By the time dawn bled through the dust-veiled sky, Torren's fever had worsened.
The wound on his leg, once just swollen and bruised, now radiated a sickly warmth. Stripes of red crawled from under the bandage like roots reaching for breath. He tried to sit up when Evelyn stirred the fire, but nearly collapsed.
"Don't," she said softly, easing him back against a pile of salvaged cloth.
"I'm fine."
"You're not," she said, wiping sweat from his brow with a strip torn from her own cloak. "You're burning up."
"I've fought through worse," Torren muttered.
"That's not something to be proud of."
She glanced at Vareth, who had returned from scouting the northern ridge and now crouched on a broken stone nearby, chewing calmly on a dried fruit rind. He had barely spoken since the night before, but his gaze never left Torren.
"Beast claws shouldn't fester that fast," Evelyn said.
"They don't," Vareth agreed. "Unless the beast was Touched."
Evelyn blinked. "Touched?"
"By the Echo."
A silence followed—sharp and sudden. Torren groaned softly as he drifted into shallow sleep.
Evelyn rose and walked a few paces from camp, just past the crumbled threshold stone, where the wind didn't smell quite so foul. Vareth followed. Of course he did. Always there, like a shadow with its own mind.
"What does that mean?" she asked. "Touched?"
Vareth's voice was low. "Some beasts are echo-borne—born warped, shaped by the same breach that split the corefields. Others are only Touched—tainted. Their minds no longer their own."
Evelyn shivered, though the wind was warm. "So that thing in Vaelbridge—"
"Wasn't just hungry. It was sent."
Evelyn stared down the broken path ahead. Far in the distance, pale smoke curled from what might be a Guild marker stone, though it leaned like it had given up centuries ago. They still had days to go before reaching the next outpost.
"I can't carry him the whole way," she whispered.
"You might have to."
"No. There's got to be another way."
Vareth tilted his head. "There is."
She turned toward him sharply. "Then tell me."
He extended a hand—not for her to take, but to point. At the flame she carried, still burning in a curved piece of shardbone bound to her chest with leather straps. It pulsed faintly, a slow rhythm, like breath held between heartbeats.
"You're bonded to the heartfire," he said. "It's more than heat. More than light."
"I know that."
"You don't. Not yet." His voice grew grave. "There's a rite. An old one. From the Ashwalkers who survived the First Hollowing."
Evelyn's lips parted, but Vareth kept speaking.
"They swore an Oath. To guard, to carry, to burn. And in exchange, the fire granted them endurance. Strength. Healing."
"You think that'll help him?" she asked.
"I think," Vareth said, stepping closer, "you have two choices. Burn what you carry… or let him die slowly."
Her hands curled into fists.
"He wouldn't want me to use it like that."
"He wouldn't want to die either."
She looked over her shoulder. Torren stirred in sleep, lips dry, breath shallow.
"I don't know the rite," she said.
"I do."
The rest of the morning passed in silence. Evelyn built a second fire—smaller, shielded from the wind—and laid Torren beside it. Vareth traced the rite into the dust between them: a circle with five points, each drawn with a drop of ash and ember. At the center, he placed a shard of coreglass wrapped in faded cloth.
"It will burn part of you," he warned. "The Oath is not a gift freely given. Your flame will weaken for a time. And it might not return the same."
"I understand."
He looked at her. "Do you? Magic isn't mercy. It changes what it touches. Even you."
Evelyn knelt. Her fingers hovered over the glyphs, and the heartfire in her hand pulsed. It was warm, but not gently. This was a fire that remembered.
She pressed her palm into the center.
A breath. A crack. Then flame.
It roared—silently, inwardly, curling not around her fingers but through them, winding like a serpent up her arm, through her ribs, down her spine. Pain followed—sharp and bright, not physical but deeper.
She heard voices.
A chorus, hundreds layered.
"To carry the burning light is to bleed with purpose."
"To give of flame is to be made hollow, and whole, and haunted."
"Say it."
"I swear," she whispered, mouth dry. "To carry. To guard. To burn."
The heartfire flared gold, then dimmed.
A thread of warmth left her, and Evelyn staggered. The pain vanished—but something had gone with it. Her heartbeat felt slower. Her skin—numb.
Torren stirred again, gasping. The lines of red around his wound faded, and the swelling ebbed slightly.
He blinked up at her.
"You look like death," he murmured.
"You should see yourself."
He managed a weak smile.
Vareth stepped back from the circle. "He'll recover. The fire took its price."
Evelyn stood slowly, wrapping her robe tighter.
"I'll pay it," she said. "I'd pay more."
Vareth nodded. "You will."
They moved on that afternoon, Torren walking with help, Evelyn leading once more. The wind shifted eastward—and somewhere, beyond the next ridge, something howled.
Not an animal. Not quite.
But it knew her name.