Later.
Ruvio's voice still rang in his skull—Enough—but Ruvio wasn't here. He'd shoved Eris toward the Emberlight stairs with a boot to the back of his knee. "Go. Before you bring my roof down."
Now the echo of that night lived in Eris's bones, a silent scream that never quite faded. He was hunched on the cold floor of their shelter, breath unsteady. The distant storm rumbled through the rock like something huge turning in its sleep.
He didn't want to remember.
But the past never asked permission.
The Chamber had been stone and iron and Ruvio's eyes. Here, the air smelled like damp earth and lamp oil and Kaylah's wet hair. It should have been safe.
It wasn't.
The tremor started deep in his marrow. It had been building since Ruvio left him—a restless energy pushed to the frayed edges by hours of holding it back.
Now, without the old man's voice to cut it, the silver surged.
A silent scream trapped beneath his skin.
Faint lines of light pulsed along his forearms. He clenched his fists. Knuckles white.
Not now, he thought. Not here. Not with them.
The light flared brighter, throwing jagged shadows across the wall—across Leo's pebble fort, across Myrah's mud castle. The "home" he kept warm suddenly felt like a box about to split.
If the silver broke through now, it wouldn't be a flare. It'd be a beacon. And Haven killed beacons.
Across the small space, Kaylah's needle stopped.
Her eyes found his—sharp, knowing. Not scared. Never scared.
She set the mending down. Slow. Like she was approaching a wounded animal.
She knelt. Put her cool hand over his trembling ones.
"Breathe, Eris," she murmured. "Just breathe."
Her touch was water over burning rock. The silver flickered. Receded. The pressure in his skull eased one notch.
He still had to fight it.
But he wasn't fighting alone.
He focused on her hand. On her eyes. On the way Leo had stopped building, pebble pinched between his fingers. On Myrah watching, thumb in her mouth.
Slowly, the light died to embers. Then nothing. The air settled. Lamp oil and dirt came back.
Leo whispered, "Is it quiet now?" His eyes still held the silver's ghost.
Before Eris could answer, Myrah launched herself at his neck, sleepy and fierce.
"Rabbit story, Eris!" she demanded into his tunic. "A big, bouncy one!"
Eris let out a long, shuddering breath. He looked at Kaylah, then at Leo and Myrah. The storm in his blood was gone. The exhaustion wasn't.
"A rabbit story," he rasped. "But only if Princess Myrah helps with the ending."
Myrah nodded, solemn as a general. Her small hands moved a pebble to the gate of her mud castle.
In the quiet of the cave, the ruin felt miles away. Even though they all knew it was closing in.
Eris wheezed as Myrah climbed him, but he settled against the cracked wall and let her perch on his shoulders like she owned them.
As she pressed into him, the last ache from the silver flare drained out. Not like Kaylah's focused calm—this was sudden. Absurd. A switch flipped.
Something cool and solid tapped his arm. Myrah's trinket. She always carried it. String, maybe stone. He didn't look. He was too busy not hurting.
His shoulders dropped.
"All right, all right," he murmured. "But this rabbit's gotten into trouble tonight."
Kaylah's laugh was quiet, tucked behind her sleeve. Leo scooted closer, eyes huge.
Eris dropped his voice. "Once upon a time, there was a white rabbit with a golden crown and a blue coat. Pockets full of jam."
"Jam!" Myrah gasped.
"Not just strawberry. Thunderberry, too. One day, the rabbit fell down a hole so deep it went through the middle of the world. Popped out in a kingdom of upside-down trees and rivers that ran backwards."
"Did he drown?" Leo whispered.
Eris shook his head, dead serious. "Never. He paddled with his ears. There he met a thousand dragons, all arguing whose fire was hottest. So the rabbit pulled out a tiny spoon and challenged them to a soup contest."
"Soup dragons!" Myrah squeaked, bouncing.
That's where the story came off its rails. A snail-riding prince. A sword made of moons. Dragons turned into teapots. A not-princess who was definitely a witch.
Eris didn't plan it. He let them steer. His voice got louder, hands moving.
"—and the dragons boiled themselves into soup so good a lonely prince smelled it from a mountain away. He rode a snail—a very fast snail—into the upside-down forest, waving a sword made of all the moons in the sky."
Kaylah covered her mouth.
"The prince came to rescue a princess trapped in a mirror," Eris said, "but she turned the dragons into teapots instead."
Myrah yanked his hair, giddy. Leo stared, horrified and delighted.
"Did the prince marry her?" Leo asked, hushed.
Eris leaned in, matching the boy's dread. "He tried. But she was a witch, not a princess. Nearly turned him into a teacup."
He shrugged. "So the rabbit drank the soup and hopped home. Belly full of dragons. Crown too big for its head."
Myrah snorted so hard she scared herself. Then she tucked her head under Eris's chin and went loose, heavy with sleep.
The "very fast snail" had made it home. Myrah's breathing went deep and even against his chest, one hand still fisted in his tunic. Beside them, Leo had folded over his pebble fort, forehead on stone, asleep.
Eris moved to shift Myrah onto her pallet, but Kaylah was already there. She took the girl, tucked the threadbare quilt up to her chin.
"The teapot princess?" Kaylah whispered. "You're getting desperate."
"I ran out of dragons," Eris said.
He sat back. The wall was cold through his shirt. The silver was gone, but his skin felt tight — like a drumhead.
Kaylah handed him a tin mug. Water. She sat beside him. Lamp light cut shadows between them.
"It's getting harder, isn't it?" she said.
Eris looked at his hands. Still shaking. "Like a river that forgot how to run downhill. Ruvio says channel it. I'm just trying not to drown."
He nodded toward Leo, Myrah. "If I slip... this room's a furnace. I saw the upper vents. The trees didn't burn, Kaylah. They were ash before the flame hit."
Kaylah's hand closed on his wrist. Builder's grip. Calluses.
"Then we make you a bow," she said. "Silver for the string. Iron for the arrowhead. You don't hold the storm. You aim it."
He didn't answer. He looked to the dark corner. Empty. But he felt Ruvio there anyway.
Sometimes the old man wasn't teaching him to use it.
Just to survive it.
Kaylah's head touched his shoulder. Half a second. Then she stood, blew out the lamp.
"Sleep," she said. "Tomorrow we hunt. You'll need the thunderberry jam."
Dark ate the room.
But in his head: a hum. High. Thin.
The silver was waiting.
Behind a cracked beam, Ruvio stood.
He watched Kaylah's shoulders drop. Watched the kids sleep, fists full of blanket and nonsense.
Soup dragons. Snail princes.
He almost laughed. The world didn't deserve stories like that. Not anymore.
For a few minutes, there was no Iron Order. No silver-burn. Just a girl and a teapot.
Something warmed in his chest. Old. Buried.
Then it went cold.
He felt it—the silver in the boy. Humming against the binding rods in his staff. A river under pressure.
He touched the iron. Cold enough to hurt.
"The mountain remembers winter," he murmured. "And so do you."
He left. Boots silent.
He didn't hear the kids laugh. He heard what the Spiral would hear: life. Loud. Trackable as blood.
Where Haven's light died, another shadow waited.
Older than Ruvio. Patient.
A mark burned on its throat—a spiral of ash. It pulsed with Eris's heartbeat.
One breath. Fog. Gone.
It turned. Slipped into the ruin.
By sunrise, the wrong people would know his name.
***