The sun never fully rose the next morning.
Instead, the light hung low and sickly, casting long shadows even at midday. The group moved silently, leaving behind the petrified battlefield, each step carrying them deeper into the End of the Lands. The terrain began to break and fracture—great stone fissures opened in the ground, and jagged canyons tore through the earth like wounds left unhealed.
Argolaith's rune pulsed steadily now, like a heartbeat synced with something buried far beneath the land.
He could feel it.
The fourth tree was close.
But something else was closer.
They reached the edge of a massive canyon by late afternoon. It stretched for miles, a gaping chasm that split the earth in two. The path ended abruptly at a broken ridge where an ancient bridge once stood—now only jagged stone and crumbled foundation.
But there was another way.
