The mountain was quieter that day, the kind of quiet that made every crunch of snow beneath Hine's boots feel deafening. The air was thinner here, sharp and brittle as if the cold itself had learned how to cut. She drew her cloak tighter, breathing through the wool scarf Kaien had given her, though it did little to keep the sting from her lungs.
The shard at her side pulsed faintly, its light warm but uneasy, like a candle flickering against a draft. It had been doing that for the past hour, growing brighter with every step they took higher into the pass. Hine's heart thudded faster each time it glowed, and though she tried to convince herself it was nothing, the way the Silent Soul glanced toward it told her otherwise.
"What is it sensing?" she finally asked, unable to keep the tremor from her voice.
The soul walked ahead, his silent form moving with effortless precision along the narrow ledge. He did not look back when he answered. "Old things. Things buried before your time, before mine." His voice was quiet but steady, a weight that lingered even in the cold air. "This mountain remembers."
His words made the hair at the back of her neck rise. She quickened her pace until she was close enough to see the faint shimmer of frost collecting in his dark hair. The mountain path had grown narrower, forcing her to press herself close to the frozen wall as the abyss yawned to her left.
"How far?" she asked.
"Not far," he replied. "But be ready. The shard is warning you for a reason."
The path curved sharply, and for a moment Hine thought she heard a sound carried by the wind. It was soft, almost like a hum, too faint to be real. She stopped and turned, scanning the blinding expanse of white, but there was nothing. Just the endless stretch of snow and ice, untouched and silent.
The shard flared again.
Hine swallowed hard and moved forward, her gloves scraping against the rough stone for balance. Every instinct in her body screamed that they should turn back, that this path was wrong, but there was something in the way the soul moved, unhesitating, that kept her feet in motion.
They came to a plateau at last, a flat shelf of rock coated with layers of frozen snow. The wind was harsher here, howling around the cliff face, but in the center of the plateau, where the snow had been scoured away by time and storms, something glinted beneath the frost.
Hine felt the shard sear against her side, its glow so intense now that it bled through her cloak. Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped forward, boots sinking into the snow.
It was a sigil.
A perfect circle carved deep into the stone, its lines sharp and deliberate despite the erosion of centuries. At its center, an intricate pattern of intersecting arcs radiated outward, symbols curling along the edges like forgotten script. The mark was unmistakably old, but there was a presence to it that made her chest tighten, as though something was awake beneath it, waiting.
"What is this?" she whispered, kneeling beside it. Her glove brushed over the frozen grooves, the stone colder than ice. The shard's glow bathed the sigil in a pale, ethereal light, making the carved lines seem alive.
The soul finally moved closer, his shadow falling over her as he looked down at the mark. "A sigil of Teyvat," he said, his voice low. "Older than any story your village remembers. Older than the Night Kingdom itself."
He nodded once. "It is a key. A seal. A reminder. This mountain was not always what it is now. Something sleeps here, bound in the old ways. The shard you carry… it is part of what keeps that binding intact."
The words twisted in her mind, heavy and foreign, yet they carried the weight of truth. She touched the shard through her cloak, feeling its heat pulse against her palm like a frantic heartbeat. "If it's bound," she said, her voice quiet, "then why does it feel like it's watching me?"
The soul's gaze lingered on the sigil, unreadable. "Because it knows you are here," he said. "And because you carry the shard, it knows you are not just passing through. You are part of this now, whether you want to be or not."
The wind screamed through the pass, a sharp, keening wail that sent a chill racing down her spine. She stood, brushing snow from her gloves, her breath coming in shallow bursts.
"What do we do?" she asked, her voice steady despite the fear curling in her stomach.
The soul tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something beyond her hearing. "We do nothing," he said finally. "Not yet. The sigil is a warning and a promise. Crossing it without understanding what it guards would be suicide."
Frustration sparked in her chest. "Then what is it guarding? Tell me."
His eyes met hers, dark and endless. "A gate," he said softly. "One that should never be opened."
The ground beneath them trembled, a faint shiver that hummed through the stone. Hine staggered, catching herself on his arm as a low, rumbling sound echoed through the mountains. The shard blazed so brightly now that it felt like fire against her skin, and the sigil beneath their feet pulsed once, a dull, ominous thrum that made the air heavy.
Then silence.
The tremor faded, leaving only the biting wind and the faint crackle of snow shifting along the ledges. Hine released a shaky breath and stepped back from the sigil, her heart hammering in her chest.
"This place," she whispered, "it's… alive."
The soul gave no answer. He turned from the sigil, his cloak stirring in the wind, and began walking back toward the narrow path that led higher into the peaks.
Hine hesitated, her gaze lingering on the ancient mark carved into the stone. She wanted to ask more, to demand answers that he refused to give, but the shard's steady pulse told her enough. Whatever power slept here, it was not something she was ready to understand.
She followed him in silence, her thoughts a storm. The path ahead wound sharply upward, disappearing into the shadow of the higher cliffs, but she barely noticed the cold now. Every step felt heavier, her mind replaying the glow of the sigil and the tremor that had rumbled through the mountain as if the world itself had taken notice of her.
By the time they reached a narrow ledge overlooking the valley, night had begun to fall. The horizon burned with the last light of the sun, streaks of crimson and violet fading into deepening blue. Hine sank to her knees, exhausted, the cold biting at her fingers and toes despite her gloves and boots.
The soul stood beside her, silent as ever, his gaze fixed on the peaks ahead. The faint glow of the shard illuminated his sharp features, casting shadows across his face that made him look almost unreal, like something carved from the mountain itself.
She stared at him for a long moment, her breath visible in the freezing air. "If that sigil is a gate," she said finally, her voice quiet but steady, "then what happens when someone opens it?"
For the first time since she had met him, the soul's expression shifted. There was no anger in his eyes, no sadness, only something that felt like an ancient, hollow weight.
"Then," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "the world remembers why it forgot."
The words sank into her, colder than the mountain air, leaving her silent as the night closed around them. The shard dimmed, its glow soft but restless, as if it, too, knew that something had begun.
And far below, deep beneath the mountain, the sigil pulsed again, unseen in the dark.