The path Kael led us down was narrow, carved between stone and shadow. Broken cliffs rose on either side, their jagged edges clawing at the sky like frozen hands. The farther we walked, the more the air seemed to change. It felt thicker. Heavier. As if the world itself was warning us not to go any further.
But Kael never slowed.
Xeno walked beside me in silence, shovel hooked across his back. Ever since Kael had appeared, something in him had shifted. He was more alert now. More aware. Like a blade unsheathed but waiting.
I kept glancing at Kael's back, at the way his robe brushed the rocky ground without making sound. He didn't walk like a normal person. He moved like someone who already knew every step before he took it.
"Where are you taking us?" I finally asked, my voice echoing faintly off the cliff walls.
"Somewhere the world has almost forgotten," he replied. "A place that still remembers what it means to watch instead of to destroy."
That didn't make me feel better.
Eventually, the narrow path opened into a wide, hidden clearing. At its center stood the remains of an old structure,half temple, half observatory. Stone pillars arched toward the sky, broken in places but still standing. Strange symbols covered the floor, etched so deep they could never be erased by time.
A chill swept down my spine.
"This place…" I whispered, stepping forward. "What is it?"
"It was built before the fall," Kael said. "By those who listened when the world tried to warn them. They studied the marks. The way darkness collected. The way energy bled into the earth."
My eyes drifted to one of the symbols at my feet. It almost looked like… an eye.
"So this is where you're going to train me?" I asked.
Kael turned to face me fully now. In the soft, strange light of the clearing, I finally saw his eyes clearly. They were sharp. Old. As if they had witnessed the world decay in slow motion.
"This," he said, "is where you will learn to survive without needing to fight."
That surprised me. "Without fighting?"
"Strength is not always in the hands, Yona. Most dangers cannot be out-muscled. They must be felt. Read. Understood before they even take form."
Xeno remained quiet, but I could tell he was listening closely to every word.
Kael walked toward one of the pillars and ran his fingers over the markings. "The Xenophores are symptoms," he continued. "Reactions. What you truly must learn is how to feel the cause. The changes in the world. The shifts in the air. The way silence itself bends before something arrives."
A light wind curled through the clearing, whispering around us. The broken pillars seemed to hum faintly, like they were waking up after a long sleep.
"Sit," Kael instructed.
I hesitated only for a moment before lowering myself onto the stone floor. It was cold beneath my legs, even through the fabric of my clothes. Xeno stayed standing, a quiet sentinel to my side.
"Close your eyes," Kael said.
I did.
At first, all I heard was my own breathing. Slow. Uneven.
"Now don't listen for monsters," he continued. "Listen for the world."
The stone beneath me pulsed faintly, or maybe it was just my imagination. I felt the air move. Not as wind, but as presence. As memory.
Images flickered in my mind,trees standing tall where ruins now lay, laughter echoing where silence ruled, a world full of color before it bled into grey.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes without warning.
"The world remembers everything," Kael said softly. "It remembers kindness… and it remembers cruelty. Those memories shape what is born from it."
I opened my eyes again.
Xeno was looking down at me now. Though his eyes were covered, I felt the strange certainty that he was watching me more closely than ever before.
"Again, tomorrow," Kael said. "And the day after that. This training will not be fast. Because survival is not fast. It is slow. Painfully slow."
I nodded. "I understand."
A silence fell between the three of us. Not a threatening one. A thoughtful one.
For the first time since the world fell…
I didn't feel like I was only running.
I felt like I was beginning to become something else.
Something that might one day stand against the darkness without being consumed by it.
Far away, beyond the cliffs, the wind carried a quiet, distant echo…
Not of clicking.
But of something… listening.
The silence stretched longer than it should have.
Even Kael had gone still, his head angled slightly as if he were listening to something only he could hear. The air in the clearing felt tight now, like breath held too long.
"You feel it too, don't you?" he murmured.
My fingers curled against the stone. "Feel… what?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked toward Xeno.
"You travel with something the world has not named correctly yet," Kael said quietly. "And names… have power."
Xeno did not move. "Be careful, old man," he replied, voice calm but edged in warning.
A strange smile touched Kael's lips.
"I have been careful for longer than you have walked this earth," he said. Then he turned back to me. "Yona. Stand."
I pushed myself up, my legs stiff from the cold ground.
"Walk to the center," he instructed, pointing to a faded circle carved into the stone floor. I hadn't noticed it before, but now I saw it clearly,an uneven ring filled with ancient symbols, surrounding one large mark in the shape of an open eye.
My heartbeat quickened. "What does this do?"
"It shows," he replied.
"That's not comforting."
"No. It isn't meant to be."
I stepped into the circle.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the air shifted.
It was faint at first, like a pressure behind my eyes. Then warmth bloomed just beneath my skin. The symbols around my feet began to glow, a dim, silvery light rising from the carvings.
I gasped.
"Yona…" Xeno said, his voice low.
The ground beneath me vibrated,soft, slow, like a heartbeat. Then images flashed in my mind, sudden and overwhelming.
A city burning.
Hands stained dark.
People screaming without sound.
Eyes watching from everywhere.
And in the center of it all…
A lone figure standing amongst the ruin.
Me.
I staggered, almost falling out of the circle, but the light vanished the moment my foot crossed the line.
The clearing returned to normal.
Breath shaking, I looked down at my hands. They were normal. No marks. No blood. Nothing.
"What was that?" I whispered.
Kael's expression had changed. The calm scholar was gone,replaced by something close to awe. Or fear.
"You are not just a witness to this world, Yona," he said slowly. "You are becoming a part of its memory."
Xeno said nothing, but I knew he was watching me closely now. I could feel him.
"I don't want the world's memory," I said. "I just want to survive."
Kael gave a quiet, humorless breath. "In this world… those two things may soon become the same."
He stepped back, folding his arms into his sleeves. "That is enough for today. Too much knowledge, too fast, will tear the mind. Rest. Let the ground forget you for a few hours."
As we walked toward the edge of the clearing, I glanced once more at the circle.
For the briefest moment…
I could have sworn the eye symbol blinked.