Kaal's body gave out an hour past the ridge.
He didn't fall dramatically. He just… slowed, then stopped. His legs folded underneath him, and he sank to his knees in the ash-laced grass.
Lyra rushed to him, catching his shoulder. "Kaal."
"I'm fine," he rasped.
"You're not."
She touched his arm, it was hot.
Magic seemingly still burning under the skin like coals beneath snow.
They were exposed, open ground, no cover, no shelter.
"We need to move," she said.
He shook his head weakly. "I need a minute."
"You don't have a minute, we need to find shelter."
"Try the south path." Said a new voice.
A twig cracked in the trees.
Both of them froze.
Lyra's blade was drawn in an instant.
A figure stepped into view, slow and deliberate, hands lifted.
He was tall and lean, wrapped in a dark traveling coat layered with stitched patches. A satchel hung from his shoulder, and a rolled map peeked from one side. His face was lined but not old, mid-thirties, maybe, and his eyes were sharp behind thin spectacles.
"Forgive the intrusion," he said , "Don't hurt me," though Lyra hadn't yet.
She said nothing. Just angled her blade higher.
"I heard the fighting," he said. "I didn't think anyone would survive it. You're lucky."
"We make our own luck," Lyra replied flatly.
The man smiled. "So do I. Name's Thalin, Thalin Voss."
Kaal coughed once. "You're a scholar? And you just happened to be out here?"
"I've been studying the Zmrylian Awakening cycle," Thalin said easily.
Lyra gave a hollow laugh. "A scholar. Alone. Out here."
"I've been researching the Zmrylian cycles for over a decade," he said evenly. "When the mountains stirred again, I knew the old paths would open. I came to document what remains before the next collapse."
She stepped between him and Kaal. "People who show up in the wilderness with the right words usually have the wrong intentions."
Thalin shrugged. "Understandable."
Kaal leaned forward. "If you're lying....."
"We don't particularly care." Lyra said
"I expect you don't," Thalin said. "In the meantime, the closest shelter is half a mile south, behind a frost-bent ridge. Former palace outpost. Long abandoned. Dry walls and no watchers."
"Convenient," Lyra muttered.
"I thought so too."
They stared at him. He didn't flinch under it.
Kaal spoke quietly. "You said you saw the battle?"
"I saw the light. Felt the pressure change. Hard not to."
"Do you know what those were."
"I have guesses. Constructs. Bound spirits. Old guardians. Not beasts, that's for sure."
Lyra narrowed her eyes. "And you just decided to stroll up after the fight?"
Thalin nodded. "I knew it was safe, i'm not suicidal."
Kaal's vision blurred. His skin was slick with sweat, heat pulsing under his ribs.
He hated how much sense the man made.
Lyra looked at him. "Well, thank you, we'll be on our way."
Kaal tugged on her sleeve, and met her eyes. "We need cover."
A pause.
She looked at Thalin again. "You try anything, I'll kill you before your next breath."
"It wouldn't come to that," Thalin said with a nod.
They helped Kaal to his feet. Lyra kept a hand on her blade the whole time.
Thalin didn't walk ahead. He kept a safe distance beside them, pointing only when necessary.
The outpost was real.
A squat structure of black stone tucked into the hillside, half-covered in creeping ice. The old crest above the doorway had faded to a faint circle. One door still worked. The rest hung like broken teeth.
Inside was dry. Cold, but still.
Thalin had been right.
Lyra hated that.
She watched him closely as they entered, blades never far from reach. He moved with the casual grace of someone used to ruins, stepping over debris, brushing snow off a bench as if it were home.
"This place was once a signal tower," he said. "Back when the royal lines actually held this part of the mountain. Before the first collapse."
Kaal barely made it inside. He leaned against the far wall, eyes dull with fever, magic still simmering just beneath the surface of his skin.
Thalin set down his bag and stepped back. "You can have the room. I'll stay by the door."
"You'll stay where I can see you," Lyra snapped.
Thalin raised his hands again. "Of course but try to remember that I'm helping you."
She turned to Kaal, kneeling beside him. "You alright?"
He nodded faintly. "For now."
His fingers twitched. The glow in his veins had faded.
It all looked normal.
Which, in a place like this, was exactly what made her uneasy.
Thalin had settled in the far corner, unbothered, scribbling notes into a leather-bound journal.
Kaal lay on a makeshift cot, eyes half-lidden.
He hadn't said another word since.
Lyra sat by the entrance, sharpening her blade with slow, deliberate strokes. Her eyes kept drifting to Thalin. He didn't fidget. He didn't gloat. He didn't even ask questions.
He just watched.
Too calm.
Too quiet.
She narrowed her eyes. His gear was travel-worn. His coat was standard. There was nothing out of place.
So why did it feel like everything was?
"You said you've been following the Awakening," she said. "What does that mean?"
Thalin sat on a stone crate and opened his satchel. Inside: papers, flasks, a small brass orb that blinked faintly. "The mountains don't just stir. They pulse. They call. Every few decades, something triggers it. Most think it's seismic. I think it's sentient."
Kaal gave a weak laugh. "You think the mountains are alive?"
Thalin looked at him. "Don't you?"
No one answered.
Instead, Lyra moved to the open archway, watching mist roll down the slope like a tide. "Why did you follow it?"
Thalin shrugged. "Curiosity. Obsession. Depends on the year."
"You're alone."
"I prefer it."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
That night, the outpost did not rest.
Wind rattled the beams. Snow fell in sideways bursts. Something howled beyond the ridge, too close to ignore.
Lyra couldn't sleep.
She sat near the cold hearth, sharpening her blades and watching Thalin scribble in his journal by flickering orb-light. Kaal slept fitfully beside the wall, his breath shallow, veins still faintly glowing under his skin like buried lightning.
"What do you know about the spirals?" Lyra asked quietly.
Thalin didn't look up. "They're everywhere. On stones. Trees."
Lyra's grip tightened.
"I saw one carved into a corpse," she said. "Fresh."
Now he looked up.
"Where?"
"South ridge. Before the attack."
He closed his book slowly. "Then we're close."
"To what?"
"To the place they're guarding."
The wind paused.
Lyra turned her attention back to Kaal.
His sleep had deepened into something restless. He twitched once. Then again. His fingers flexed, curled, uncurled. A soft whisper escaped his mouth, too faint to catch.
She moved to his side. "Kaal?"
His head jerked slightly. His breathing quickened.
"Kaal. Wake up."
His eyes snapped open, glowing faintly gold.
Lyra recoiled. "What the..?"
Then, before she could speak again, he sat up and whispered a word in a voice that wasn't quite his.
The walls shuddered.
Thalin looked up sharply.
And something deep beneath the stone answered.