Morning arrived too quietly.
Above the Moonlight Monastery, the sky looked pale, as if the night was reluctant to leave. The snow had not stopped falling, and only the old bell broke the silence once every hour.
Ilya stood in the meditation room, eyes closed. Her hands clasped a silver cross, but her thoughts were far from prayer.
Something had shifted since that night. She couldn't name it—only a foreign feeling, like an echo from a place that should not exist.
> "The Ladder… it trembles…"
Ilya's eyes opened.
She hadn't spoken those words. Yet they came from within her, not her mind.
---
In his chamber, Kael sat, staring at the floor. He hadn't slept since awakening to that voice. His face pale, eyes red, but his expression remained still.
> "You are not part of this script…"
The words echoed. And with them came strange dreams—pieces of another world, faceless eyes, formless beings surrounding him like they recognized him.
Not dreams. He knew it.
His door knocked.
"Kael, someone wants to speak with you," said a guard's voice. "He's not from this monastery… But his name was mentioned by the Guardian."
---
In the outer hall, a man stood waiting. His clothes were dark—not priestly, yet not like a sinner's. His eyes were sharp, and his smile suggested he knew more than he should.
"Allow me to introduce myself," he said as Kael arrived. "I come not as a friend, nor as an enemy. But… an observer."
Kael said nothing.
"My name doesn't matter. But I know who you are—or rather, who you might become."
The man then unrolled a parchment. At its center: a symbol of a split Ladder.
"I'm here to watch. Because you… may be the Unascended Shadow."