The city's breath felt colder that night, as if the darkness itself had drawn nearer. Cael moved silently through narrow alleys, the parchment's cryptic symbols burning in his pocket like a whispered threat. Every flicker of shadow seemed alive, watching, waiting.
Selene trailed close, her silver hair a ghostly trail in the dim light. "The breach isn't just a wound — it's a sentient fracture. It remembers."
Cael's eyes narrowed. "Remembers what?"
"A cycle," she whispered. "A slow, relentless hunger that devours until only silence remains. We're its next course."
Their steps led them beneath the ancient arches of the city's forgotten quarter, where stone walls bore scars older than time. There, in the hollow heart of ruin, a faint pulse echoed — like a heartbeat forged from darkness.
Cael reached out, fingertips brushing the cracked sigil etched into the cold stone. Energy flickered beneath his touch — unstable, dangerous. The breach was growing, and the secrets it held were not meant for the living.
"We have to find the source," Cael said, voice low but steady.
Selene's gaze was resolute. "And if we fail?"
"Then we become part of the silence," he answered.