The morning sun never truly rose in the Wastes. It bled over the horizon like a wounded god, spilling pale, lifeless light across the endless sea of black dunes. Kael stood alone at the edge of their makeshift camp, cloak drawn tight against the wind. The memory-stone hung from a strip of leather around his neck, its faint glow dimming with each passing hour.
Arin sat cross-legged in the sand, scratching runes into the dirt with a piece of bone. She had drawn a circle around herself, her brows furrowed in focus. Lira paced nearby, sharpening her blades with deliberate, rhythmic strokes.
They didn't speak much that morning.
Something had changed.
Kael had dreamt through the eyes of a monster—and more than that, he had felt drawn to the pulse in that temple. Not like an urge or instinct. Like a tether. A call.
He turned as Arin finished her circle.
"There," she said, brushing sand from her hands. "It'll keep the smaller things out. Not the Prophetess, though. Or worse."
"What's worse than her?" Kael asked, only half-joking.
Arin looked up. "The ones she serves."
By mid-morning, they were riding again. The storm had passed without reaching them, though the sky remained bruised with clouds. The terrain changed subtly as they moved—less sand, more jagged stone, broken pillars half-buried beneath time. They were entering the ruins of an old empire.
"This place," Lira muttered, glancing at a shattered statue half-swallowed by the dunes. "Used to be a capital. Back when the world had kings instead of warlords."
Arin spoke softly. "Before the Rune Wars. Before the Sealing."
Kael said nothing. But the pulse of that distant temple beat louder in his mind.
They reached a canyon by nightfall—narrow and steep, its walls carved with spiraling glyphs that shimmered faintly when touched by firelight. The horses refused to enter. Kael felt it too.
Rune-sickness.
"We walk," he said.
The canyon walls pressed close as they descended. Lira led the way, her eyes scanning for movement. Arin stayed close to Kael, her knife drawn but loose in her grip.
At the bottom, the canyon widened into a bowl of black rock. In the center stood a monolith—twisted, chained, and weeping smoke.
Kael approached it slowly. The rune in his chest reacted before he got close. Heat surged through him, fire licking at his veins.
The monolith spoke.
Not with words. With memory.
A battlefield of gods. Sky torn asunder. Chains cast by flame and blood. A woman, her face veiled, raising a broken crown.
Kael staggered back.
Arin caught him. "What did it show you?"
He shook his head. "Not what. Who."
The Prophetess.
She had been there when the Sealing began. She had survived it.
"She's older than this age," Kael whispered. "She remembers the First War. She… helped end it."
Lira frowned. "Then why serve the things that caused it?"
Arin said grimly. "The old gods are dead. But their chains still whisper."
Kael turned toward the monolith. "This was a warning."
A rumble echoed through the canyon. The chains on the monolith trembled.
"We're not alone," Lira said, already backing away.
The stone cracked.
From the base of the monolith, something crawled out.
Not a beast. Not a man.
A chained knight, clad in rusted armor, face hidden behind a shattered helm. His chest bore a rune—one Kael didn't recognize. It pulsed with void-light.
"It's a Warden," Arin breathed. "A remnant of the Seal."
The Warden moved like drowning smoke, slow and inevitable.
Kael stepped forward, blade drawn. The rune flared, fire dancing along his arm.
The Warden raised its weapon—a cleaver made of fused bone and metal.
Then it charged.
Kael blocked the first strike, barely. The force sent him skidding backward, boots carving trenches in the stone.
Lira flanked the Warden, blades flashing. She struck the joints—shoulder, knee, hip. Sparks flew, but the Warden didn't slow. It backhanded her into the canyon wall.
Kael shouted and unleashed a burst of flame.
The Warden walked through it.
Only Arin's runes slowed it, her chalk marks glowing like stars on the canyon floor. When the Warden stepped into one, it froze for half a second—long enough for Kael to strike.
His blade bit deep into the chest. Fire poured in.
The Warden screamed—not in pain, but memory. A sound like a child weeping inside a furnace.
Kael drove the blade deeper.
Unleash.
He obeyed.
Flame roared from within the Warden, cracking its armor, burning through whatever bound it. The rune on its chest dimmed—then shattered.
It collapsed.
Smoke and silence.
Kael fell to his knees, chest heaving.
Lira limped to his side, bleeding from her temple.
Arin crouched beside the remains. She pulled something from the ashes—a chain-link, etched with a rune.
"A memory-chain," she said. "Not like the shard. This one binds."
Kael took it. The moment he touched the metal, he felt it lock around something inside him.
Not painful.
Just final.
"It's not just a key," Arin said. "It's an oath."
Kael looked down at the ashes of the Warden.
"To protect the Seal?"
"No." Arin looked up at the monolith.
"To break it."
Later that night, as they camped near the canyon rim, Kael sat alone with the chain-link. The rune carved into it shimmered faintly—no longer void, but something else. Something incomplete.
Arin approached and sat beside him.
"You changed when you killed it."
He nodded. "The rune… it's growing."
"It'll keep growing," she said, voice soft. "Until you're something else."
Kael stared at the stars.
"Something like her?"
Arin didn't answer.
The wind howled across the stone.
Kael clutched the memory-chain, and for the first time, he wondered:
Was the fire inside him his own...
Or was it just another whisper in the dark?