The Shattered Realms

Chapter 7 - The First Ruin

The forest had changed.

Feli noticed it before anyone else did.

The horses had become restless three miles before they reached the northern ridge. Birds had stopped singing. Even the wind seemed reluctant to pass between the trees.

His scouts rode in silence.

No one had to tell them that something was wrong.

The land itself felt wrong.

Feli looked ahead.

Beyond the black trees stood a range of ancient mountains, their peaks disappearing into a layer of pale mist.

Somewhere beyond them was the First Ruin.

The oldest structure ever recorded in the eastern territories.

And, according to the fragments Feli had recovered, the place where the Hollowing had first been sealed.

"How far?" he asked.

Wei Jian, riding beside him, checked the worn map.

"Less than half a day."

Feli nodded.

"Then we continue."

The scout hesitated.

"General."

Feli looked at him.

"We found another village yesterday."

"And?"

"Empty."

Feli's expression hardened.

"Any bodies?"

"No."

"Signs of struggle?"

"None."

That was worse.

The Hollowing did not always leave corpses.

Sometimes it left nothing.

No blood.

No wounds.

No evidence.

Only absence.

Feli tightened his grip on the reins.

Three days ago, twenty-three villagers had disappeared.

Then animals.

Then an entire patrol had vanished from the northern road.

And now another village.

The reports were spreading.

Magic was fading in places where it had remained strong for centuries.

Protective wards were failing.

Magical creatures were becoming sick.

Something was consuming the very thing the kingdoms had built their defenses upon.

Magic.

Feli looked toward the mountains.

"Set camp before sunset."

Wei Jian nodded.

"What about the First Ruin?"

"We enter tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

Feli's eyes remained on the mountains.

"Whatever is inside has been waiting for a very long time."

He paused.

"And I don't intend to walk into it in the dark."

At the Wen estate, Selerin couldn't stop thinking about the name.

Yi Xin.

She had barely slept.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the burning palace.

A woman holding a baby.

A silver crescent.

And someone shouting her name.

But she couldn't tell whether the baby was her.

She didn't even know why she wanted the answer.

Perhaps because, for seventeen years, she had been given no answer at all.

She knew only one thing about herself.

Selerin.

A name given to a girl whose past had been erased.

She had no parents.

No family name.

No birthplace.

No memories before the Wen household.

And now-

someone had called her something else.

Yi Xin.

She sat beside the window.

Rainwater still clung to the roof tiles from the previous night's storm.

A knock sounded.

"Come in."

Zhihao entered.

He carried several old documents.

"I found something."

Selerin turned.

"What?"

Zhihao placed the documents on the table.

"I went back to the library after you left."

Her eyes moved toward the papers.

"Why?"

"Because I didn't like the missing page."

Selerin looked at him.

"What did you find?"

Zhihao unfolded the first document.

"Most of the imperial records concerning the Royal Yin Family were deliberately altered."

Selerin's stomach tightened.

"Altered?"

"Names removed. Dates changed. Entire sections replaced."

He opened another.

"There are references to an heir."

Selerin stared at the page.

"But the heir's name was erased."

Zhihao nodded.

"Completely."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

He hesitated.

"That's what worries me."

Selerin looked down.

"Zhihao..."

"Hm?"

"Do you think I could really be connected to them?"

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he looked at her.

"I don't know."

It was the honest answer.

And somehow, Selerin appreciated it.

"But," he continued, "I do know this."

He pointed toward her collar.

"That mark isn't ordinary."

Selerin touched it unconsciously.

"It appeared again last night."

Zhihao's expression changed.

"Glowing?"

She nodded.

"Did anything happen?"

Selerin hesitated.

Then-

"I heard a name."

"What name?"

She looked at him.

"Yi Xin."

Silence.

Zhihao slowly sat down.

Before he could say anything-

The candles went out.

All of them.

Selerin froze.

The room became completely dark.

Then came a sound.

A faint crack.

From beneath the floor.

Zhihao stood.

"What was that?"

Selerin couldn't answer.

Her mark had begun glowing again.

This time brighter than before.

A silver light slipped through the fabric around her collar.

Zhihao stepped toward her.

