The gates of Solara closed behind them with the grinding weight of centuries.

Stone kissed stone, a sound older than kingdoms, older even than memory. Rael did not turn back. To do so would be to invite grief, and grief was a luxury for those who still had homes. He had none. Solara’s towers of glass and flame would endure without him — or shatter because of him.

Beside him, Sira adjusted the folds of her emerald cloak, her gaze fixed not behind but ahead, toward horizons stitched with stormlight. Her staff glimmered faintly, veins of living wood twining about crystal. Lakvenor, less graceful, shifted the twin-bladed staff across his back, muttering curses at the silence.

“Feels wrong,” Lakvenor said at last. “Walking away. Like we should be storming the throne room, not wandering off into the clouds.”

“It is not running away,” Rael replied, his voice low, controlled. “It is choosing where the first blow of fate will fall.”

Lakvenor scowled. “You always make retreat sound like wisdom.”

“And you always make wisdom sound like cowardice.”

Sira cut between them with the patience of earth. “Perhaps it is both. Retreat to survive, wisdom to endure. Either way, exile is no gentle path. The realms beyond Solara are not kind.”

Rael gave the faintest nod. “Which is why we must learn them as they once were — not as rumor claims them to be.”

Ahead stretched the Skyward Road.

The Causeway of Ages

The causeway did not belong to mortals.

A span of stone and crystal, it arched across endless air, linking Solara’s bright lands to a distant, shimmering forest continent. Crystalline pylons rose from the edges like ribs of some ancient beast, etched in runes that flickered with weary light. The abyss below was cloud-choked, but gaps revealed flashes of rivers and mountains, entire continents adrift like ships in a cosmic sea.

The three exiles stepped onto it, their boots sending echoes into silence too vast to measure. The wind clawed at their cloaks, sharp with ozone.

Lakvenor glanced down once and swore. “No rails. No nets. Just a polite invitation to fall into forever.”

Sira touched one of the pylons, her fingers tracing worn runes. “These roads were carved when gods still walked openly. They were not built for mortals, Lakvenor. They are arteries of the world.”

“Lovely. I still prefer roads that don’t come with a death sentence.”

Rael did not answer. His eyes were on the far horizon, where trees gleamed faintly with inner light. Yet even he felt the strangeness settle around them. The very air thickened, charged with unseen power. His sword, Flame-Edge, stirred at his hip as though in warning.

The Sky-Wraiths

They came with the storm.

At first, it was only a change in the wind, a low hum rising from the pylons. Then shadows pulled themselves free of the clouds — vast shapes, half-serpent, half-bird, wings woven from lightning. Their bodies flickered translucent, like smoke given thought.

Sky-Wraiths. Guardians of the crossings, older than kingdoms, unbound by flesh.

Lakvenor tightened his grip on his staff. “Finally. Something I can hit.”

Rael lifted a hand. “No. They are not beasts. They are keepers.”

The largest Wraith coiled above them, its eyes twin storms swirling in emptiness. When it spoke, thunder cracked across the causeway.

“Travelers. Speak your purpose upon the Road.”

Rael stepped forward, shoulders squared. Though exile had stripped him of titles, his voice still bore the weight of Solara. “I am Rael, born of Solara, son of the Phoenix Spark. I walk not in conquest, but in exile, to spare my kingdom bloodshed. I seek the realms beyond, and the truths they guard.”

The Wraith’s gaze swept across him, then to Sira.

Her reply was quieter, yet rooted, her words carrying the patience of earth itself. “We are bound by prophecy, yet we do not walk as puppets. We seek freedom, not chains.”

Thunder rolled like a question. “Exile… or pilgrimage?”

Sira did not flinch. “Both.”

The Wraiths circled, voices overlapping like storms colliding. Then, with a sound like a lightning-struck oak, they dissolved into the clouds. Only one streak of lightning lingered, coiling around a pylon before fading.

Passage granted.

Lakvenor let out a frustrated groan. “No fight? All that, and not even a duel over the abyss?”

Rael gave him a look. “Not every challenge is answered with steel.”

Lakvenor muttered, “Tell that to my blade-staff. It’s very persuasive.”

Sira smiled faintly, though her grip on her staff remained tense. “Save your persuasion. The forest ahead may not be so easily moved.”

The Glimmerwood

By the time they reached the far side, Ayara’s twin eclipses hung high above — one rimmed in fire, the other drowned in shadow.

Before them stretched the Glimmerwood.

It was no ordinary forest. Trees rose like towers, their trunks veined with light, bark shimmering faintly as though carved of crystal. Leaves shifted color with the wind, rippling from silver to green to violet in waves. Strange motes drifted between branches, glowing faintly like stars that had strayed too low.

The air was alive with scent: resin, soil, blossoms unseen. Every step into the undergrowth seemed to stir whispers, like voices caught between memory and dream.

Rael slowed. Flame-Edge thrummed at his side, heat coiling through the hilt. “This place remembers.”

“Remembers what?” Lakvenor asked, bravado tempered by awe.

Sira knelt, pressing her hand to a root that pulsed faintly with green light. “A covenant. Long ago, this forest pledged itself to mortals. In return, mortals honored its guardians. But covenants fade when one side forgets.”

The ground shifted.

Roots uncoiled like serpents. From the trees themselves, forms emerged — giants of bark and crystal, their limbs creaking with age, their amber eyes burning steady as molten suns. Forest guardians, neither spirit nor flesh, protectors of the covenant.

They did not strike, but they blocked the path, silent as judgment.

Lakvenor cracked a grin, spinning his staff. “Ah, finally. A welcoming committee.”

Rael stepped forward, lifting Flame-Edge but not drawing it. “We mean no harm,” he called. His voice rang in the hush. “We seek only passage.”

The guardians stirred, their eyes shifting from Rael to Sira. The earth beneath her hand pulsed brighter, almost in recognition. One of the giants bent low, bark cracking, its voice deep as stone grinding.

“Child of Verdancy. Blood of covenant. Speak.”

Sira rose slowly, heart hammering. Her voice was steady but soft, each word weighed with care. “We walk in exile, not conquest. If your covenant still remembers mercy, let it remember us.”

The guardians were still. Then, with groaning reverence, they stepped aside, leaving a path deeper into the glowing forest.

Sira exhaled, though her hands trembled faintly.

Rael touched her shoulder. “Well done.”

Lakvenor grinned. “See? I told you she’s more persuasive than me.”

Sira gave him a look sharp enough to cut bark, though amusement danced in her eyes. “And wiser too.”

Rael, however, was not smiling. His gaze lingered on the guardians as they melted back into the trees. Exile had only just begun, and already Ayara itself was watching. Testing. Judging.

The Glimmerwood awaited, and with it, secrets older than prophecy.