The chamber's air had grown heavy since dawn. Aaren sat by the cracked stone archway, sharpening the edge of Levitine's blade, the sound of steel on whetstone cutting through the low hum of the Upper Chamber's winds. Lenara was across the clearing, balancing a stack of strange crystal cubes on her head, making exaggerated expressions just to see if anyone would laugh. Withered Flame ignored her antics, practicing a slow kata with his halberd.
No one spoke of Koro anymore. Since his departure (in Chapter 16), his absence had been like a loose thread in the group's cloth—visible, tugging at them, but left untouched. He'd gone off into the fractured forest beyond the eastern ridge, chasing something he never explained.
But the forest wasn't quiet tonight.
It began as a distant snapping of branches, not hurried, but deliberate. The air changed—the faint scent of burnt resin and cold rain pushing in through the archway. Levitine's voice in Aaren's head tightened: Steel yourself. Someone's coming.
They all turned when a shadow emerged between the jagged roots of the ridge path. The figure limped at first, then straightened, each step deliberate. The light from the chamber's ceiling caught his face.
"Koro…" Aaren breathed.
The young man looked older. His hair was streaked with ash, his right arm bound in strips of torn cloth, and at his hip hung a weapon none of them had seen before—a long, curved knife carved from blackened bone, the surface etched with symbols that seemed to shift when you looked too long.
Lenara dropped her stack of cubes, her grin fading into a frown. "You were supposed to be hunting mushrooms, not… whatever this is."
Koro didn't smile. He scanned the chamber, eyes hard. "The eastern ridge is gone," he said, voice low but steady. "Swallowed whole. I barely made it back."
Withered Flame lowered his halberd. "By what?"
Koro's gaze flicked to the knife at his side. "Something that doesn't belong in this chamber… something hunting its way here."
Silence fell. Even Lenara's usual lightness felt crushed under the weight of his words. The group had been training, exploring, pushing deeper into the Upper Chamber—but Koro had gone somewhere the map didn't show, and returned carrying more than scars.
Levitine's presence in Aaren's mind stirred uneasily. That blade is not of this realm… nor should he have been able to cross paths with it.
Koro stepped fully into the light, the bone-knife glinting faintly. "We don't have time. It's coming, and if you want to keep breathing, you'll listen."
The chamber seemed to shrink around them. Whatever had driven him back was still out there, and by the look in his eyes, it would not stop.