The wind changed.
It wasn't just a shift in the weather. It was colder now—older. The kind of cold that seeped into the bones and made even fire feel foreign. The mist thickened around them, not the choking grey of before, but a pale, whispering veil that moved with intelligence, as if it were watching.
Val was the first to speak. Her voice was low, but it cut through the silence.
"That name… Xenias. Why does it feel like I should remember?"
No one answered. Not immediately.
Cyrus stood motionless, lips slightly parted, eyes flicking across the ground as if searching through memory. "We don't remember him," he finally said, "because we weren't supposed to."
Kael scowled. "What the hell does that mean?"
"I read about something like this once," Cyrus continued. "There are entities—beings—so deeply bound to the foundation of a world's truth that, when they're removed, reality reknits itself around the absence. Like a wound healing over a bullet never pulled out."
