The wind in the east didn't sound like wind anymore.
It carried a faint hum—low, rhythmic, almost melodic. Like a lullaby whispered by a dying star. Duncan rode through it with his cloak drawn tight and the disc wrapped beneath layers of fur and leather, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat not his own.
The terrain shifted with every mile. Trees bent at wrong angles. Grass grew in spirals. Even the sky—once a predictable canvas—had begun to fracture. Clouds drifted in jagged, unnatural formations. A ring of aurora shimmered across the heavens, though no sun had yet risen.
And always above him, the shadow.
It never approached. Never attacked. Just circled silently, massive wings spread like sails of smoke.
A Watcher.
Duncan had seen sketches of them once—lost pages buried in Dominion archives, labeled classified under pain of exile.
The scribes called them the Aetherkin—winged beings once mistaken for gods.
But gods did not watch.
They judged.
The Relay Tower
By midday, Duncan reached the ruins of an old Dominion relay tower—one of the few structures ever built to connect skyships with the ground forces during the early expansion wars. Its spire was cracked, its signal plates warped and overgrown with rusted vines. But its foundation still held.
He dismounted and approached with caution.
The wind died as he stepped through the doorway.
Inside, time had not been kind.
Dust coated every surface. The ceiling sagged in places, and long-dead roots hung like skeletal fingers. But the central chamber remained intact—its crystal console still humming faintly.
And above it, etched into the wall, were five words:
"We never reached the stars."
Duncan ran a hand across the panel.
The console pulsed.
The Voice of the Sky
With a low click, the relay activated.
A recording, ancient and staticky, emerged from a flickering glyphplate. A woman's voice—tired, desperate, barely coherent.
"This is Commander Lysira of Sky Relay 7. Final log, cycle 10,488…"
"The Watchers have returned. Not from above. From within. They're not invaders. They're memories. The Flame didn't seal them. It became them."
"We tried to ascend. Tried to rise beyond the dominion of flesh. But the sky has teeth now. We flew too close and woke the ones who remember."
"Do not send aid. Send… fire."
The message ended with a sharp, electric hiss.
Duncan stood still for a long time.
"Memories…" he whispered.
It wasn't just beasts waking. It was echoes. Fragments of old empires. Old sins.
And the flame he carried—the Emberblade—wasn't just a weapon. It was a memory made real, still burning.
Descent of the Watcher
The relay tower trembled.
Outside, the wind dropped to complete stillness.
Then a gust.
Then impact.
Dust exploded through the windows. Metal creaked. Duncan rushed to the exit just as the Watcher landed in the clearing, its wings folding inward like curtains of night.
It stood twice the height of a man.
Feathers like shards of dark crystal. Limbs too thin, yet strong enough to crush stone. Its head was masked in bone—smooth, eyeless, expressionless.
But it knew him.
It knelt.
Duncan froze.
The Watcher extended one hand, talon open.
In its palm… was a second spiral disc, slightly smaller than the one Duncan carried.
He stepped forward, slowly.
The disc in his pack pulsed again—this time in resonance.
He took the offered artifact.
The Watcher rose… and spoke.
Not with sound—but with light.
Words in Flame
Images burst into Duncan's mind:
A battlefield of fire in the sky.
A king in golden armor, casting down his crown into a lake of stars.
Beasts made of memory, not matter, rising from wounds in the world.
A sword—the Emberblade—splitting time, locking away truths too dangerous to exist.
And then—a warning:
"Three seals broken. One remains."
"The last bearer will choose: chain or flame."
"The sky will burn… or remember."
Then, silence.
Departure and Signs
The Watcher stepped back, wings unfolding once more.
It took flight without another word, vanishing into the eastern heavens.
Duncan stood there, breath ragged, staring at the matching spiral discs now in his possession. They were keys. Coordinates. Or perhaps more accurately—reminders.
He mounted his horse.
The path forward was clear now.
He would go to the third gate.
Wherever it was.
But as he turned toward the western horizon, a sound caught his attention.
A warhorn.
Dull and distant.
From the direction of Fort Thorne.