They left the Ashvault in silence, not from fear or reverence, but because there was nothing left to say. Some truths could not be dressed in language. The flames Kael had seen still flickered at the edge of his mind, not like a vision to be interpreted, but like an ache he had always carried and only now remembered.
Liora walked beside him, her hand tightly clasped in his, though her gaze was far away. The quiet wasn't like before—this was the silence of questions finding shape. And for once, she didn't try to hide it behind brightness or stubborn defiance. She wore her confusion openly, like a child staring into the ruins of a memory that didn't belong to her, and yet felt entirely her own.
Wren said nothing either. Her eyes remained sharp, flicking from corridor to corridor as they returned to the upper levels of the spire, but her focus seemed strained. Kael had noticed the tremor in her hand when she re-fastened her cloak, the way her footfalls slowed slightly when they passed certain murals. She, too, had been changed by the Ashvault, even if she would not admit it aloud.
When they finally emerged into the morning light pouring through the shattered tower windows, the air felt thinner—like something holy had been disturbed below and now lingered in the cracks of the stone. Cael'Roth had once been a city of flames and towers, but now its silence stretched longer than its roads. The ruin wasn't just of walls or buildings. It was the ruin of memory.
Talrien didn't follow them past the gates. He remained in the shadows of the broken tower, watching, as if to guard the last ember of something sacred. Kael didn't ask for a farewell. Whatever had passed between them in the chamber of ash had already burned the need for parting words.
Outside, the landscape rolled in sun-blasted canyons and wind-stripped cliffs. The path they now followed stretched westward, toward the edge of the Skyroot Expanse. Their next step wasn't just forward—it was downward, into the long-forgotten passage known in maps as the "Vein of Silence," a name that meant little to Kael until he saw it.
It began as a split in the earth, like a wound cleaved open by an ancient sword. The canyon was narrow, but deep—unnaturally so. Its walls were carved in patterns too clean to be erosion, etched with runes long dead to the tongues of mortals. A bridge of stone stretched across it, chiseled with symbols that shimmered faintly in the daylight.
"We shouldn't be here," Wren said under her breath. "This place feels… watched."
Kael knelt near the edge of the canyon, brushing his fingers against the carved surface. The air that drifted up from the gap below was cool, dry, and faintly metallic—like the breath of old machines left to rust in some buried tomb.
"This was once a gate," he murmured. "Not just a bridge. Something was sealed beneath it."
Liora didn't move closer, but her voice carried clearly. "It's calling."
Kael looked up at her sharply. "What is?"
She hesitated, then pointed downward, not at the canyon, but beyond it—toward the ridge where blackened trees clung to crumbling soil. "Something is dreaming there. I don't know its name. But it remembers me."
Kael exchanged a glance with Wren, and for once, the older woman didn't challenge the girl's words. She only tightened her grip on her weapons and stepped ahead.
"If it remembers her," she said grimly, "then it knows what we carry. And what follows."
They crossed the bridge before noon, their shadows long behind them. The land beyond shifted. The winds grew quieter, as if muffled by the soil. Trees bent in directions that defied the wind. The air shimmered occasionally, and Kael felt a constant pressure in his ears, like the hum of unseen music playing just beneath the edge of hearing.
The sun dimmed slightly, though no clouds crossed the sky.
They reached the ruins by evening.
Unlike Cael'Roth, these structures bore no grandeur. They were squat, sunken, and nearly lost beneath the overgrowth. Stone archways jutted from the earth like broken bones. Beneath one collapsed dome, they found remnants of an ancient workshop: broken tools, melted glass, and an old mirror set in a rusted iron frame.
Liora paused before it, frowning.
"There's something wrong with the reflection," she whispered.
Kael stepped beside her. The mirror wasn't cracked, but the surface wavered, as though submerged in slow-moving water. His own reflection stared back at him—but it didn't move in perfect sync. A momentary lag. A breath's delay. As if something behind the glass was pretending to be him.
Wren drew her blade. "We break it."
"No," Kael said quickly, eyes narrowing. "Not yet. This was placed here for a reason."
He stepped closer, staring into the mirror. The reflection sharpened, the delay fading—until, suddenly, the image spoke.
"Kael of the Falling Star."
He froze.
"I know your name," it said, voice matching his own, but laced with a tone far older. "I knew it before you bore it. You carry a promise made in another age."
Liora backed away. "That voice—it's the same as the one I heard in the spire. When the flames touched me."
Kael held up a hand. "What do you want?"
The reflection did not blink. "Not want. Warn. The ember you carry stirs old roots. Powers that once slumbered now awaken. And the ones who buried them... will come to bury you."
Wren stepped in, her sword lowering only slightly. "Is that a threat?"
The reflection's smile was not Kael's. "A thread. One fraying strand in the weave. Pull it, and the world unravels."
Then the image twisted. Not violently—but like a candle flame turned sideways. The mirror darkened, ripples vanishing. The glass turned dull.
Kael let out a slow breath. "It wasn't a memory. That was... alive."
"Or watching," Wren said, scanning the treeline.
The wind shifted. This time, it brought voices.
Not words—just the sound of weeping.
Liora gripped Kael's hand tighter. "We need to move. Now."
He didn't argue.
As night fell, they made camp in the ruins of the outer wall. Kael sat with his back to a broken column, watching the stars blink into view. But they were fewer now. The sky was dimmer. As if something above was closing in.
Liora slept against him, her breathing steady, but Kael could feel the heat from her skin pulsing faintly. She was burning again—not fevered, but glowing.
Wren didn't sleep. She kept watch near the edge of the ruins, her posture tense. Kael watched her silhouette, outlined by the pale starlight, and realized how much older she looked in stillness. Not in years—but in burden.
He closed his eyes, letting the sounds of the night press against him.
He didn't dream.
But far beneath them, something else did.
And it had just begun to stir.