The mist came down like a curtain.
It rolled in fast—unnaturally fast. One moment the sky above the foothills was clear; the next, it was as if the heavens exhaled a breath of white. The world dimmed. Edges blurred. Even sound dulled to a muffled hush.
Kain knew this wasn't just fog.
He drew his blade.
"Weapons out. This isn't weather."
Rhyssa spun, bow already notched. Aric muttered a low spell, his fingertips flickering with blue fire. The token Veira had given them now pulsed steadily, glowing brighter the deeper they went.
"I don't like this," Aric muttered. "Fog that moves like it has intent? That's never good."
They followed a narrow path through a dense grove of bone-thin trees. Bark like scar tissue. Leaves like black paper.
Kain's breath left ghosts in the air. But he wasn't cold.
They'd been walking since morning, heading north, guided by the coin's light. According to Veira's map, they were only a day away from the ruins that housed the First Binding Stone.
That was when the whispers started.
Soft. Barely audible. Just behind them.
Kain froze.
So did the others.
"Did anyone else hear—"
"Yes," Rhyssa said, voice sharp.
The fog thickened, curling around their ankles. Shapes flickered in the corners of their eyes—tall, hunched things. Moving fast. Never fully seen.
"Aric," Kain said, scanning the mist. "Light."
With a flick of his hand, Aric sent a ball of flame spinning upward. It flared—then hissed out. Extinguished. Not by wind.
By something else.
The fog grew colder.
Then came the growl.
Low. Guttural. Too close.
"Formation!" Kain barked. Rhyssa circled behind him. Aric kept center.
Shapes burst from the mist.
Hunters.
Not beasts. Not men.
Twisted things—half-wolf, half-shadow. Long limbs and hollow eyes. Teeth too wide. Jaws unhinged.
They moved like smoke and snapped like wolves. Kain cut one down mid-leap—it vanished into black mist before hitting the ground.
"They're testing us!" Aric shouted, launching bolts of fire into the swirling white. "Trying to see how we fight."
"They'll find out soon enough," Rhyssa growled, sinking an arrow into another's throat.
But there were too many.
Ten. Twenty. More.
And every one that died reformed, crawling back together from the fog like roaches from broken bone.
Kain spun, blade arcing through necks and jaws. "They're endless! We have to move!"
But the fog was closing in. The path behind them had vanished. The path ahead—uncertain.
Then the trees moved.
Massive shapes emerged.
Twice the height of a man.
Cloaked in root and bone. Faces hidden. Hands long enough to crush a skull in one squeeze.
Hunters of a higher kind.
Even the shadow-wolves backed away from these.
"Run," Kain said. "NOW!"
They sprinted into the fog, blindly, hoping for anything—shelter, escape, even a cliff to fall from.
And then—they found it.
A ruin. Jagged pillars of old stone, half-swallowed by earth. A crumbled temple gate.
Inside: darkness.
Kain led the charge, hacking down one last wolf-thing as they entered. Aric raised a shield of flame to block the entrance.
The creatures circled the perimeter, howling. But none dared enter.
Rhyssa collapsed to one knee. "What the hell are they?"
Kain didn't answer.
His attention had fixed on the center of the chamber.
There, embedded in cracked marble, stood a monolith of black stone.
The First Binding Stone.
Even dormant, it radiated power.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The worst stood at its base.
A figure.
Cloaked. Motionless.
Waiting.
"You're late," the figure said.
And then Kain recognized the voice.
It was his brother.