By the time Ash first saw the Crossroads, his feet had forgotten what it meant to walk without hurting.

The road behind him was long in the way only regret could measure—marked not by milestones and signposts but by memories he did not wish to visit and places he did not wish to remember. He had walked through towns and forests and over stone bridges whose names never stayed in his mind. What stayed were other things.

A door slammed too hard.
A voice raised too sharp.
The look in someone’s eyes when he had failed them.

Those memories walked with him more faithfully than any companion.

He wore gray for a reason.

Not the soft gray of morning fog or the gentle gray of river stones smoothed by time, but the dull, tired gray of cloth that had seen too many fires too closely. His cloak hung heavy from his shoulders, stained in faint streaks and smudges of soot that never fully washed out. Even his hair, once dark, seemed dusted in perpetual ash, as though every fire he’d passed had left a little bit of itself on him.

Across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose ran thin, pale lines where soot had settled and been wiped away again and again, like scars burned in reverse—memories traced not by flame, but by the habit of trying to clean himself and never quite finishing the job.

His lantern hung from his hand, its metal frame dented in places, its handle worn smooth. The flame inside was small and tired, a weak ember that clung to life out of sheer stubbornness.

It did not leap.
It did not dance.

It simply endured.

Much like Ash.

He had once walked roads like these with purpose.

Once, there had been a town where his name brought comfort instead of unease. Once, there had been a hall where other keepers of light met, where lanterns burned bright on tables while voices argued and dreamed of better ways to guide travelers through storms and darkness.

He had worn a cloak then too, but it had been cleaner.
He had carried a lantern then too, but it had burned brighter.

He had believed, once, that light could fix anything.

Then came the fire.

Not the kind that warmed a hearth or lit a lantern’s glass, but the kind that roared up rafters and devoured beams, the kind that clawed at doors and chewed through walls like a starving beast. He remembered heat and smoke and the sound of someone screaming a name—he never remembered if it had been his or not.

He remembered running.
He remembered arriving too late.
He remembered his lantern burning bright, bright, uselessly bright, after everything around it had gone dark.

After that, Ash did what he knew best.

He walked.

Not to guide.
Not to help.
Not to listen.

He walked to outrun the echo of crackling beams and collapsing roofs. He walked to stay ahead of the char-stink that clung to his lungs. He walked because stopping meant remembering, and remembering felt too close to burning all over again.

His lantern’s flame dimmed every year, but it did not go out.
Neither did he.

The first sign of the Crossroads came to him on the wind.

It carried the smell of grain—familiar, earthy, safe. Then, layered gently over it, like a kindly hand resting on another, came the smell of bread baking. Not the heavy char-smell of burned crusts or the sickly sweetness of over-spiced festival loaves, but something simpler.

Warm.
Plain.
Honest.

Ash had been walking along Fate’s road for three days with only stale bread heels and river water for company. The scent curved toward him like an invitation. His feet, which had not listened to anything but distance for months, listened to this.

He rounded a bend where the trees thinned, and the valley opened before him. There, just as the sun tilted toward afternoon, he saw it:

The windmill’s arms turning slowly on the hill.
The cluster of wattle-and-daub houses.
Smoke rising in soft, friendly plumes.

The Crossroads.

He should have passed by.

That was his rule now: never linger anywhere long enough to learn names. But his lantern’s flame flickered—not with the panicked jump of a wind gust, but with a hesitant brightness, as though it, too, recognized something in the sight of the small village.

“Don’t start,” Ash murmured to it. “We’re just passing through.”

The flame, insultingly, brightened anyway.

He sighed and walked on.

He entered the Crossroads quietly, slipping into its rhythm as if he’d always been there. Children were playing in the square, their chalk circles still faint on the packed earth. A woman carried a basket of laundry that steamed faintly in the cool air. A dog sniffed around a cart’s wheels with profound concentration.

Nearby, a crooked post held a sign board that read:

Welcome, traveler. Rest, if you will.
All roads remember those who pass.

Ash snorted under his breath.

“Let them forget me,” he muttered.

Yet his feet didn’t turn away. Instead, they carried him toward the smell of bread.

The bakehouse was easy to find. It stood near the village’s edge, a modest building with smoke curling from its chimney like a lazy thought. The door was propped open, letting warmth and scent spill out into the street.

