There was no sound in the dark.
Only heat.
It pulsed beneath Kael's skin—soft at first, then sharper. Like a needle threaded with fire, weaving through his nerves.
He tried to move.
Couldn't.
The world wasn't stone or sky anymore.
It was color.
Fragments.
Breath held in ash.
He stood—not in his body, but in someone else's shadow.
Before him: a battlefield.
Twisted machines.
Shattered armor.
The sky bruised purple with smoke.
A woman knelt at the center.
White robes torn.
Hands scorched.
The bottle at her side, cracked and glowing.
Kael watched as she pressed her palm against a broken sigil-stone.
Light arced from her spine.
Her mouth moved, but no sound reached him.
And then—
The ground split.
A ring of flame burst outward, tearing metal and flesh alike.
She collapsed.
The bottle rolled from her hand.
Still pulsing.
Still breathing.
Still… watching.
Kael stepped toward it.
His feet didn't touch the ground.
He knelt.
Reached out.
His fingers grazed the surface—
And the fire turned inward.
A single word burned through him:
"Remember."
Kael jolted awake.
Gasped.
His hands clenched stone and dust.
The bottle lay beside him.
Dim.
Cool.
Silent.
He sat up slowly.
The pain in his limbs was distant now.
Muted.
But something else had replaced it.
Weight.
Inside him.
As if he carried more than bones now.
He looked down at his forearm.
Beneath the skin—barely visible—fine golden lines traced themselves in looping arcs.
Not tattoos.
Not scars.
More like roots.
Living. Subtle. Moving slightly when he blinked.
He touched them.
They pulsed once.
The bottle remained still.
Not asleep.
Just… silent.
Kael exhaled.
He wasn't sure if he was still dreaming.
Or if the world had changed while he slept.
A faint sound cut through the silence.
Not footfalls.
Not breath.
A tone.
High.
Distant.
Like a crystal struck in the dark.
It vibrated along his bones.
Kael looked up.
Across the ridgeline, he saw nothing.
But the air shimmered faintly—like heat above desert stone.
Something was watching.
Not with eyes.
With presence.
He moved quickly, gathering his things.
His cloak.
His knife.
The bottle.
Every instinct screamed:
Run.
Now.
But deeper, beneath that—
The new weight inside him didn't flinch.
Didn't fear.
It welcomed the threat.
Not with arrogance.
With inevitability.
Kael rose.
Faced the east.
The shimmer faded.
The wind carried silence.
He walked on.
And somewhere far beyond the broken sky,
something
took
note.