The world was nothing but motion and noise.
Kael's boots slapped against the damp forest floor, his breath loud in his ears. Behind him, the echoes of that horn still rolled through the trees like waves on black water. It wasn't just sound—it felt alive, crawling under his skin and clawing at his thoughts.
Mira was ahead of him, her steps light despite the chaos. She didn't look back, but her voice cut through the wind.
"Keep up! Don't stop for anything!"
"I'm not—" he tried to answer, but a sharp crack from the trees to his left stole the rest of his words.
Something was moving alongside them.
Not running in the open. Tracking.
The underbrush swayed unnaturally, too slow for wind, too precise for animals. Kael's heart was already pounding, but now it began to hammer so hard his ribs hurt.
"Mira," he called again, lower this time. "We're being—"
"I know," she cut in without looking.
Branches groaned overhead. Leaves trembled as something heavy shifted its weight on a high bough. A shadow rippled along the trunk, then vanished before Kael could make sense of it.
The ground dipped, and they splashed through a shallow stream, water soaking through Kael's boots instantly. Mira didn't slow—she leapt over a fallen log and slipped into a narrow path between two mossy stones.
Kael followed, but as he squeezed through, something caught his eye—a mark carved into the rock. A circle of ash.
It looked fresh. Too fresh.
"Mira," he said again, panting. "That mark—"
"Don't touch it," she snapped.
"But what does it—"
Before he could finish, the forest answered for her.
A scream—high, guttural, and not human—split the air behind them.
Kael whipped around just in time to see it.
The thing moved on all fours but was no beast he'd ever seen. Its limbs were too long, jointed wrong, fingers tipped with claws that dug into the soil as it crawled. The head was almost human, but stretched, the mouth splitting wider than any jaw should. Its eyes were white. Pure, milky white.
It saw him.
It charged.
"Kael!" Mira's voice was like a whip, pulling him forward. He turned and bolted, the creature's breathless, inhuman shrieks chasing him.
They broke out into a clearing—a small circle of grass under a gap in the canopy. The pale light of the moon poured down on them. Mira skidded to a stop and raised her hand.
"Stay behind me."
Kael did, though every muscle screamed at him to keep running. The creature burst into the clearing, skidding on all fours, claws tearing up dirt. It was smaller than he expected—half the height of a man—but its movements were wrong, twitching like a marionette pulled by too many strings.
It sniffed the air, and Kael felt its gaze slide over him. Not looking at him—looking through him.
Mira whispered something under her breath, too low for Kael to hear, and drew the dagger at her hip. Its blade shimmered faintly, catching the moonlight.
The creature hissed.
Then it lunged.
Mira moved faster than Kael thought possible. One step forward, blade flashing, and the thing recoiled with a screech, clutching its arm. Thick black fluid spilled from the wound, steaming as it hit the grass.
But the smell—Kael gagged. It was like burning hair and rotting meat.
The creature hissed again, but this time it didn't attack. Instead, it scrambled back into the trees, vanishing into the shadows with unnatural speed.
Kael barely had time to breathe before Mira turned to him.
"That wasn't a hunter," she said. "That was a warning."
"A warning?" Kael repeated, chest still heaving.
"They know where we are now."
A distant sound reached them—soft at first, then growing.
Footsteps. Many of them.
From every direction.
Mira's eyes narrowed. "They're closing in."
Kael's hand drifted to the small satchel at his side. Inside, wrapped in cloth, was the strange shard they'd found at the ruins—a piece of something ancient, blackened by fire yet faintly glowing within. Mira hadn't explained what it was, but he'd caught the way she looked at it when she thought he wasn't watching.
"Mira…" he began. "This shard… is it—"
"We don't have time," she interrupted sharply. "Move!"
They plunged back into the forest, taking a different path now, weaving between twisted trunks and ducking under hanging moss. The footsteps grew louder, accompanied by the faint clink of metal.
"They're not just beasts," Kael realized. "They're people."
Mira didn't respond, but her grip on the dagger tightened.
The moonlight thinned as the canopy grew denser. The air felt heavier here, thick with the scent of damp earth and something older—stone, maybe, or ash.
And then Kael saw it.
Through the trees ahead, faint and wavering, was a light. Not fire, but pale and cold, like moonlight trapped in glass.
Mira stopped so suddenly Kael nearly collided with her.
"What is that?" he asked.
Her answer was almost a whisper. "An altar."
The clearing ahead was small, ringed by stones covered in strange symbols. At its center stood a pedestal of black stone, cracked down the middle. On it rested a bowl filled with ash.
Kael's eyes widened. "Is that—"
"Yes," Mira said. "The Halo."
