The wind over Draevenreach screamed like a thing in pain, carving its voice into the bones of the mountains. Aric trudged behind Kael and Selene, the cold biting deep, the sky above a deep violet bruised with clouds. He kept his hood drawn, shoulders hunched, eyes on the ground. But he couldn't shut out the feeling that had followed him since they left the Vale—like invisible eyes pressed into the back of his skull.
Kael said it was natural. That the cursed were like beacons now—drawn to each other, hunted by worse. But Aric wasn't sure that explained what he felt. This wasn't instinct. This was invitation.
That night, they camped near a crooked pine at the edge of a ravine. The fire cast flickering shadows across the jagged rocks, and Selene kept watch while Kael muttered to himself, tracing unfamiliar symbols into the snow with the butt of his dagger.
"You're not sleeping again," Selene said, not looking up from her post.
Aric shook his head. "Can't."
She didn't press further. They'd all grown quieter since Kael told them about Eryndor and the cursed who followed him.
But Aric wasn't thinking about Eryndor tonight.
He was thinking about something... older.
There was a moment—just a flicker—when he closed his eyes and felt something foreign stir behind them. Like fingers brushing the edge of his mind. Not painful. Not even threatening.
Just... curious.
He stood, brushing snow from his cloak, and stepped away from the fire, needing distance. Air.
He didn't realize how far he'd gone until the firelight disappeared behind the hill. Alone now, only the wind for company, he looked out over the ravine.
Then—without sound—a figure appeared.
At first, it was just a shape in the dark. But the longer he stared, the clearer it became.
A tall man stood across the ravine, on the opposite ledge, motionless.
No torch. No breath.
A long, black coat fluttered in the wind, and something in the way he stood—too calm, too still—sent a wave of instinctual dread crawling up Aric's spine.
His face was hidden beneath a hood, yet Aric felt the man looking directly at him.
He tried to speak, but no words came. The wind died completely.
Then the world blinked.
Just for a second.
It was as though reality itself had skipped a beat.
And suddenly, the figure was gone.
But not the presence. That lingered.
Aric turned sharply—and gasped.
The man now stood behind him, barely an arm's length away.
Aric's breath caught in his throat. He reached for his blade, but the air around him thickened like syrup. His limbs slowed. The man lifted a hand—not in threat, but as if greeting an equal.
Then he spoke, though his lips never moved.
"You do not yet understand what you carry."
The voice was everywhere—inside his skull, behind his eyes, around his ribs. Not loud. Not angry.
Just true.
Aric dropped to his knees, choking. Not from pain, but from the weight of the man's presence pressing down on his soul.
Images flashed through his mind—battlefields drowned in shadow, fire that bled upward into the sky, a city crumbling into ash as a single figure walked calmly through it all.
That same figure.
This man.
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
The pressure lifted. Air returned.
Aric collapsed, gasping.
Selene's voice pierced the wind moments later. She found him kneeling in the snow, eyes wide, skin clammy with sweat.
"What happened?" she demanded.
He didn't answer.
Kael appeared next, sword half-drawn. "You saw him, didn't you?"
Aric nodded slowly.
"Describe him," Kael said.
Aric hesitated. "Tall. Black coat. No face. He—he moved without moving."
Kael closed his eyes. "Malrik. God's help us."
Selene's brow furrowed. "That name... You've said it before."
Kael nodded. "He's not cursed. He's not bound. He's something else. He's been watching."
Aric's voice was hoarse. "What does he want?"
Kael stared into the dark, expression unreadable.
"No one knows. But if he's shown himself to you... then your role in this just became much, much bigger."