He stepped inside.

Heat embraced him first—soft and steady, not the fierce, consuming heat of wild fire, but the enveloping warmth of a tended oven. Loaves cooled on racks along one wall, round and golden, their crusts crackling softly as they settled. Light poured through the window in slanting beams and caught on the flour dust floating in the air, turning it into bright, drifting motes.

Behind the counter, arranging loaves with careful hands, stood a small figure in a smooth cream cloak.

The hood was back.
Golden eyes lifted and met his.

Ash almost looked away out of habit, but something in that gaze held him there—kind, steady, patient, like a hand extended without demand.

“Welcome,” the baker said softly. “You’ve been walking a long time.”

Ash stiffened. “You can smell my boots from over there?”

A hint of a smile touched the baker’s mouth. “The road leaves its mark. On boots. On shoulders.” His eyes flicked briefly to Ash’s lantern. “On light.”

Ash’s grip tightened reflexively around the handle. “It’s just a lantern.”

“So I’ve heard before,” the baker said.

He stepped forward, wiping his hands on his apron. Up close, Ash saw how small he truly was—shorter than Ash’s shoulder, with quick, nimble fingers and those strange, gentle eyes that seemed to notice everything without making anything feel exposed.

“I’m Crumb,” the baker said. “You’re welcome to rest here, if you’d like. At least long enough to let your feet forget they’re tired.”

“Ash,” he answered, before he could stop himself.

Names were a kind of trust. He hadn’t meant to give it.

Crumb nodded as though receiving something precious. “Ash,” he repeated, as if trying the name out on his tongue. “That’s a strong name.”

Ash nearly laughed. “Doesn’t feel that way.”

“Strength doesn’t always feel like strength,” Crumb replied. “Sometimes it feels like what’s left when everything else is burned away.”

Ash flinched.

Crumb didn’t press. He only turned slightly and gestured to the cooling rack. “You’re welcome to a loaf. Or half. Or just the heel, if that’s all you’d like. Pay if you can. Don’t, if you can’t.”

Ash eyed the bread. Hunger gnawed at him, as it always did after days on the road. He reached for his belt, feeling for the pouch where his dwindling coins sat.

Crumb shook his head gently. “Not that kind of payment.”

Ash frowned. “There another kind?”

Crumb’s gaze dipped to the lantern, then back to Ash’s face. “You look like you’ve been walking with your story for a long time. Suppose today you let someone else carry a piece of it.”

Ash went cold.

“No,” he said, too quickly. “No stories. Just bread.”

Crumb studied him for a quiet, unhurried heartbeat.

Then he nodded.

“Just bread, then.”

He selected a loaf with a crust bake-marked in a pattern like a rising sun and pressed it into Ash’s hands. The heat sank instantly into Ash’s palms, up his wrists, into his tired arms.

“You carry your light,” Crumb said softly. “Carry this with it.”

Ash swallowed against the sudden thickness in his throat.

“Why?” he rasped. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” Crumb agreed. “But I know the road. And I know what it does to people who walk it alone.”

Kindle, who had been perched almost invisibly on a shelf beam, chose this moment to flutter down and land on the lantern’s handle. Ash startled, nearly dropping both bread and light.

Crumb’s smile warmed. “This is Kindle. He has decided he is in charge of journey blessings.”

Kindle chirped once, authoritative.

Ash stared at the little bird. “Does he do that for everyone?”

“Only the ones who look like they can’t remember the last time someone walked beside them,” Crumb said.

It was spoken gently, not as accusation, but the words landed in Ash’s chest like a stone.

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally exhaled.

“I don’t stay,” he said. “Anywhere. I just… pass through.”

“Then pass through,” Crumb replied. “But pass through fed.”

Ash took a shakier breath than he intended and nodded once.

He stepped outside, unsure whether he was relieved or unsettled.

He meant to leave the Crossroads the same day.

He meant to keep walking, because that was what he knew.

But as he sat on a low wall near the square, tearing off pieces of bread and letting its warmth work through him one bite at a time, he realized something unusual:

His lantern’s flame had grown.

Not much.
Not dramatically.

But enough.

It no longer dragged itself along the wick like a tired traveler. It stood a little higher, a little steadier, its light brushing his gray cloak with a golden softness he hadn’t seen in years.

