The letter arrived just before dawn, left on the forge table.
No one had seen who placed it. No footsteps in the soot. No signs of entry. The outer sentries swore the gate hadn't opened all night, and the forge—always warm—showed no break in its emberline seal.
It sat there, plain and folded, the parchment yellowed like something rescued from a fire long ago. The wax seal was unmistakable—Riku's own, imprinted with the coil-serpent and fractured sun, the same symbol carved into his ledger and engraved on his gauntlet.
He opened it with care, slicing beneath the wax without tearing the paper. His hands moved steadily. His heart did not.
There were only three lines inside.
All written in his own hand.
Don't burn the western root.Wait seven days before mapping the basin's depth again.You already gave the signal. Don't give it again.
No salutation. No date. Just ink, curling with a deliberate calm.
Kael came in moments later, greeted only by Riku's silence.
"What is it?" he asked, seeing the unfolded sheet.
Riku didn't answer right away. Instead, he placed the letter on the anvil block and stepped back as though it might ignite.
Kael leaned over to read, frowning deeper with each line.
"That's your writing," he said, already knowing.
Riku nodded once.
"And that seal..."
"Mine. From the second week. I carved it into the stone box behind the vault when we reinforced the forge perimeter."
Kael's mind moved quickly. "Someone could have stolen your tools. Or copied your signature—"
"No." Riku's voice was low. Firm. "This wax is fire-root laced. I designed that mix myself. Never used it on any other seal."
They stared at the words again.
Seven days. Don't map. Don't burn.
It was a list of instructions—but one thing kept clawing at Riku: You already gave the signal.
He hadn't.
Not that he remembered.
Sira entered next, sharp-eyed and still dusted with clay from the south ridge inspection. She read the letter over Kael's shoulder and said nothing for a full minute.
Then: "We act like it's true."
Kael turned to her. "You think it's real?"
"I think he thinks it's real," she said, nodding at Riku. "And I trust that more than the earth under us right now."
Outside, the camp was beginning to stir. Veit's squad was returning from a failed attempt to breach the last ice vein to the northeast, reporting more glacial shards and strange patterns in the mist. The mist, they said, had started to curve.
Riku took the letter back and folded it into his pocket, tight against the lining of his coat. It didn't weigh much.
But it pulled at him.
Before midday, he ordered all basin mapping halted. Kael didn't argue. Instead, he assigned the scouts to recheck the outposts along the rim, sending Ilven and Ashen to resurvey the highland arch.
They found something by nightfall.
A shallow crater, barely two meters wide, tucked beneath a sloped shelf of obsidian glass. Inside it—buried in mineral soot—they found bootprints.
Only one pair.
Not human. Not Draganoid. Not Emberkin.
His.
Riku's.
But older.
The pattern in the sole was one he'd replaced a month ago—when the left heel cracked during sparring drills. Only his previous pair had left marks like this. Kael had burned them two weeks back. Riku had watched.
And yet here the prints were. Ten steps down into the crater, circling a single standing stone marked with his coil-serpent insignia.
Ilven looked up at Ashen. "He was here."
Ashen just nodded. "Or someone who remembers how."
Back at Blackridge, Riku examined the stone they recovered from the crater's edge. It had no inscription. But when he turned it over in his hands, his fingers stopped on an edge he hadn't noticed.
Not a word. Not a glyph.
A notch.
Tiny. Precise.
Carved in the same style as his own work. Only someone with his training—his habits—would know to do it that way.
Sira stood behind him, arms crossed. "What happens if there's another letter?"
Riku didn't look up. "We wait."
"For seven days?" she asked.
He finally met her eyes.
"For as long as it takes," he said.
That night, he returned to the sealed vault alone. Not to work.
To listen.
There was no sound from the stones, no hum from the pale root fragment.
But deep beneath the chamber, past layers of crafted wall and reinforced barrier, something settled in the dark earth.
A whisper, not in words.
But in familiarity.