The world hadn't woken yet when they began their descent.
A pale hush lingered over the mountain ridge like a veil of breathless anticipation, and dawn barely skimmed the peaks in diluted gold. Snow crunched beneath their boots, muffled and deliberate. Elira walked ahead, her pace smooth—like she wasn't traveling a path but retracing it. Like every stone, every curve in the road, had once been inked into the marrow of her bones.
Kael followed in silence. His breath clouded the air with every exhale, mingling with the mist and fading into nothing. Muscles ached. Bruises throbbed. His ribs still felt the echo of the Wraith's blow. But pain didn't slow him.
Pain had simply become part of the rhythm now. Just another pulse in the background of survival.
"…What exactly is this Spire?"
His voice finally broke the silence, raw from hours of biting cold and silence.
Elira didn't answer immediately. She reached beneath her cloak and tossed something toward him. A flick of her fingers—precise, casual, like she'd done this a thousand times before.
Kael caught it midair.
A coin-shaped relic.
Metal, old and cold to the touch. On it, engraved in silver filigree, was the same winged sword he'd seen etched into the monolith. Ancient. Sacred. Condemned.
Elira's voice drifted behind him like wind off a blade.
"It's not just a tower."
She turned, her eyes catching the morning light.
"It's a prison. A key. A warning."
Kael blinked. "That… doesn't help."
Her expression didn't shift.
"It wasn't meant to."
They pushed forward.
The forest thinned out gradually, giving way to jagged ridges and broken cliffs. Then—just like that—the trees opened up. And beyond them, across the miles of frost-bitten plains…
There it stood.
Rising like a blade stabbed into the earth's heart. A tower of obsidian stone, split with silver veins that pulsed faintly beneath the storm clouds above. Wind circled its peak, carving an endless cyclone of lightning and cloud around it. And yet—there was no thunder. No sound.
Just stillness. Watching. Waiting.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"That's it?"
"That's it," Elira answered.
"Doesn't look very inviting."
"It's not."
They began their descent down the mountainside, the path winding like a scar along the earth. Abandoned watchtowers flanked the trail—toppled, broken, swallowed by time. The bones of a forgotten kingdom.
Kael stopped beside one.
Carved into the half-fallen stone, faded and fractured… was a sigil. A wolf with a flaming crown.
His family's crest.
"…These were ours once," he whispered.
Elira slowed beside him, her voice softer now.
"All things were, once."
"Until the Severance."
He didn't ask. He stated. But the moment the word left his lips, it felt heavy. Older than speech.
Elira didn't look at him.
"Everyone's heard that word."
"But no one understands it," Kael murmured.
"Do you?"
A long pause.
Then—nothing. Just silence. A quiet no masked by refusal.
The wind howled again. But this time, there was something hidden beneath it.
A sound.
Faint.
Subtle.
…Voices.
Kael paused and glanced toward Elira.
"Do you hear that?"
Her eyes narrowed, shoulders stiffened.
"…They've started to notice you."
Kael's brows knit together. "They?"
Elira didn't flinch.
"The Hollow Ones were just scouts. Shadows in the first layer."
"There are worse?"
She nodded once.
"The ones who never died."
"…What?"
"Only slept."
They marched for hours before the sky bled orange and dusk returned. Their camp settled beside a frozen lake, its surface cracked like fractured glass beneath a winter curse.
Kael built the fire. Elira lit it with a flick of her fingers—one spark, perfect control. Magic didn't struggle in her hands. It obeyed.
"You use magic like it's nothing," Kael said, tossing in another log.
Elira didn't reply.
"…Why did you help me?"
Still silence.
"Elira."
She turned her eyes toward him.
"Because I thought I was the last one."
Kael froze. His voice dropped.
"…The last what?"
"Severed."
A silence stretched between them like a wound left untreated.
Kael's gaze dropped to the Whisperblade resting against his knee.
"You think I'm like you?"
Elira didn't hesitate.
"I know you are. That sword wouldn't have chosen you otherwise."
Kael exhaled. Frustration and dread simmered behind his ribs.
"I didn't ask for this."
"None of us did."
She stood, her back to him, her voice distant now—like she was remembering something that never quite stopped hurting.
"When the Spire fell… it didn't just collapse a city. It ripped through the Veil. Shattered the barrier between what is and what should never be. Every soul that died… began to echo. The Wraiths, the Hollows…"
She looked over her shoulder.
"…They're memories that forgot how to fade."
Kael dragged his hand through his hair. "And now they're after me?"
Elira shook her head.
"No. They're after what's inside you."
He blinked. "Inside?"
"It was dormant. Hidden. But the sword woke it. That fracture… that spark. You're a beacon now. A flame in the dark. And the dark remembers the ones who burn."
Kael stared into the fire. It danced blue. Just like the runes.
"Then I guess I'll have to become strong enough to burn brighter than it."
Elira raised an eyebrow.
"You think strength alone will save you?"
Kael didn't flinch.
"No. But it's a damn good place to start."
Something flickered in her expression. Not quite a smile. But something close.
"You remind me of someone."
Kael leaned back. "Let me guess. Another Severed?"
She nodded.
"My brother."
His voice dropped. "What happened to him?"
The light vanished from her face.
"…He tried to stop the Spire. It stopped him instead."
The fire cracked once. Sparks lifted into the sky like dying stars.
Neither of them spoke again that night.
The next morning, they approached the edge of the Spire's reach.
And the world changed.
No birds.
No breeze.
No snow.
Just—silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that watched.
The kind that breathed.
The earth turned glassy beneath their boots. Trees curled unnaturally, like they were growing toward something they couldn't see but feared. And then—Kael saw them.
A corpse nailed to a tree.
No wounds. No rot.
Just wide, hollow eyes and a frozen scream.
Then another.
And another.
Dozens.
Like a trail.
A line drawn in death.
Kael swallowed.
"…Gods."
"Don't look too long," Elira warned. "They watch through the dead."
Kael turned forward, jaw clenched.
"I'm not afraid."
Elira didn't argue.
"You will be."
And they stepped across the threshold.
Into the land where stories died.
And nightmares woke.