The wind across the northern plains carried a bitter cold, heavy with the scent of ash. For three days, Lior and Kael had walked beneath a pale, cloud-choked sky, the horizon stretching endlessly ahead of them. The once-green meadows had long since turned to wasteland, brittle grass and the bones of forgotten roads leading toward the ruins of Valenreach.
Kael kicked at a stone, muttering, "Elaris said buried under centuries of ash. She failed to mention how much walking that involved."
Lior barely smiled. The ache in his chest from the forest's heart still lingered, as though a piece of that red light had rooted itself inside him. "We walk because the world needs time to remember," he said quietly. "And perhaps… so do we."
Kael snorted. "That's poetic. You sure you're not turning into one of those forest spirits?"
"Would you prefer I turn into one of those shadows she warned us about?"
Kael gave a half-grin. "Depends on whether it still complains this much."
The banter faded as they crested a low ridge. Before them stretched a wide valley and in its center, shrouded in mist and ruin, lay Valenreach.
The once-great city was little more than a skeleton now. Towers leaned against one another like broken teeth, their tops shorn by time. Bridges hung half-collapsed over streets drowned in dust. Yet even through the ruin, something vast and ancient pulsed faintly. A hum that Lior could feel deep in his bones.
Kael stopped. "You feel that too, right?"
"Yes." Lior's eyes narrowed. "The heart of the forest wasn't the only thing waking."
They descended carefully into the ruins. Every step stirred whispers, fragments of voices that drifted between the stones. Lior could almost make out words: echoes of laughter, screams, prayers. The air thickened the deeper they went, pressing on his chest.
"This city remembers," Lior murmured. "It remembers the fire."
Kael glanced at him. "Yours or someone else's?"
"Both, perhaps."
They reached the central square, where the remnants of a grand citadel loomed over the ruins. A cracked mural still clung to the wall, a crown wreathed in flame above a kneeling figure. Beneath it, the ground pulsed faintly red.
Kael whistled. "If I had to guess, I'd say that's where your cursed jewelry's waiting."
Lior nodded slowly. "The Crown of Remnants."
He stepped forward, but the air suddenly turned cold. A ripple passed through the ground. From the shadows between the pillars, figures began to emerge. Silhouettes of armor long rusted, their eyes burning faint crimson.
Kael's hand went to his dagger. "Tell me they're not real."
"They're memories," Lior said though even as he spoke, one raised its blade and charged.
The clash was immediate. Steel met shadow. Kael darted between strikes, his movements sharp and fluid, while Lior's sword blazed with orange light, each swing cutting through the specters like fire through fog. Yet for every one that fell, two more rose in its place.
"They're endless!" Kael shouted.
"No," Lior gritted. "They're bound to something beneath."
He drove his sword into the cracked earth. Light exploded outward, forcing the shadows back for a heartbeat. Through the fissure, he saw it, a crown of black metal half-buried in the stone, its edges glowing faint red. The Crown of Remnants.
Lior reached toward it and the world seemed to stop.
In that instant, visions flooded his mind.
A throne room burning.
A voice screaming his name.
A figure, his own reflection, wearing that same crown, eyes blazing with the same fire he now wielded.
He staggered back, trembling.
Kael caught his arm. "Lior! What did you see?"
"The end," Lior whispered. "And the beginning."
The ground shook violently. The ruins of Valenreach groaned, walls splitting as light burst upward from the cracks. The shadows screamed, then dissolved into dust.
When the tremor stopped, only silence remained. The crown lay at Lior's feet, its glow fading.
Kael looked around warily. "That… was new."
Lior bent down, not to touch it, but to look and he saw his reflection warped across its dark surface. "Elaris said not all symbols are meant to be worn," he murmured. "This one… remembers too much."
He wrapped the crown carefully in cloth and placed it in his pack. "We take it to the northern reach. There's more buried than this city."
Kael exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Fine. But next time a spirit tells us to fetch an ancient relic, remind me to decline politely."
They began to walk again, the mist of Valenreach curling behind them like the breath of something that wasn't entirely gone.
As they crossed the broken bridge out of the city, a faint whisper rose from the ruins, the echo of Elaris's voice, fading with the wind:
"The flame is not meant to destroy… it is meant to guide."
Lior looked back once, his expression solemn. "Then let it guide us through the shadows yet to come."
And far above, through the gray clouds, the faint shape of black wings circled once more.