The road squeezed in on itself as they climbed, crushed between cliff walls that looked like they'd been split open in a god's tantrum. Jagged stone jutted out like broken teeth, angled every which way, sharp enough to gut a sky that leaned in too close. The path underfoot cracked in strange patterns, like something had tried to claw its way out from beneath. Wind rose from the canyon below in sharp, snaking bursts, carrying with it the taste of ash and something older—like the smell of burnt parchment and iron that never rusted. There were voices too, if you were dumb enough to listen. Old ones. Fractured whispers drifting through the air like curses looking for ears.
Verek didn't slow. He kept his shoulders squared, jaw tight, eyes locked on the next bend. The weight of the shards in his pack shifted with each step. Not heavy like stone—more like guilt carried in a thousand separate shapes. They didn't glow anymore. Didn't shine like something holy. Now they pulsed quiet in the dark, like lungs breathing in things they weren't supposed to, like they'd grown eyes.
Behind him, the others walked quiet, but not from discipline. From the kind of silence that comes after too many confessions. After the High Priestess. After the truths that temple had peeled from their bones like skin sloughed raw. The air between them stretched thin, brittle with things no one knew how to say out loud anymore.
Caylen's voice finally cut through. Rough, clipped. "This road wasn't made for travelers. It was carved like a prison wall. To keep something in. Or scare folks off trying to leave."
Verek didn't answer. He didn't need to. His hand brushed the hilt of his staff, more habit than preparation.
"Good," Dax said from the rear, adjusting his grip on the axe strapped across his back. "I'm tired of polite ruins with rotten teeth. At least this one's honest about wanting us dead."
Ezreal walked in the middle, quiet. He'd wrapped his coat tighter around him, not for warmth but containment. His face was pale but focused, eyes moving in small jerks, tracking every bit of gravel, every shadow that twitched wrong. His lips moved sometimes—counting, probably. Spells, or steps. No one asked.
The cliffs peeled open just enough for the fortress to come into view, draped like a corpse on the edge of the world. Its towers leaned on one another like drunks too tired to fall. Moss clung to stone like it had given up on growing and just wanted to be left alone. Banners flapped weakly from high ledges, so tattered they barely had meaning left. The air turned colder. Not mountain cold. Not winter cold. This felt like the kind of chill that came from memory. Regret that never stopped breathing.
They crossed the broken threshold without ceremony. The iron gate gave way with a shove and a groan, dust choking up in a lazy puff.
Inside, the cold was different. It sank into the chest and wrapped itself around the lungs like hands with long fingers. Even the light looked slower, like it didn't want to move past the stone. The ground was thick with gravel and shattered glass, dried blood in patterns that didn't make sense. Not war. Ritual.
Caylen paced ahead with a stiff gait, his hand twitching now and then toward the hilt of his blade. "This place should've fallen apart long ago."
Dax's voice came blunt behind him. "Means whatever's still walking around in here doesn't know how to die proper."
Verek stopped. His fingers curled slowly around the strap of his pack. That hum in his spine—the one that always came before a trial—it was here now, louder than before. This shard would not test heart, or guilt, or mercy. This one would test motion. Force. Will. The kind that breaks bones and doesn't apologize.
Then the drums started.
Not loud at first. Just a dull thud, like something far below the surface was walking in rhythm. The tempo rose slowly. Heavy. Relentless. Like a heartbeat too big for one body to hold. The stone beneath their boots began to shudder with the sound.
And then came the soldiers.
They didn't charge so much as emerge—dragging themselves out of broken archways and shattered halls, weapons rusted and cracked like their bones. Their armor hung crooked on skeletal frames. Some had faces still, dried and tight like leather straps, mouths sealed shut. Their eyes were pits filled with old fire, the kind that burned only out of habit.
Verek didn't flinch. He stepped forward, voice sharp enough to slap silence back into the air. "Keep moving. That's the test. We don't hold ground. We break through."
The ghosts came fast.
Caylen met them with steel drawn and fury behind his eyes. His strikes weren't elegant. They were desperate, angry. Like he wasn't just fighting them—he was fighting being here at all.
Dax roared and charged, wide swings tearing through torsos like firewood. He didn't care about form. Just impact. Every hit landed with the weight of unsaid things.
Ezreal kept to the center, palms glowing, eyes gone flat. He muttered words that didn't sound like any language spoken in this world. Fire lashed out in crooked blasts, frost following like a second thought. The ghosts burned and shattered, but they kept coming.
Verek didn't cast—he commanded. His sigils weren't pretty. They looked carved in anger, drawn mid-stride, symbols twisting like barbed wire in the air. They shoved spirits aside, pinned them to walls, forced gaps in the ranks. He didn't focus on killing them. Just opening the path forward.
The fortress didn't give them ground easily. For every ghost that dropped, two more took its place. Some rose back up. Nothing stayed dead for long. But they didn't stop moving.
The trial wasn't about victory. It was about momentum. Step by step. Blow by blow. Each movement forward cost something.
By the time they hit the inner sanctum, they looked like they'd crawled through a war that hadn't ended yet. Armor split, skin torn, breath ragged. But they were still moving.
At the center of the sanctum, an altar stood. The stone was smoother than anything else here, etched with wheels locked in motion—chariots drawn by beasts that looked half-real, half-fear. Fire curled around their hooves. The image moved, somehow. Burned. Charged.
Hovering just above it was the blue shard. It pulsed in rhythm with the drums, or maybe their hearts. It didn't glow with power. It pulled it. Like gravity in glass.
Verek stepped up and reached for it. The second his fingers closed around it, the drums stopped.
The ghosts froze.
Then they vanished. Not like smoke. Like breath finally exhaled.
Silence filled the hall.
Caylen leaned on his sword, chest heaving. "This place... it didn't want us to win. It just wanted to see if we'd quit."
Dax spat blood and gave a shrug that looked more like a shoulder cracking back into place. "I don't even know what winning looks like anymore."
Verek didn't speak. He stared down at the shard in his hand. It didn't hum. It didn't whisper. It just was. A piece of movement frozen in time. A memory of momentum.
They left the fortress through the same shattered gate. No fanfare. No collapse behind them. Just the wind waiting, claws out.
At the cliff's edge, the world stretched wide. The sky had turned sick, full of writhing clouds and thunder that didn't quite land. Something massive moved below, far off but coming closer. Always closer.
Verek adjusted the pack. The shards inside pulsed once, twice, then settled.
"One more," he said. Just loud enough for the others to hear.
Dax stepped beside him, cradling his shoulder. "Any guesses?"
Verek didn't look away from the storm. "The World."
Caylen joined them with a grunt. "Sounds like the end of something."
Verek finally turned, his voice flat and worn. "It is. Just not the kind we understand yet."
The wind picked up again, howling through the cliffs, sounding almost like a warhorn played off-key. Below them, something moved.
They turned and walked on, boots crunching across bone and frost and gravel, breath fogging the air between them. The road bent forward like a hook pulled tight through skin.
But they kept walking.
Because that was the only thing they had left.