The Road West
The horse's hooves drummed a steady rhythm against the dirt road, each beat a reminder of the life Alex was leaving behind. His mount, a chestnut gelding named Ember, snorted as if sensing his rider's unease. Alex leaned forward, patting the horse's neck.
"Easy, boy. You remember this, don't you?"
He hadn't ridden in years—not since his mother taught him as a child. Lisa Morningstar had been a different woman then, her laughter sharp but warm as she adjusted his grip on the reins.
"A rider's strength is in his balance, not his brute force," she'd said, her hands steadying his eight-year-old frame. "The horse is an extension of you. Respect it, or it'll throw you into the dirt."
Now, as Ember navigated the overgrown path, Alex wondered if his mother still remembered those lessons—or if she'd buried them beneath her disdain.
The Trader's Post
By midday, Alex reached a ramshackle outpost at the edge of civilization. The sign above the door read Hollow's End Supplies in peeling paint. Inside, the air reeked of cured meat and iron.
A grizzled trader eyed him from behind a counter cluttered with rusted tools. "Survival gear's in the back. Swords too, if you're fool enough to need 'em."
Alex loaded his pack with rope, flint, and dried rations. His fingers lingered on a battered longsword hanging from the wall—its blade nicked, but the steel still true.
"Twenty silvers," the trader grunted.
"For this relic?"
"Relic saved my neck from duskwolves once. Take it or leave it."
Alex paid. The sword's weight felt foreign at his hip, a stark contrast to the wooden practice blade strapped to Ember's saddle.
The Edge of the Hollows
The Western Hollows rose before him like a living wall. Ancient oaks twisted skyward, their branches tangled into a canopy that devoured the sun. Vines hung like nooses, and the air hummed with the static of residual magic—a scar from the Third Cataclysm. Alex dismounted, his boots sinking into moss that glowed faintly blue where he disturbed it.
Corrupted flora, he thought, recalling Luna's treatises. The Leylines' poison lingers here.
Ember whinnied, refusing to step further. Alex unstrapped his gear, slapping the horse's flank. "Go home, boy."
The gelding bolted, leaving him alone at the threshold of the unknown.
Alex carved a campsite from the undergrowth, sweat stinging his eyes. He pitched a canvas tent between two gnarled roots, its seams frayed but intact. Fire came harder. His hands trembled as he struck flint against steel, sparks dying in the damp air.
"Pathetic," he muttered, echoing Lyric's sneer.
When flames finally licked to life, he huddled close, gnawing on salt-cured venison. The survival guide lay open at his feet—Hunting and Foraging in Magical Wastelands by E. Voss. Elara's ancestor, maybe. Irony tasted bitter.
He unsheathed his sword at dusk. The blade caught the firelight as he mimicked the boy's movements from his vision: a diagonal slash, a pivot, a thrust. His muscles screamed.
"A blade is an extension of your will."
But his will faltered. The sword slipped, gouging the dirt.
By the tenth day, Alex's routine was a dirge:
Dawn: Train until his palms bled.
Noon: Scavenge for edible fungi (three varieties safe, two hallucinogenic).
Dusk: Mend the tent, now patched with moss and regret.
Night: Lie awake, listening to the hollows' whispers.
The sword style remained elusive. His strikes were clumsy, his footwork a parody of the vision's grace.
"You're embarrassing us," Lyric's voice taunted in his mind.
"Just stop existing," Roy's ghost added.
Only the emerald-eyed stranger's words cut through the noise: "Will you allow it to reduce you to mere shadows?"
Alex swung harder.
On the fifteenth day, rain dissolved his tent. Alex woke in a pool of mud, his gear soaked.
Enough.
He spent a week felling saplings with his sword, their corrupted cores oozing black sap. The cabin was a crooked thing—walls slanted, roof thatched with glowing moss—but it held. Inside, he built a hearth from shattered Leyline stones, their residual warmth chasing the chill.
Survival, at least, he could learn.
By the twentieth day, Alex could skin a hare without gagging. He brewed tea from ghostroot, its bitter tang sharpening his mind. But the sword…
Each dawn, he practiced. Each dusk, he failed.
"You're not trying to kill the air," the stranger's voice hissed in his memory. "You're dancing with it."
Alex spun, blade arcing in a silver crescent—and stumbled, his boot catching a root. The sword clattered into the underbrush.
He didn't retrieve it. Not yet.
That night, as Alex huddled by the hearth, the hollows sang to him. Whispers slithered through the cracks in his cabin walls:
"Weak… Weak… Weak…"
He gripped his sword hilt. "I'm here. Isn't that enough?"
The fire crackled. Somewhere, in the void between worlds, emerald eyes glinted.
"Begin again."