The land beyond the cairn was hollow.
Not empty—but hollow.
Each step sounded wrong. Too soft. As if the ground was listening, waiting to echo their movements.
Kael paused often, pressing his hand to the earth. It was warm. Not with heat, but with memory.
Something had lived here.
Something still might.
---
They followed no path. There were no trails. No markers.
Just instinct.
And the horizon.
---
Aila walked in silence, her eyes scanning for symbols. For signs.
There were none.
Oran kept the staff close, its weight both comfort and burden.
Kael walked ahead, driven by the spiral in his hand.
It pulsed now.
Faintly.
Like it remembered something before he did.
---
They reached the edge of a forest.
But the trees were wrong.
Bent backward.
As if fleeing from something.
Each trunk was marked—not with symbols, but with scars.
Long, straight, deliberate.
Kael ran his fingers over one.
Not carved.
Burned.
---
The ground changed.
