The wind howled through the ruins, but it wasn't just the wind.
It whispered through the shattered bones of a forgotten world, threading itself through the broken arches and hollowed halls where once, victorious voices had celebrated triumphs long past. Now, the only answer was silence—thick, suffocating, as oppressive as blood. The air was tainted with the sour stench of old ash, of things that had been burned and left to rot beneath the weight of stone.
Kael led them forward, his blade drawn, but pointed down—he knew the wrong movement could invite something far worse. His eyes were sharp, calculating, yet there was something else—something haunted. Elyra followed, each step sounding too loud, too sharp against the stillness, her fingers brushing the crumbling walls as though they might speak to her if she listened closely enough.
Vespera trailed behind, her cloak flicking like a ghost in the wind. Her face, unreadable as ever, was drawn tight. She hadn't spoken much since they'd left the Vault—too much had been revealed, too much that had yet to settle. It wrapped itself around her like a chain she couldn't break.
None of them were untouched by what they had seen. But Elyra... Elyra was unraveling in ways she didn't fully understand.
It had started small—barely noticeable, even to herself. How her eyes would flicker toward Kael, how she'd linger on the silences between them. She wasn't sure when it had begun to matter. When his icy walls, his sharpness, stopped feeling like a barrier, and instead started to feel... steady. Constant. Something in the storm of everything else she couldn't control.
It disgusted her. How could she want that steadiness? From him?
But when Kael turned slightly, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure they were still behind him, she couldn't help the way her chest tightened.
A shiver crawled down her spine, but not from the cold.
Something was wrong with this place.
Not just ancient magic or curses long forgotten. This was different. It was like something was watching them, something far older than any of them. Something that lived just on the other side of the veil.
"Don't wander," Kael muttered, his voice flat.
Elyra blinked. "I wasn't—"
"You were," he said. Not unkindly, just… knowing. His eyes met hers for the briefest second. "This place will make you forget everything else. It feeds off that."
Elyra swallowed. "You've been here before."
His silence answered her. It was enough.
They reached what had once been a throne room. Pillars of jet-black obsidian rose high above them, broken at the top like shattered bones. In the center, a dais lay cracked down the middle, an emblem etched into its surface. Elyra's breath hitched. She recognized it from a forbidden book in her father's library.
The Order of the Pale Flame.
Her voice was barely a whisper. "This was their sanctuary."
Vespera's voice came quietly from behind. "One of the first. Before they... changed."
Kael stepped forward, kneeling by the crest. His gloved fingers traced over it, following a pattern only he seemed to see.
"They weren't always like this," Kael said, his tone distant, like he was speaking to himself. "They started as protectors. Guardians of something buried deep beneath the world. But they looked too long into the darkness. And the darkness… looked back."
Elyra's chest tightened. "This is where it began, isn't it?"
Kael didn't answer, but his silence spoke volumes.
They stood there in silence, not peaceful, but heavy with something ancient and dreadful.
Then, with a crack like thunder splitting the sky, a figure emerged from the shadows.
A wraith.
Its skin was pale and flaking, its eyes hollow, burning with blue fire.
"Don't attack," Vespera whispered, her voice urgent. "They feed on anger. They drink it."
Elyra's hand went to her dagger instinctively. "And if we offer it tea?"
Kael stepped in front of her, holding out a hand to stop her. "Let me try something."
The wraith hovered closer, moving unnaturally, like it was drifting through water. Kael lowered his sword to the ground, then knelt, bowing his head as though in prayer.
Elyra froze. She felt the air thicken, pulse with something that wasn't quite living.
The wraith paused, hovering before them.
And then it spoke—not with words, but with sensations. Regret. Betrayal. A love twisted into something unrecognizable.
Elyra staggered back. "It's remembering."
Kael remained unmoving. "It's showing us what it was. What they did to it."
And through the cracked veil of time, they saw it:
A woman, screaming as the man she loved drove a blade through her chest.
A pact, written in fire, sealed in the blood of dragons.
A child, sacrificed in the name of a dark power.
Elyra collapsed to her knees.
Kael was there, his arms steady, pulling her into his chest. She pressed against him, hiding her face as the visions clawed through her mind.
"Make it stop," she whispered, her voice breaking.
"It already has," Kael said softly.
When Elyra opened her eyes again, the wraith was gone.
And Kael was still holding her.
Too long. Just long enough.
She pulled away, disoriented. "Thanks," she murmured, trying to shove down the strange flutter in her chest.
Kael nodded. He didn't let go.
Vespera, always quiet, said nothing. But Elyra could feel the weight of her gaze, lingering between them, sharp as a blade.
Something had shifted.
The silence between them stretched, heavy with unspoken things.
They pressed deeper into the ruins, finding murals that seemed to watch them with eyes full of forgotten gods. Relics from kingdoms long destroyed. And in the center of one hall, a tome sealed in ice that hummed when Elyra touched it.
But the strange tension remained. Always. Between her and Kael.
It wasn't spoken. It didn't need to be.
But it was there.
In the brush of his fingers against hers as they scaled a ledge. In the way his gaze lingered a moment too long when she turned away.
Elyra hated herself for noticing.
They camped beneath the skeleton of a fallen tower that night. The stars above were a tapestry of old stories, burned into the sky. Kael sat by the fire, sharpening his blade with the calm, precise motions of someone who had done this a thousand times. Elyra sat across from him, pretending to read one of the scrolls they'd found in the ruins.
"You never asked me what I saw," she said, breaking the silence.
Kael glanced up, his expression unreadable. "You didn't seem ready to tell it."
She hesitated, then spoke, her voice quiet, almost lost in the wind. "I saw Starflame again. My dragon. But she was chained. Caged. By someone who wore my face."
Kael said nothing, his eyes steady.
Elyra laughed bitterly, the sound a hollow thing. "I think… I think I become something monstrous."
"You won't," he said, the words simple, as though they were law.
"You don't know that."
He met her gaze, his voice soft but firm. "I know you. That's enough."
Elyra looked away, her heart hammering in her chest.
And far above, in the cold void between the stars, something watched. Something waited.