Ash stared at it, unsettled.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered.

The lantern, indifferent to his protest, burned on.

Across the square, Crumb spoke with a villager, handing over a loaf carefully wrapped in cloth. Kindle flitted from the eaves to the lantern and back again, as though unable to decide where he wanted to be more.

Ash watched them, his chest tight.

He had known other keepers of light, once. Men and women who walked roads and carried lanterns and swore oaths to guide others through dark places.

He hadn’t seen any of them since the fire.
He had not wanted to.

But this baker—
this small, gentle man with a simple shop and an ordinary life—

He carried his light differently.

Not like a duty.
Not like a burden.

Like an invitation.

Ash stayed the night.

He told himself it was only because his legs ached and the river’s song sounded particularly kind that evening. He told himself he would leave at first light.

Crumb offered him a corner in the bakehouse to sleep, a folded blanket, and a place by the warm wall where the oven’s heat seeped through the stone.

“Rest,” Crumb said.

Ash did, eventually.

For the first time in a long while, his dreams did not fill with collapsing beams and choking smoke. Instead, he dreamed of small, steady flames lining a path he could not yet see the end of.

And somewhere nearby, a sparrow sang.

For a few disoriented heartbeats, he thought he had fallen asleep too close to a campfire again. His fingers curled, seeking the lantern’s handle, ready to drag it farther from the imagined flames.

Instead, his hand met solid stone—warm, yes, but steady. The gentle heat seeped from the bakehouse wall at his back, not from wild, leaping fire.

He opened his eyes.

The world resolved slowly: rough-hewn beams above him, shadows slipping across the ceiling as someone moved nearby, the soft tick of cooling crusts, and beneath it all, the steady heartbeat rhythm of kneading.

Crumb.

Ash shifted under the worn blanket, the ache in his legs complaining as he sat up. His cloak had slipped half off during the night; he tugged it back around his shoulders out of habit, though the room was far from cold.

The smell of fresh bread wrapped around him like a second blanket—rich and wholesome and so unlike the bitter char he often woke to in memory that it took his mind a moment to trust it.

His lantern sat on the floor beside him.

The flame inside was small, but no longer sickly. It burned with a quiet, dignified strength, the glass warmed but not smudged with smoke.

Ash frowned at it.

“I told you not to mean anything,” he muttered.

The lantern, predictably, did not listen.

“Morning,” Crumb said softly from the worktable.

Ash turned.

The baker was already deep into his routine—hood back, sleeves rolled up, hands sunk wrist-deep into pale dough. Kindle perched on a nearby shelf, watching with the intensity of a general overseeing a battlefield.

“Did you sleep?” Crumb asked.

Ash hesitated. The honest answer hovered on his tongue, unfamiliar and awkward.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Better than I expected.”

“I’m glad.” Crumb’s golden eyes warmed. “There’s water in the basin, if you’d like to wash. And a heel from yesterday’s loaf left aside. It’s not much, but it’s honest.”

Ash pulled himself fully to his feet, joints protesting, and crossed to the basin. The water was cool, not biting, and the simple act of splashing his face, of wiping away the salt and grit of travel, felt oddly ceremonial—like stepping out of one road and onto another.

He tore off a piece of the heel, chewing slowly. It was denser than the fresh loaves on the rack, but still soft, the flavor plain and satisfying.

“You don’t need to stay and work for your keep,” Crumb said. “But if you’d like to, I never say no to an extra pair of hands.”

Ash almost refused on instinct.

He had grown used to leaving before anyone could expect anything of him.

But something about the easy way Crumb said it—no pressure, no bargain, no tightening of the eyes that hinted at hidden cost—disarmed him.

“I can lift,” he said gruffly. “Carry sacks. Chop wood.”

Crumb’s smile broadened just a fraction. “Then we’ll let the dough rest and the wood pay for the roof it warms.”

Outside, the morning had the crisp edge of a day deciding whether to be cold or kind. Ash followed Crumb to the small woodpile behind the bakehouse, took the axe without being asked, and set to work.

The rhythm came back quickly.

Lift.
Breathe.
Swing.

The satisfying crack as wood split cleanly under the blade. The small thud as each piece landed in the growing stack. It was different from the rhythms he used to know—lantern-lighting, watch-keeping, route-mapping—but it was a rhythm all the same.