Before Kael could speak again, voices erupted from the forest around them. Shadows moved between the trees—too many to count.
Figures emerged, cloaked and hooded, masks of bone hiding their faces. Each one carried a curved blade, and their leader stepped forward, mask carved into the shape of a skull.
"You've brought it," the leader said, voice low and almost amused. "The shard."
Kael's stomach dropped.
Mira didn't answer.
The leader tilted their head. "You shouldn't have come here, little flame. The Halo of Ash chooses its bearer… and it has already chosen."
A sound rose behind Kael. Slow. Heavy.
He turned—
And saw three more of the pale-eyed creatures slinking out from the shadows, surrounding them.
The leader raised their hand. "Take them alive."
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
Mira leaned closer to him, her voice barely audible. "When I say run… run and don't look back."
"But—"
"Don't argue. Not now."
The creatures stepped closer, claws scraping the ground.
The masked figures tightened their circle.
And above it all, the pale light from the altar's ash began to glow brighter… pulsing, like a heartbeat.
Kael didn't know why, but something deep inside him whispered that if that light touched him—everything would change.
Mira's hand twitched.
"Now!" she shouted.
The air was still quivering from the horn's last note when the ground beneath Kael's boots shuddered. Not the sharp tremor of an earthquake—this was slower, heavier, like something vast was dragging itself closer.
The shadows around the clearing began to crawl, stretching longer than they should under the weak moonlight. A foul stench drifted on the wind, thick and metallic, coating Kael's tongue in the taste of old blood.
Ryn's grip tightened on his spear. "It's not gone," he whispered. "It's coming back."
Kael turned toward the treeline just as a row of pale lights winked into existence — not torches, not lanterns, but eyes. Dozens of them, low to the ground, gliding forward without sound.
From the darkness, they emerged.
Wolves — but wrong. Their hides were patchwork, mottled with ash-grey and rotting patches of skin. Bone jutted through their flanks like jagged armor, and their eyes glowed with that cold, unnatural light.
The lead beast's jaw unhinged wider than any living thing should manage, its teeth slick with black saliva.
Kael stepped back, instinct screaming, but the earth gave another pulse beneath him, and from somewhere deep below, a second, fainter horn answered the first.
The pack froze, every head snapping toward the sound. For a heartbeat, Kael thought they might turn away. Instead, they began to circle.
Not hunting him. Herding him.
"Run," Ryn hissed.
They bolted into the trees, branches whipping against their faces, the sound of padded, relentless steps closing in. Kael's lungs burned, but the forest seemed endless, a shifting labyrinth that swallowed every path he thought he knew.
And then—light.
They broke through into another clearing, but this one was wrong. The grass was scorched to black, the trees around it dead and brittle, their bark crumbling at the slightest wind.
In the center stood a stone arch, half-buried in ash. Carvings ran along its surface — twisting shapes of fire and wing, worn smooth with age.
The wolves slowed, pacing at the edge of the clearing as if the scorched ground was a boundary they could not cross.
Kael's chest heaved. "What… is this place?"
Ryn didn't answer. He was staring at the arch, his face pale, lips moving soundlessly like he was reciting something he'd heard only in nightmares.
Before Kael could press him, the air inside the arch shimmered. Ash lifted from the ground, swirling into a funnel, and in its center… a figure began to take shape.
It stepped forward — tall, cloaked in tattered black, its face hidden behind a mask of white bone.
And in its hands, it held a crown.
The figure stopped just short of the arch's threshold.
It didn't breathe. It didn't sway. It simply stood, the crown in its hands catching the pale light in flashes of dull gold.
Kael's pulse hammered. The crown wasn't ornate — it was jagged, rough, as if torn from the very earth — yet it radiated a heat that prickled his skin even from several paces away.
Ryn finally found his voice, though it was barely more than a whisper.
"That's impossible. It was lost… centuries ago."
The masked figure tilted its head toward them, the bone face unblinking.
When it spoke, its voice was not a voice at all — it was a sound inside Kael's skull, deep and resonant, vibrating through his teeth.
"The Ember returns to its vessel."
Kael staggered back, clutching his head. His vision swam. Heat surged in his chest — not around him, but inside him — a searing, molten pressure that felt like it was trying to burn its way out.
The wolves at the treeline began to howl, not in hunger but in… fear.
The figure stepped forward, crossing the arch. Ash scattered at its feet, curling into sparks. It raised the crown — and every nerve in Kael's body screamed that it was meant for him.
Ryn shouted something — Kael couldn't hear — and the world seemed to dim, as if a shadow had been thrown over the moon.
The last thing Kael saw was the crown lowering toward his head…
…and then—
Everything went white.