Morning in the Upper Chamber always smelled faintly of heated stone and damp moss. Today, it also smelled like burning bread.
"That was supposed to be breakfast," Lenara groaned, waving smoke away from her face.
"That is breakfast," Tibbin protested, holding up a chunk of blackened bread proudly. "It's charcoal toast! Builds character!"
"Charcoal kills tastebuds," Koro muttered, already burying the "toast" under a rock like it was hazardous waste.
Withered Flame stood at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed. "If you are finished poisoning yourselves, we begin."
Tibbin grinned and spun his bent fork like it was a legendary weapon. "Finally! My moment of glory!"
---
The "training ground" was a stretch of uneven stone leading up to a cliff edge. The drop beyond was so deep that even the mist couldn't hide it.
"You're not actually going to throw him off, right?" Lenara asked.
"That depends on how irritating he is," Withered Flame said dryly.
The exercise was simple: reach the marker stone planted halfway along the cliffside path without falling. The catch? The path was narrow, wind-blasted, and littered with loose rock.
Aaren gripped Levitine. "You're sure this is safe?"
Levitine's voice echoed in his mind, It's only as safe as you make it.
"Perfect," Tibbin said. "Safety is for people without stories." And then he bolted forward.
---
Chaos followed instantly.
Tibbin's long legs carried him fast, but his feet seemed to have a vendetta against flat ground. Every other step sent pebbles skittering over the edge. He swung his fork like a conductor's baton, humming loudly, as if daring the wind to knock him over.
Lenara was laughing so hard she had to lean against Aaren. "He's going to die. Oh no, he's actually going to die."
But somehow, Tibbin reached the halfway marker, balancing with one foot on a rock barely wide enough for his heel. He waved both arms dramatically. "Behold! The master of cliffs!"
Then the wind changed.
---
It wasn't just a gust — it was a roar, deep and unnatural.
The mist below surged upward like a living thing, curling in tendrils along the cliff face. Shadows moved within it, long and spindly.
Withered Flame's head snapped toward the horizon. "That's not wind."
The ground trembled under their feet. Far below, something massive shifted in the mist, its movements so large that the air itself seemed to bend.
Tibbin froze, fork still raised, as a shape emerged — not fully visible, but big enough to block the light filtering from above. An eye, vast and glassy, opened in the fog, fixing on the cliff where they stood.
Aaren felt Levitine hum in his hands, the sword's voice suddenly sharp. We are being watched… and weighed.
The mist surged higher. Rock cracked along the cliffside.
Then a deep, rumbling voice rose from below, each word rolling like distant thunder:
"I have found you."
The cliffside gave way beneath Tibbin's feet.
And the world dropped.