Two Weeks Later – Northward Roads, Past the Verdant Divide
The sky shifted as they rode north.
Green hills gave way to jagged cliffs. The air smelled faintly of frost, even though it was summer. Birds didn't fly here. Magic was quiet.
Too quiet.
Serene rode beside Luka, her newly reforged shield gleaming softly, etched with a small sun—the sigil of the Flamewardens.
Gregor trudged on foot nearby, pulling their supplies behind a thick, rune-marked beast called a grufwalker.
Snow dozed in Luka's saddlebag, tail twitching occasionally.
No one talked much.
Until they reached the edge of the Stone Sea.
It wasn't on any map.
A wasteland of petrified trees, cracked basalt fields, and broken spires that once looked like towers—now just statues of ash-colored ruin. But the strangest part wasn't the land.
It was the shapes.
Figures, frozen in place.
Not statues. Not golems.
People.
Thousands of them.
