The morning light came pale and slow, creeping over the horizon like it feared what lay ahead. A soft breeze stirred the brittle grass as Kael, Elira, and Tovan departed the outpost ruins, their shadows long and stretching behind them.
Kael walked in silence, the Echoheart pressing faint warmth into his chest. It didn't speak—no visions, no bursts of memory. But it was aware. He felt it like an invisible eye, watching through his own.
The land they crossed was strange. Once farmland, maybe—now a dead plain veined with cracks and ash. The ground gave slightly beneath their steps, soft as if it had once burned and never fully cooled.
"No birds," Elira muttered, scanning the open sky. "No tracks. Just… nothing."
Tovan squinted at the ridgeline ahead. "Ghost-quiet. I hate it. Nature's supposed to make noise. This feels like we're walking through someone else's grave."
Kael didn't reply. The silence suited him—too much noise would drown out the echo always humming beneath his skin.
They moved steadily through the day. Wind bent the tall black grass but never broke it. The Echoheart stirred only once—just after noon, when Kael stepped across a narrow stream of grey water. For a moment, he saw a glimmer in the water—a face not his own, staring back. Then it vanished.
By evening, they found a shallow ridge to camp under. Tovan started a small fire while Elira set up perimeter wards using shattered glyphstones. Kael sat slightly apart, staring into the distance where the land folded into mist.
Elira joined him after a while, sitting cross-legged with her blade laid beside her. "You've been quiet. Quieter than usual, I mean."
Kael glanced at her. "The Echoheart's quiet. But it's… aware. Like it's waiting."
"For what?"
Kael didn't answer. He wasn't sure.
Elira looked out at the horizon. "My first year with the Hollowguard, we chased a rumor of Vareth. Thought we found it. Turned out to be a decoy ruin—booby-trapped, cursed, full of leftover war machines. We lost half the squad." She paused. "The ones who survived never went near old shrines again."
"You did," Kael said softly.
She smiled faintly. "Yeah. Guess I was too stubborn."
Tovan wandered over, dropping beside them with a grunt. "Or just as broken as the rest of us."
He pulled a flask from his jacket and passed it between them. "My brother would've loved this view. Used to say the world's ugliest places held the best stories. He died before the Relic Wars ended."
Kael accepted the flask, then returned it without drinking. "You don't talk about him."
"I don't talk about a lot of things," Tovan said. "Doesn't mean I forget them."
A long pause followed, the fire crackling between them. Kael stared at the flames. "Sometimes I think I'm not walking toward Vareth. It's pulling me to it. Like a thread winding tighter."
Tovan grunted. "As long as it doesn't snap."
That night, Kael woke suddenly.
No sound. No dream.
Just light.
The inside of his tent glowed faintly—lines and sigils dancing across the canvas like reflections from water. The Echoheart pulsed gently beneath his shirt, each beat sending a ripple of warmth through his bones.
He sat up, holding his hand to his face. For a moment, it looked unfamiliar—his fingers too long, the skin too pale. He blinked. Gone.
He whispered into the dark, "Is it memory, or is it… me?"
The relic offered no answer. Just the steady, knowing rhythm.
They set out early the next day. The land rose into jagged hills, and wind howled through cracks in the stone like distant voices.
Kael led the way in silence. He could feel something changing—some thread tightening. Elira's eyes watched him more often now. Tovan, too, though he masked it with sarcasm.
They crossed a long ridge, narrow as a sword's spine. Below, mist curled like fingers reaching for their ankles. Kael paused at the crest and looked back.
Something stood far behind them.
A figure, just visible in the fog—still and silent, as if carved from the earth. Watching.
Kael blinked.
Gone.