The journey from Eldain's tomb was silent at first.
Kellen, the Wyrdborne, and Elyra crossed the ashen fields with dust rising in soft plumes around their boots. The morning light filtered through gray skies, casting long shadows across the dead landscape. The air was thick with tension—three souls bound by necessity, not trust, threading their way through a land of ghosts.
Kellen kept glancing at the Wyrdborne. He hadn't spoken a word since agreeing to fight. Something in him had changed. Or perhaps it had simply uncoiled. He moved with a quiet fury now, as if he'd allowed something ancient and furious to wake inside him. The haunted king of a fallen realm, walking once more to war.
Elyra, on the other hand, seemed to carry stillness like a weapon. She walked as though she knew the paths of gods and monsters alike, her crimson cloak stirring gently with each step. Her presence unsettled Kellen more than the ruins. He couldn't read her—didn't know where her allegiance truly lay.
"Where are we going?" Kellen asked finally, breaking the silence.
Elyra's voice came soft but steady. "North. Into the Bracken Hollow. There's a sanctuary carved into the roots of the Weeping Tree. It's old… older than even Eldain. The wardens there keep what remains of the last resistance."
"Resistance against what?" Kellen frowned. "The gods are sealed. The old empires are gone."
"The world thinks it's safe because it's quiet," she said. "But quiet isn't peace. It's waiting."
The Wyrdborne added darkly, "And something is stirring while the world pretends to sleep."
They pressed on.
As they reached the outskirts of the Hollow, the ash began to thin. In its place rose tall, skeletal trees with bark the color of old blood. Their limbs reached out like grasping hands, cloaked in long streamers of silver moss. Shadows pooled beneath them even at midday, and the silence grew deeper, more watchful.
The Wyrdborne slowed.
"This place reeks of old magic," he muttered.
Elyra nodded. "It's the Hollow. The roots of the Weeping Tree run for miles beneath us. They say it drank the grief of an entire god during the Sundering War. It remembers pain. And it punishes trespass."
Kellen swallowed thickly. "Cheerful."
They reached the sanctuary as dusk fell.
It was hidden beneath a hill crowned by a massive oak with bark that shimmered silver-blue in the fading light. Thick vines veiled a narrow archway carved into the hill's side, runes etched deep into the stone. The moment they crossed the threshold, warmth surrounded them. Not fire, but magic—like stepping into the memory of sunlight.
Inside, it was a network of tunnels and chambers carved from living wood, the walls pulsing faintly as though breathing. A few cloaked figures moved through the corridors, pausing only briefly to eye the newcomers. Most wore sigils Kellen didn't recognize—roots, stars, broken crowns.
A tall man approached—skin dark as coal, eyes pale gold. His hair was tied in intricate braids, and he carried a staff carved from bonewood.
He bowed slightly to Elyra. "You bring strange company, sister."
"They are needed, Revek," she said.
The man's gaze flicked to Kellen, then the Wyrdborne. "So I see."
The Wyrdborne stared back without blinking.
After a pause, Revek nodded once. "Then they are welcome."
They were shown to a chamber—a hollow with beds shaped from woven root, a small hearth that burned without smoke. For the first time in days, Kellen sat and let out a long breath.
He turned to the Wyrdborne.
"You've been quiet."
The man didn't look at him. "Because I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"Whether I'm a fool for agreeing to help," he said. "And whether you're a fool for believing I would."
Kellen frowned. "You did agree."
"Out of spite. Not loyalty."
Kellen stood. "Then what's stopping you from leaving?"
The Wyrdborne looked up.
"You remind me of someone," he said quietly. "A boy who once believed we could stop the gods and still keep our souls intact. That belief got my people killed. So if I seem bitter, human, forgive me—but I've earned it."
Kellen met his gaze. "Maybe you have. But if you're going to walk with us, bitterness won't be enough."
To his surprise, the Wyrdborne gave a faint, tired smile.
"No," he agreed. "It never is."
That night, Kellen couldn't sleep.
He stepped outside the sanctuary into the moonlight, where the roots of the Weeping Tree glowed faintly in the dark. He found Elyra sitting at the edge of a pool, staring into the water.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
"Not for lack of trying," Kellen said. "Too many thoughts."
She nodded.
"They say the Weeping Tree shows dreams to those who ask. Not the kind you want. The kind you need."
Kellen eyed the water.
"I've had enough visions for a lifetime."
"Then maybe you should stop living through other people's stories," she said. "And start writing your own."
He laughed softly. "You make it sound simple."
"It is," she said. "Simple doesn't mean easy."
She stood, brushing her cloak off.
"The council meets at dawn," she said. "Get rest. We'll need every scrap of truth we can find."
And then she was gone.
The next morning, Kellen and the Wyrdborne followed Elyra into the Hollow's deepest chamber.
There, seated in a half-circle beneath the tree's heartwood, sat the Wardens—a collection of seers, warriors, and old bloodlines once thought lost. Revek stood among them, his face unreadable.
Elyra stepped forward and spoke first.
"The sky cracked open. The prison the gods were cast into—shattered. Not completely, but enough. Something is reaching through. We felt it. He"—she pointed to the Wyrdborne—"was once a king of Eldain. One of the few to witness the gods fall. He holds the memory of what was."
The Wyrdborne spoke next.
"They will not return gently. They will burn the world clean of all who remember they can bleed."
Murmurs rose.
One warden, an old woman with vines braided through her hair, said, "And what proof do you bring, exile?"
The Wyrdborne held up his hand—and light spilled from his palm, coalescing into the same memory orb he had shown Kellen.
Images filled the room. The war. The betrayal. The sealing.
The truth.
When it ended, no one spoke for a long time.
Finally, Revek said, "Then we prepare. If what you've shown is true, we need allies. Old ones. Lost ones."
He looked to Kellen.
"You're from Velmora, yes?"
Kellen nodded slowly.
"Then you know the Hall of Iron Vows. You know what sleeps beneath it."
Kellen's blood chilled. "The Sentinel."
Revek nodded. "It was forged by Wyrdborne hands. A construct bound in forgotten oaths. It could turn the tide."
The Wyrdborne narrowed his eyes. "You want us to wake it?"
"We want you to wake it," Revek said. "Only a king of Eldain can command it. And only a fool or a hero would try."
The Wyrdborne turned to Kellen.
"If I do this… there's no turning back."
"There wasn't the moment you walked into Eldain," Kellen replied.
A long silence.
Then the Wyrdborne sighed and turned to Revek.
"Then give me a map."
They left that night.
As they crossed into the fractured lands beyond the Hollow, Kellen looked up at the sky. The stars shimmered wrong—some faded, some pulsing red. A crack spiderwebbed faintly across the black canvas above, like the surface of a mirror about to shatter.
And he knew then, with cold certainty:
The gods were coming back.
And this time, they weren't coming to rule.
They were coming to erase.