The dawn came pale and uncertain, its light barely piercing the veil of mist curling over the ruins. The sigils that had burned through the night were now only faint scars in the stone, but Lyra could still feel their pulse—like a heartbeat beneath the earth.
Dorian had kept watch, though his eyes looked haunted, sleepless. The faint gold of sunrise caught on the edge of his blade as he turned it absently in his hands.
Lyra approached him quietly. “You didn’t rest.”
He gave a humorless smile. “Couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.”
“Kellan,” she said softly.
He nodded, the name seeming to wound him anew. “He looked like himself, Lyra. But the voice—there was something else in it. Something old.”
Lyra shivered. “It said the Ebonfangs had awakened the Forgotten Path.” She h
