The night fog clung to the roots like sleeping spirits.
Casamir moved through it, quiet as mist. His steps dissolved into the soil before they could be remembered. The Hermit's lessons lingered in his body—each step guided by slow breath, each movement tracing the hidden pull of Threads beneath bark and stone.
But they weren't what filled his thoughts.
The voice from the ridge still echoed.
"I've waited, you know. Not just here—in the cracks between here. Isn't that funny?"
He wouldn't tell the Hermit.
Not out of fear. Not even doubt.
But something quieter. Something like shame.
A part of him wanted to understand the voice.
And that part didn't want to be stopped.
Not yet.
Not by the Hermit. Not even by himself.
He had spent his whole life surviving what could be measured—bullets, hunger, fire, failure.
But this was not measurable.
This was… felt.
And something about that frightened him more than the sirens of Karnox ever had. Not the fear of pain. Not even death.
But the fear of recognizing something.
Of standing before it and knowing it had waited—for him.
A choice lingered at the edge of his breath. Not to turn back. That was never real. But to listen—or not.
And still, the fog moved aside like it knew the decision had already been made.
⸻
The forest was brighter tonight. Too bright.
The greens were too vivid. The breeze too clean. It all felt curated. A pleasant illusion placed over something older and less kind.
Look how beautiful I am, the trees seemed to say.
Forget what you heard.
But Casamir didn't.
The wind carried no scent. No sap, no rot, no sweat of old trees. It smelled… blank, like parchment sealed before ink. As if even the forest feared to leave evidence here.
As the canopy arched high above him, he reached to touch the leaves.
They pulled back.
The Threads recoiled—not in fear, but in careful restraint. As though they knew he had walked too close to something that listened back.
Then—he saw it.
Two trees, gnarled into a gate of moss and hollow bark. They had grown toward each other once. Then turned, twisted, and split—like lovers reaching, then recoiling in the moment before touch. Their bark shimmered faintly. Not with dew.
With memory.
Not names. Not symbols. Just the impression of things once spoken.
Casamir stood still.
The grove was silent.
Then, faintly—he heard breathing.
Not from the trees.
From the stone.
⸻
At the base of a cliff wall, a narrow fissure yawned like an unspoken truth. Barely large enough for a boy, it exhaled slow breaths of cold air. Not natural chill—but the kind that lives where time forgets to flow.
He hesitated. But only for a breath.
Some places didn't need doors. They opened when you were ready.
He stepped inside.
⸻
The light vanished quickly.
Only a faint amber glow rimmed the path, where lichen-threaded stone pulsed dimly beneath his steps like the heartbeat of something trying not to be noticed.
The tunnel narrowed. He ducked low, palms brushing the sides. The walls were smooth, but not from erosion. Not the patient hand of time.
These were carved.
Etched by purpose. Every curve bore symmetry, and the faint pulse of Threads curled along the edge of the stone in recursive patterns—like musical notation written in breath.
A sharp turn.
Then another.
He ducked again, crawling for a heartbeat—until the passage opened like a mouth exhaling old light.
⸻
The chamber was vast.
Hollowed from silence.
Its ceiling arched like a ribcage, stone fitted with unsettling precision. Every wall bore glyphs that shimmered faintly blue—drifting, shifting, remembering. Pillars rose like guards, each ringed in wreaths of ghostlight flame that offered no warmth.
Casamir's breath hitched. The air was dry but heavy, as if carrying the weight of words no longer spoken.
He turned slowly.
Dozens of seals lined the walls—carved into the stone like vows. Spirals. Swords. Suns and stars. A few pulsed dimly. Others were cracked through, fractured threads bleeding faint color he couldn't name.
Some were worn. Others glowed with an interior rhythm that made his skin tighten. But one seal, just to his left—
A spiral, sharp and deep-cut, flickered when he passed it.
He paused.
Something behind his ribs ached.
His hand hovered near the stone. Not touching. Just feeling the heat that should not have been there.
And in that breathless space, an image flashed—unbidden.
Not a memory. A resonance.
A voice crying across a storm-rent field. A bell too broken to ring. Someone kneeling—carving that same spiral into the earth with trembling hands.
The vision vanished.
Casamir stepped back, pulse ragged.
He didn't know that symbol.
But it knew him.
It didn't matched Karnox.
None matched anything.
And yet… something in his blood bowed.
He moved like one walking through a dream that might vanish if he ran.
Then he saw it.
At the far end of the chamber, raised on a dais of black ivory stone—
A sarcophagus.
Unweathered.
Perfect.
Its lid bore the carved image of a woman. Regal. Still. Her hands rested on a long crystal blade. Her face was serene—but stern. Crowned not in gold, but in woven glyphs that drifted faintly across her brow like flickers of thought.
A faint spiral burned just above her heart.
A name unspoken.
A truth still waiting.
Casamir stepped closer.
And the Threads screamed.
⸻
Not from the walls.
From him.
A sudden, crushing pressure slammed through his veins—his Threads recoiling violently. Not in rejection, but in warning. Pain bloomed across his ribs, his arms, his vision. The air turned sharp. The chamber tightened like a fist.
He staggered back, but his foot slid forward.
He didn't mean to.
He had to see.
The Threads struck.
A dozen tendrils of golden light snapped from the walls—Thread-wards, etched to kill intruders. Spears of radiant power hurled toward him.
Casamir moved—not perfectly, not cleanly—but fast enough.
His shoulder dropped. He spun beneath the first beam, rolled forward. Fire burst from his fingers—not summoned, but remembered. Karnox. The Trial of Steel.
His left sleeve tore.
Blood flashed.
A cut opened across his cheek—thin, clean, sacred.
He gritted his teeth.
The wards pressed harder.
More lights snapped forward, shrieking like broken promise.
Casamir dropped to his knee—not from weakness, but stance. One breath. Two. Then—he pivoted low, bracing his palm forward.
Flow like the Thread beneath the Thread, the Hermit had said.
Casamir didn't flow.
He bent.
He caught a beam with his bare hand.
Pain lanced through him—hot, electric, cracking through his shoulder like a rebuke. His vision blurred.
But he held it.
Not through strength.
Through refusal.
The ward faltered.
And the rest pulled back.
The chamber exhaled.
Casamir stayed low for a moment longer.
His knees dug into stone. His breath was shallow, edged with copper. The burn in his palm had faded to a strange numbness, as if the pain had burrowed deeper than flesh.
He didn't rise quickly.
He waited. Felt. Let the stillness speak again.
The Threads no longer pushed. They… watched.
A silent reevaluation.
Not forgiveness. Not welcome.
But a fragile, momentary truce.
He thought of the Hermit. Of how silence had always been part of his teaching—not just as reverence, but as boundary.
But this silence had weight.
Not a warning.
An invitation.
⸻
Far away, the Hermit dropped his cup.
Porcelain shattered across his floor.
His breath caught in his chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The forest air curled inward—like it too had heard.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet."
But it was too late.
⸻
Casamir rose slowly.
His palm still burned.
The sarcophagus pulsed faintly now, its glyphs winding faster—like breath quickening. The black stone seemed thinner, translucent in places.
He stepped forward again, carefully.
And something deep below exhaled.
Not breath.
Memory.
A hum that touched no ears—but echoed through every Thread in the room. The ghost of a name not yet spoken.
From afar, Casamir stared at the woman's face.
He didn't know her.
But some part of him did.
And something within her knew him back.
He reached a hand toward the blade between her hands.
The crystal shimmered.
The glyphs flared.
Then blinked—once—like an eye opening beneath glass.
Casamir's breath caught.
The stone remembered him.
And it was beginning.