The Vale of Terns had not heard footsteps in a century. Once, it had been a thriving sanctuary of sages and quiet poets, its white-stone towers catching the light like torches to the gods. Now, the wind howled through shattered arches and ivy-cloaked walls, whispering of forgotten names.
Mo stepped lightly over broken flagstones, his eyes scanning for movement. Veyr walked beside him with his hood drawn, though the man's voice was steady and conversational. "This place used to be called the Heart's Quiet. Poets believed the stars here could hear your thoughts."
Aylen moved to a broken pillar, brushing her fingers against a mural, half-faded but still vivid in strokes of gold and sea-blue. "Then it must hear echoes now. Only silence remains."
They were hunting shadows—but not just metaphors. Veyr had spoken of the Woken, an ancient cult that believed death was not the end but the first gate. Mo had thought them extinguished generations ago. But the symbols carved into the corpse—they were real, old Order records confirmed them. And if the Woken were moving again, then the breach they'd opened wasn't accidental. It was a summons.
Aylen knelt near a fountain choked with vines and rusted coins. "Something moved here recently—last day or so. Fresh drag marks."
Veyr followed her gaze. "They took someone. Or something."
As they continued deeper into the ruins, they found them: three more bodies, each displayed like grotesque sculptures. One with their lungs turned outward, ribcage bloomed like a flower. Another with skin peeled away in long, deliberate patterns. A third suspended upside down by tendons alone.
Aylen turned away, bile rising in her throat.
Veyr muttered, voice hoarse, "This isn't just murder. It's worship."
Mo didn't respond, but his grip on the Azure Shamshir tightened. The sword thrummed with quiet resistance—as though disturbed by what it sensed. Mo had always believed the blade was forged to destroy monsters, not bear witness to them.
They set camp in the remnants of a marble observatory, its ceiling cracked open to the stars. That night, Mo dreamed.
He stood in a world of ash, the sky split by a black sun. Figures walked toward him, draped in veils of flesh and whispering in a language that made his ears bleed. In their center stood a woman—tall, skin gray as polished stone, eyes searing gold.
"You carry a shard of the old fire," she said, voice like breaking ice. "But even fire cannot burn memory."
She touched his chest, and pain flared through his veins. He saw a gate—massive, carved from bone, sealed with blood sigils. It pulsed.
Then he awoke.
Veyr was already up, sword drawn. "Something's here."
From the edge of the observatory, a sound emerged—not a growl, not a shriek, but something between breath and hum. It was low, predatory, unnatural.
The Pale Warden stepped into view.
It was taller than any man, its limbs elongated and angular. Its face was smooth, eyeless, a mask of bone. The ground died beneath its feet—moss turned black, insects fled, stones cracked.
Aylen drew her blades. "How did it find us?"
Veyr didn't answer. He moved.
Mo followed, the Azure Shamshir bursting into blue flame. It was not a clean fight. The Warden moved like smoke and struck like lightning. Steel barely cut it. Fire slowed it but did not wound.
Aylen darted in, her blades a blur—but the Warden caught her mid-lunge and hurled her through a crumbling wall.
Mo roared and slammed the Shamshir into the Warden's chest. There was a burst of force, a ripple in the air like torn silk.
The Warden vanished.
Silence fell again. Aylen groaned, blood at her temple but alive. Veyr limped, his left arm hanging uselessly.
"That wasn't a Herald," Mo said. "That was something else."
Veyr nodded grimly. "But it bleeds. Which means it can be killed."
They rested that night, though sleep was thin.
And in the black wood miles away, the Pale Warden reformed from smoke and shadow.
Watching.
Learning.
Waiting.