The ash had barely settled from the clash with the Hollowhowlers when the ground trembled again.
Raen stood with blood dripping from his cracked knuckles, his breath uneven, his Namebrand flickering violently along his spine. Ashveil's corrupted horizon distorted like ripples in broken glass, and from the fractures in the air, something older than the Threadrift bled through.
He could feel it before it arrived.
A presence.
No, a question.
It wasn't asking for permission to enter. It was demanding remembrance.
"Raen," a voice called from behind him. Light and youthful.
He turned, blinking through the haze of ruin and memory. A boy stepped forward from the crumbling remnants of a shattered watchtower, wearing torn robes of red and blue interwoven with shifting symbols.
His hair was white, unnaturally so, and his irises shimmered with stars that moved too fast to follow.
"You…"
The boy smiled. "Name's Noctel. I've been looking for you since the Silence chose you."
