THE LAST DAWN
Chapter 2: The Road of Shadows
The forest did not welcome them.
The trees pressed close on either side, their branches like grasping hands, their roots like coiled serpents. The ground was soft and damp, covered in a layer of gray moss that seemed to drink the light from Lyra’s silver eyes. The air was cold—colder than it should have been, colder than the season, colder than any air Rowan had ever breathed.
He walked behind her.
His feet sank into the moss.
His breath fogged in front of his face.
His knife was in his hand.
She had not asked him to put it away.
She had not asked him to trust her.
She had simply walked, and he had followed.
“The Citadel is three days’ walk,” she had said.
Three days.
He had been walking for one.
The forest had not thinned. The darkness had not lightened. The whispers had not stopped.
They followed him.
They had always followed him.
The shadows.
Rowan, they whispered. Rowan. Rowan. Rowan.
He tried to ignore them.
He could not.
“You hear them,” Lyra said.
It was not a question.
He looked at her back.
Her white hair floated in a wind he could not feel.
“Everyone hears them.”
“Not everyone. Only the ones who are called.”
“Called to what?”
She stopped.
She turned.
Her silver eyes were fixed on his face.
“The end.”
She walked again.
He followed.
“The shadows are not your enemies,” she said. “They are the memory of the world. The echo of the hunger. The voice of the dying.”
“They whisper my name.”
“They whisper everyone’s name. They just don’t always listen.”
“Why do they whisper mine?”
She was silent for a long moment.
“Because you are the last.”
The forest thinned.
The trees grew farther apart. The moss grew thinner. The ground grew harder. The sky appeared above them—not the blue sky of morning, not the black sky of night, but a gray sky, empty and hungry, like the eye of a dead god.
“The first day is over,” Lyra said.
Rowan looked back.
The forest was gone.
Not behind them—around them. The trees had closed ranks, sealing the path, hiding the way home.
“We can’t go back,” he said.
“No.”
“You knew that.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked at him.
Her silver eyes were soft.
“Because you wouldn’t have come.”
They walked through the gray.
The ground was flat, featureless, endless. No trees. No rocks. No grass. Just ash and dust and silence.
Rowan’s legs ached.
His feet blistered.
His throat burned.
But he did not stop.
He could not stop.
The Citadel was calling.
Rowan, it whispered. Rowan. Rowan. Rowan.
“How much farther?” he asked.
Lyra pointed at the horizon.
At the darkness.
At the hunger.
“Two days.”
The sun did not set.
The gray did not darken.
The hour did not change.
But Rowan felt the night.
It pressed against him, cold and heavy, like the weight of a thousand graves. His eyes grew heavy. His limbs grew weak. His mind grew foggy.
“Sit,” Lyra said.
He sat.
The ash was cold beneath him.
“Sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You must. Tomorrow will be harder.”
“How do you know?”
She sat beside him.
Her silver eyes were bright.
“Because I have walked this road before. With others. Others who were called. Others who were chosen. Others who were the last.”
“What happened to them?”
She was silent for a long moment.
“They reached the Citadel.”
“And?”
“And they died.”
Rowan’s blood went cold.
“Then why am I walking?”
She looked at him.
Her silver eyes were wet.
“Because you are different.”
“How?”
She touched his chest.
Above his heart.
“You carry the hunger. Inside you. The same hunger that waits at the Citadel. The same hunger that consumes the world.”
“I don’t feel it.”
“It sleeps. It has always slept. But it is waking.”
“Why?”
She withdrew her hand.
“Because you are close.”
He slept.
He dreamed.
He was standing in a field of ash.
The sky was black. The ground was cracked. The air was thick with smoke.
And before him, a door.
Not a door of wood or stone or iron.
A door of bone.
Human bone.
Skulls and ribs and femurs and phalanges, all fused together, all pulsing with silver light, all watching him with empty eyes.
He reached for the door.
His hand touched the bone.
The door opened.
Beyond the door was darkness.
And in the darkness, a voice.
Rowan, it said. Rowan. Rowan. Rowan.
He woke.
Lyra was standing over him.
Her silver eyes were wide.
“You dreamed,” she said.
“The door. The bone. The voice.”
She knelt beside him.
“What did it say?”
He looked at her.
His heart was pounding.
“My name.”
She was silent for a long moment.
“It knows you.”
“The hunger?”
“The hunger.”