The three of them—Kaelen, Aelric, and Seris—left the Shattered Coast by the old smuggler's pass, winding through tide-carved caves and salt-glazed cliffs. The path was treacherous, riddled with cracks and slick stones, but Kaelen noticed the sea did not trouble them. Tides shifted just enough to reveal safe footing. Even the wind seemed to press at their backs, urging them forward.
Seris walked ahead, her steps steady and sure despite the jagged terrain. Her presence had changed since awakening the Vessel. She no longer moved like someone waiting to drown. She was quiet still, yes—but with purpose now, as though every step carried the rhythm of the sea itself.
Aelric, of course, complained the entire way.
"Why is every sacred place either half-submerged or cursed? I'd kill for a shrine with a nice hearth and no murder spirits."
Kaelen gave a faint smile. "You already kill things."
"Exactly! That's why I deserve a break."
They camped that night in a hollow beneath the cliffs. Aelric rigged a tarp between two outcroppings, and Kaelen coaxed a small flame from the Ember to start a fire. Even with Seris nearby, the sea did not reach them. The salt-winds howled above, but they were untouched.
Over a shared meal of dried figs and smoked fish, Kaelen finally spoke.
"Where do we go next?"
Seris didn't look up from her food. "The inland paths lead to the Aether Vale. If the Vessel of the Sky is stirring, it will be there."
Aelric froze mid-bite. "The Vale? You're serious?"
"What's wrong with the Vale?" Kaelen asked.
Aelric glanced at him. "Only that it's where dreams go to die. The Aether Vale's cursed—always has been. People who sleep there wake up... different. If they wake up at all."
Seris gave him a sharp look. "It's not cursed. It's thinning."
Kaelen raised a brow. "Thinning?"
She nodded. "The walls between worlds are worn thin there. Old magic gathers in places like that. So do memories. Echoes."
Aelric muttered, "Sounds like a curse to me."
But Kaelen was already thinking ahead. The Ember had changed since the Shattered Coast—its pulse now softer, slower, like a breath drawn in. Preparing.
Whatever waited in the Aether Vale, the Ember was expecting it.
They left before sunrise.
The land changed as they traveled inland. Green returned—thick moss draped across old stone, trees bent low with the weight of forgotten years. The forest felt older than time. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. But they were being watched.
Seris confirmed it first.
"They walk behind us. Three of them. Skilled."
"Scouts?" Kaelen asked.
"No," Aelric said, unsheathing his sword. "Hunters."
They didn't attack at first. Just shadows behind trees, footsteps too soft to be human. Seris tossed salt over her shoulder. Aelric lit his blade with a flick of ember-spark Kaelen had given him days before. Kaelen himself drew his sword and waited.
The first attack came after sundown.
A blur of motion—a pale figure lunged from the trees, mouth too wide, eyes like black glass. It wore scraps of royal guard armor, long decayed, and carried twin blades that shrieked with every strike.
Kaelen blocked the first blow, Aelric caught the second.
Then Seris moved.
She raised her hand, and a sphere of water condensed in the air around the creature's head. It screamed, choked, and thrashed—but couldn't breathe. Water tightened like a fist and crushed.
Silence returned.
Kaelen leaned over the body. Its skin was paper-white, stretched thin. "It's Hollow."
Aelric swore. "Hollowborn. The King's made more of them."
"Too many," Seris murmured. "And too far from his throne."
They pushed harder the next day, following an old trade road that ran through twisted valleys and forgotten towns. The deeper they went, the more the world felt... wrong.
Time fractured.
They passed the same ruined waystone three times, even though they never turned back. Daylight flickered at odd hours, and shadows bent the wrong way. Once, they heard music—laughter, the clinking of goblets—and crested a hill only to find a burned-out village full of graves.
Kaelen felt the Ember heat against his chest. Not danger. Warning.
By the third night, even sleep betrayed them.
Kaelen dreamed of a battlefield covered in ash. Thousands of figures stood unmoving, each burned to charcoal, facing a single tower made of obsidian. At the tower's base knelt a woman with silver hair and a bleeding hand.
She looked up at him and whispered, "Don't let it break again."
He woke gasping, sweat cold on his skin. Aelric was awake too, sitting with his back to a tree, blade across his lap.
"Dreams?" Kaelen asked.
"Memories," Aelric muttered. "But not mine."
Seris sat cross-legged by the fire, eyes closed. "We're close."
"How can you tell?" Kaelen asked.
She didn't answer. Instead, she lifted a hand and pointed eastward.
There, on the far side of the woods, something shimmered—like heat over stone, but silver, soft, pulsing.
"The edge of the Aether Vale," she said. "We reach it tomorrow."
Kaelen looked toward the shimmer, then at the Ember, which pulsed faintly in time with the light.
He didn't say it aloud. But the thought stayed with him:
They were running out of time.
And something in the Vale was waiting for him.
Not the next Vessel.
Something older.