The sky broke just after dawn.
Not with thunder or storm, but with a soft, papery sound like pages being torn slowly in the distance. Above the scarred ridge that bordered Dust Village, the clouds peeled open—not gray, but bone-pale—and began to shed fragments.
Not snow. Not ash.
Bone.
Tiny chips, dry and bleached, rained down in a steady, whispering curtain.
Evelyn blinked up at the sky, one trembling hand outstretched. The shard at her core was quiet now, sated or sleeping. But the land… the land was changing in response.
"What is this?" Torren asked, his voice dry and hoarse. He still limped from the wound on his thigh, the wrappings stained and dark. But he wouldn't stop moving. Not with that look in his eyes—that mix of loyalty and fear.
Vareth didn't answer right away. He stood on the ridge's edge, face turned skyward, letting the bone-rain coat his shoulders.
"They call this path the Hollow Spine," he said finally. "Old territory. Echoed things used to pass through here… before the shrines dimmed. Before the fires died."
The trail ahead curled like a bleached serpent, lined with brittle trees that no longer bore leaves—just nests of hardened resin, each webbed with strands of once-living hair. The bone fragments settled silently along the path, piling like snowdrifts in forgotten footprints.
Evelyn stepped carefully. Each crunch beneath her boots felt like a whisper of the dead.
The child they had saved—Nima—clung to her side, wrapped in a thick canvas cloak. She hadn't spoken since the shrine. Not a word. But she hummed a tune Evelyn didn't know, soft and lilting, over and over again.
"Why does it fall like this?" Evelyn finally asked.
Vareth didn't turn to her. "This region once fed a Warden Spire. When the core inside was shattered, the boundary frayed. The old rituals held the imbalance at bay. But now… you've relit something. And the Waste remembers."
Torren frowned. "You speak like one of them."
"One of who?" Vareth said, almost smiling.
Torren didn't respond.
They walked the path for hours, bone beneath their boots, breath steaming in the cold-dry air. Around midday, the sky shifted—the bone fragments ceased, and a soft golden light returned, filtered through layers of iron-colored cloud.
The group paused at a collapsed statue—a Warden effigy, or what remained of it. Its arms were gone, and only a single eye remained carved into its face, smoothed by centuries of wind. The word "Yurem" was scratched in half a dozen languages across the base, most of them unknown.
Torren slumped against a stone, wincing. "We need rest."
Evelyn nodded. The shard was pulsing again, slow and erratic. Not pain. Not even warmth.
Just pressure.
Like it wanted her attention.
As Torren slept, Evelyn sat beneath the broken statue. The bone fragments whispered softly around her feet. She closed her eyes.
And drifted.
She stood atop the shrine again—but now it bled light like a wound.
Below her, the Hollow Spine writhed. Not with beasts. With Echoes.
They moved like shadows beneath skin—too smooth, too knowing. One looked up at her. It wore her face. But the eyes were hollow. Silver-etched. Watching.
"You lit the fire," the reflection whispered.
Evelyn tried to speak. No sound came.
"You lit it, and now they know."
She woke with a start.
Nima was humming again.
But this time, Evelyn recognized the tune. Her mother's lullaby. The one she hadn't heard since Isenhold burned.
Vareth met her eyes. "You dreamed again."
She nodded slowly.
He crouched beside her, his tone shifting. "You saw the Echoed."
"They're… waiting," she said. "Not near. Not yet. But they're watching."
Vareth touched the hilt of his curved blade. "Then we move faster."
"But where?" Torren asked, awake now, voice groggy.
Vareth looked to the horizon, where the bone trail disappeared into shadowed canyons. "Toward the old border. There's a place—Ashbridge. Half buried. A spire ruins sits beneath it. It might still have a signal flare. If we reach it, we can call what's left of the Wardens."
"And if nothing answers?"
Vareth looked back at Evelyn.
"Then we pray your flame is enough."
Evelyn rose, heartfire stirring beneath her skin.
She didn't feel like praying.
She felt like burning.