spoken of. What were the rest of his mad words again? He began to think they weren’t so insane. Maybe it was he who was mad, for making the connection.

“What will I face?” Boaz asked.

Merran tilted his head and looked past Boaz. He seemed to be thinking, or just looking. “We do not know. The reef doesn’t speak to us. It hasn’t in generations. But it remembers. It remembers sacrifice, courage… and failure.”

Boaz swallowed hard. The Sigil pressed warmly against his chest.

“Why me?”

Merran looked at him then, really looked, as if weighing him.

“You carry more than you know. But the lake will judge that. Not me.” Boaz continued rowing. “The Sigil has slept a long time. If this is truly the first leaf… you won’t come back from the trial the same.”

Boaz didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. The truth was already unraveling in him. What he was really wondering was IF he would return.

After a time, they arrived at a place where the mist thinned and the lake bottom rose up in a scattered reef of jagged rock and glistening coral — barely visible beneath the glassy surface. The boat scraped gently against it, and Merran stood.

“This is where we stop,” he said. “The rest you must experience on your own.”

Boaz hesitated. “Do I… dive?”

“You’ll know.”

Boaz stood, legs unsteady, then stepped into the water. It was colder than he expected, though not biting — a chill that reached into his bones and stayed there. Waist-deep, the water gleamed silver-blue around him. The reef beneath his feet was sharp, uneven. With each step he took, the surface rippled and shimmered. There were no waves.

Behind him, Merran had sat down and remained in the boat, watching without expression.

Boaz took one last look out over the lake. The rising sun caught a break in the clouds, and for one perfect moment, the silver of the lake mirrored the sky above in full — silver drinking silver, a boundary between worlds.

Then something shifted beneath him — a current pulling down, not forward. His foot slipped, and before he could cry out, the lake seized him.

He fell with no time to breathe. The lake did not ask permission. It claimed him.

Down he sank, past sound, past light, past thought. The cold enfolded him like a second skin, and for a moment, he felt the world slip — as if his body had been left behind and only something essential remained.

There was no up or down. Only stillness. Only silence.

Then, softly, something stirred.

A flicker. A warmth. A pulse beneath the silence.

The darkness did not break — it unspooled, like the ink of a memory bleeding into water.

Shadows peeled away. Light took shape, not as it was, but as it had been — touched by firelight, and golden dust, and the quiet weight of years.

The lake was gone.

His father’s cabin and forge both remembered, and Boaz stood in it.

The cabin was not the ruined husk it had become, but as it had been — whole, humming with morning stillness, lit by shafts of pale light slanting through high windows. The hearth glowed gently, coals resting beneath a layer of ash. It smelled of iron and sweat and old wood — familiar. Sacred.

His father was there.

“Da? How can this be?” Boaz’s words fell muffled in the cabin. His father didn’t hear him. “This must be a vision.”

Truan moved with quiet precision, sleeves rolled to the elbows, hands blackened with soot. He worked a blade — long and simple — shaping it not for ceremony or war, but for use. A farmer’s weapon. A defender’s tool. Boaz recognized it now as the same one they’d seen near his father’s body.

He watched Truan lift it from the anvil, test the balance. His face was tired. Lined.

A bell rang in the distance — sharp, urgent.

Truan paused. His head turned slightly, as though he knew what that sound meant. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He didn’t curse or panic. He simply took a breath and set the blade aside, carefully, as if still honoring the work.

Then he reached for a cloth and wiped his hands. He opened a drawer, pulled out a leather wrap, and tied it around his wrist — the old kind, from his short time as a soldier, though he no longer had any armor.

Boaz followed his father as he walked through the open doorway — the forge fading into the yard of their home, dreamlike.

There were faint screams in the village beyond. The smoke had already begun to rise.

Truan didn’t hesitate. He crossed to the threshold of the cabin and picked up the finished blade from the forge’s side bench. It gleamed faintly, not from polish, but from recent care.

Boaz trailed behind, no longer sure whether he was dreaming or remembering. The world took on a strange, detached clarity — sounds too crisp, colors just slightly dulled.