Crumb carried the split logs inside in small armfuls, his steps quiet but purposeful. Kindle fluttered between them both, occasionally landing on a stump as though offering feedback.

“You chop like someone who’s split more than wood,” Crumb observed after a while.

Ash snorted. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means,” Crumb said, tipping his chin toward the stacked logs, “that you understand how things break.”

Ash’s hands tightened around the axe handle. His throat felt suddenly thick.

“You don’t want that story,” he muttered.

Crumb considered him for a moment, then shrugged gently.

“Then I won’t ask for it,” he replied. “You’re not a tree to be hacked open just to see what’s inside.”

Ash blinked, thrown off balance by the analogy.

Crumb went on, voice soft. “But if there comes a day when you grow tired of carrying it alone, well.” He lifted one small shoulder. “Stories weigh less when another pair of hands holds a corner.”

Ash had no answer to that.

So he chopped.
Crumb carried.

And between them, the stack of split wood grew.

By midday, the Crossroads had fully shaken off its sleep. The square hummed with gentle life: traders arranging their wares, children chasing each other around the trough, the Miller’s laugh booming from the hill as the windmill hit a particularly good gust.

Ash found himself seated on the low step just outside the bakehouse, catching his breath. Crumb stood beside him, handing off a wrapped loaf to a passing shepherd with a few quiet words about the weather and the state of the south fields.

Kindle, apparently satisfied with the morning’s work, dozed on the lantern hook just inside the doorway.

Ash’s muscles ached, but it was an honest ache—earned from work that produced something other than numbness.

He could almost have gotten used to it.

Which was precisely why he said, “I should leave this afternoon.”

Crumb didn’t argue.

He didn’t protest or guilt or press. He simply nodded.

“The road runs in all directions from here,” he said. “You’re free to take whichever piece of it calls you.”

Ash let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Most people try to make me stay.”

“Most people,” Crumb said, “are afraid of empty places at the table. Doesn’t mean they’re wrong to ask. But they’re not the ones who have to walk inside your boots.”

Ash huffed something like a laugh.

Crumb glanced toward the Crossroads—toward where Faith and Fate stitched the valley together. “If you’re set on leaving,” he said, “would you walk with me first? There’s a stretch of the eastern road I like to check before the fog gets thick this season. Sometimes the ditch floods and… well. Wagons don’t like surprises.”

Ash almost said no.

He could feel the word gather behind his teeth, born from the instinct to keep moving alone, to avoid ties and patterns and things that could start to feel like… belonging.

But his lantern weighed differently in his hand.

And somewhere deep in his chest, the faint memory of standing at crossroads past—brighter, busier, filled with other lanterns and maps—stirred.

He swallowed the refusal.

“All right,” he said quietly. “One walk.”

Crumb’s smile was small, but it reached his eyes. “One walk is enough for a beginning.”

They set out after the noon bread rush, when the sun sat high but not harsh. Crumb carried his lantern out of habit, though its light was hardly needed in the broad daylight. Kindle fluttered down from his hook and claimed his usual perch atop it.

Ash walked a step behind at first, as he always did when traveling with others—never quite beside, rarely ahead. Old habits from old roads.

Faith’s northern stretch fell behind them; Fate’s eastern path opened ahead, slipping between stands of trees whose leaves whispered lazily in the breeze. The road was rutted but well-used, the edges softened by grass and wildflowers.

They walked in companionable silence for a time.

It was Crumb who broke it.

“Do you miss it?” he asked.

Ash glanced over. “Miss what?”

“The road, when you’re not on it.”

Ash considered.

“I don’t know that I’ve given myself time not to be on it,” he admitted. “Stopping makes things catch up.”

“Things have a way of catching up even while we walk,” Crumb said. “They have good legs.”

Ash snorted. “You’re not selling me on stopping.”

Crumb smiled. “That’s because I’m not trying to. I’m only saying—running and walking aren’t always the same thing, even if the ground looks similar.”

Ash fell quiet again, chewing on that.

He’d spent so long running that he’d forgotten there was a difference.

They reached the low dip in the road Crumb had mentioned—a place where the packed earth sank slightly and the ditch on one side widened. In heavy rains, it would be a problem. Even now, water glimmered faintly at the bottom, catching shadows in a way Ash didn’t particularly like.

