The glade was wrong.
It should have been open. Still. Lit by what little sunlight broke through the canopy above.
But instead, it shuddered.
Light curled around the trees like it was afraid to land. The moss glowed faintly, pulsing with a rhythm that didn't match any living heart.
In the center stood a monolith—stone carved with broken glyphs, half-swallowed by vines. Not a shrine. Not a statue. A tombstone.
No one said that word.
But Kael knew it.
It had been left here for something that could not die.
Lira stood closest to the monolith, daggers drawn, but not lifted. Her eyes flicked over the glyphs with a thief's trained gaze.
"These symbols aren't mortal," she murmured. "Old spell-seals. This one's for silence. This one's for memory. This one's—"
She stopped.
Kael already knew which one she was looking at.
It was his name. Half-erased. Half-screaming. Carved into stone like it was begging not to be read aloud.
Dain shifted beside him. His sword hummed again. Louder now. Like it was remembering.
Torin looked pale. "I feel like this place doesn't want us to take whatever we came for."
"We're not here to take," Elyra said. "We're here to retrieve a relic. If the forest let us get this far, it won't stop us now."
"Maybe," Torin said. "Or maybe it let us this far because it's hungry."
Kael didn't move.
The wind around him was still.
But inside—a storm brewed.
The monolith had been placed here centuries ago. Not by mortals. Not by his enemies. But by Myr. After he fell. After the world tried to forget him.
It wasn't a marker.
It was a warning.
"This is where he broke."
Elyra turned to him.
He didn't need to see her to feel her gaze.Soft. Sad. Sharp.
"Kael," she said quietly. "What aren't you telling us?"
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer. Her magic glowed at her fingertips—not bright, just warm. An offering. Not a threat.
"I don't care what you were," she said. "But I care what you are now."
Kael looked at her.
And for a moment—just a flicker—his eyes burned. Not with fire. Not with rage.
With remorse.
"Your light hurts," he said.
She flinched. "I don't understand."
"It's not meant for me."
A sound cracked the silence.
Not speech.
Laughter.
From the monolith.
The stone split—vertically—like a wound opening in the world. Black smoke poured out, lined with silver threads that slithered across the grass like veins.
From inside it, something crawled.
Not a creature.Not a man.A memory.
Of Kael.But not him.The part of him that hadn't fallen far enough.
It took shape—a figure cloaked in fire and bone. A crown of horns. Eyes of molten silence. Its hands gripped a shattered scepter. And it looked at him.
Lira gasped. Dain raised his sword. Elyra stumbled back.
Torin whispered, "That's…that's not possible."
Kael didn't move.
Because he knew what this was.
His echo.
A warform from the Divine War. A piece of him that had refused to die. Buried in the Mourningwood. Bound in silence.
Until now.
"Kael," Elyra said, voice shaking, "what is that?"
He spoke only once.
"That was what I used to be."