Tovan's blood soaked through his sleeve faster than he admitted.
Kael pressed a cloth to the wound while Elira worked to seal it with a heatstone, her jaw clenched, eyes focused. The makeshift shelter they'd found between two leaning slabs of broken stone did little to keep the chill away. The canyon around them had fallen silent again—too silent.
"No exit wound," Elira muttered. "Good. But you lost a lot."
Tovan scoffed, his voice thin. "I've got more. Somewhere."
Kael didn't speak. The Echoheart sat dim against his chest, its surface dull like frosted glass. But he could still feel it. Flickering. Off-rhythm. Every pulse made his skin crawl slightly, like a fever that wouldn't break.
Too much, he thought. I pushed too hard again.
He looked down at his hands. They trembled—not from fear, but from something deeper. Something building. A resonance he couldn't name.
An hour passed in strained silence.
Elira finally sat back from tending Tovan and exhaled. "That agent wasn't just another scavenger."
Kael nodded slowly. "They knew. About the Echoheart. About us."
Tovan's voice was dry. "Or they didn't care. They just wanted to see if we'd crack."
Kael looked up. "Why say 'Vareth won't save you'?"
Elira wiped blood from her hands. "Because it's not salvation waiting there. It's something else. Maybe something worse."
A heavy silence followed. It pressed on Kael like the weight of the canyon walls.
That night, Kael sat apart from the others. The fire was low. Tovan snored lightly, his breath uneven. Elira stood watch in the dark, her silhouette barely shifting.
Kael held the Echoheart in his palm. It barely pulsed—but he felt it twitch. Like a heartbeat underwater. Slowed. Distant.
Then, without warning, he was no longer by the fire.
He stood on a battlefield—not in body, but in vision.
The sky above was split in half: one side burning red, the other a void of stars. Dozens of figures stood in formation, all wearing relics—some shining, some flickering like dying embers.
They faced a single point in the distance. A tear in the world itself.
A voice echoed, layered and ancient:
"This is not the first convergence."
Kael blinked. He wasn't in the field anymore.
He was back at the fire.
Sweat clung to his skin. The Echoheart pulsed once—then went still.
He pressed his hand over it and whispered, "You're showing me too much."
But the truth clawed at the edge of his mind:
I'm beginning to understand it.
By morning, tension hung over them like a fog.
Tovan limped but insisted on walking. At one point, he stumbled and had to catch himself against the rock. Elira moved to help, but he waved her off.
"We don't have time to be broken," he muttered.
Kael led without a word. None of them asked him to. None of them stopped him, either.
They reached a fork in the ravine—two paths.
The left: steep, narrow, unstable. A direct line toward Vareth.
The right: longer, winding, safer. But exposed, and likely to draw attention.
Kael spoke first. "Left is faster."
Tovan snorted. "And suicidal."
Elira hesitated. "We're not ready. We need time to recover."
Kael almost argued—but the relic stirred. Not in words. Not in vision.
Just pull.
Still, he let the vote stand. They turned right.
But as Kael walked, he glanced over his shoulder.
The left path shimmered—just for a heartbeat—and the air shifted around him. A low wind passed through the rocks, but it didn't feel natural. It felt like memory brushing skin.
And for a moment, Kael felt… weightless. Disconnected.
Then it was gone.