“Last year a wagon lost a wheel here,” Crumb said, stepping carefully along the edge. “We pulled three people and a very angry goat out of that mud.”

Ash raised an eyebrow despite himself. “You pulled a goat out of a ditch.”

“I brought the bread,” Crumb said modestly. “The Miller did most of the pulling.”

They both smiled.

Then Ash’s eyes caught something on the far side of the dip.

“Hold,” he said sharply.

Crumb stopped mid-step.

In the half-shade beneath a leaning tree, almost hidden by shrubs, lay a bundle that could have been discarded cloth… except that cloth didn’t usually shake with tiny, uneven breaths.

Ash’s lantern swung slightly as he moved ahead of Crumb, instinct overtaking thought.

“Stay there,” he said automatically, old habits snapping back into place. “If the ground’s soft, you’ll sink faster.”

He tested the earth with his boots—firm enough along the road’s center, slick near the ditch. Carefully, he angled toward the bundle, his weight balanced, each step deliberate.

As he drew closer, the shape resolved.

A boy.
No more than ten.

Clothes muddied, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, eyes half-lidded.

“Hey,” Ash murmured, dropping to a crouch beside him. “Hey, stay with me.”

The boy flinched weakly, one hand tightening around a small pack clutched to his chest.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t… take it…”

“I’m not here for your pack,” Ash said, voice firm but calm. “I’m here for you.”

He put his lantern down beside them. The small flame cast a soft circle over the boy’s pale face, revealing the cracked lips, the flushed cheeks.

“Fever,” Ash muttered. “And dehydration.”

Behind him, he heard Crumb’s careful footsteps approaching—not in the ditch, not reckless, but close enough to help.

“What do you need?” Crumb asked.

Ash didn’t even question the offer.

“Water, if you brought any. Cloth. And we need to get him off this road before night. How far to the village, at a child’s pace?”

“Less than an hour if he can walk,” Crumb said. “More if not.”

“He’s not walking,” Ash said.

He shifted the boy gently, checking for injuries. No obvious breaks, just exhaustion and heat. The boy whimpered when moved, clutching the small pack tighter. Ash pried his fingers loose carefully.

“We’re not taking your things,” he repeated. “You keep them. We’ll just carry you too.”

The boy’s eyes cracked open, unfocused.

“Got… lost,” he breathed. “Was supposed t’ meet my father… by the, the mill—”

Ash’s throat tightened.

“You will,” he said.

He didn’t know that. Not for certain.

But the words came out of him with a steadiness that surprised him.

Behind him, Crumb uncapped a skin and handed it over, along with a folded cloth that smelled faintly of clean linen and flour.

Ash dampened the cloth, laid it gently across the boy’s forehead, and trickled a few drops of water past his lips.

“Slow,” he murmured. “We’ve got time.”

In that moment, guiding, directing, knowing what to do—not as a guess, but as something lived and practiced—Ash felt a version of himself he thought had died in fire stir awake.

He lifted the boy into his arms. The weight was awkward but manageable. His lantern swung from his belt now, freeing his hands.

The flame inside had grown again.

Not blinding.
Not dramatic.

But brighter.

Crumb noticed. Of course he did.

He said nothing about it.

Instead, he walked beside Ash for the first time, Kindle flitting between them, occasionally settling on the boy’s small pack as if standing guard.

The journey back was slower.

Crumb walked ahead at times, checking for ruts and calling out when the best footing shifted. At other times he fell back, speaking softly to the boy, keeping him awake with simple questions. “What’s your name?” “What does your father trade?” “Do you like the sound of the mill’s wheel?”

“Tom,” the boy whispered once. “Papa says… we’d sell flour. Said… the Crossroads is a good place. Said they… remember people here.”

“He was right,” Crumb said gently. “We do.”

Ash carried Tom the whole way.

His arms burned. His shoulders ached. Old injuries protested every jolt.

He did not put the boy down.

By the time they crested the last hill and the village came into view, Ash’s lungs were on fire and sweat slicked his back beneath the ash-gray cloak.

But when Tom’s weak voice whispered, “Is… that the mill?” and the windmill’s arms turned in greeting, Ash felt something inside him ease.

