The next morning, the sky was gray, clouded like a lid pressing down on the world. Kael and Selene left the valley without speaking much. Both had sensed it—something had changed. The Thorn was stirring again, and Kael could feel whispers not in his ears, but in his bones.
They followed a worn path north, across cracked soil and dried rivers. Days passed. The land became colder. Trees stood like ghosts, twisted and silent.
On the fourth night, they camped beside a broken stone bridge that arched over nothing—beneath it, only a pit of shadows. As Kael sat beside the fire, a hum filled the air. Faint, almost like a heartbeat.
Then a voice.
It came from below the ground, muffled yet clear. It didn't speak words. It sang—a low, mournful melody that made Kael's vision blur.
Selene turned sharply. "Do you hear that?"
Kael nodded. "It's calling again."
He stood and approached the edge of the pit. Ash drifted down into the darkness. The voice grew louder.
He could almost make out syllables now.
Return. Reclaim. Remember.
He knelt, placing his hand on the stone. The moment his fingers touched it, a vision struck him.
A grand city, long ago. Towering walls, golden light. People kneeling. A god rising from a throne carved of bone and flame.
Then screams. Fire. Betrayal. A crown falling.
Kael staggered back, gasping.
Selene caught him. "What did you see?"
"A city," he said. "Burning. I think I destroyed it."
She gripped his shoulders. "No. Maybe you watched it fall. But you're not the same person you were back then."
Kael looked at the bridge again. There was something beneath it. A ruin, maybe. A memory sealed in stone.
And it wanted him to come.
"We need to go down there," he said.
Selene looked at the pit, then back at Kael. She didn't argue.
Together, they prepared rope and torches. And as they descended into the darkness beneath the stone, the voice welcomed them.
Not with anger.
But with recognition.