The road out of Eldenmere was older than the kingdom itself.
Worn stone slabs jutted from the earth like broken teeth, slick with moss and time. Few traveled this path anymore—not since the dragon came. Even the birds avoided it.
Talen walked alone.
His boots struck the ancient stones with steady rhythm, each step carrying him further from what remained of home, deeper into the unknown. The wind howled through the trees like a mourning spirit, rattling dry branches and whispering things just beyond the edge of hearing.
He wasn't afraid.
Not yet.
But something in the air made his skin crawl.
As he passed beneath a crumbling archway—what once might have been a gate to a forgotten village—a voice slithered through the silence.
"You walk a path already walked."
Talen froze.
His hand flew to the hilt of his sword.
"Who's there?"
No one answered.
Only the wind.
Still, the words clung to him like cobwebs.
He pressed on.
By midday, the forest thickened, the sky swallowed by tangled canopies that let only slivers of pale light through. Shadows moved where none should be. Shapes flickered at the edge of vision. And always, the whispers followed.
Sometimes they spoke in voices he almost recognized.
Sometimes in languages he had never learned.
"Turn back."
"You do not understand what you are doing."
"You are not the hero."
Each time, he ignored them.
Voices in the wind. Tricks of the mind. That was all.
But then came the ruins.
Half-buried beneath roots and rot, a statue stood at the crossroads—once a knight, now worn down by time and weather. A sword still raised high in its stone grip. At its base, carved into the pedestal in fading letters:
"Here lies Talen, who thought himself chosen."
Talen stared at it.
Heart hammering.
Impossible.
He had never been here before.
Had he?