Kalem led them through the narrow break in the ridge, lantern light flickering against walls slick with rain and moss. The eastern hunters' trail plunged into shadow, winding downward toward a hidden crevasse. Above, the storm's roar faded, leaving only the drip of water and their measured footfalls.
"Keep your cores close," Kalem warned. "This path is known to few—and guarded by even fewer."
Arin felt the fragment's pulse against his ribs, a steady beacon in the dim. Lireya's gauntlet hummed softly as she traced the walls with cautious fingertips, searching for traps.
Without warning, the ground gave way beneath Kalem's boot. The lantern tumbled from his grasp, and he vanished into darkness with a strangled shout.
"Kalem!" Arin lunged, catching the hunter's elbow as he scrabbled on a narrow ledge. Lireya leapt to help, earth currents knitting the broken path back together so they could haul him up.
Kalem's face was ashen. "I… I saw a hidden entrance. Must've slipped by my eye."
Arin nodded, peering into the yawning chasm. At its bottom lay a mossy archway—carved stones glowing faintly with residual glyphs.
"Looks deliberate," Lireya said. "Someone built this."
Gathering their cores, they descended the crude stone steps. The archway opened into a vast cavern, its ceiling lost to darkness. Stalactites dripped into pools that reflected the glow of bioluminescent fungi. At the center, half-buried in rubble, stood a colossal stone sentinel: a golem sculpted of wind-tossed rock, its form half-eroded but intact enough to recognize the spiraled binding glyph emblazoned on its chest.
"Ancient guardians," Kalem whispered. "Bound here to protect… something."
Arin stepped forward, running a gauntleted hand across the sentinel's chest. A spark of residual magic pulsed beneath his touch. Lireya knelt beside it, brushing away debris to reveal an engraved plaque:
"Here lies the First Binding's heart. None shall pass until the dual currents prove worthy."
A low rumble echoed through the cavern. The sentinel's eyes—deep hollows of carved stone—glowed with white and black light.
Arin exchanged a glance with Lireya. "It's testing us."
He stood at the sentinel's feet, placing both palms on its glyph. Drawing earth and wind currents through his gauntlet and blade, he wove them into the sentinel's lock: earth forming steady keys, wind whispering the pattern. Lireya mirrored him, her currents reinforcing the flow.
The golem shuddered. Stone plates ground against each other as its massive limbs creaked to life, then slowly receded, clearing a path toward a recessed alcove beyond.
Heart pounding, Arin and Lireya stepped forward. Inside the alcove lay a single obsidian shard—jet-black and cool to the touch—inscribed with the missing half of the Codex of the First Binding.
"This is it," Arin breathed, lifting the shard. Its dark surface rippled with etched runes that matched the fragment's black veins.
Lireya held her lantern aloft. "We've found the second page."
At that moment, the sentinel's head tilted, and its voice—deep as grinding boulders—filled the chamber: "Bearer of dual currents, you have proven your worth. But beware: the Voice Unbound has already claimed the heart of the seal…"
The obsidian shard pulsed in Arin's hand, and he felt a tremor run through the cavern. Far above, the hunters' trail entrance collapsed with a thunderous crash, sealing them in.
Kalem drew his bow. "We're not the only ones in here."
Arin pressed the shard against the binding glyph on the fragment's box. The two pieces locked together with a resonant click, darkness and light entwining. A map of the Valley of Whispering Pines flared into view in his mind—a hidden path through the seal stones, bypassing the main wards.
Lireya's eyes widened. "That's how we get in without breaking the seals."
The sentinel's voice rumbled again. "Go now, before your enemies close in. Trust not the shadows that speak."
Above the falling debris, muffled shouts echoed. Arin slipped the reunited codex into his satchel.
"We move," he said, voice steady. "This way."
He led them through a narrow tunnel revealed by the sentinel's parting, the obsidian shard's glow illuminating runes that pointed toward the valley's hidden gate. As they slipped from the cavern into the night, Arin felt both triumph and dread: the Codex was whole—and so was their path into the wyrm's lair—but the Voice Unbound lurked ever closer in the dark.
And somewhere beyond the stone, the wyrm itself stirred at last.