The wind swept across the plateau, thin and dry as bone dust.
They had followed the longer trail for two days now—curving around ravines, weaving through crooked stone fields and brittle ridges. What little plant life survived here clung to the earth like secrets: colorless moss, pale thorns, and thin strands of black lichen that snapped underfoot like brittle wire.
Kael walked in silence, the Echoheart warm and constant beneath his cloak. It no longer pulsed in erratic bursts. Now it murmured—softly, steadily—like a distant voice chanting through stone.
He didn't tell the others.
Tovan limped behind him, slower now, though he refused to accept help. Elira had moved ahead, scouting, her back straight, posture tight.
Even without words, Kael could feel the strain pulling at the seams of their group. It was like walking into wind none of them acknowledged.
By midday, the landscape began to shift.
They crossed the same set of ridged stones twice—Kael was sure of it. A patch of thorngrass he'd sliced through earlier appeared again, untouched. Then again, this time flattened as if stepped on long before.
Kael heard Tovan curse a second before the man actually spoke—like time was stuttering around them.
"Elira," he called.
She turned, shielding her eyes from the glare. "You see it too?"
Tovan swore again. "We're going in circles. You sure this isn't your relic messing with us?"
Kael touched the Echoheart. "I'm not doing anything."
"But it is," Tovan muttered. "It's doing something."
Kael didn't disagree.
An hour later, Elira called them to a stop.
Carved into a flat stone slab, half-buried in gravel, was a familiar symbol: a twisted sun with three notches carved into its side. A Hollowguard warning—used to mark unstable relic zones.
Beneath it, the ground sloped downward into a shallow basin. The soil was scorched in a spiral pattern—burned black and cracked, as if something had flared beneath it. Kael knelt at the edge, brushing away dust.
The Echoheart vibrated gently against his palm.
"I've seen this pattern before," Elira said quietly. "At the ruined camp. And once before that. It means something's active beneath the surface."
Kael stood, his voice low. "Something old."
Tovan spat into the dirt. "So, we avoid it."
But Kael had already stepped closer.
The hum grew louder as Kael approached the center of the spiral. He wasn't walking anymore—he was drifting. The world felt thin, like parchment stretching beneath too much ink.
Then everything stopped.
His vision darkened—not blackness, but shadow. He stood in a place that wasn't here: a city of spires stretched into a colorless sky, its towers cracked and hollow. He moved, but his body was not his own.
He looked down and saw armor that wasn't his. Fingers that weren't his. His heart pounded, but not in his chest.
And then—a voice, ancient and layered:
"You wear the eye, but not the will. Not yet."
Kael gasped and fell to his knees.
The world snapped back.
Elira was beside him, hand on his shoulder, her grip tighter than usual. Her face was unreadable—but her fingers trembled once before she let go.
"You dropped," she said. "For ten seconds you just—froze."
Tovan looked pale. "Whatever's under us doesn't want to stay buried."
Kael wiped sweat from his brow, breathing hard. "It knows we're here."
He looked down at the Echoheart, still dim but warm. Was this what it wanted all along? Not to show him history—but to make him part of it?
They didn't camp near the spiral.
They moved a full ridge away before making camp beneath a stone overhang. The fire burned low and tight. No one said much.
Elira sharpened her blade slowly, her eyes on the darkness beyond the firelight. Her hand flexed on the hilt every few minutes, unconscious.
Tovan cleaned his rifle, muttering under his breath. He stopped more than once, staring out into the dark like he'd heard something he couldn't name.
Kael sat with the relic in his lap. It was quiet again. Waiting.
But in the dirt around their camp, something had changed.
Just before dawn, Elira called them both over.
"Look."
Circling the fire were footprints. Human. Bare. No drag marks. No signs of approach or departure.
Just a perfect ring of fresh steps around where they had slept.
Kael stared at them for a long time, then looked toward the horizon.
Vareth was close now.
And something else was even closer.