The sky above the mountain glade was an unfamiliar canvas.
Foreign stars blinked coldly overhead, constellations twisted into alien sigils that whispered of ancient languages never spoken aloud. The moon loomed too large, tinged with a faint violet-blue sheen, racing across the heavens as if chased by time itself. Its unnatural rhythm cast shadows that flickered the wrong way, bending light where no wind blew. Every branch, every rock, every breath of air felt like a page torn from a story not yet written.
Lysander exhaled slowly.
His breath clouded in the thin air, but it didn't fade—it lingered, curling like smoke caught in a ritual bowl. The sensation made his skin prickle. He adjusted the sword across his back, fingertips brushing against the familiar leather of the hilt—but what pulsed beneath was anything but familiar.
The blade was no longer just steel. Not just a weapon. It hummed faintly with his heartbeat, a twin rhythm syncing with the slow thrum behind his sternum. The sword knew something. It felt something. Each step he took made it hum louder, as if the metal was resonating with the very soil beneath his boots.
Beside him, Seraphine knelt beside Mira's curled form, her hands moving with steady grace as she murmured protective spells into the silver-tinged air. The scroll—sealed now in a hardened shell of blood-forged runes and flickering icefire — rested securely in her pack. Her braid trailed behind her like a forgotten ink stroke from some unfinished painting, and in the faint starlight, her profile looked almost ageless.
Mira stirred under the enchanted cloak. Her breathing was uneven, her brow furrowed as if locked in a dream she couldn't escape. Words formed on her lips—not loud, but precise, as if whispered by another voice through her.
"It followed us... the mask..."
Lysander turned sharply, crouching beside her, the temperature dropping an extra degree as his hand moved toward her shoulder. "Mira. What did you see?"
Her eyes didn't open. Her voice was breathy, barely audible.
"The man... with silver eyes... he's not dead. He's inside the wind."
He and Seraphine exchanged a look. A long, silent glance heavy with implications neither wanted to say aloud.
They hadn't spoken of what happened after the explosion in the Cradle—the voice, the silhouette, the way the shadows had curled around the fractured seal. Mira shouldn't have known. But something had clearly followed them—through memory, through the ward, through the veil.
Whatever this place was, it hadn't saved them.
It had summoned them.
"This isn't Solace," Lysander said quietly. He rose to his feet, scanning the glade's unnatural foliage—obsidian-barked trees with leaves that shimmered like stained glass, flowers that pulsed faintly as if breathing in time with something deeper underground. "This isn't even our plane."
Seraphine nodded. Her voice was low. Tense. "We passed through a planar breach. Not just space. Reality. The scroll didn't just protect us—it relocated us."
"To where?"
She paused. Her eyes swept the terrain. "One of the sanctums. The Old Kind built them—demon kings who saw the future burning. They hid these pockets between the threads of the world. Places sealed from both time and realm. Untouchable... until now."
Lysander's pulse quickened. The implications were enormous. This wasn't just another layer of the memory-locked Cradle. This was deeper.
And more dangerous.
The air was thick with silence. Not peaceful silence—watchful silence. As though the trees themselves leaned in to listen.
Then came the crack.
Subtle, at first—a single twig splitting under weight. Then another. Footsteps. Steady. Measured. Not stumbling. Not rushed. Trained.
"Move," Lysander said. "Now."
He didn't wait for a reply. They bolted, slipping through the underbrush—branches laced with iceglass thorns, their edges shimmering with dormant spells. The woods here were alive. Not with creatures, but with intent. They breathed in pulses. They pulsed in memory.
Their trail twisted, winding through animal paths carved by beasts long extinct. Strange insects hovered above glowing flowers, their bodies tiny vessels of light that flickered with runes.
"Where are we going?" Mira asked between gasps, her voice thin but clear.
"To the edge of the sanctum," Seraphine answered without breaking stride. "There should be sigil stones—anchors left by the first kings. If we can find one, we can veil ourselves until morning."
A howl tore through the air.
Sharp. Jagged. Not a wolf. Not a beast. Something constructed.
Lysander's jaw clenched. "That's no animal."
"Shade hounds," Seraphine growled. "They must have sent the Gravebinders."
Lysander didn't ask who they were.
He drew his sword.
The moment the blade cleared the scabbard, the temperature plunged. Ice rippled across the forest floor, curling up tree trunks. The plants recoiled, their petals freezing mid-bloom.
Then they saw it.
The first hound exploded from the brush, black as shadow and twice as fast. It had no eyes—just pits of oily void. Its mouth opened far too wide, filled with silver teeth shaped like a law-script.
It lunged for Mira.
Lysander moved.
One slash.
A shimmer. A sound like metal shearing glass. The beast split in half mid-air, dissolving into a fog of ink and smoke before it even hit the ground.
But more came.
Four. Six. A dozen. Splitting through the trees like phantoms given bone and claw.
"We can't outrun this," Mira said, voice shrill.
"No," Seraphine said, already forming sigils. "We fight."
She spun, unleashing light. Glyphs curled through the air, forming radiant crescents that sliced into the pack. Her movements were graceful—priestly—and each flick of her hand burned runes into the forest air.
Lysander cut through the fray, his sword trailing frostfire. Every impact froze something. Every parry turned into shatter. Yet no matter how many fell, more came.
Then the trees parted.
And he arrived.
A figure twice the size of a man, robed in rusted iron and bone. His face was hidden behind a helm shaped like a screaming skull, and from the staff in his hand dripped black fire.
The Gravebinder.
The sword in Lysander's hand screamed.
The monster raised his hand.
Chains erupted from the ground—black, spectral, whispering. They wrapped around Lysander's legs. Then his arms. Then his thoughts.
His vision blurred.
Not from pain.
From invasion.
Memories twisted—his mother, the Cradle, the scroll. And then, something not his own.
A battlefield. Snow and ash. A king kneeling with broken horns. A voice:
"If you fall, the bloodline ends. But if you rise, we rise with you."
Lysander roared.
His sword flared with frostfire—blue, white, edged with memory and rage.
The chains shattered.
He lunged forward, slicing through shadow and flame, blade aimed not at the monster's staff—
—but his heart.
The Gravebinder screamed as the sword drove into his chest. Ice exploded outward, crawling through his armour, freezing his bones.
The skull atop his staff detonated.
The remaining hounds scattered, vanishing into shadow.
Silence fell.
Lysander stood panting, sword smoking in the cold air.
"We need allies," he said hoarsely. "And answers. Whatever we're part of... it's bigger than we thought."
Seraphine knelt by Mira, who clung tightly to her pendant. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth trembling.
And somewhere beyond the trees, the wind whispered again.
Only this time...
it spoke.