The Miller saw them coming and ran to meet them, flour-dusted and wide-eyed. Voices rose. People gathered. Hands reached to help.

The rest came in a blur.

Tom carried into the shade. Cool cloths. More water. Someone sent to find the father who’d been searching half-mad on the wrong side of the valley. Relief like a summer storm breaking when father and son finally clung to each other and refused to let go.

In the midst of it, Ash found himself standing off to the side, lantern in hand, feeling strangely hollow and whole at the same time.

He’d done this before.
He’d led people out of things.
He’d helped.

He’d forgotten what it felt like when it ended well.

Crumb stepped up beside him, not facing him, but standing close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.

“You walked that road like you were born to it,” Crumb said quietly.

Ash huffed. “Felt more like I was dying to it.”

“Dying and living aren’t always strangers,” Crumb replied. “Sometimes they share the same path.”

Ash glanced down at his lantern.

The flame looked… right.

No longer the thin, faltering wisp he’d grown used to. It burned steadily, warm and confident, its light catching on the fine soot-lines along his face and softening them.

“It used to be like this,” Ash said before he could stop himself. “Before.”

Crumb didn’t ask “before what.” He didn’t push. He simply waited, offering silence like a seat at an open table.

Ash’s jaw worked.

“There was a fire,” he said at last, voice low. “I had a hall. We kept lanterns. We walked roads for others who were afraid to. And when it mattered most, when the flames were higher than the rafters and people screamed and someone needed to know which way to run… I—”

His voice broke.

He swallowed.

“I chose wrong.”

The words landed on the packed earth between them, small and heavy.

Crumb didn’t rush to fill the space.

After a long moment, he spoke. “And you lived.”

Ash’s head snapped toward him. “Does that sound like a good thing to you?”

“It sounds,” Crumb said, meeting his eyes, “like a road that didn’t end where you thought it did.”

Ash’s hands tightened around his lantern handle. “I don’t deserve to carry light.”

“Light wasn’t given to you because you deserved it,” Crumb replied. “It was given because someone needed you to see the way forward. That hasn’t changed.”

Ash looked away, out toward the river, the mill, the small village where a boy named Tom was breathing more easily.

“I failed,” he whispered.

Crumb nodded, not dismissing, not arguing—simply acknowledging.

“Yes,” he said. “And today you didn’t.”

The simplicity of it hit harder than any grand speech.

Ash exhaled slowly.

Kindle chose that moment to flutter down and land on his lantern, peering at him with sharp, black eyes. The little bird chirped twice—short, decisive sounds, like the closing of a clasp.

Crumb smiled faintly. “That’s his way of agreeing.”

“Does he disagree often?” Ash asked.

“Only with lies,” Crumb said.

Ash let out a rattling breath that might have been a laugh, might have been something else entirely.

He did leave that evening.

He still wasn’t ready for tables and roots and staying. His feet itched, and his ghosts walked just behind his shoulder, unwilling to be fully ignored.

But when he reached the sign at the edge of the Crossroads—the one that read, All roads remember those who pass—he stopped.

Crumb stood a little ways back, lantern in hand, Kindle perched, Liora and the Miller visible in the square behind him, going about their tasks, their lives.

The village breathed.

So did Ash.

He turned his lantern over once in his hands, feeling the worn grip, the faint vibration of its steady flame.

“I’ll keep walking,” he said.

“I know,” Crumb replied.

“But…” Ash hesitated. The word felt strange in his mouth. “I won’t avoid this road next time.”

Crumb’s eyes warmed. “Then we’ll be here. The oven will likely be stubborn, the mill will creak too loudly, Kindle will scold someone, and there will be bread.”

“And light,” Ash said quietly.

“And light,” Crumb agreed.

Ash nodded once.

Then he stepped forward, past the sign, onto the road—into a world that had not changed, not really, but felt different anyway.

His lantern’s flame glowed stronger than it had in years.

For the first time since the fire, Ash did not walk as if the past were chasing him.

He walked as if something ahead might be worth reaching.

And somewhere behind him, in a small village at the crossing of Faith and Fate, a baker, a sparrow, a miller, and a candlekeeper all turned, each in their own way, toward the same quiet thought:

This was not the end of Ash the Pilgrim’s story.
It was only the part where he remembered how to walk toward the light again.