Kael dreamed of fire.
Not the searing kind that devours flesh, but a slow, creeping blaze that moved through shadow. It licked along the edges of his memory, burning away names, faces, and fragments of a past he no longer trusted. Somewhere in the center of that dream stood the Ash Tree, alive and blooming—not with leaves, but with eyes. They opened and closed in a slow rhythm, each one weeping black sap.
He awoke gasping.
The ring was still in his palm. His fingers had clenched around it in sleep, and the iron had left a mark—a thorn-shaped imprint in the skin. His branded arm ached as if someone had poured molten ink beneath the surface.
The inn room was silent. Pale dawn filtered through the crooked shutters, and dust motes danced lazily in the light. He sat up slowly, muscles stiff. A weight had settled in his bones, like something half-buried beneath the earth.
He touched the brand.
Still there. Still faintly warm.
He turned the ring over in his hands. Thorn-runes, just as before. One of them glowed faintly when he stared too long. Not a trick of the light. A pulse.
Something was changing. Inside him. Around him.
The dreams had started the night he touched the Ash Tree. But they weren't just dreams—they were memories. Not his. Not entirely. But real.
He slipped the ring onto his finger and stood.
Greyhearth had not changed overnight, but Kael could feel its shape differently now. As he stepped into the street, the city felt sharper, like the corners of buildings had been honed, like shadows moved just a hair slower than the people who cast them.
There were whispers, too.
Not voices—at least, not yet—but a kind of knowing. When he looked at a merchant's eyes, he knew the man was grieving. When he passed a guard, he could almost taste the guilt in the air.
He was seeing things he wasn't meant to see.
A woman selling dried herbs flinched when he walked past. A beggar crossed himself twice and muttered a prayer in a forgotten tongue.
And always, above it all, the crows. Watching.
He tried to ignore them.
His feet carried him without thought, down winding alleys and broken causeways, until he stood before the edge of the Sunken Quarter—a district long swallowed by rot and silence. No one went there, not even the desperate.
Except Kael.
Something called to him.
He passed beneath a half-collapsed arch and into the mist. Buildings leaned at impossible angles, their stone bones broken and weeping. The cobbles were slick with moss and something darker.
Kael walked until he found the statue.
It was old—so old even the ivy had begun to die around it. A woman, faceless, draped in robes that turned into serpents as they curled down her body. She held a bowl in her hands, filled not with water, but a dried, cracked black resin.
He did not know her name. But he knew—somehow—that she had once been worshipped.
As he stared, the whispers grew louder.
The Veil thinned here.
He reached toward the bowl.
"Do not touch it," came a voice behind him.
Kael spun, hand going for the dagger he didn't have.
A man stood at the edge of the mist. Lean, hooded, clad in weathered leathers marked with the same thorn-runes as Kael's brand. His eyes were gray as riverstone and hard as winter.
"You're not the first to wake with the mark," the man said. "But you might be the last."
Kael didn't move. "Who are you?"
"Someone who still remembers his name. Call me Thorne."
"Appropriate."
The man—Thorne—smirked faintly. "And you're the idiot who touched the Ash Tree. That makes you a Warden."
Kael shook his head. "I don't know what that means."
"You will." Thorne stepped closer. "But not here. Not now. The Veil's too thin in this place. It listens. And sometimes, it answers."
Kael glanced back at the statue. He could feel it pulsing—like a buried heart. "What is this place?"
"An echo," Thorne said. "A scar left by the gods we forgot. And a door for things that should not walk."
Kael felt the ring grow cold on his finger.
"What do you want from me?"
Thorne gave him a long look. "To live. You'll need help for that. And answers."
He tossed something to Kael. A stone disk, etched with more thorn-runes. "Meet me at dusk. Temple of Hollow Saints. Bring the brand, and leave the questions."
Then Thorne was gone.
Kael turned back to the statue—but the whispers had faded. The resin in the bowl cracked as if it had breathed its last.
Whatever power lingered here had gone still again.
For now.
Dusk in Greyhearth bled slowly, painting the city in bruised gold and violet. Kael moved through the quiet streets toward the Temple of Hollow Saints, the disk Thorne had given him wrapped tightly in cloth.
The temple stood near the cliffs, half-carved into the rock, its spires bent like dying fingers. Once, it had been a place of mourning. Now, it was merely forgotten.
Kael pushed open the heavy doors.
Inside, statues lined the walls—stone saints with their faces worn smooth by time. Candles guttered weakly in iron sconces. At the far end, where once an altar might have stood, a great stone mirror loomed. Cracked. Empty.
Thorne stood beside it, arms crossed.
"You came."
Kael nodded. "You said you had answers."
"I have one." Thorne stepped aside, revealing a smaller altar behind the mirror—upon it, a book. Bound in black leather, locked in place by chains of thorn-metal.
"The Codex Veil," Thorne said. "You won't be able to read it. Not yet. But it will recognize your mark."
Kael approached slowly.
As he drew near, the brand on his arm flared.
The chains writhed.
And the book opened.
Not with paper, but with shadow.
Kael stared into the void within.
And it stared back.
He saw fragments again. The burning city. The woman in thorned silk. The boy with golden eyes.
And this time, a name.
Not his own.
But it tasted like truth.
Nyrrh.
The Codex slammed shut.
Kael staggered back.
Thorne caught him. "Now you've begun."
"What was that?"
"The first of many questions," Thorne said. "And one of few answers."
Kael looked down at his arm. The brand had darkened, like ink poured over old scars.
Thorne paced to the cracked mirror, then touched its frame. "Every Warden sees something different. What you saw—Nyrrh—that name is a tether. It connects you to whatever the Veil thinks you need to find."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "So I'm a pawn in a game I don't understand."
"Better than being a corpse in a game you never played."
Kael exhaled. "You said others had the mark."
"They did," Thorne said. "Some still do. Most are dead. Or worse."
Kael hesitated. "What do you mean worse?"
Thorne didn't answer. His eyes had gone to the mirror, where a faint ripple moved across the glass.
Kael followed his gaze.
A figure stood just beyond the reflection. Impossible—yet real. Cloaked in shadow, its head bowed, face hidden beneath a mask of thorn and bone.
Then, just for a heartbeat, it looked up.
No face. Just a hole. Endless.
Kael blinked—and it was gone.
Thorne's jaw tightened. "We're out of time."
"For what?"
"For the quiet," Thorne said. "They've noticed you."
Kael felt the weight of those words settle like iron in his gut.
The world he thought he knew was peeling away, layer by layer.
And whatever lay beneath it…Was watching.