Outside the cabin, from the edge of the Dimlaith to the north, the shadows moved, and a horrible rumbling screech that seemed to come from the earth.

Fallen.

They came like animals — malformed and twitching, eyes lit with mindless hunger. But they paused, briefly, just near the edge of the yard.

Because something still held them.

Behind them, from the gloom of the forest, came the Handler.

It was taller than the others, draped in dark robes that bled into the gloom. Its face was bare — pale, sunken, and wrong. The eyes glowed faint orange, not with fire, but with command. Its fingers flicked almost lazily, as if conducting a silent rhythm. And the creatures obeyed.

Truan stepped forward.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t speak.

He struck.

The sword moved in his hand like it had waited for this — cleaving through one, two, three of the advancing Fallen. They hissed and shrieked, but he fought with the focus of a man with nothing left to lose. Every swing mattered. Every cut landed.

All the while, the Handler and the Fallen gained ground. There were simply too many of them for one man. Truan, seeing this, backed into the cabin. Boaz thought it was a good tactical move, to limit the number he had to fight at any one time. But the Fallen were reckless, and pressed in all together, pushing and shoving each other, all the while screeching and hacking with their horrible weapons. Truan already had his back to the wall when the Handler stepped inside.

Then his father turned, blade raised — and charged the Handler.

It looked surprised.

Boaz wanted to shout, to cry out in warning — but the memory played on, deaf to intervention.

Truan drove the sword through the Handler’s chest.

The creature screamed — a high, keening wail — and crumpled.

The Fallen stuttered.

Their connection broke like glass under pressure — suddenly and completely. They reeled, confused, feral. Some lashed out at each other. Others turned and fled through the open door, shrieking into the village beyond.

But the damage was done.

One remained — close, too close. A final creature, jaws like split bone, lunged as Truan turned to catch his breath.

Boaz saw it all — too fast to stop.

The claws raked his father’s side.

Truan staggered.

He fell to his knees, then forward, face down on the floorboards of his cabin.

The sword clattered beside him.

Boaz moved through the dream-space, crossing the distance.

He stood over the body — and for a terrible moment, it twitched.

The Fallen corruption crept through Truan’s limbs like frost on glass, darkening skin, curling his fingers. The same sickness Boaz had seen in the other Fallen.

Except this time it wasn’t the nameless, reanimated corpse of a Fallen. It was his father. The Fallen that rose wasn’t a monster. Not to Boaz. Not this time.

It was a man who had worked alone in the morning quiet, who had heard the bell and answered it without fear. A man who had fought, killed, and died to protect his home.

His family.

The Fallen-Truan lifted its head. Clouded eyes met Boaz’s. Boaz could tell that it could see him, somehow.

And Boaz stepped forward. He did not draw the Sigil. He did not lift a weapon.

He opened his arms. “I still love you,” he whispered.

The creature froze.

“I saw what you did. You protected us. You were brave.” Boaz stepped closer, tears welling in his eyes. “And I love you for that, and so much more.”

He placed his hand gently on the chest of what his father had become. The darkness flickered. Fallen-Truan didn’t shatter. It didn’t scream. It simply faded — like breath on glass.

For a heartbeat, Boaz saw his father’s face again. Truan looked tired, and younger somehow. His eyes shone — not with sorrow, but with peace.

Then the vision unraveled.

Boaz gasped awake.

He lay on cold stone, water pooling around him. The reef chamber he found himself in was silent, the surface far above dimly glowing with morning light, filtering through the reef above, impossibly.

He clutched his chest. Not because of pain, but because it still hurt to love.

Boaz lay still for a long time.

His breathing was shallow, his limbs heavy, as though the dream had drained more than just memory. The cold stone beneath him felt real now — sharp against his spine, slick with water. Light filtered down from the surface high above, fractured and rippling, a silver net cast over the reef chamber.

He rolled slowly to one side, propping himself up with trembling arms. He ached, like he had just fought in a tremendous battle. He had never been this sore before in his life.

The chamber was a hollow dome of stone and coral, ringed with narrow shafts where light pierced from above. Water pooled around the edges, glimmering with strange colors — opal and turquoise, silver and pearl.

