The fire crackled weakly, throwing jagged shadows across the ruin walls. The glowing glyphs etched into the stone bathed the clearing in a pale light, neither warm nor comforting.
Edric sat with his sword across his lap, eyes scanning the treeline. The storm at sea still haunted him, the screams of his men echoing in his ears. He could not afford to falter again—not now, not with only two companions left.
Elira was hunched over her journal, feverishly copying glyphs by firelight. Her eyes shone with obsession. "If these symbols repeat in sequence, they might represent cycles… maybe of time, or power…" She trailed off, chewing her lip.
Ronan leaned against a fallen column, arms crossed, watching her scribble. "You'll break your quill at that pace."
"Knowledge is the only weapon I have," Elira replied without looking up.
"Then make sure it's sharp," Ronan muttered.
It began as a faint whisper, so soft it might have been the wind. Edric stiffened, his hand tightening on his sword hilt.
Then it came again—long, drawn-out syllables, in a language none of them knew. The sound seemed to seep from the stone itself.
Elira froze mid-sentence. Her quill slipped from her fingers. "Did you hear that?"
Ronan straightened, his hand on his dagger. "Yeah. And I don't like it."
The whispering grew louder, weaving through the ruins, surrounding them. The fire guttered as though struggling against unseen breath. From the shadows between the broken walls, shapes began to move.
Figures emerged—translucent, barely human. Their forms flickered like smoke, eyes glowing faintly with the same light as the glyphs. They drifted closer, silent except for the overlapping whispers.
Elira's heart pounded. "Spirits…? Could they be remnants of the civilization that lived here?" Her voice trembled, but awe outweighed fear.
Edric rose, sword drawn. "Remnants or not, they're not friendly."
The phantoms surged forward. One lashed out, its limb slicing through a crate as if it were air and steel alike.
Edric blocked with his sword, sparks flying as steel clashed with essence. His arm jolted from the impact, the thing's strength unnatural.
Ronan darted behind him, knives flashing as he slashed at the glowing core of one phantom. The blade cut deep, and the figure dissipated in a hiss of mist.
"They're vulnerable!" Ronan barked. "Go for the light inside them!"
Edric nodded grimly, adjusting his stance.
Elira stumbled backward, her mind racing. The glyphs—they weren't just decoration. She remembered the sequences she'd copied, the repeating circles. They looked like… containment, like wards.
"Wait!" she shouted over the chaos. "The glyphs—they're binding marks! These spirits are tied to the ruins!"
Edric deflected another strike, gritting his teeth. "Speak sense, scholar!"
"If we damage the glyphs, they'll only grow stronger!" she cried. "But if we complete the sequence—maybe we can send them back!"
Ronan growled, throwing a dagger into another phantom. "So what, you want us to trust your scribbles while they gut us?"
"Do you have a better plan?" Elira snapped, snatching her quill and tearing a page from her journal. She scribbled furiously, muttering incantations as she connected the symbols.
The whispers crescendoed into shrieks as the phantoms pressed harder. Edric and Ronan fought back-to-back, steel and daggers flashing in the glyph-light. Sweat and blood slicked Edric's brow, but he refused to yield.
At last, Elira slammed her journal page against the largest glyph carved into a wall. The ruins pulsed with blinding light.
The phantoms screamed—not with voices, but with something deeper, something that rattled the bones. Then, one by one, they dissolved into mist, sucked back into the glyphs until only silence remained.
The fire burned low. The ruins stood silent once more, though the air was heavy with the residue of essence.
Elira collapsed, clutching her journal to her chest, her hands trembling. "It worked… gods, it actually worked…"
Edric sheathed his sword slowly, eyes narrowing at her. "Next time, lead with that."
Ronan kicked at the ashes of a phantom's remains, then sank to the ground. "If that's what the ruins do at night, we're in deeper trouble than I thought."
Edric glanced between them, then out at the mist-drenched forest beyond. His father's words echoed in his mind. Bring glory. Expand the realm. Return a king.
He clenched his fist. "Then we move forward. Together."
The three survivors sat in uneasy silence as the night deepened, the ruins around them glowing faintly like a slumbering beast.
For the first time since leaving Driftport, the Shrouded Continent had bared its fangs.
And it would not be the last.