The shard pulsed faintly in his palm, even without light. It beat like something alive — slow, irregular, almost uncertain of itself.
Elijah kept it hidden in his sleeve.
The others hadn't asked about it again, though he saw the way Mara's eyes lingered on him now, sharper than before. Derin spoke less. Kell acted the same — always talking, always moving — but sometimes Elijah caught him watching in the corner of his eye, as if measuring the space between trust and fear.
They left the river valley by dawn. The fog followed them, clinging to their boots and the folds of their cloaks. Trees thinned. Hills grew harsher. The land felt older here, not by time, but by memory.
Like something had happened long ago, and the ground had never quite healed.
"There's a pass through the cliffs," Mara said, pointing ahead. "We'll reach the high road before dusk. Then we'll need to decide."
"Decide what?" Elijah asked.
"If we head north, there's a town — Faron's Edge. Small, but safer than this. South takes us into the wilder lands. Fewer people. Fewer eyes."
Derin glanced at Elijah. "And less chance of anyone recognizing you."
"I told you," Elijah said, more tired than angry, "I didn't know that man."
"I believe you," Mara said. "But belief is fragile. And names carry weight, even when we don't remember why."
By midday, they reached the edge of the cliffs.
The path wound sharply between towering stones, like teeth reaching from the earth. The wind howled strangely here — not loud, but layered, as if several voices whispered through the same breath.
Elijah slowed as they climbed.
The shard in his sleeve began to hum louder.
And then — a noise. Not wind. Not stone.
Laughter.
Soft. Childlike.
He turned.
A figure stood atop one of the rocks, barefoot, arms outstretched. A child — a girl. The same girl from his dream. She wore the same feathered dress, and her eyes gleamed with too much stillness.
No one else seemed to see her.
"Elijah," she called. "Come and see."
He blinked.
She was gone.
"Elijah?" Mara asked. "You stopped."
"Just… thought I saw something."
Derin squinted at him. "You sure you're not carrying more than that shard?"
Elijah said nothing. They moved on.
They camped near the top of the pass, in the shadow of a massive stone arch that once marked the boundary of an ancient kingdom — now long dead. Most of its markings had eroded, but one symbol remained: a spiral inside a broken circle.
Kell traced it with a stick. "That's a god's sign."
"Which god?" Elijah asked.
"No one remembers," Kell shrugged. "Could've been a god of roads. Or of endings. Same thing sometimes."
Mara sat nearby, sharpening a dagger. "Some say the old gods never died. Just stopped answering."
Elijah stared at the symbol. The spiral felt… wrong. Not evil, but cold. Like a door not meant to open.
That night, Elijah slept badly.
He dreamed again.
But this time, it was not a dream.
He stood in a narrow room of black stone, smooth and seamless, without torch or window. The shard floated in front of him, casting a violet light.
Voices whispered from the walls.
Not words. Just emotions. Regret. Hunger. Curiosity.
The shard cracked.
A thread of darkness spilled from its center — and something reached out from the crack.
A hand.
Thin. Pale. Made of smoke and bone.
It touched his chest.
He gasped and woke — but he wasn't in camp.
He was standing outside, barefoot, in the dark, a mile from where he had lain down.
The shard was gone.
He stumbled back to camp at sunrise.
No one had noticed he was missing. Or maybe they had — and chosen not to speak.
Mara looked at him long and hard, but said nothing.
Kell offered a drink.
Derin just watched the road.
They chose the south path.
Elijah didn't know why, but part of him couldn't stand the idea of cities. Not yet. Not with this thing inside him — this silence growing sharper by the day.
For hours, they walked.
The land here had no name. Just hills and long grasses, and the bones of villages swallowed by time.
At one point, they passed a field of strange stones — smooth, perfectly round, stacked into impossible towers. There were hundreds of them. No tool marks. No moss. Just silence.
"Gravestones?" Elijah asked.
"No bodies," Mara said. "No symbols. No gods claimed this place."
"Then who built them?"
Kell shrugged. "Things that remember."
That night, the fire wouldn't catch.
The wood was dry.
The wind was still.
But no matter how Kell tried, the flames would gutter and vanish.
They slept cold.
And something watched them from the trees.
Elijah dreamed again.
Not a place.
Not a voice.
A memory.
Not his.
A god's.
He saw a city of glass, built on clouds. Towers taller than mountains. And a throne without a figure — only light, pulsing with power that bent time itself.
Then — war.
The sky broke.
Other thrones fell.
Gods screamed.
Elijah awoke to the sound of thunder, though the sky was clear.
And his hand was bleeding.
The shard — which should've been lost — was in his hand again.
Its edge had cut him.
And where the blood touched it, it glowed.
"Something's wrong with you," Derin said bluntly, two days later.
They were walking through a grove of withered trees, their bark scorched.
"I don't know what," Derin continued. "But the birds stop singing when you pass. The dreams twist near you. And that shard — you never let it go."
"I don't even want it," Elijah replied.
"Then throw it away."
Elijah didn't.
Because he couldn't.
Because something in it knew him.
Or wanted him to.
Mara confronted him that night.
Quietly. Away from the others.
"Tell me the truth," she said. "That man in the woods — he called your name. You said you didn't know him. But I think you did."
"I didn't," Elijah said. "Not with memory. But maybe…"
"Maybe?"
He hesitated. "Maybe… I knew him before."
"Before what?"
Elijah looked at the stars. They felt farther away here.
"I don't know."
They found the ruin three days later.
It wasn't marked on any map.
No one remembered its name.
But its spires rose like fingers from the earth — black stone, cracked, half-buried. At its center stood a gate. A real one — circular, framed in rusted gold, inscribed with symbols none of them could read.
The gate was broken.
But the wind didn't cross its threshold.
And Elijah… felt drawn.
Mara placed a hand on his shoulder. "We don't go in."
"Why not?"
"Because things that build gates like that don't need to leave. They only need to keep others out."
Kell shivered. "Let's move on."
And they did.
But Elijah looked back.
And saw the girl again.
Feathers. Pale eyes. Smiling.
This time, her voice reached him.
"You're remembering. That's good."
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know who he was answering.