Then he saw it.

Nestled in the reef wall just a few feet ahead, something glinted — a smooth, curved shard of mother-of-pearl, in shape like a leaf from a mountain laurel, but smaller. It shimmered in the water like it was alive. Veins of blue and white pulsed faintly across its surface, and though it looked delicate, it radiated a quiet power.

Boaz crawled toward it, drawn by something he didn’t fully understand, and not able to stand yet.

As he reached the reef’s edge, he planted his hand for balance — and hissed as sharp coral cut across his palm.

A thin ribbon of blood curled into the water.

He winced but didn’t pull away. Instead, he let the pain anchor him — a reminder that he was still present, still breathing. Still himself.

With his uninjured hand, he reached out and gently pried the pearl-leaf from the reef. It came free without resistance, as if it had been waiting for him alone.

He cradled it for a moment. It was cool to the touch, unnaturally smooth, and pulsed with a slow rhythm — not unlike a heartbeat.

He finally was able to push himself back into a sitting position, still partly in the water. He didn’t care that he was cold and wet. He drew the Sigil shell from beneath his tunic, on its chain.

It had once been a relic, cold and inert. Now it was warm in his grasp — almost eager.

Unsure what to do, he pressed the leaf to its surface.

The reaction was instant.

A burst of searing light erupted between his hands, silver and blue, blinding. Heat surged through his arms, not like fire, but like pressure — as if something deep within him was being forged, reshaped, fused.

He cried out, flung backward. The shell twisted in his grip, changing as it did so. The leaf melted into the frame of the Sigil — not vanishing, but merging — lines of etched pearl threading into the Sigil’s dark surface like veins of lightning across stone.

His palm throbbed where the coral had cut him, but the blood no longer flowed. The wound had closed, sealed by unseen forces.

The Sigil now bore the leaf like a crest — not an adornment, but a part of its very structure.

Boaz stared, wide-eyed, still on his back.

And then the pain returned — a final pulse, like the cracking of stone or bone deep within his chest.

His vision grew dim, though he was vaguely aware that he still clutched the Sigil against him, his heart racing.

The light faded.

The chamber dimmed.

And Boaz, now bound to something older and greater than himself, fell once more into darkness.

The first thing Boaz felt was warmth — not the chill of the stone and coral chamber, not the strange pulse of the Sigil — but the soft, golden warmth of sun through a window. He opened his eyes slowly.

He was in a cottage. Another vision?

Wooden beams crossed the low ceiling. A fire crackled gently in a stone hearth. Shelves lined the walls — some with books, others with jars of herbs and carved wooden toys. The scent of bread drifted in from a nearby kitchen.

Thorne lay curled near the fire, muzzle twitching in sleep, older now, his fur grayer, but peaceful.

Boaz blinked. He was seated in a sturdy chair with a blanket over his legs. His boots, placed by the door, were muddy, his shirt was rumpled, as if he’d just come in from chopping wood. A familiar ache lived in his shoulders, not from battle, but from honest labor around the homestead.

From another room, laughter rang out — children, two or three, chasing one another down the hallway.

He rose, slowly, and stepped toward the open doorway.

The room beyond was sunlit. A wooden table bore a half-finished puzzle. A kettle steamed gently on the stove. And near the counter stood a woman, back turned, humming as she cut slices of apple for a small plate.

Her voice — the hum, the cadence — it stirred something in him. Familiar.

She turned slightly, just enough to reveal a glimpse of her profile, but the light through the window obscured her face. He could almost make it out… Almost.

Was that… Kiera’s softness? Lyra’s wit in the smile? Or neither?

“Will you sit with us?” she asked, her voice low and warm. “They’ve missed you.”

He didn’t speak. His throat was too tight. The front door opened, and a breeze rolled in from the lake beyond. Boaz turned and stepped outside, as if the open door were an invitation he couldn’t resist.

The cottage sat near a quiet shoreline, surrounded by hills and tall grass. The lake — Evenwell? — shimmered in the midday sun. Birds flitted among the trees. A fishing pole leaned against a tree stump.

