Ryu stayed awake a little longer than the rest.
His eyes half-lidded as he stared into the shifting sky. The constellations above whispered unfamiliar names, their light refracted through the aftershocks of battle and memory.
He listened to the quiet crackle of the fire, to the faint pulse of the world veins beneath the stone, and most of all, to the rhythm of Yan's breath beside him. Slow and steady.
That sound grounded him more than any meditation ever had.
And for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, the mark on his hand didn't flare with heat or warning. It glowed instead, soft and steady, like a distant star seen through a veil of calm.
A pulse of light.
Sleep claimed the others one by one, and at last, Ryu let go.
Night melted slowly into dawn.
Golden light crept across the ridges of Thunder Hollow, bathing the scorched cliffs in pale lavender hues. Where the earth had cracked and burned the night before, it now smoothed under morning's breath, like the world itself had exhaled.
Ryu stirred first.
Yan still lay beside him, one hand curled gently open, fingers resting just inches from where his had been. Their hands no longer touched but something lingered in the space between, an echo of warmth, a thread not yet woven.
He didn't reach for it.
He didn't need to.
Instead, he lay still and breathed, long and quiet, letting the light filter into his skin, into his bones. The mark on his palm remained steady.
Elyra was already awake, seated cross-legged near the cliff's edge, eyes closed, her face turned toward the rising sun. The early light painted her silhouette in gold, her stillness almost meditative. Below, Kalavan stood on a jut of stone, scanning the terrain to the east with quiet focus. Their next path awaited.
By midday, they reached the rim of a jagged ravine and saw it.
Built into the far slope of a crescent-shaped ridge lay a structure unlike anything they had encountered. It wasn't choked by overgrowth or crumbling under time. There were no signs of war or decay. No collapse. No rot.
It hadn't been abandoned.
It had been preserved, intact, untouched, as if the world had forgotten to reclaim it.
A broad, hexagonal platform stretched from the hillside, each of its edges smooth and seamless, as though shaped by celestial hands rather than mortals. Radiant silver veins traced the stone, pulsing faintly with dormant Qi, catching the sun like threads of starlight woven through the earth.
At the centre stood a half-sunken monolith, tall and weathered, its surface etched with shifting symbols. When viewed from different angles, the markings bent and shimmered, like they existed in more than one layer of reality.
It was old.
Older than the veil. Older than the empires that once ruled this continent.
Surrounding the monolith was a ring of glyphs carved into the platform, fine and precise, arranged in a perfect spiral. Like the petals of a celestial bloom, they radiated outward from the stone.
There were nine.
Each aligned with a constellation but none found in modern star charts.
Ryu felt the pull immediately.
The Nameless Gate had once been alive.
And now it stirred at his presence.
They approached slowly, weapons sheathed but Qi primed, ready for anything.
No creatures stirred.
No sound but the wind and beneath it, a hum. Faint but steady. Like the heartbeat of something long asleep, now beginning to wake.
Drawn forward by instinct more than thought, Ryu stepped toward to the monolith. The others held back, watching in silence.
As he neared, the air thickened, pressurized like the moment before a storm. His hand tingled.
The mark began to glow, subtle at first, then brighter with every breath.
He raised his palm.
The moment his skin touched the stone, the mark aligned with the glyph ring, an exact fit, as though carved for this purpose.
Light surged upward and with it, a vision, brief, fragmented and piercing.
Stars folding inward. A gate stretched between realms. A sensation of unravelling distance, like space itself being rewritten.
A warning.
And a key.
The monolith pulsed beneath his touch. The silver veins on the platform lit up in full, patterns racing across the stone like lightning in slow motion. Above them a pillar of light shot into the sky and twisted.
From it a sigil formed, an enormous arcane ring composed of silver and black Qi, turning slowly like the dial of some forgotten cosmic mechanism.
Elyra exhaled softly. "That's a seal, one of the last."
Yan's brows furrowed. "Seal… on what?"
Ryu stepped back, his eyes still on the sigil. "The original path. The one the Void Emperor tried to close."
They began to explore the structure, moving carefully into its shadowed halls.
The ruin was not as empty as it seemed.
They found corridors that curved in on themselves, staircases that led back to where they began, and chambers full of echoes, echoes that didn't repeat what was said but what had once been spoken long ago.
The Qi within these walls was warped. Bent by something that tried to replicate the Dao of Space and failed.
Elyra ran her fingers along one curved wall, expression darkening. "This place was a test site," she whispered. "They tried to mirror what the Void Emperor could do but they didn't have the inheritance. Just fragments and ambition."
Kalavan called from deeper within. "I think I've found something."
They entered a side chamber and halted.
At the far wall stood a shrine, its stone cracked but not collapsed. Above it, engraved into the wall, was a symbol that mirrored the mark on Ryu's hand but it was inverted.
Its energy was wrong, heavy and unbalanced. It pulsed with Qi that did not belong to this world.
"They didn't try to seal the gate," Yan murmured. "They tried to open it to the other side."
Elyra nodded; her voice grim. "And they succeeded."
As night fell, they set up camp on the platform's edge. The arcane ring still hovered overhead, humming faintly with restrained power. The stars above seemed clearer here, closer, sharper. As though the heavens themselves leaned down to watch.
Yan sat near the outer rim of the stone, staring west toward the mountains they had crossed. Ryu approached and quietly settled beside her.
"You're thinking about the capital," he said with a gentle tone.
She nodded. "I left the city stronger than I found it, but part of me still worries."
"You don't have to," Ryu said. "They're not unguarded."
Yan pulled a sealed scroll from her pouch, fingers brushing the wax crest. "Before we left, I sent for my grandfather. General Oliver Phoenix. He's returning from the northern frontier."
Ryu blinked. "The Undying Flame?"
She smiled faintly. "You know the title?"
Kalavan's voice carried from the shadows. "Who doesn't? He's a legend."
Yan's smile deepened with pride. "He retired years ago. Lives quietly in the hills far from court. But if anyone can stabilize Phoenix City during uncertain times, it's him. He doesn't care about thrones. He cares about the people."
Ryu's voice softened. "And your father?"
Her smile faded. "Still across the sea. On diplomatic assignment to the Southern Federation. He's been gone nearly a year. Even if he returned, the alliances have changed too much. It's too late."
Kalavan asked, his tone tightening, "And Vaen?"
Yan's expression cooled. "He's not really my uncle. Just my father's cousin. But the court needed a name to rally behind while I was gone. Vaen was convenient, clever, composed, and dangerous if left unchecked."
Ryu frowned. "So General Phoenix will take the regency?"
She nodded. "The seal is signed. Once he arrives, he'll assume command. And if Vaen challenges him…"
Her voice turned quiet. Unshakable.
"He knows better than to challenge the Undying Flame."