The road was quiet.
Ash still clung to his clothes. The smoke had faded from the sky, but not from his thoughts.
Kaelen's footsteps were heavy on the dirt path that twisted between the dead trees, charred at their edges like brittle bones. Behind him, the husk of Elderrest lay still, a grave to more people he couldn't save.
Hollow Spine pulsed faintly at his side. He hadn't looked at it since he left not because he hadn't noticed the shift, but because a part of him didn't want to know what it meant. The hum had changed. Deepened. Almost like it had tasted something it liked.
His eyes narrowed. That wasn't what gnawed at him, though.
It was the runes.
He hadn't said anything, not even to himself. But the moment he'd seen the faint markings scorched into the village stone barely visible under soot, he'd felt something twist in his gut.
The City of Bhuddha.
The memory struck like a whip. He had seen those runes before. On that day the fire consumed it. Runes etched into the walls, the floor, the pillars—like quiet symbols of doom. He hadn't known what they meant then. He still didn't.
But this time, he recognized the style.
Elegant. Deliberate. Subtle enough to be dismissed as decorative. But they weren't. No random fire would leave rune sigils scorched into a foundation.
Someone placed them.
And there was only one person he knew who could weave runes that intricate and keep them hidden in plain sight.
Maelra.
Her name lingered like venom on his tongue.
His pace slowed. The cold wind bit into his skin, but his blood simmered.
Two cities. Two burnings. The same signature hidden beneath the ruin.
She was weaving something behind the veil, something vast enough to burn through entire civilizations. And Kaelen...Kaelen had been walking right through it, unaware.
But not anymore.