He knew this place. He had dreamed of it once, long ago, before the world demanded more of him.

He heard footsteps behind him. The woman placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “Come back in,” she said. “The stew’s almost ready.”

Her hand lingered for a moment — and then was gone.

Boaz turned to speak, to ask her name, but the door had already closed. He stood alone in the breeze. The wind shifted. And with it, the world.

The lake dimmed. The hills darkened. The cottage in the distance sagged, the wood grayed with rot. The air grew thick. The birds vanished. The laughter faded.

Cracks spread through the earth like veins. He turned — and saw the horizon turning to shadow. A black tide rolling across the fields. No armies, no torches — just silence, cold and creeping.

The vision shifted again. Now he stood in the ruins of a battlefield. The Sigil lay shattered in the mud, its pieces strewn like old bones.

Kiera knelt beside Theo, her hands red with blood. Lyra fought off something in the dark with a broken dagger. Jaxson shouted into the void, calling for someone who would never answer.

Behind it all, a figure loomed — cloaked in shadows, crowned with fire.

Vortannis.

The Fallen swarmed like insects behind him, endless, mindless. The world bent toward ruin.

Boaz turned, desperate to flee — and found himself back at the cottage door.

Warmth, laughter, peace. It was all still there, waiting.

He realized he could choose it. Lay down the burden. Let the world be what it would, and keep this instead — this family, this quiet.

The woman opened the door again. Her face still obscured by the light, the breeze in her hair. “You don’t have to fight any more,“ she said gently. “You can stay.”

A second voice spoke then, layered under hers — deeper, distant, from somewhere beyond the dream. “Will you let the world burn for your peace?”

Boaz froze, his hands clenched.

He looked back at the battlefield — the shattered Sigil, the wounded, the dying — and then once more at the children laughing within.

He swallowed. “No,” he whispered. “I won’t.”

The door blew shut, the wind howled through the vision, the light fractured, and the dream dissolved.

He fell through silence — a slow, spiraling descent. The warmth vanished. The imagined hearth, the voices, the sunlit lake — all torn away like mist by wind. In their place: pressure. Cold. The rasp of his own breath clawing its way back into his chest.

His body returned first — heavy, aching, waterlogged. His fingers burned. His muscles screamed. The Sigil pressed hard against his ribs, alive with a new weight.

Then hands gripped his arms — real, calloused, firm.

The boat rocked violently as Boaz was pulled aboard.

Merran caught him under the arms and eased him into the skiff’s bench with surprising strength for someone so small and lean. The lake shimmered behind them, sunlight now cresting fully above the trees. Boaz blinked against the brightness.

The Sigil hung against his chest, cool now — but changed.

Its dark surface bore a single, gleaming leaf: mother-of-pearl etched with fine veins of silver and blue, like frost spun across glass. It pulsed faintly with a rhythm not unlike breath.

Merran paused at the sight of it.

For a moment, the old scout said nothing. Then he knelt in the skiff and reached out, stopping just short of touching it.

“No one alive has seen one,” he said softly. “Not even the elders. We always thought… maybe the reef had forgotten. Or we weren’t worthy anymore.”

Boaz looked down. “It remembered.”

Merran exhaled — not a laugh, not quite a sigh — and nodded. “Then so must we.”

Merran took up the oars, seeing that Boaz was unable to do so. As they rowed back toward Coralhaven, the mist had fully lifted. The village came into view, bright and sharp in the morning sun.

At the edge of the pier, a crowd waited — more than Boaz expected. Then he saw familiar shapes at the front.

Lyra was the first to spot him. “He lives!” she shouted. “Pay up, Theo!”

Theo groaned. “That wasn’t a serious wager!”

Kiera elbowed him. “You’re just upset you lost.”

The moment the skiff bumped the dock, Thorne leapt aboard. He landed with a wet thump, sniffed Boaz’s chest, then nosed his ribs with a low, growling whuff.

Boaz ruffled the lynx’s ears. “I’m fine, furball. Mostly.”

