Chapter 92 – Echoes Beneath the Stones
The descent from the Shattered Spire began in silence—but it would not remain so.
The path was steeper on the southern face, carved not by nature but by hands—long dead, perhaps not human. Jagged steps had been worn into the stone, too narrow for horses and too erratic for carts. It twisted like a serpent's spine, clinging to the cliffs, disappearing beneath overhangs where the sun never touched. Loose gravel crunched beneath their boots, the sound oddly muffled, as though the mountain itself listened with held breath.
Caedren led, the mark of the Hollow Son still tingling on his brow. He walked as if drawn forward by an invisible thread, eyes unfocused but determined, his grip white-knuckled around the hilt of his sword. Each step grew faster, more deliberate, until Lysa, trailing behind with eyes sharp on the shadows, called out—
"Slow down, Caedren. Something's wrong."
He turned, breath sharp and misting in the high, chill air. "You don't feel it?"
Tarn was already drawing steel, his axe gleaming dull in the fading light. "Oh, I feel something."
The others came to a halt. From behind, from a cave-mouth they'd passed an hour before, came a sound no wind could make.
Breathing.
But not one.
Dozens.
It came in waves—uneven, ragged, hungry. The scouts froze, hands on hilts, eyes wide.
Lysa raised her blade, her stance shifting into readiness. "Shields up. Form close."
Figures emerged—slow, disjointed, twitching like puppets with cut strings. Once men, perhaps, but no longer. Their skin was pale, stretched thin over bones blackened by something older than death. Their eyes glowed with a sickly grey light, and carved into their flesh were runes like those on the Hollow Son—only inverted. Corrupted. The air grew thick with rot, as if their presence exhaled decay.
Caedren stepped forward, voice cold and low.
"Remnants."
Tarn snarled, his breath fogging the air. "Not the Dominion's pets?"
"No," Lysa whispered, gaze never leaving the advancing host. "Older than them. The ones left behind when Ivan sealed the Spire. Failed bearers of the Flame. Echoes of regret made flesh."
The first of the remnants shrieked—a sound like metal tearing—and then they charged.
Steel met rot.
The mountain echoed with the clang of blades and the sickening crack of bone. Tarn's axe hewed through two in one swing, the enchanted metal cutting cleanly even through whatever cursed substance held them upright. But a third leapt onto his back, arms like vines wrapping around his throat. Lysa moved like a song of fury, her blade slicing it free mid-air, her motion fluid and brutal. She spun, parried, killed again. Her blade sang an old hymn of death.
Caedren drew his sword and felt something answer in his veins—runes glowing briefly under his skin like heatless embers, remnants of the Hollow Son's touch. He swung, and with each strike, a pulse of hollow light flickered outward.
Each enemy he cut screamed not with pain—but with relief.
"They want to die!" he shouted, driving his blade through a Remnant's throat, the creature collapsing into ash before it even struck the ground.
"They can't!" Lysa roared, impaling another through its heart. "That's the curse!"
One of the scouts went down with a guttural cry, Remnants dragging him into the dark. Another turned to run and was overtaken, screaming lost in the wind. A third stood his ground, hacking wildly, buying seconds that felt like lifetimes before he was buried beneath twisted limbs.
Only five had come down the mountain with them.
Now two remained.
And then only three—Tarn, Lysa, and Caedren.
Their breathing was ragged. Their clothes torn. Blood, both human and other, streaked their skin. They stood back-to-back on a narrow ledge, surrounded by corpses that refused to fall, by eyes that remembered things best forgotten.
The wind shifted.
And from far below—a horn sounded.
Low. Deep. Ancient.
The Remnants paused. Shivered. As if the sound had pierced some internal cage.
Then, without word or warning, they sank into the stone, their forms dissolving like breath into cold air. The earth swallowed them, and the cliffs grew still once more.
Gone.
Tarn spat blood, wiping his mouth with the back of his gauntlet. "We nearly joined the archives, boys."
"Don't joke," Lysa said, though her voice trembled. She touched the stone wall beside them, where faint traces of runes still glowed. Her fingers brushed the symbols reverently, as though fearing they might vanish. "They're watching us now," she whispered. "They've marked us."
"For death?" Caedren asked, voice low.
"No," she said, eyes drifting to the valley below. "For remembrance."
They made the rest of the descent without a word. Grief sat heavy on their shoulders. The remaining scouts carried their dead in silence when they could, or buried them beneath cairns carved from the bones of the mountain. No songs were sung. No prayers spoken. Just stone on stone.
As they reached the lowland, the wind picked up. The scent of smoke hit them first—sharp, acrid, fresh. They turned east.
Smoke billowed from what once had been Fallowmere.
A village of stubborn hearts, farmers and poets, once a place of laughter and shared bread. Now a ruin.
The Dominion had burned it.
A signal.
A warning.
A message.
The charred remains of the outer gate still stood, half-hinged and blackened. Carved deep into the wood, scorched but legible, were words that stopped them in their tracks:
WE OFFERED PEACE.
YOU RETURNED WITH FIRE.
Ash swirled in the air like snowfall. Crows circled, but none dared land. The silence of the place was not empty—it was full. Full of endings.
Caedren stared at the gate, fury and memory warring in his chest. He saw faces there—the old woman who had sung lullabies, the child who'd given him a painted stone. Gone. Not forgotten.
Tarn laid a hand on his shoulder. "What now?"
Caedren turned, his eyes clear with purpose.
"We ride to the Forge of Mourning."
He looked at the ruined village one last time, then west, where the horizon promised more fire.
"Let the crown know that the kingless world has chosen a voice."