"Selerin."

She suddenly heard a whisper.

Not from the room.

From somewhere deep inside her.

Come.

Her eyes widened.

"Someone is calling me."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

The silver light spread across the floor.

Lines appeared beneath their feet.

Ancient symbols.

A map.

Zhihao stared.

"This wasn't here before."

The glowing lines moved.

From the Wen estate-

toward the northern mountains.

Toward a single symbol.

A circle surrounded by three broken crescents.

Zhihao recognized it.

His face went pale.

"The First Ruin."

Selerin looked at him.

"What?"

"The symbol."

He pointed.

"That's the seal of the First Ruin."

The light vanished.

The room returned to darkness.

Neither of them moved.

Then Selerin whispered,

"Why would my mark lead there?"

Zhihao didn't have an answer.

But somewhere far away-

someone did.

Night had fallen over Feli's camp.

The soldiers were asleep.

Feli remained awake beside the fire.

He unfolded the old parchment Lin Yue had given him.

Only fragments remained.

Most of the writing was unreadable.

But one sentence was clear.

The First Ruin shall open only when the blood of the forgotten returns.

Feli stared at it.

"The blood of the forgotten..."

His mind returned to the girl in the forest.

The silver mark.

The white stag kneeling before her.

The impossible reaction of the ancient magic.

He had initially thought Selerin was simply connected to the Yin bloodline.

But now-

he wasn't sure.

He pulled another parchment from his coat.

It contained an ancient symbol.

The same crescent.

He compared it to the memory of the mark he had seen on Selerin.

Almost identical.

Feli frowned.

There was something he was missing.

Something the records refused to tell him.

Then a soldier came running into the camp.

"General!"

Feli immediately stood.

"What happened?"

"The northern watch."

"Speak."

"They saw lights beyond the ridge."

"How many?"

"One."

"An enemy?"

The soldier shook his head.

"No, General."

He swallowed.

"It looked like a silver light coming from the mountain."

Feli's expression changed.

"First Ruin."

The next morning, Selerin woke before sunrise.

She already knew what she was going to do.

She couldn't explain why.

She only knew that the pull inside her had become impossible to ignore.

She dressed quietly.

Before leaving her room, she looked at the small wooden box beneath her bed.

She had no idea why she had kept it.

It was one of the few things she had possessed since childhood.

Inside was a faded piece of cloth.

Nothing special.

Except for the tiny silver thread sewn into its corner.

The same symbol.

The crescent.

Selerin wrapped the cloth around her wrist.

Then she heard footsteps outside.

She opened the door.

Zhihao stood there.

"I knew you would go."

Selerin sighed.

"I'm not running away."

"I know."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because you're not going alone."

She stared at him.

"Zhihao-"

"No."

He smiled slightly.

"You've spent seventeen years not knowing where you came from."

His expression became serious.

"If the First Ruin can give you an answer, you deserve to hear it."

Selerin looked away.

"But what if I don't like the answer?"

Zhihao's voice softened.

"Then we'll face it together."

For a moment, Selerin couldn't speak.

She had spent her entire life believing that blood determined who belonged to whom.

But the Wen family had never asked about her blood.

They simply gave her a place.

A name.

A home.

She smiled faintly.

"Thank you."

Zhihao nodded.

"Come on."

They stepped outside.

Neither noticed the figure standing beneath the trees beyond the garden wall.

Madam Qiao watched them leave.

Her expression was unreadable.

In her hand was an old silver pendant.

She opened it.

Inside was a faded miniature portrait of a royal woman holding an infant.

Qiao's fingers tightened around the pendant.

"So you've found the road."

Her gaze shifted toward the northern mountains.

"The First Ruin was never meant to find you."

She closed the pendant.

Then whispered the words she had feared for seventeen years.

"Princess Yi Xin."

Far away, beneath the First Ruin-

something opened its eyes.

Not a creature.

Not a person.

Something older.

Something that had been waiting beneath the broken seal since before the kingdoms had names.

A thin crack appeared across the ancient stone.

Silver light entered through it.

Then darkness moved toward the light.

The Hollowing had sensed her.

And now-

the First Ruin was calling its lost heir home.