Lucas was falling, and Rowan didn’t stop to think. His boots pounded across the breaking bridge, each step kicking loose stones and clouds of dust. The wind surged at his back, like a friend who knew exactly what he needed.

With one final push, he dove headfirst off the crumbling bridge. Air roared past him as he plunged closer to the river below.

Rowan’s hand shot out, reaching for Lucas. Their fingers slipped past each other again and again. The river rushed closer with every miss. Then, at last, Rowan’s grip locked tight around Lucas’s wrist.

“I’ve got you!” Rowan shouted. “Now hang on!”

Air coiled around him, rushing beneath his arms, and the gust burst beneath them in a roaring surge. Rowan tightened his grip on Lucas’s wrist as the force carried them, steady as a giant’s hand, lifting them clear of the collapsing bridge and hurling them toward solid ground.

Both boys collapsed onto the grass, coughing in the haze of dust. Their lungs burned. The air stung with the smell of lightning and broken rock. For a moment, fragments from the bridge still fell down the gorge.

Lucas sat up slowly. His hands trembled as he rubbed his shoulder. “I thought… I thought…” His words broke apart, lost in the thundering shock of almost dying.

Rowan’s gaze lingered on the jagged gap where the bridge had been. 

“Why didn’t you just let me fall?” Lucas asked.

Rowan shrugged faintly. “Because saving you was the right thing to do.”

Lucas let himself flop back into the grass, staring up at the drifting clouds. The wind whispered through the tall blades, and footsteps crunched nearby. Rowan brushed dust from his cloak and stepped forward, holding out his hand.

Lucas hesitated. Then, with a soft sigh, he reached up and took it. Rowan pulled him to his feet. For a few seconds, they just stood silently at the edge of the gorge. At last, with a faint smirk, Lucas said, “You’re still a dreamer. Peace, unity, all that soft stuff, but maybe the world needs that. Maybe it needs you.”

It wasn’t much, but it was genuine. Something had shifted. Not friendship, not yet at least. But respect.

From the slope above, Sonny appeared. The staff balanced across her shoulder. She stopped beside Rowan and gave him a steady nod.

“That was brave,” she said. 

“It all happened so fast,” Rowan laughed weakly.

Tarn trudged up behind her, scroll case tucked under one arm and something to chew in the other. His eyes swept over the scorched grass, the shattered bridge, the two boys who had nearly destroyed each other.

He raised a brow. “Huh,” Tarn said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

Without a sound, Jax slipped into view. One second, the space was empty, the next, he was simply there. His mask hid whatever thoughts turned behind it. His gaze lingered on Rowan, long and unreadable, before he drifted back toward the hilltop like smoke unraveling in the wind.

A moment later, Bjorn came jogging down the slope, his axe thumping against his back. His booming voice rolled over the quiet breeze.

“Is everyone okay?” he called.

Rowan looked at Lucas and nodded. “We sure are.”

Sonny gave a soft laugh, her golden cloak flashing in the afternoon light as she turned to follow Lucas back toward camp. Tarn loped after her, already tugging scrolls from his case and muttering about “glyph corruption” and “blast vectors,” as if a collapsing bridge were just another homework problem. Jax vanished into the trees without a word, gone like the fleeting shadow of a bird overhead.

Bjorn clapped Rowan on the back so hard he staggered. “Well, that was exciting.”

Rowan couldn’t help but laugh.

Beyond the folds of green hills stretched a vast, still lake, shining like glass poured into the earth. Sunlight shimmered across its silver-blue surface in ripples of light. But even as he watched, mist crept in from the far shore, drifting slowly and curling across the water like ghostly fingers closing a curtain.

Rowan reached into his cloak and pulled out the compass. The needle spun once, then clicked into place, pointing straight at the lake.