By the time they reached the embertrail, the last light of the sun was sinking behind a scabbed horizon, dull orange bleeding into iron-colored clouds. The path was barely visible at first—a meandering track of scorched sand and char that twisted like the tail of a long-dead serpent through the wastes. But the signs were unmistakable.
The ground was warm. Not from the sun. From something deeper.
"Here," Vareth said, crouching low and brushing aside a thin layer of ash with the back of his glove. Beneath, a seam of black-glass crust shimmered faintly. "The old path. Burned in the second flare war. Still smolders where the core-tide touched too deep."
Torren leaned heavily on a branch-turned-crutch, his breath still labored. "I thought the embertrails were legend."
"They are," Vareth replied. "To those who've never bled beside one."
Evelyn knelt, pressing her palm gently to the scorched seam. It throbbed—faint and rhythmic, like something alive beneath stone. Not just heat. Resonance. Her heartfire pulsed in response, a soft beat in her chest. It hummed like recognition.
"How long does it stretch?" she asked.
"Two days if we follow it north," Vareth said. "Then another rise west to reach the outpost stone. If it's still there."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then we pray the next Guild haven hasn't been swallowed."
Evelyn stood. "Let's move before the wind rises."
They walked in silence for hours. The wastes were never quiet—always the hush of dust, the whimper of distant wind, the occasional shift of distant rubble that might have been rock… or something watching.
By nightfall, they made camp under the lee of a broken monument. Its carved symbols had long since been seared away, melted in a forgotten blast. Just one remained—half an eye etched deep into the base, as if it had refused to die.
Vareth gave it a long glance. "We shouldn't linger here."
"It's shelter," Evelyn replied.
"It's a grave."
She said nothing to that, only unpacked what little rations remained. She had stopped feeling hunger days ago, replaced by an aching hollowness from the Oath. She could still feel the fire—flickering, smaller now, but still there.
Torren slept deeply, body curled around the heartfire shard as though it warmed more than his bones. He hadn't spoken much since the rite. Just grunted acknowledgment, or let his eyes do the thanking.
Evelyn sat beside the fire and tried not to think of how much quieter he had become.
That was when the scratching began.
Soft. Rhythmic. Like claws against stone.
She stood. Vareth was already alert, blade half-drawn, eyes scanning the darkness.
"East," he muttered.
Evelyn stepped around the edge of the camp, past the edge of the fire's radius. Her hand hovered near her core shard.
That's when she saw it.
Not a creature. Not exactly. Just a shape—small, pale, crouched in the ash and watching with eyes that reflected too much light.
A child. But not. It cocked its head.
"Hello?" Evelyn whispered.
The thing tilted its head again. Then it spoke. A voice like cracked ice and old embers.
"Ember-bearer."
She stepped back.
"Who are you?"
It blinked slowly. Then—just for a moment—its features shimmered. Its skin rippled, then stilled. A mask. Not a face.
"Flame to ash," it whispered. "Ash to echo. Burn and become."
Then it vanished—melting into the dark like smoke.
Vareth appeared beside her a heartbeat later. "What did it say?"
Evelyn shook her head. "It knew me."
"Echoed remnant?"
"No. Something else. It spoke."
They didn't sleep much after that.
By morning, they found signs the embertrail had been walked recently—prints too shallow to be beasts, too erratic to be normal. Drag marks. Symbols carved in quick, urgent script along broken stone. One, Evelyn recognized: a warning sigil, burned into coreglass like it had been scrawled by a panicked hand.
Vareth spat. "Someone's hunting. Or driving something forward."
Evelyn looked west.
"Then let's get ahead of it."
Torren limped after her.
The embertrail was no longer quiet.