The Shattered realm

The Mountain's Secret

The dawn sky burned crimson. Mist drifted across the cliffs as the first rays of sunlight touched the peaks of the Ashen Wilds. Three ravens circled high above the forest. Then, all at once, they fled.

Several miles away, Lord Malrec stood alone on a rocky overlook. The wind tugged at his cloak as he stared toward the distant northern mountains.

A young officer approached cautiously.

"My lord."

Malrec didn't turn.

"The search parties?"

"They've surrounded the valley."

"And?"

"No sign of the girl."

Malrec closed his eyes.

"Of course not."

The officer hesitated.

"Should we continue excavating the sanctuary?"

"No."

The answer came instantly.

"There is nothing left to find there."

He reached into his coat and unfolded an old piece of parchment. Unlike every map in the Empire, this one showed lands that no longer existed. His finger rested on a single mark.

A mountain range.

Above it, faded ink spelled two words.

Starfall Peaks.

He whispered them under his breath.

"So that's where you've been hiding..."

The officer frowned.

"My lord?"

Malrec folded the map before anyone else could see it.

"Prepare the northern expedition."

"All of it?"

"Everyone."

The officer's expression changed.

"The Emperor won't approve."

Malrec finally turned. His gray eyes were colder than the mountain wind.

"Then don't ask."

Elsewhere, Aria awoke with a start.

She was lying beneath a wool blanket beside a small campfire. For a moment she couldn't remember where she was.

Then everything returned.

The sanctuary.

The key.

The collapsing chamber.

Their desperate escape through a narrow passage Caelan had discovered just before the ceiling gave way.

She sat upright.

The fragment still hung around her neck.

Its silver veins had changed again.

Now they pulsed slowly...

Like a heartbeat.

Across the fire, Caelan quietly stirred a pot suspended over the flames.

"You finally slept."

"How long?"

"Nearly a day."

"A day?"

"You were unconscious when we left the sanctuary."

Aria looked around.

They had made camp on a narrow ledge overlooking an endless sea of pine trees. Far beyond them, snow-capped mountains pierced the clouds.

She frowned.

"Where are we going?"

Caelan handed her a wooden cup filled with steaming herbal tea.

"North."

"Why?"

He looked toward the distant peaks.

"Because the sanctuary gave us our next destination."

"The mountains touch the stars."

Aria repeated the words from the fallen stone.

Caelan nodded.

"The Starfall Peaks."

She took a sip.

The tea was bitter.

"You know where they are?"

"I know the stories."

"And the stories?"

He smiled faintly.

"They usually know more than I do."

Before Aria could reply, the fragment around her neck grew warm.

She looked down.

The silver light wasn't pulsing anymore.

It was pointing.

A thin beam of light stretched from the fragment toward the distant mountains.

Straight toward the Starfall Peaks.

Caelan watched it silently.

Then, for the first time since they met...

He smiled.

"It remembers the way."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. The beam of silver light stretched across the valley like a thread spun from moonlight, unwavering despite the morning breeze.

Aria couldn't take her eyes off it.

"It knows where we're going."

Caelan nodded.

"It remembers."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"I've learned something after living for a very long time."

He adjusted the pack over his shoulder.

"The oldest things in this world rarely explain themselves."

They broke camp shortly after sunrise.

The trail north climbed steadily through dense pine forests before narrowing into a winding mountain path.

The higher they climbed, the colder the air became.

By midday, the forest had changed.

The familiar pines disappeared, replaced by towering white-barked trees whose leaves shimmered like silver whenever sunlight touched them.

Aria slowed.

"I've never seen trees like these."

"You weren't meant to."

Caelan rested his hand against one of the smooth trunks.

"This forest isn't marked on any Imperial map."

"It has a name?"

"It used to."

"What was it?"

The old Warden was quiet for a moment.

Then he answered.

"The Whispering Grove."

Aria glanced around.

"It doesn't seem very... whispery."

As if the forest had been waiting, a soft murmur drifted through the leaves.

Not wind.

Voices.

Hundreds of them.

Too faint to understand.

Aria froze.

"You heard that."

"I did."

"What are they saying?"

Caelan's expression remained calm.

"I've never understood."

"You've been here before?"

"Many times."

"And the voices have always been here?"

He nodded.

"They speak to everyone."

"What do they want?"

"I suspect..."

He looked toward the endless rows of silver trees.

"...they're trying to remember."

The path ended at a narrow stream.

Its water was so clear that the smooth stones beneath looked close enough to touch.

Caelan knelt beside it.

"Drink."

Aria hesitated.

"How do you know it's safe?"

Instead of answering, he picked up a small brown leaf and dropped it into the water.

It floated peacefully downstream.

"Some streams remember poison."

"This one doesn't."

She raised an eyebrow.

"That makes no sense."

"It doesn't."

He filled his flask.

"But it keeps people alive."

Aria laughed quietly.

"For someone who claims to know so much..."

"...you explain very little."

"I've discovered that answers given too early are usually wasted."

As they continued walking, Aria noticed something carved into the bark of one of the white trees.

A symbol.

A circle divided by a single line.

She stopped.

"Caelan."

He turned.

She pointed.

"There."

His expression changed.

The symbol wasn't old.

The bark around it was fresh.

Someone had carved it recently.

Caelan stepped closer, running his fingers over the cut.

"No..."

"What?"

He looked deeper into the forest.

"We're not the first Wardens to pass this way."

Aria stared at him.

"But you said you were the last."

"I believed I was."

The old Warden's voice had become almost a whisper.

"If someone made this..."

"...then either another Warden still lives..."

He paused.

The silence suddenly felt heavier than before.

"...or someone wants us to believe one does."

The whispering voices stopped.

Every leaf in the grove became perfectly still.

Even the birds fell silent.

Aria felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Then...

A twig snapped.

Not ahead of them.

Behind them.

Caelan slowly rested his hand on the hilt of the Warden's sword.

Without turning around, he spoke in a calm, steady voice.

"You've been following us since dawn."

The forest answered with silence.

Then a figure stepped out from behind one of the silver trees.

Not an Imperial soldier.

Not a traveler.

A young woman, perhaps no older than Aria, cloaked in dark green, with a bow already drawn.

Her silver eyes never left the fragment around Aria's neck.

When she finally spoke, her voice was cold and unwavering.

"You shouldn't have awakened the Spark."

She pulled the bowstring tighter.

"Now the world will remember what it was trying to forget."