They left the Skyfall Ruins before the light could decide what it wanted to be.
Mist clung to the broken stairways, rolling like breath from something half-asleep. Aerin felt it brush against his senses—not cold, not wet, but aware. Ever since the Echo awakened fully, the world no longer felt passive. Roads listened. Stones remembered.
Kael took the lead, sword sheathed but hand never straying far from its hilt. "This path wasn't here yesterday," he said, nodding ahead.
A narrow road stretched before them—smooth black stone cutting cleanly through the wild terrain, untouched by moss or age.
Lyra frowned. "Because it's not a road."
Veyrin smiled faintly. "It is an answer."
Aerin's chest warmed in recognition. The Echo pulsed once, gently.
"It's leading us to the Seal," Aerin said.
The road responded.
The moment he stepped onto it, the stone hummed—low and steady, like a heartbeat syncing with his own. Symbols flared briefly beneath his feet before fading, as though satisfied.
They walked.
Hours passed—or perhaps moments. Time bent strangely along the road. The sky above shifted through unfamiliar hues, stars visible even as a pale sun hovered low. Lyra tested the air with a small spell; it unraveled before completing.
"Magic behaves differently here," she muttered. "Like it's… rationed."
Veyrin nodded. "The Seals enforce balance. The closer we draw, the stricter the rules become."
The land ahead rose into jagged hills scarred by old battle marks—craters fused into glass, twisted remnants of towers half-buried in stone. Aerin felt a pressure behind his eyes.
Memory without memory.
Then they saw them.
Figures lined the road's edge—motionless, silent. At first glance they looked like statues, but as the group drew closer, Aerin realized the truth.
People.
Men and women frozen mid-step, mid-scream, mid-spell. Their skin bore faint star-marks, dulled and cracked like shattered mirrors.
Lyra's voice dropped to a whisper. "Starborn."
"Failed ones," Veyrin said softly.
Kael swore under his breath. "They're still alive."
Aerin felt it too—flickers of awareness trapped beneath the stone-sheen covering them.
"What happened to them?" he asked.
"They chose," Veyrin replied. "And the Seal judged their choice wanting."
The road began to narrow.
The air thickened, vibrating with restrained force. Ahead, the land split open into a vast circular basin. At its center floated a massive ring of fractured light, rotating slowly—each segment inscribed with ancient sigils bleeding starlight.
The First Seal.
Even Kael stopped breathing.
Cracks ran through the ring like wounds that refused to close. With every rotation, fragments drifted away, dissolving into the sky.
Aerin's knees weakened.
This was not a lock.
It was a burden.
A presence stirred.
The Echo surged—not violently, but insistently—urging him forward. As Aerin stepped closer, the frozen Starborn along the road reacted. Their eyes flared dimly, mouths opening soundlessly.
Warning.
Plea.
Or accusation.
The Seal spoke.
Not in words—but in weight.
Aerin felt futures pressing against him: one where he reinforced the Seal and doomed entire regions to stagnation… another where he shattered it and unleashed something vast and starving.
His choice would not be clean.
Behind him, Lyra whispered, "Aerin… whatever you do—don't do it alone."
The Seal's light flared brighter.
And somewhere far beyond the sky, something ancient smiled.
The road behind them vanished.