The world felt quieter now.
Not peaceful.
Not safe.
Just… waiting.
Torian adjusted the strap across his chest as Skarn climbed the slope ahead of him, claws digging into ancient rock with every step. Behind them, the black mouth of Ulvenmir had long since disappeared beneath the ridge. And with it, Vael — and his ghosts.
The second seal was secure.
The Spiral-forged alloy Vesryn had given him now bore two flickering bands, each etched with strange flame-bonded script, pulsing gently against Torian's back. His Spiral, too, hummed faintly. No longer screaming. No longer struggling.
For the first time in weeks, it was quiet inside him.
That should have felt like a gift.
Instead, it felt like a warning.
⸻
The highlands rolled in slow, barren waves. Long gray shelves of stone broken by scattered trees, the horizon bruised in every direction. The wind moved strangely here — not east, not west. Just… moved. As though something older than weather was stirring beneath the surface.
Skarn noticed first.
The beast's head jerked once. His nostrils flared. Fur along his spine rose in a slow ripple. His wings tightened and stayed folded.
Torian caught up beside him.
"You smell it?"
Skarn didn't growl. Didn't grunt.
He only stared forward — still as iron.
Torian looked ahead. The stone rose again, this time toward a cleft in the next ridge, where two standing pillars jutted like broken teeth from the earth.
Beyond them — carved into the stone like a wound left to scar — was a doorway.
An old one.
Crumbling. Etched with Spiral markings that had long since faded into moss and dust.
They had found it.
⸻
Torian and Skarn stood just beyond the threshold.
No light shone from inside.
The Spiral in Torian's chest pulsed once.
He felt the same pressure he had felt at Ulvenmir — only thinner. Like a copy of a memory. This place was tethered to the others, but it wasn't sealed in silence. Not yet.
He knelt near the base of the stone and brushed away some ash-dry vines. There it was: the edge of a sigil. Just like the one Vael had once carried. And Vesryn. The Spiral's shape, broken at one end, where something had once burned.
"Third seal," he whispered.
Skarn leaned close, sniffing the stone. His teeth bared slightly.
Torian reached back, unslinging the alloy rod.
The Spiral in the alloy flickered in rhythm with his own.
We're close.
⸻
Then the wind died.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
Completely.
Torian froze mid-breath.
Leaves hung still in the air. Dust suspended above the stone. Even the light seemed to… hesitate.
Skarn's ears pinned back.
The Spiral in Torian's chest pulsed again. Sharper this time. Like a heartbeat reacting to something unseen.
He stood slowly, hand tightening on the rod.
His eyes drifted to the horizon.
A ridge. Then clouds.
Stillness.
And above it all…
Something is wrong.
⸻
Torian turned to Skarn.
The beast's eyes were fixed skyward, unblinking.
Torian followed his gaze—
But saw only clouds.
Gray.
Silent.
Still.