The forest was quiet when she arrived.

The girl — the same sixteen-year-old Kael and Selene had saved just a day before — stepped cautiously between scorched roots and broken earth. Smoke still clung to the clearing like a ghost that refused to leave, curling in thin tendrils over the battlefield.

She had followed the trail of magic — faint pulses still rippling in the air like echoes. What she found made her breath catch.

Kael lay crumpled near the base of a shattered tree, his face bloodied, shirt torn, barely breathing. A few feet away, Selene’s body was half-covered in ash, a gash across her shoulder slowly seeping. Neither moved.

She ran to them.

“Kael?” Her voice cracked. She dropped beside him, shaking his shoulder gently. “Selene?”

No answer.

Luman lay curled beside Kael — his tiny form twitching weakly, fur singed. Aries stood nearby, battered and bloodied, his breathing labored but steady. His golden eyes followed her but made no move to stop her.

She tore cloth from her own tunic and pressed it to Selene’s shoulder, hands trembling. She had no healing magic. No training. Just instinct. Just desperation.

“You said you’d be okay…” she whispered. “You both said you’d be okay.”

She checked their pulses. Faint… but there.

Only then did her breath start to come again.

She stayed there, between them, as the last light of the day faded. She didn’t cry. She didn’t move. She watched them breathe.

As night fell, Kael stirred first.

A low groan escaped him as his eyes blinked open, unfocused. His body ached, every nerve screaming, but instinct pulled him upright.

“Selene…” he muttered.

The girl’s eyes lit up. “You’re alive!” she gasped, helping support his weight. “Don’t move too fast. You’re still—”

Kael raised his hand slowly. His palm shimmered faintly, and threads of mana rippled from his skin.

“I can heal…” he breathed.

He pressed his hand gently against Selene’s wound. Blue light pulsed once — then again — before fading into her skin. The gash on her shoulder slowly closed.

Selene stirred.

Kael leaned back, exhausted but relieved. Selene blinked at the two of them, confused, then took in her surroundings with growing horror.

“The beast…?”

“Gone,” the girl said. “You killed it.”

Kael nodded faintly. “We survived… barely.”

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

Then the girl looked east — toward the deep forest.

“My village,” she said. “I need to see it.”

Kael opened his mouth to argue, but she was already on her feet.

“I’ll return,” she said quietly. “Thank you… for saving me.”

And she turned, vanishing into the trees — walking toward whatever was left of her home.

She saw something that froze her in place — something that hollowed the breath from her lungs.

The trees thinned.

And beyond them… nothing.

Where her village had once stood — where she had played, laughed, eaten, grown — now lay only blackened soil and broken bones. The houses were no more than heaps of charcoal. The well was cracked down the middle, steaming faintly. Burned cloth fluttered from collapsed walls like surrendering flags.

It was not ruins she found.
It was a grave.

She stumbled forward. Step after step, knees buckling with each footfall.

She passed the ash-covered remains of the baker’s shop. A scorched cooking pot. The shell of a wooden cart. Someone’s sandals, left upright in the dirt as if the owner had vanished mid-step.

She didn’t find her mother’s body. Nor her father’s. But she didn’t need to. The silence was already screaming.

Her foot struck something. A doll. Half-burned. Her sister’s.

She collapsed.

Not from pain.
Not even from exhaustion.

But from the weight of knowing she was the last heartbeat left of a village that had once been full of them.

A rustle in the trees behind her broke the stillness.

Kael and Selene stepped into the clearing at the edge of the village. They had followed the trail not with hope, but with dread.

They saw her there — kneeling in the ash, her head bowed, the doll still clutched to her chest. Her shoulders didn’t shake, but grief rolled off her like heat from smoldering coals.

Kael opened his mouth — then closed it. Words felt useless.

Selene took a step forward, then stopped. Her hand reached out instinctively… and fell to her side.

There was nothing they could offer her here.

Nothing but silence.

And so, with hearts heavy and throats tight, they turned back.

Toward the cave.

Toward the only sanctuary they had left.

They returned to the cave in silence, the girl's grief clinging to them like a second shadow.

By morning, the cave pulsed with new energy. Rest had come — just enough to move again, to plan, to rise.

Training resumed at dawn.

The girl, now introduced as Ira, stood quietly at the edge of the circle. Her eyes were still hollow, but her spine was straight. She had not spoken much, but she had not asked to leave.

Alongside her stood the other young initiates:

- Rek, a wiry boy with a quick temper and quicker footwork.
- Nyra, calm and focused, with a talent for channeling stone-based spells.
- Tovan, the largest of the group, slow to speak but fiercely loyal.
- Lysa, youngest of them all but sharp with elemental intuition.

Kael faced them all, bruised but no longer broken. Selene stood beside him, her arm bandaged, her eyes sharp.

This was no longer just training.

It was preparation.

The next rift would not wait.

They prepared to close the rift — the same one Kael and Selene had barely survived.

No one spoke of it directly, but the memory clung to every breath. Ira trained with silent fury, her movements sharp, relentless. Rek clashed against Tovan in mock combat, their grunts echoing off the cave walls. Nyra sat cross-legged, coaxing stone from the earth with quiet control. Lysa’s hands glowed faintly as she learned to shape wind into invisible barriers.

Kael stood apart, sketching glyphs into the dirt. Diagrams. Fail-safes. His mana flickered in controlled pulses — not just for combat now, but for containment. They couldn’t allow another breach.

Selene stood beside Aries, practicing her magma spear control. This time, she didn’t hesitate.

They would return to that place — the forest clearing beyond the ruins — and they would seal the rift. Not with borrowed spells. Not with blind bravery.

But with intention.

With resolve.

With everything they had left.