Lyra reached out to steady him as he stepped onto the pier. “You look like you fell asleep in a rain barrel.”

Boaz gave a faint grin. “Feels more like one fell on me.”

Theo stepped forward, his eyes locked on the Sigil. He stared for a moment, then said softly, almost to himself, “It’s changed now. It’s not just an empty iron frame, but more like the beginning of something that wants to be whole.”

The villagers pressed in behind them, murmuring. The Aguan stood quietly, many of them staring at the Sigil in open awe.

Merran turned to face them all. “It is done,” he said. “The leaf is bound. Evenwell has given its answer.”

After some moments of the gathering murmuring in awe, a small girl pushed her way to the front, barely tall enough to see over the edge of the dock. She stared at Boaz’s chest and pointed.

“That’s not just a glowing rock,” she declared. “My mom says that’s mother-of-pearl. And it’s singing.”

Laughter broke out, warm and startled — and the tension eased like a tide going out.

Boaz smiled. “Smart kid,” he said.

That night, the village gathered under the stars.

Lanterns hung from the tall arching reeds that ringed Coralhaven’s central gathering platform — a wide, woven mat of driftwood and rivercane that rose just above the waterline. The moon cast ripples of silver across the lake, and the breeze carried the scent of fish stew, damp moss, and cooling clay from the lakeshore.

Boaz sat with the others near the back of the gathering. Being taller than the Aguan anyway, they could still see to the front. The company had been invited not as outsiders, but as witnesses. Kiera sat cross-legged beside him, listening intently, Eira sitting, large eyes closed, on her shoulder. Jaxson was sitting nearby, Kestel perched on his shoulder, eyes alert and scanning. Theo had gone silent, scratching behind Tink’s ears while she nibbled on a small fish, content. Lyra leaned back on her elbows, eyes half-lidded but alert, Mika laying haphazardly next to her. Cayden and Aldryn, with Nevara hopping nearby, stood together at the back, at ease, and conversing softly. Thorne lay at Boaz’s side, tail twitching with every shift in tone.

At the front, the Aguan elders had formed a loose semicircle. Most were old, though their age did not slow their movements. They spoke in turns, each one passionate, but respectful. Some wore ceremonial wraps adorned with shells or glass beads, others came plainly dressed, as if that lent more weight to their words.

“The leaf was bound,” said Elder Viss, a round-shouldered woman with a voice like riverstone. “That much is clear. But we must not leap to conclusions. Magic tricks the heart when it wants to be seen.”

“But it was seen,” Merran countered from his place on the circle’s edge. “With our own eyes. The Sigil, long empty, now bears the Aguan leaf. What more proof do you require?”

“Survival,” muttered Elder Kray, the oldest among them. His gills fluttered with each slow breath. “Proof that one of us can stay away from the water. Live. Not fall ill.”

“And how will we know,” said Merran gently, “unless one of us tries?”

That sparked murmurs. One elder nodded in agreement. Another shook her head, arms crossed tight.

Boaz leaned toward Kiera. “They sound like us,” he whispered.

She smiled faintly. “Seems every people has their doubters. And their dreamers.”

“We’ve clung to the lake for generations,” Merran continued, now rising to his feet. “Not by choice, but by need. Since the Sundering, when the Sigil was broken and the races were scattered, we have not been able to live more than seven days away from water without falling ill… or worse. Some say we were cursed. Others say we were protected. But something happened today. Something sacred. We cannot pretend the world hasn’t changed.”

“What would you have us do?” Elder Viss asked, skeptical but not unkind.

“Volunteers,” said Merran. “Seven days. Away from the water. Not alone — in company, in safety. We’ll keep record. Observe. But we try.”

Silence fell across the platform.

Then, one by one, heads began to nod.

Boaz looked up at the sky. Stars gleamed overhead, cold and bright, their light echoing off the Sigil’s newly forged leaf.

Theo broke the silence beside him. “You know,” he said, voice low, “this might be the first time I’ve seen people change their minds because of magic.”

Boaz smiled. “Or maybe because of hope.”

Kiera looked toward the elders, her expression unreadable. “Maybe the two aren’t so different.”

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