The smoke clung to everything. It tasted of burnt wood, of old iron, of lives reduced to ash. Liora pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she followed Eryndor along the charred path. The air shimmered with heat rising from scorched earth, though the sun had not yet risen.
They hadn't spoken in hours. The silence pressed heavier than the smoke.
At last, Liora whispered, "Eryndor… will they come again?"
His eyes flicked to the shadows, always watching, always calculating. "The Eclipse Hunters never vanish. They linger. Sometimes days, sometimes years. But once they mark you, they circle until the end."
Liora felt the shard stir in her palm as if to answer him, its faint glow pulsing like a heartbeat beneath her skin. She clenched her fist around it.
They crossed a ridge. Below them stretched the Borderlands. Once, Liora had heard songs about these places — farmlands golden in the sun, orchards heavy with fruit. Now, nothing remained but broken walls and skeletons of houses. The ground itself looked wrong, blackened as though it had absorbed shadow instead of light.
Eryndor knelt in the dirt, touching it with two fingers. His jaw tightened. "This soil is dead. Even if the sun returned, nothing would grow here again."
Liora stared across the desolation, her heart aching. "It feels like the world is unraveling."
"Not unraveling," Eryndor said. He rose and rested a hand on his sword. "Being devoured."
That night, they made camp among ruins of an old watchtower. The stars stretched endlessly above, sharp and cold. Sleep did not come easily.
When it did, Liora dreamed of a throne made from broken moons. A figure sat upon it, faceless, cloaked in eclipse-light. Its gaze burned into her as though it had been waiting all along.
She woke with a cry. Eryndor was already awake, staring into the dark.
"They see you," he said softly. "Even in dreams."
---