The air changed as they crossed the ridge.
There was no line. No sign. No sudden shift in weather.
Just… a moment.
A single breath where Kael stepped forward, and the wind behind him forgot how to follow.
Echo slowed beside him. Nathaniel pulled out his compass, frowning.
"The needle's spinning," Nathaniel said quietly. "Every direction at once."
Kael looked down at the map Sera had drawn. The sketch of trees. The spiraling glyph. The door in the middle of an empty field.
He turned the page over. At the bottom, written in careful, childish script:
The Folded Field. Where Time Holds Its Breath.
They emerged from the treeline into an open plain.
It looked ordinary.
Rolling grass, golden and still. A few scattered boulders. A shallow hill at the center.
But the longer Kael stood in it, the more he noticed things were wrong.
Too quiet.
The wind didn't ripple the grass.
A bird flapped its wings above — and froze mid-beat for a heartbeat too long.
Echo stepped once and left two pawprints — slightly misaligned.
"This place isn't frozen," she said. "It's… echoing itself."
Nathaniel crouched beside a boulder. "The resonance is unstable. Temporal layering. I've only seen it once—on the edge of Veilpoint."
Kael scanned the field. "So what are we looking for?"
Echo turned toward the hill. "The center. Where the folds overlap."
The climb to the hill's peak felt like walking through versions of the same step. Kael moved forward — but the path beneath his boots shifted, sometimes flattening early, sometimes stretching. Nathaniel swore under his breath once as his footing slipped across grass that reversed direction beneath him.
At the top of the hill, the answer waited.
A single stone.
Smooth. Circular. Embedded into the ground. Glyphs covered its surface, spiraling outward from the center.
Kael approached slowly.
"They're unfinished," he said. "Like someone started writing… and got interrupted."
Echo stepped close, paw resting near the center glyph.
And then the light pulsed.
Not from the stone.
From within Kael's pack.
He reached inside and pulled out the folder of drawings Sera had given him.
One page glowed faintly — the one of the door.
Kael placed it over the glyph circle.
It fit perfectly.
The moment the paper touched the stone, the entire field shifted.
Not violently.
Just subtly.
Like a mirror cracking along an invisible seam.
And then Kael heard it.
A voice.
"If you've found this… then I didn't finish the story."
He froze.
Galen.
Echo lowered her head slightly, eyes wide.
Nathaniel stepped closer. "Is it… a recording?"
"No," Echo whispered. "It's a message left in time."
Kael knelt, hands on the stone.
The voice continued.
"This isn't a memory. It's a warning. If the story continues beyond this point, it means the seal didn't hold. That Amaranth… found another path."
"And if you're the one listening…"
The pause was long. Personal.
"Then it's you, Kael. You found what I couldn't."
"You became what I only dreamed."
Kael swallowed hard.
"The Folded Field wasn't meant to be a battleground. It was meant to be a choice."
"If you continue—there won't be another Threshold. No more gates. No more guardians."
"There will only be you."
The voice faded.
Kael stood slowly.
The paper in his hand dissolved — not burned, not torn. Just… unmade.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
Nathaniel looked out over the field. "It means the endgame isn't about the past anymore."
Echo nodded. "It's about what you decide to become."
Kael looked toward the center of the stone.
Another glyph had appeared — one he hadn't written, and Galen hadn't drawn.
It was a door again.
But this time, it was open.
Not broken. Not waiting.
Ready.
He reached out and touched the glyph.
The sky flickered.
The grass shimmered.
And in the far distance, beyond where the field should end, a line of light appeared on the horizon — thin, golden, constant.
A path.
To whatever came next.
Kael turned to Echo.
"You still with me?"
She smiled faintly. "Always."
He looked at Nathaniel.
The man exhaled. "I'll follow. But this step — it's yours."
Kael faced the glowing line.
And stepped off the hill.
Not toward memory.
Not toward answers.
But toward what hadn't been written yet.