The path turned to bone.
Not real bone—
but something carved to resemble it.
Pale arches rose like ribs from the ground,
forming a bridge over a blackened ravine.
Kael crossed without speaking.
The bottle hummed softly,
its pulse steady but low,
as if bracing for something it couldn't quite name.
He stepped off the far edge.
The wind died.
A hush settled around him,
so complete it seemed to listen.
Ahead, a tower rose from fractured stone.
Not tall.
But old.
Shaped like an eye half-closed in sleep.
Kael approached.
The tower's gate was open.
Inside: nothing.
Just air.
Dust.
And a sense that something had left
but not completely.
The bottle pulsed.
Then—
shifted in tone.
Like a tuning fork struck twice.
Kael winced.
Pressure bloomed in his skull.
He staggered against the wall.
Then it happened.
Not a memory.
Not a vision.
An overlap.
Another consciousness touched his.
Fleeting.
Fragmented.
Familiar.
He saw a hand—not his—grasp a bottle.
But it was cracked.
Weeping green light.
Its pulse erratic.
The hand trembled.
And a voice—not Kael's—whispered:
"He won't forgive us."
Kael gasped.
The contact broke.
He collapsed to his knees.
The bottle on his hip buzzed sharply—like an argument inside a wire.
Then another voice.
Older.
Weaker.
Fierce.
Elric.
"Don't let it finish what I started."
"You think you're chosen?"
"So was he."
"And he burned half the sky."
Kael looked up.
The tower ceiling was painted with faded sigils.
Among them, one still glowed.
A spiral.
In the shape of the bottle's core.
He stood.
His heart beat like war.
But his hands were calm.
His breath controlled.
Kael traced the spiral with his fingers.
The wall warmed beneath his touch.
Not as a welcome.
As a warning.
The bottle pulsed once.
Then fell silent.
Kael turned to leave the tower.
Outside, the wind had returned.
And in the far distance—
over the ridge—
a faint silver arc rose into the sky.
A memory made visible.
A thread drawn taut.
He would follow it.
Wherever it led.
Not because the bottle wanted him to.
Not because Elric warned him.
But because—
He needed to know who the other one was.