The wind above the ruins howled like a wounded beast, chasing dust and grit across the battered landscape. The trio emerged from the shrine beneath the veil of early twilight—clouds bruised purple and orange, the sun a dying ember at the horizon. Kael exhaled sharply as he stepped onto the brittle grass. The Echoheart had gone quiet, but its warmth lingered like an echo in his bones.
No one spoke for a while. They simply stood there, the silence thick with aftershock. The encounter with the guardian, the vision, the name Vareth—each had left a mark that words could not yet reach.
Tovan was the first to break it. "We'll need shelter. Something defensible."
"I saw an outpost an hour south on the way here," Elira said, checking her satchel. "Half-buried in shale, but it looked intact."
Kael nodded, still clutching the journal they'd recovered. "We'll read this when we're secure. I don't want to risk damaging it."
They moved quickly as the light faded, crossing the skeletal hills of Aurinfall's western edge. Ghostly remnants of old towers loomed in the distance, and the cracked road beneath their feet gave way to patches of ash-blown dirt. Even the birds had long since abandoned this stretch of land.
The outpost was a scar in the earth—concrete, rust, and reinforced glass, its edges softened by years of sand and decay. Once, it might have been a border station or a waystation for relic hunters. Now it was little more than a memory in metal.
They barricaded themselves inside, lit a dim lantern, and gathered around a broken table. Kael laid the journal flat and opened it with reverent hands.
The first pages were fragmented—names, locations, a list of relics long lost. But halfway through, the entries changed tone. They became urgent. Desperate.
"They broke the Circle. Vareth is no longer hidden. We failed to guard the Nexus. Gods forgive us all."
Elira frowned. "The Circle… it's mentioned in older texts. A coalition of relicbearers tasked with sealing the ancient powers. But I thought they were myth."
"They were real," Kael said softly. "And they lost."
The final entry was a drawing—rough, hand-sketched, but unmistakable. A map. It showed the known regions of Aurinfall, twisted and fractured by war. In the heart of the map, marked with an ancient sun-sigil, was a place untouched by ruin.
Vareth.
Kael traced it with a finger. "It's not far from here. A few days on foot, if we avoid the Black Vales."
Tovan leaned over his shoulder. "And if we don't?"
"Then we risk running into things the collapse didn't kill."
The Echoheart stirred faintly, and Kael winced. Not from pain—but from recognition. It was responding to the name again. To Vareth. This place wasn't just important—it was calling to him.
Later that night, Kael stood watch alone. The stars above flickered through the cracked roof of the outpost. In the distance, a faint glow pulsed—unnatural, low to the ground.
He rested a hand against the relic. "Why me?" he whispered. "Why now?"
A memory surfaced—unbidden and sharp. His sister's laughter in the garden, sunlight through golden hair. Her final cry as the relic hunters came. Her hands outstretched toward him before the sky turned red.
He clenched his jaw. "I won't let it end the same way."
Behind him, Elira stirred in her sleep. Tovan lay motionless, but Kael knew the man never truly rested.
Tomorrow, they would begin the path toward Vareth—a city of the lost, a fortress of memory, a place where fate would either grant them answers or bury them with the rest.
Kael looked to the stars one last time.
"Whatever waits there," he murmured, "I'm ready."
And somewhere in the deep, the Echoheart pulsed once more—brighter than before.