Two weeks had passed since Kael's wound healed on its own. Since then, the church had grown even more silent. Father Eluon locked himself in the archive, and Anselm often stood by the window for hours, waiting for… something.
Kael felt it.
The world was no longer quiet.
Something beyond the city walls was moving.
---
On the 14th day, a knock came to the church gate. A woman in deep blue robes stood there, her eyes covered by black cloth. A thin staff, inlaid with glowing stone, rested in her hand.
> "I come as a messenger of the Seventh Light," she said — soft, but firm.
"The Grand Sun Church has issued a warning. Someone inside this place… has touched the 'Stair'."
Father Eluon did not greet her. He watched from the shadows.
Anselm spoke carefully, "We acknowledge nothing… not yet."
The woman smiled faintly.
> "You need not. But they already know. And the 'Third Shadow' is moving."
---
Kael, eavesdropping in the corridor, froze. The woman's words were foreign… but something deep within him stirred.
The Stair? Seventh Light? Third Shadow?
He didn't know what they meant. But he felt… the world he knew was about to collapse.
---
That night, he climbed to the attic. There, he opened the worn book he had found days ago — once blank, now glowing faintly. A new symbol was etched into the page.
And a voice echoed in his mind.
> "The Stair is not a place… but a direction."
"Climb, even if your feet are not for walking."
"The wound in your hand is the gate."
Kael looked at his palm. The wound had returned — and this time, it glowed.