Beneath Illyria's grey sky, two silhouettes moved away from the lands scorched by the Heart of Fire. Each step echoed on the cracked ground, striking the scattered black stones and piercing the silence. Sere paused for a moment and looked back. On the horizon, the rising smoke from the temple was like a monument blending into the sky.
"It feels like it will never end," she whispered, her voice still heavy with the fatigue of that trial.
Moaito answered without breaking stride: "Everything ends. Only its mark remains." His gaze was fixed on the unknown stretching out before them.
The path proved more rugged than they had anticipated. The soil along the edge of the Vein of Fire was full of cracks, like scar tissue on a giant's back. Thorny, pale purple vines had burst forth from these fissures, making their progress difficult. Sere stumbled over a stone. Before she lost her balance, she felt Moaito's cold, hard wrist grip her. The contact lasted only a moment, but it stirred a strange sense of security within her.
As they advanced, the sound of the forest changed. The howl of the wind was replaced by whispers they couldn't identify. These voices, coming from beneath the stones, from the depths of the earth, were like a lament.
"Don't you hear?" Sere asked, her voice tense. "It's as if... someone is speaking."
Moaito shook his head. "They are not people. They are echoes of the world's pain. With every moment the balance is broken, a new one joins these whispers."
Sere touched the trunk of a dead tree by the path. Instantly, an image flashed in her mind: a laughing little girl, flowers in her hand... Then a tongue of flame and a scream. She opened her eyes in horror, pulling her fingers from the bark.
"What was that?" she gasped.
"The past," said Moaito, his expression unchanged. "You could always hear, couldn't you? Even as a child. That's why the stone reacted to you."
Before Sere could reply, they were startled by a scream. But this was not a spiritual whisper; it was physical and close. The ground began to tremble beneath their feet. The earth directly under Sere gave way, and she tumbled into a dark void. As she fell, all she could think of was Moaito's hand reaching for her and his voice calling, "Sere!"
She found herself on soft, damp soil. Coughing in the cloud of dust, she sat up. Looking up, she saw that Moaito was already beside her. He had jumped down after her to save her.
"Madness," Sere muttered, her heart still racing.
"Necessity," Moaito corrected, his eyes scanning their surroundings. "This is... a shelter."
The flickering flame of their torch illuminated the walls. This place was man-made. On the stone walls were drawings thousands of years old: two intertwined lights, a massive tree with roots in the sky and branches reaching to the ground, and a lone human figure standing in the tree's shadow.
Sere traced a drawing with her finger. "Are these... the things you spoke of? The first mages? Ma'at?"
"Perhaps those who knew their story," Moaito replied. His voice held a tone of curiosity for the first time in the face of these ancient ruins. "Perhaps the ancestors of the Naje people."
Just then, the Threshold Stone in Sere's pocket glowed with a dim light. It wasn't warm, but a cool light. She took out the stone and saw that its light was pointing towards a wall in the deepest corner of the shelter.
Moaito approached. He felt the stones with his hands and found a loose one. With a bit of effort, the stone shifted, revealing a narrow, dark tunnel behind it. A damp, earthy smell emanated from within.
"It seems the past," Moaito said, turning to Sere, "is offering us a new path."
They lit their torches and began to advance into this ancient tunnel. The walls were covered with more complex inscriptions. The air held the weight of time.
And the darkness of this ancient tunnel stretching before them, like a silent chronicler of the past, was heavier than the questions echoing within them.