The road to Vereth Kal was not one that could be traced on any map. The mountains here were ancient, their peaks jagged and hollowed by time, weathered by centuries of war, and battered by storms that were more than natural. Caelan had heard stories about the place—the forgotten temple that lay hidden in the heart of the mountains, buried deep within a forest so thick it suffocated the air itself.
The land between him and Vereth Kal felt alive, but not in any way that brought comfort. It was as though the land was a dying thing—sluggish, slow to wake, a place where time had long since stopped. The forest here was Weave-dead, stripped of the very essence that gave the world its rhythm. There was no hum in the air, no pulse beneath the ground. There was only silence, broken only by the crunch of his boots on dead leaves.
The further he walked, the heavier his thoughts became. Every step took him deeper into something that wasn't just wilderness—it was unseen, like a pulse at the edges of his senses that he couldn't quite catch. It was maddening. The weight of it was suffocating. The Ashweave responded erratically, flaring and contracting in strange patterns that didn't feel right. He had no control over it here—only a sensation that it wanted to pull him deeper, further from the world of the living.
Caelan pressed forward, forcing himself to ignore the gnawing feeling that something was watching him. The whispers of the forest teased the edge of his consciousness—distorted voices, fractured images, half-formed faces that flickered in and out of his vision.
He walked on, each step more laborious than the last. It was then that the hallucinations began.
At first, it was just a flash—a vision of Vivian, standing in the middle of the forest, her face distant, unreadable. Her lips moved, but there was no sound. Her eyes… her eyes were darker, like a shadow was consuming them. She reached out toward him, her hand trembling. And then, she was gone, as though she'd never been there at all.
Shaking his head, Caelan kept moving, his mind screaming at him to stay focused, to remember why he was here.
Then, another vision hit.
The Heirs—all of them, appearing as ghostly figures that marched beside him in the dead of night. Their faces were a grotesque mix of old and new, their eyes empty sockets. They did not speak, but their presence was suffocating, their forms bending the very light around them. The leader of the group was a boy with silver hair and cold, predatory eyes—one of the other heirs, but Caelan couldn't place who.
He could feel their presence even as he blinked, even as his heart raced with rising fear. They were following him.
Caelan broke into a sprint, unable to stand the weight of it anymore. The hallucinations closed in like a storm. Voices, ancient and hollow, filled his head. "They are coming for you, Caelan. You are not ready. The throne is already claimed. Your power will consume you."
But still, he ran. Until the path finally cleared before him, and there, in the distance, was a clearing—a place where the air seemed to part, where the trees gave way to a mountain fortress that rose from the earth like the remains of some forgotten god.
Vereth Kal.
The temple lay at the foot of the mountain, an ancient ruin that had been buried by time and now stood in quiet decay. The structures were crumbling, as if they had been forgotten by everyone—except for those who knew their purpose. The air here hummed, not with magic, but with something deeper. A call. It was as if the earth itself was beckoning him, urging him to step closer to the heart of whatever had been lost here.
Caelan's steps slowed. He had come. But was he ready?
As he entered the sacred grounds of Vereth Kal, the Ashweave seemed to pull tighter around him. It wove through the stones of the ruins, bending the very fabric of reality. The wind grew still, yet everything around him seemed to vibrate with energy.
And then, through the shadows, he saw him.
A figure, standing still among the ruins, his back turned, wrapped in a cloak woven from shadows and memories. The figure's presence was… strange, unsettling. It felt as though he had been here for centuries. The Blackroot.
Without turning, the Blackroot spoke, his voice hollow but unmistakable.
"So, the boy comes. The skinwalker prince. Did you think you would find peace here?"
Caelan's fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, but he made no move. He knew the Blackroot wasn't an ordinary man. His Veil would be unlike anything Caelan had seen. The whispers in the air told him that the man standing before him had walked through things Caelan could barely comprehend.
"I've come for answers," Caelan said, his voice steady, though his mind screamed otherwise. "I need to understand… the First Thread."
The Blackroot finally turned, and Caelan was taken aback by the sight of his eyes. They were hollow, dark voids that seemed to hold the history of countless lives, flickering like dying stars. There was no malice there—just an ancient weariness. A sense that he had seen everything and still, it hadn't been enough.
"The First Thread, boy?" The Blackroot's lips twitched into something like a smile. "It has claimed you, hasn't it? It has woven its way into your soul. And now you come to ask for what cannot be undone."
Caelan took a step forward, his mind torn between doubt and desperation. "Tell me how to control it. How to make it mine."
The Blackroot shook his head slowly, and the wind picked up, whistling through the ruins like a dying breath.
"You do not control the First Thread. You can only surrender to it, or it will consume you." He took a step forward, his voice quiet, yet laden with a grim certainty. "You are already lost, boy. The Weave has chosen you to break the world."
Caelan stood frozen, every instinct within him screaming to run, but something—something within the man's words—held him in place.
The Blackroot's hand rose, and in the air between them, the Weave shimmered—a delicate thread, glowing softly with an unnatural light. It stretched and twisted like a living thing, wrapping itself around the ruins, binding them to the very bones of the mountain.
"Come closer," the Blackroot whispered. "Let me show you the price of your power."
Caelan didn't move.
"You will never be the same again," the Blackroot said, his voice growing darker, as the First Thread began to unravel before Caelan's eyes, a path that led into the very heart of the unknown.