The air in Irontooth Pass had turned brittle. Morning light scattered off a field of frost, turning every tree branch into a spear of white. Yet, beneath that fragile beauty, the tension in the Mistshroud camp hung like a coiled serpent.
Adrian stood at the central altar of the ruined shrine they had reclaimed, the Bound Star Core floating silently above his palms. Its glow no longer pulsed with simple energy—it was singing. Calling.
Not outward.
Inward.
A memory buried in bone, a voice beneath thought.
He inhaled deeply. The Bound Star flickered, and in that moment, the world fell away.
He stood atop a frozen sea.
Endless. Lifeless.
And in the center: a black monolith, cracked with glowing threads of silver.
A voice echoed from it.
"Why do you wake the embers, Heir of Mist and Star?"
Adrian stepped forward, boots crunching frost. "Because the hunters have come. And I will not run again."
The monolith pulsed.
"Then face the price."
