Dawn came slow over Sunspire, a pale smear of light pushing timidly across the horizon as if wary of waking the wrong thing. The air still carried a faint metallic note from the Rift—an aftertaste of power that did not belong to this side of existence. Kael felt it in his teeth first, that faint hum, like a plucked string vibrating behind his ribs. Every time the memory flickered back—Riven's scream, the way the world bent around them as if trying to recoil—his stomach tightened.
They had made camp near an abandoned watchtower, half-eaten by vines, its stones split by time or something less patient. Elaria sat on one of the fallen slabs, winding a strip of cloth around her arm where an ember-spore creature had grazed her. She didn't flinch as she tightened the knot. She just glanced toward Kael with that steady look of hers.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
He shook his head. "Did you?"
"Barely. The ground kept whispering."
He didn't ask what it said. Whispering ground usually meant one of three things: old magic, old grief, or old danger. None of them were friendly.
A rustle from behind the tower interrupted them. Arin emerged with a satchel strapped across his chest and a handful of shaped glass prisms glinting in his palm. His face looked more serious than usual—no quick grin, no restless tapping of his boots. The kid had grown quieter since the Rift tore open above them. Not scared. Just… sharpened.
"I checked the perimeter again," Arin said. "No tracks except ours." Then, after a pause, "But something melted half a tree to the north. Like clean through."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Residual distortion?"
"Maybe. Or something came through and moved on."
Elaria's eyes narrowed. "If something slipped past us after the Rift's recoil—"
"It didn't slip past," Arin said. "Whatever it was didn't walk. No prints. No drag. No heat signature. Just… absence."
Kael rose and brushed the dust from his cloak. Absence wasn't a creature. It was worse. It meant something was here that disagreed with causality, the kind of thing that left the world struggling to remember it existed at all.
Riven appeared then, quiet as smoke, stepping out of the tower's shadow. Her hair still held faint streaks of silver where the Rift's backlash had brushed her. She moved with purpose today—determined, not fragile—though Kael noticed the way she kept flexing her fingers, as if making sure they still obeyed.
"I had a dream," she said. "Not memory. Not prophecy. Somewhere between."
Kael resisted the urge to ask if she was alright. Riven hated being handled gently.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"Threads. Hundreds. All pulled taut. And every one of them vibrating. Like they're waiting for a hand to choose one."
Kael exchanged a glance with Elaria. The timing wasn't a coincidence. Not after last night. Not after the way the sky split.
Riven continued, "One thread was loudest. A black one with something burning behind it. I think it's calling us."
"Calling or warning?" Arin asked.
"Both."
The wind picked up then, carrying with it a soft hiss through the tower stones. It almost sounded like breath. Kael's hand went instinctively to the hilt of his blade, though he knew steel wouldn't help if this was what he feared.
Elaria stood. "Where?"
Riven pointed toward the distant ridgeline where the land curled upward like a sleeping beast. "The Ashen Fold."
Arin let out a low whistle. "That's at least a week's trek. And the Fold isn't exactly stable. The ground changes shape depending on how it feels about you."
"It won't matter," Riven said quietly. "We have to go. Something's waking under the Fold. Something old."
Kael felt the air shift, a pressure rolling over them like a slow wave. He had felt this once before, years ago, when his father died and the sky dimmed for a full day. A presence reaching across the horizon, testing, listening, remembering.
He buckled his gear, strapped the blade to his side, and nodded once.
"We leave within the hour."
Arin stared at the ridgeline, his voice softer than before. "Does this have anything to do with what chased us out of the Rift?"
Kael didn't answer right away. The truth wasn't something Arin needed to hear yet. Not the full shape of it. Not how close they'd come to being erased.
Riven stepped beside the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We'll handle whatever's waiting. All of us. Together."
Arin looked up at her, then nodded.
Elaria finished securing her pack and gave Kael a small, tight smile that meant she trusted his judgment, whether he trusted himself or not.
Kael turned toward the north. Toward the Fold. Toward the thread Riven had seen burning behind black.
The air went still again. The world felt paused.
And somewhere far above Sunspire, beyond what any of them could see, something ancient tilted its head, sensing that the pieces it had scattered long ago were beginning to move again.
Kael didn't know that part.
He only knew the road ahead felt heavier than ever.
He stepped forward.
The world followed.