The trees leaned inward as they walked, like old witnesses guarding secrets they weren't allowed to speak.
Karl stepped lightly, boots crunching against damp moss. The trail wasn't much of a trail — more like the memory of one. Faint. Forgotten. Leading toward the ruined shrine at the base of the ridge.
Behind him, Mira kicked a loose root and cursed.
"Seriously," she muttered. "Why is it always the creepy glowing ruins with you?"
Karl didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because something ahead was pulling him forward faster than his own thoughts.
They crested the ridge.
And there it was.
A shattered stone arch, half-swallowed by the earth. Weeds twisted around runes too old to read. A faint light leaked from a crack in the shrine floor — blue, like fire trapped in ice.
Karl's breath caught.
That light again.
"You're sure you want to do this?" Mira asked, suddenly serious.
He nodded. "It's not about want."
He took a step forward. The air changed.
Colder. Thinner. Like the world was holding its breath.
Then, the ground beneath the shrine pulsed.
Not loudly.
But deeply — like the heartbeat of something buried.
Karl dropped to one knee and placed his hand over the stone crack.
The moment his skin touched it, the mark on his chest burned — not pain, but recognition.
"Karl—"
He didn't hear Mira's warning.
Because in that second, the relic answered.
A voice — not spoken, not heard — pushed into his thoughts.
"So you return… Veiled One."
His eyes widened.
"What… did you just call me?"
"You are not ready."
The light flared once, and then — vanished.
The crack sealed. The shrine fell silent.
Karl stumbled back, hand still glowing faintly.
Mira grabbed his arm. "What just happened? Are you okay?"
He didn't know how to answer.
Because inside his chest, where the wing-shaped mark throbbed faintly, something had shifted.
Something had remembered him.
And deep in the dark underworld of roots and stone…
Noctherion stirred.