The beast led him in silence.
Its footsteps didn't echo. Not even across the broken stones of Grythvault's ancient courtyard. Kael followed, his hand brushing the moss-cracked walls as they passed through the half-collapsed archways.
This place was older than any city he'd seen. Older than most memories whispered in his bones. There was a wrongness to the silence here—not death, but delay. As if something had been waiting a very long time for him to arrive.
The beast—he began to think of it as Ashhorn, for the scorched edges of its wooden antlers—walked with slow purpose. Occasionally it'd stop and glance back at him, as if checking to make sure Kael still belonged here.
Eventually, they reached a set of stone steps spiraling down into the roots of the vault.
As Kael descended, his stomach gave a low, sick groan. The weight of days with no food hit all at once.
He hadn't eaten since Serin died. Before that, barely anything since escaping the Hall.
The chamber below smelled of earth and ash, but not rot. A single brazier glowed with dull red embers—still burning after centuries.
Ashhorn stopped at its edge. Then, with one fluid motion, it turned its head and pressed a horn into the flame.
The fire changed.
It hissed, flared bright—and from the base of the brazier, something emerged. A small pile of wrapped leaves. Kael blinked. It looked like—
Food.
Warm, fragrant, slightly charred.
Ashhorn nudged it toward him.
Kael stared. "You… feed me?"
The beast blinked once. Its silver eye shimmered, and a flicker of something not quite thought—but close—entered his mind.
Caretaker. Not jailer. You belong.
Kael hesitated only a moment longer, then unwrapped the bundle.
Inside: smoked root flesh and something like spiced grain. It tasted like earth and memory—but it filled the hole in his gut, softened the ache behind his eyes.
He sat beside the brazier. "Why are you helping me?"
Ashhorn didn't answer with words. Instead, it walked to the far wall and scratched at it with one thick claw. A hidden panel groaned open, revealing a circular door etched in overlapping runes—some in Echo-script, some in older languages he didn't know.
Above it: a mural of a burning tree cradling a sleeping figure wrapped in gold.
Kael stood. The runes on his arms tingled.
He stepped forward.
The door pulsed—then opened.
Inside was a vault of light and stone, empty except for one thing:
A mirror.
Shattered.
And in each shard, Kael saw a different face.
Some familiar. Some foreign. Some not human at all.
All of them were him.
Ashhorn growled low behind him. Not a warning.
A reminder.
The beast wasn't his to command.
It had been left behind to protect this place from outsiders.
But now it followed him not because of what he was—
—but what he might become.