Ashwood had stood for nearly two centuries, a settlement carved deep into the mountains where no road reached. To those beyond, it was only rumor—whispers of firelight in the trees, of chanting that carried on the wind. But to its people, Ashwood was civilization itself. The Doctrine of the Cycle bound every breath, every birth, every death. Nothing was owned. All things returned.

At the highest point of its hierarchy stood the Morrow family. Their bloodline traced back to the very founders of the Doctrine, and their authority was woven into every law, every ritual. To be a Morrow was to carry more than a name—it was to be marked as a vessel of the Cycle, a living example of faith.

Jonas Morrow was eighteen, and already he bore the weight of that inheritance. His tunic was stitched in crimson thread, a mark that others looked to with reverence, and sometimes envy. He had grown up with rituals in his marrow: carrying the ash bowl during funerals, holding the sacrificial knives, standing behind the Elders as they spoke to the gathered. Where others might have faltered under such expectation, Jonas thrived. He believed with a fervor that burned through his chest like fire.

That night, the square pulsed with bodies. A bonfire roared in the center, its smoke thick and bitter, filling the air with resin and heat. The chants rose and fell like a heartbeat, each voice a piece of something greater. Jonas stood near the front of the gathering, spine straight, gaze locked on the flames as though they might open and reveal the Cycle’s will.

At his side stood another—one of the youths assigned to assist in the preparation rites. Their presence barely broke his focus, yet he felt the need to speak, to share what hummed inside him like a secret too powerful to keep.

“Do you feel it?” Jonas asked, voice pitched low beneath the swell of chanting. His eyes didn’t move from the blaze. “The Cycle is turning tonight. Stronger than before. It’s close… watching us.”

He paused, waiting, his chest rising with restrained conviction. Then he turned, just slightly, enough to catch their outline in the firelight. “The air—how heavy it is? If you listen, you can almost hear it breathing with us.”

His words held no doubt, only urgency, the kind that demanded agreement—not because Jonas needed reassurance, but because the Cycle was too real to him to ever be denied.