The trees broke, and the land opened like a gasp held too long.
Evelyn stumbled forward, boots scuffing through brittle underbrush as her fever began to cool. The wind here was strange—too still, yet carrying the scent of smoke that hadn't been lit in years.
Torren held her up with one arm. His other rested near the hilt of a blade dulled by use, blood dried along its edge. He hadn't spoken much since the pass.
"Almost there," he said, his voice hoarse. "That rise—there's a stone waystation just past it."
Evelyn blinked, trying to focus. The world still shimmered at the edges, like a pool disturbed by breath. Her body felt wrong—heavy and light at once. Inside her chest, the shard of the Warden's fractured core pulsed like a second heartbeat, slow and uncertain.
She hadn't told Torren she'd taken it whole. Not really. Not what it meant.
She wasn't sure he'd understand. She wasn't sure she did.
The station had once been proud.
Three watchtowers now lay crumbled, their rune-bricks half-swallowed by ivy and rot. The walls bore ward-marks faded into obscurity—sigils designed to pulse with light when active, now dulled like bone beneath skin.
A rusted bell hung from a frame over the archway.
It swung lazily in the breeze, but it made no sound.
Torren stared at it. "I don't like that."
"Why?"
"No wind," he muttered. "Not here. Not enough to move steel."
They entered through a breach in the wall.
Evelyn expected silence.
Instead, she heard whispers.
Soft, indistinct. Just beneath the edge of hearing. Like voices submerged in water—familiar shapes speaking in impossible cadences.
She turned. No one behind them.
"Do you—?" she started.
Torren shook his head. "I don't hear it. Whatever it is, it's yours."
They found shelter in the ruined scriptorium. Books long ruined by mold and sun rested on shelves that had survived better than they should have.
Someone had maintained this place.
Recently.
Evelyn touched the glyph carved into the hearthstone. It sparked faintly—blue-white. She drew her fingers back, startled.
"Still live," she murmured.
Torren dropped their packs. "Only place for miles. We rest. Tomorrow, we find the Guild trail."
But Evelyn wasn't listening.
Because the glyph wasn't Guild-script.
It was older.
She traced it again, slower. Her fingers tingled.
The core inside her hummed—responding.
From the shadows behind the scriptorium shelf, she felt something shift. Not movement. Not air.
Awareness.
She stood abruptly.
"Something's here."
Torren went for his blade.
But nothing emerged. Just the stillness again. The deep breath of something that did not sleep, merely waited.
That night, Evelyn dreamt.
The field was fire again—white, flickering fire with no heat.
The woman stood there, silver-eyed, lips not moving but voice ringing clear:
"You have stepped beyond the binding line. Now the song will chase you."
Evelyn clutched her chest. "What am I becoming?"
The woman smiled sadly.
"Not becoming, child. Remembering."
She woke before dawn.
Outside, birds were singing again.
But not the same songs as before.
And somewhere—deep within the stones of the ruined station—the bell rang once.
Just once.
Loud enough to wake the bones of old watchers.