Ren inhaled, hard; the air snapped like glass in his lungs.
The pendant at his throat flared into molten heat.
The world narrowed to a single decision.
Around him, the yard rang with the tired cries of villagers and the distant roar of departing hulls.
"Kira—hold them!" Li shouted, voice cracking like a rope under strain. "Signal the watch!"
Ren answered with motion.
He forced a breath out and let the strange thing inside him line up like a blow.
He did not conjure a miracle.
He listened—really listened—to the moisture in the air, to the thin vein of vapor that threaded the sky beneath the clouds.
A low exhale escaped his chest, animal and raw.
It hit the Devourer's violet core like a winter gale.
The core wobbed.
It did not explode—nothing cinematic—but the fog around it thinned as if someone had rubbed away a painting with their thumb.
A high, grinding sound came from where the creature's heart had been.
The breath in Ren's lungs answered it.
The violet center cracked with a dull, wet pop, then collapsed in on itself like a fruit gone sour.
"Did you—" a villager breathed, voice small.
"Good—keep at it!" Kira cried, sweat streaking her cheeks.
She scrambled over a fallen crate, face a map of ash and determination.
"Push it! Push it while it's weak!"
Ren hauled at the last scrap of fog with a grunt that bent his ribs.
The air around his hands hardened then gave, like reaching into jellied glass.
The Devourer unthreaded, becoming smoke and then only ash that drifted down and smudged the dock like soot.
A hush fell heavy enough to choke on.
The only sounds were someone crying and the soft creak of cloth on wood.
For a beat the yard existed without weight—no orders, no scurrying feet.
Only faces turned to him in a slow, unspooling silence.
Children clung to Li's coat; Kira leaned against a barrel, breathing hard.
The pendant dimmed and then went nearly dark, its heat collapsing into a dull ache.
"Ren?"
Kira's voice was thin.
She stepped closer, then froze at the sight of his arms. "Your—"
Scales receded like tide.
Chunks of horn snapped off and sank away, taking a ribbon of pain with them.
Ren dropped to his knees, palms pressed into splintered wood to keep from tipping over.
The world rotated through nausea and then settled into a brittle, awful quiet.
"Stay with me," Li said, lowering himself beside Ren with deliberate slowness.
His hands hovered, then settled on Ren's shoulder.
"You did what needed doing."
Ren's lungs clawed for normal breath.
Headache throbbed like a drum.
The promise he'd made in the market hung in his chest like a coin he could not spend.
The pendant lay cool now, ordinary metal against skin.
The villagers approached in a curved line, faces a collage of gratitude frayed with something softer and more dangerous: fear.
"He saved us," a woman whispered, then hurried on as if saying it aloud might wake some sleeping thing.
Kira knelt and tugged his sleeve to check for wounds.
"Say something stupid," she ordered, voice low. "Make a joke. Don't look like you're going to die on me."
Ren croaked out something that sounded like an apology and a grin.
"Get me a drink and—"
His words cut off as a wave of weakness swept through him.
Muscles that had been hot with borrowed force cooled to jelly.
He tasted metal and something else—a hollowness that ran through ribs and marrow.
"You used yourself." Li's tone was flat, factual.
He glanced toward the dock where the glider's fabric still snapped in the breeze. "The old ones cost."
"Old ones?" a boy blurted. "Like the stories?"
"Like the price of using what you don't own," Li answered.
He didn't say more.
His gaze flicked to Ren's pendant, and then away.
Pirate shouts cut the air as the last of the raiders scrambled for their hulls.
The sight of Ren made the band hesitate then scoot toward their skiffs with a new speed.
"Kira—tell them to go," Ren murmured, voice thin.
She obeyed without argument, sending a hard look down the dock.
The immediate danger ebbed; the Devourer's ash settled into gutters and footprints.
People who had moments ago pulled at ropes now stared.
Gratitude fought with the cavern of fear in their gazes, and where it landed on Ren it felt like a brand.
A woman stepped forward, hand trembling, and laid a steaming cup of broth by Ren's hand.
"For your strength," she said, voice small. "For the children."
He lifted the cup and tasted it—warm, salty, a home that did not belong to him.
Strength flickered back in small, petty increments.
The pendant warmed once—a faint pulse that did not demand, only observed.
Kira leaned low, red rimmed around the eyes.
"What now?" she asked. "You can't go on like this, Ren. You'll burn out."
Ren pressed his thumb into the sore place at his temple where the horns had pushed through.
Pain still thudded like distant hammers.
"I—fix the glider," he managed. "Then—cleanup. Then we see."
Li's jaw set.
"We bury what must be buried. We check the terraces. The watch may come if the signal fired."
People murmured in agreement.
The pirates were long gone by then, hulls already lifting, metal dull in the low light.
The village's immediate wounds would be tended.
Something new lay between Ren and the others: a quiet distance.
As villagers moved to patch and soothe, Kira stayed.
She propped Ren upright, knees under her, hands steady though fingers trembled.
"You saved everyone," she said, the edge of something like pride and terror mixing in her voice. "You idiot."
"Worth a scrap," Ren croaked, then laughed, a thin sound that made Kira's lip twitch.
The sky above the cloud-sea began to clear in tendrils.
A shadow split the upper ridge—someone watching.
High on the cliff above the village, a figure in a hood remained still as a carved thing.
They made no move to descend.
Instead, the figure reached into a satchel and unrolled a strip of parchment.
Kira's laugh died as she followed Ren's gaze.
"Who's that—"
The figure's hand moved like a ritual; a small quill scratched across paper.
A cool smile might have bent their lips.
The onlooker finished, rolled up the parchment, and then walked deeper into the mist as if swallowed.
When they left, something clattered against the stone—a small metallic plate that fell and lay half-buried in lichen.
Li stood and wiped his hands.
He picked up the plate on impulse, thumb running the edge.
A symbol had been stamped into it: a stylized forge atop a mountain, simple and proud as a brand.
"You see that?" Kira asked, voice small.
Li's eyes narrowed, the lines in his face tightening.
He did not know the meaning, but the sight of the plate scraped at a corner of his memory like catching a finger on a seam.
The figure on the cliff watched everything.
She wrote on a scroll, her face hidden, a thin smile crossing her lips.
Then she turned away and dissolved into the mist, leaving behind only a fallen metal plaque bearing a strange symbol.