Kael stood at the Ember Rest's outer gate, wind tugging at his soot-streaked cloak like a restless ghost. The mark on his wrist pulsed with faint light under the morning sun—less erratic than before, but steady like a second heartbeat. A reminder that something inside him had changed permanently.
Behind him, Seris adjusted the strap of her pack and checked the alignment of her blade. Her expression was unreadable, as usual, but there was a slight tightness in her jaw that hadn't been there yesterday.
"You sure you're ready?" she asked, her voice low.
"No," Kael admitted. "But I'm going anyway."
Seris gave a faint nod. "Good. That's the only right answer."
They stepped onto the cracked obsidian path leading out of Ember Rest—if it could be called a path at all. The route twisted between veins of scorched stone and glittering fragments of long-dead core relics. Ash blanketed everything, crunching softly underfoot, mingling with the brittle remains of things best not named.
Above them, the sky remained an endless swirl of burnt amber. In the far distance, the Spire of Echoes loomed—twisting into the heavens like a spear trying to pierce the gods. Blue lightning danced around its upper tiers, chasing glowing runes that never stopped shifting.
"That thing doesn't look friendly," Kael muttered, squinting at it.
"It isn't," Seris replied. "No Spire is. But Echoes is worse."
"Because…?"
"Because it remembers."
Kael shot her a sideways glance. "Is that some poetic metaphor or actual danger?"
"Yes," she said dryly.
---
They walked for hours. The silence between them wasn't awkward—it was necessary. The land itself seemed to resist conversation. The further they traveled from Ember Rest, the more surreal the world became. Rocks shimmered in and out of focus. Time seemed to stretch and bend like wax near a flame.
Kael stumbled over a root that hadn't been there a moment ago. When he turned to look, it was gone.
"Don't fight the landscape," Seris warned. "Zareth likes to test new blood."
"Test how?"
"With confusion. Illusions. Sometimes madness."
"Helpful."
"You're still here. That's something."
By midday, they passed a weathered archway half-swallowed by dirt. Beneath it lay rows of statues, each buried up to their chests in ash. Their faces were either serene or screaming.
"What are these?" Kael asked.
"Remnants of the First Convergence. Some say they were the first pilgrims. Others say they failed the Spire's trials and became warnings."
Kael paused in front of one that looked too real. Its lips were slightly parted, like it might whisper at any second.
"They feel alive."
Seris didn't meet his eyes. "Some of them are."
---
They camped in a gnarled hollow beneath a jutting cliff. A natural shelter, shadowed from the open plains. Kael knelt by a tiny flame Seris sparked from her fingers. It flickered softly, more comfort than heat.
He stared into it, eyes distant. "Why me?"
Seris glanced up from cleaning her blade. "Why not you?"
"You've been fighting your whole life, right? You understand this world. I'm just... dropped into it. Like a tool someone forgot to finish carving."
"You adapted," she said simply. "Most don't. You're still standing. That means something."
Kael exhaled slowly, then glanced at the glowing mark on his wrist.
> "Fragment Signature: Dual-Type. Integration: 74%. Core Synchronization: Unstable."
"It's growing stronger," he whispered.
"Good. You'll need it."
"I don't even know what I'll face."
"No one ever does."
He fell silent for a moment. Then: "What was your first Spire like?"
Seris's grip on her blade tightened just slightly. "I was fifteen. Young. Reckless. Thought I could find power and answers in one climb. I made it halfway up before I saw it."
"What?"
"Myself. But wrong. Twisted. It told me things I'd tried to forget. Made me relive them. I failed that trial."
"Then how are you still here?"
"I killed the thing that replaced me."
Kael looked shaken. "The Spire does that?"
"They all do. In different ways. Echoes, though… it goes deeper. It drags the past out of your soul and turns it into something real."
Kael curled his arms around his knees, heart pounding. "And you want me to walk into that?"
"I want you to survive it."
---
The next morning, they reached Wander's Verge—a scarred forest of skeletal trees with glowing veins and whispering winds. The trees pulsed with residual energy. Kael avoided touching them instinctively.
"Stay off the roots," Seris warned. "They remember footsteps."
Kael looked at her. "Everything in this world remembers something."
"Welcome to Zareth."
A low hum filled the air. Not mechanical. Organic. Like a chorus of things breathing just out of sight. Every so often, Kael thought he saw shapes between the trees—too tall, too thin, too wrong.
"Echoborn?" he guessed.
Seris nodded. "They protect the Verge. Or torment it. No one agrees."
Kael's mark flared the moment one of the shadows approached. The creature paused—a headless, boneless figure of stitched flesh and broken glass—then slipped back into the woods.
"They know I'm marked."
"They always know."
---
By afternoon, they reached a ridge overlooking the base of the Spire. It was even taller up close, impossibly so. Structures spiraled around its base—temples, ruins, market posts—all drowned in a soft glow.
"Who lives here?" Kael asked.
"No one lives here. They come, they try, they fail. Or they climb."
He spotted a woman wrapped in silver chains kneeling by a gate. Her eyes were white, unseeing, and her lips moved in silent prayer.
"Pilgrims?"
"Fools. Some think they'll be chosen if they wait long enough. The Spire doesn't choose. It tests."
Kael's jaw tightened. "And I have to pass that test?"
Seris looked at him. "You need answers. This is how you get them."
He closed his eyes. Felt the pulse of the mark inside him. Heard the echo of two fragments beating like twin hearts.
"I'm ready."
"No, you're not," she said. "But you're willing. That's enough."
---
Far beneath the Spire of Echoes, in a chamber of black mirrors and silver bones, a figure stirred. Its body shimmered like smoke and crystal, its eyes numbering in the dozens.
The Marked One approaches.
It touched a wall, and dozens of portals flared to life.
Let the hunt begin.