The green fire rises again, and this time it remembers a face. In the streambed mist, it knits itself into the dead cultist’s silhouette, translucent and grinning with borrowed heat.
The fire points at the Deserter Soldier. The ground shivers under the chant, each word like a nail driven into the mud.
Bardronas feels the latched spark in him answer, a hot pulse under his skin. The seam in the earth glows brighter, as if it knows him by name.
The Stranger
Keep the lantern close. It is testing the bond.
The Deserter Soldier
It wants me. No, it wants all of us.
The cultist-shape tilts its head, then the fire splits into a second voice, low and intimate, curling straight toward Bardronas like a whisper in a grave.
The streambed stones rattle. The ember in Bardronas flares, and the green silhouette waits for him to answer.
Resist the fire’s bond to Bardronas