They didn't say much after the ravine.
The black shard—cold as bone, stubborn as guilt—had carved its weight into all of them. Verek could still feel it grinding beneath his ribs, like it had taken root just behind his heart. It clung to his boots, to his breath, and worse, to his thoughts. Nobody said it aloud, but they all carried that same silence now. Not tension. Not mourning. Just the kind of hollow that settles when you know the worst part isn't over yet.
Frost cracked beneath their boots. The slope curved west, winding around a knuckled rise of stone before opening wide onto a dead plain where half-toppled aqueducts and charred watchposts leaned like drunks after a bad war. Some structures were nothing but ribs half-swallowed by weeds. Others stood upright, but crooked, like they were too tired to fall.
Verek slowed as they came to the ridge's edge. He always gave the wind the first word now. If it had anything to say, it kept it to itself.
Ezreal broke the quiet instead. His voice was thin, ragged. Like he'd worn it down over weeks of shouting into empty places. "Red Hollow's next. The gold shard. Metallic. The ones that tangle up time and legacy."
"Wonderful," Dax muttered as he shoved past a stand of brittle brambles. "After ghosts and guilt, now it's memories that stab you in the back. Can't wait."
No one laughed. Not even Caylen, who sometimes tried. The land didn't find it funny either.
News hit them in stutters now. Scrolls with corners torn off. Familiars with burned-out eyes landing in their path. And sometimes, worse—just names on the wind, whispered like rumors from someone who hadn't had a mouth in years.
Phokorus was falling apart.
Kaelith Serpantwind? Gone.
Not killed. Not taken. Just... gone. Like a page ripped from a book mid-thought. No explanation. No trail.
And Vargus Ironcrag, of all bastards, had surfaced again. This time near the Obsidian Steps—a place too soaked in old blood and worse deals to speak of lightly. Word was, he'd found something ancient. A blade so old it didn't have a name left. Just hunger.
They set up camp that night near a dip in the earth where the ground sagged like it had caved under its own regrets. The fire barely got going. It cracked a little, hissed a bit. That was it.
Verek crouched near the flame, shoulders hunched, cloak stiff with frost. His fingers ached from the cold but didn't tremble. Not yet.
Ezreal sat across from him. The silver and black shards lay in front of him, catching what little light there was. They didn't glow in sync. They pulsed like they were having separate arguments. Separate dreams.
Caylen's voice drifted in from the edge of the dark. "She wouldn't just leave."
Verek didn't turn. He didn't need to.
Ezreal gave a slow nod. "She didn't leave. She descended."
Dax dragged himself closer to the fire, dropping into a crouch like his bones might fall apart if he sat too fast. "Descended into what?"
Ezreal didn't blink. "The Veins. The Crystal Cavern. She's chasing the bones of old gods."
Dax snorted. "Perfect. So she's either looking for answers... or becoming one."
Caylen sat back against a warped stone. "We lose a queen, and we gain a warlord. Is that how this ends?"
Verek finally spoke. Quiet, but not soft. "It doesn't end yet."
The others looked at him. Not startled, but close. Like they'd forgotten his voice for a moment.
He met their eyes. One at a time. Just enough. "And when it does, we decide how."
The land didn't stay the same long. Trees grew too fast. Rivers twisted back on themselves. The stars overhead blinked like something was tampering with them behind the sky. Rewriting.
Ezreal noticed it first. He muttered something. Leaned over the map, tracing where Red Hollow should be. The mark was gone.
"It's changed," he said. "The Hollow's overwritten. Something older's taken its place."
"Name?" Verek asked.
"The Wheel of Gods."
Dax grunted. "That a place or a warning?"
Ezreal hesitated. "Both."
Caylen leaned in, frowning. "Another trial?"
Ezreal exhaled through his nose. "No. Worse. It's a choice."
Verek stood. Pulled his coat tight. "Then we don't turn back."
They reached Red Hollow—or what was left of it—under a sun that didn't budge. It hovered there, nailed to the sky, casting shadows that stretched too long and too wrong. The forest had turned mutant. Trees fused together, bark grown like scar tissue.
No birds. No bugs. No sound except their breathing.
The clearing dropped in sudden. One step they were in forest. Next, there it was. As if the land had just given up trying to hide it.
The Wheel stood in the middle.
Old bronze and petrified roots wound together like something had grown around a god's last breath. Gears the size of wagon wheels ticked slow, like they were counting down. Symbols shifted across the surface—faces, masks, constellations. Verek caught his own eyes on one of the faces, just before it changed into something older. Hungrier.
"That it?" Dax asked, his voice lower than usual.
Ezreal nodded. "Not just a machine. A judge."
Verek stepped forward. The Wheel groaned.
Roots twitched. Air pressed tight. Gears picked up speed.
And the ground dropped out from under him.
He landed in a place he knew too well. Hallways of dark stone, stairs leading up to a high seat. Castle Velnar. But wrong. Off. The banners were torn. The throne stood empty. At the base of the stairs, a younger Verek knelt, soaked in blood, a shattered blade in his lap.
A voice came. Not loud. Just enough to feel like it was whispering straight into the joints of his spine.
"Would you become the monster they already believe you are, if it meant they followed?"
Verek didn't answer. Just walked forward. Down past echoes of men who once called him commander. Ghosts that didn't try to speak. Just watched.
"Would you rule with the sword, or let the world fall proving you didn't need one?"
He bent and picked up the broken blade. It mended in his hand.
Ezreal tumbled through a collapsing tower. Caylen stood before a door he'd once shut on someone he loved. Dax howled in silence, surrounded by ash and echoes of men who'd died with his name on their lips.
Then it ended.
They snapped back to the clearing like drowning men breaking surface. Breath ragged. Faces wet. No one said a word.
The Wheel was still.
The gold shard sat buried just beneath its edge, half-swallowed by roots.
Verek approached. Knelt. Pressed a hand to the ground before taking it.
It didn't sting. Didn't warm.
It acknowledged.
Behind them, the trees flexed. Above, the clouds shifted just enough to hint that something massive was moving behind them. Watching.
The Wheel gave one last creak. Not warning. Not judgment. Just memory.
Still turning.
Still waiting.
For them.
Or for whatever came next.