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The Ashen Sky still hung low above them, its clouds like smoldering embers caught in eternal dusk. Jin stood at the edge of the molten basin, the sealed river beneath it whispering in a language older than any sect. The shard of the gate still pulsed faintly in his palm, its warmth fading but not gone.
Myra's voice was quiet, but it carried in the stillness. "You are not going to open it."
He let the shard slip back into his sleeve. "Not yet."
Soren gave a faint snort and crouched by the basin's rim, running his hand along the stone. "You speak as though you will, one day. Does it not bother you to walk away from something so powerful?"
Jin's eyes moved to the molten glow below. "Power that demands more than I am willing to give now is not power worth claiming now. There is a time for everything… and this is not its time."
The three of them left the basin without further words, their footsteps sinking softly into the blackened ash that blanketed the ground. The air was warmer here, heavy with the scent of stone scorched too many times to heal.
They followed a faint path through jagged ridges until it narrowed into a canyon of obsidian walls. The surface was polished smooth, reflecting their forms in warped shapes. Every step seemed to echo longer than it should have.
Jin slowed, tilting his head toward the sound.
It was not only their footsteps. Something else walked with them, not close, not far, always a few paces behind but never visible when they turned.
Myra's hand fell toward the hilt of her blade. "Do you hear it too?"
"Yes," Jin said softly. "It follows without intent… but it listens."
Soren's expression darkened. "Then let it hear nothing useful."
They continued on, letting silence stretch between them, only the crunch of ash beneath boots marking the passage of time. Eventually the canyon opened into a wide hollow where the ash fell like snow. Black petals drifted through the air, curling into nothing before they touched the ground.
At the center of the hollow stood a lone tree, its branches stripped bare yet still burning faintly with a glow from within the bark. Around its roots lay a ring of shattered masks, each carved with a different face.
Jin stepped closer, crouching to examine one. The wood was charred at the edges, but the expression was clear... sorrow, deep and unending. Another mask showed fury, another fear, another serenity.
"These are offerings," Myra murmured, her gaze tracing the ring. "Or warnings."
Soren crossed his arms. "Either way, someone wanted them left here."
Jin reached out, not to touch the masks but to feel the air above them. There was a weight here, a gathering of emotions so dense it clung to the skin. "These are remnants," he said. "Pieces of the selves they chose to leave behind. And the tree has kept them."
The glow within the bark pulsed faintly, almost like a heartbeat.
Jin straightened, meeting the empty branches with steady eyes. "It asks," he said quietly.
Myra's brow furrowed. "Asks what?"
"For what I will leave here… if I wish to pass."
The hollow was utterly still, the only movement the falling ash and faint burning in the wood. Jin considered the question for a long moment.
"I will give nothing I cannot lose," he said at last, and stepped past the ring of masks.
The tree's glow dimmed, then flared again... not in anger, but in acknowledgment. The air eased, and the path beyond the hollow revealed itself, a faint trail of lighter ash leading toward the horizon.
Soren gave him a long look as they followed. "You speak to things that should not hear. One day they will answer in a way you do not expect."
"They already have," Jin replied.
They walked for what felt like hours under the dim glow of the Ashen Sky until they came upon a rise of cracked stone. From the top, they could see the land beyond — a plain of shifting ash dunes, dotted with glimmers of something buried beneath.
Myra narrowed her eyes. "That is not stone."
"No," Jin agreed. "It is metal."
They descended, the dunes shifting underfoot, revealing more of the objects buried within. Blackened helms, rusted swords, shattered banners. All relics of a battle long ended, yet the air still carried the echo of clashing steel.
Jin paused at the base of a half-buried spear. The metal was cold despite the heat of the land, its shaft etched with runes in a script he almost recognized.
Before he could examine it further, the ash beside them stirred.
A figure rose from it... not fully formed, its body shaped of smoke and ember, its face hidden by a mask half-broken down the center. Its voice was like wind through a dying fire.
"You walk where the fallen sleep."
Jin did not move. "We pass with respect."
The figure tilted its head, the broken mask shifting. "Respect is not enough to leave unmarked."
It reached toward him, and for a heartbeat, Jin felt the pull of something trying to press into him... a weight, a memory, a name not his own. He pushed back, letting the abyss within him rise just enough to hold the intrusion at bay.
The figure stilled. "…You are not empty."
"No," Jin said. "Nor am I yours."
The ember-being stepped back, its form thinning. "Then take what you will, if you can bear it."
With that, it sank back into the ash, leaving behind a faint glow where it had stood.
Jin approached and found a small shard of glass, no larger than a fingernail, but it held within it the reflection of a battlefield not here. He slipped it into his sleeve.
Soren's eyes followed the motion. "Another fragment for your abyss?"
"Perhaps," Jin said. "Or perhaps for something yet unnamed."
They moved on, the dunes growing steeper, until the air ahead began to shimmer. Myra slowed, her voice low. "There is something here."
Jin felt it too... a pulse in the ground, faint but constant, like the slow beating of a buried heart. The land itself seemed to breathe beneath the Ashen Sky.
Whatever lay ahead was not simply part of this realm.
And as they crested the final dune, they saw it... a gate of obsidian and silver half-buried in the ash, its surface etched with the same script as the spear, its frame unbroken despite the ages.
The gate pulsed once, then went still.
Jin exhaled slowly. "We have found the next door."
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