The pendant was warm against his skin.
Elarion had tied it in a strip of bark he'd torn from a dead limb, letting it rest just below his collarbone. It pulsed softly—slow and steady—as if echoing the rhythm of a long-still heart. He didn't know why he'd kept it. Only that it had always been his, though he couldn't remember when, or why, or who had placed it in his hand long ago.
The forest had changed.
He could feel it. It wasn't something that could be explained with words.
Where before it had whispered, now it watched.
The trees no longer welcomed him with open arms. Their branches leaned in, shadowing the path he walked. Roots curled along his path like warning fingers, and the little creatures fled the moment his foot touched the ground. Even the wind seemed to speak in low voices—sharp, clipped, unsure.
He was not afraid.
Not yet.
As the hours passed, the trees became fewer. The green fell back. And finally, the forest gave way to a desolate stretch of ground where the grass was brittle and the earth stank of smoke. The air was heavy, dry, and inhumanly still. Even the insects wouldn't sing here.
Elarion crouched at the edge of the clearing, eyes raking the landscape in front of him.
Ruins.
Not grand marble halls or skyscraper strongholds, but the quiet, forgotten kind. Stone walls no taller than a man's waist. Ruined rooftops covered in vines. Blackened wood burned to charcoal. Whatever this place was, it had died a long time ago.
Something stirred under the decay, however.
He stepped ahead.
Each step kicked up small clouds of ash. It coated the debris like dust on a forgotten book—undisturbed for decades, maybe longer. A broken doorway yawned into the remains of a home. A hearth, choked by vines. A wooden child's toy, partially buried in the ground.
He knelt, brushing it off.
A toy horse. One wheel missing. The kind a boy would pull behind him as he ran along a dusty road. A road that no longer existed.
Something caught in his throat.
He didn't know this place. But it felt. familiar.
Like he had walked these streets. Played here. Fallen and scraped his knees here. Maybe a long time ago. Or maybe only in his dreams.
A wind blew through the ash.
And something answered.
Not aloud—but below.
A faint light appeared once, then died, from under the roots of a dead tree. Elarion stood up quickly, his eyes narrowing. He moved in closer, brushing aside dry, crumbling branches. And there, half-concealed beneath the gnarled root mass of the tree, he saw it:
Stone. Carved. Ancient.
Not ruins. A seal.
Circular, etched with runes like those on the archway from before. But these were deeper, darker. Angry. The air above the seal shimmered like heat, though there was no fire.
He didn't dare touch it.
But the pendant at his chest pulsed harder.
Faster.
It wanted him to remember.
He clenched his fists.
"I'm not ready," he whispered, unsure who he was speaking to.
But the forest was quiet. And the light beneath the seal glowed once more—dim, but steady.
He would have to be ready. He didnt know for what he would need to be ready for but he knew he had to be prepared, for whatever was coming.
Soon.