By the time they reached the edge of the Black Pines, the sky had deepened into a bruised purple.
The forest gave way to a barren expanse of cracked stone, as if the land itself had been burned hollow centuries ago. No grass grew here. No wind moved. The air was heavy, stale, and faintly warm, as though the ground still remembered the fire that had destroyed it.
And in the distance — black against the dying light — rose the jagged silhouette of Valmyr's ruins.
The old city walls were long gone, toppled into heaps of stone, but the Gate of Bones still stood. It was not a true gate but an archway formed of massive rib-like structures, each bleached white and fused with blackened steel. They rose higher than any castle tower, curving inward to meet at a point like the clasp of a monstrous jaw.
Elara slowed her steps, the shard in her pouch growing heavier.
"They say the bones came from the Ash Wyrm," Kastor said quietly, as if the ruins themselves might be listening. "Last of the great beasts. Burned the city in a single night."
"And they left it here… why?"
He shook his head. "To warn anyone foolish enough to enter."
As they passed under the arch, the air changed. It grew colder, and the dim light seemed to dull further, as if the ruins drank it in. Shadows clung to the broken walls, stretching long and strange, bending away from the setting sun instead of toward it.
The streets were littered with debris — broken swords, shattered shields, fragments of statues. Every step echoed too loud in the silence.
Then Elara saw her.
A woman stood in the center of the street, wrapped in a deep crimson cloak. Her hair was pale as snow, her skin marked with faint lines of ash-gray that ran from her temples down her neck. At her side hung a curved blade, its metal black and veined with red light.
"You've brought the shard," she said. Her voice was calm, but there was a weight to it — the kind of voice that made you listen, even when you didn't want to.
Kastor's hand moved toward his sword. "Name yourself."
The woman smiled faintly. "I am Serenya. Keeper of the Fallen Court."
"The Fallen Court is a myth," Elara said before she could stop herself.
"And yet… here I stand." Serenya's eyes drifted toward Elara's pouch. "You carry something dangerous. Something I've been waiting for a very long time to see."
"You work for the Crownless," Kastor accused.
Serenya tilted her head. "No. The Crownless want the Throne restored. I want it destroyed."
Elara's hand tightened on the shard. "Why should we believe you?"
"Because if you don't, you'll be dead before dawn."
The sound came then — faint at first, then louder — a deep, rhythmic thudding, like heavy footsteps moving in the distance. It echoed off the broken stone, hard to place.
"They've sent a Hunter," Serenya said. "You won't survive it alone. But with me, you might."
Kastor frowned. "And in return?"
Serenya smiled, though there was no warmth in it. "When the time comes, you give me the shard. Or what's left of it."
The thudding grew louder. Dust drifted from the walls as if something massive was moving closer.
Elara glanced at Kastor. He didn't nod, but he didn't say no either.
"Fine," Elara said, drawing her blade. "We fight together. For now."
Somewhere beyond the broken streets, the Hunter roared — a deep, shattering sound that made the bones of the gate tremble.
And the hunt began.