The wind howled like memory
Cold, sharp, and full of teeth
They traveled north now, away from the shattered vault, away from the City of Crows and the ruins that whispered in dreams. But peace didn't follow them—only the questions.
Syaoran didn't sleep
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.
The girl beneath the golden sky. The voice that cried, "You promised"
And the Masked One's face—his own, twisted, lost, bound in agony.
---
Kira kept to herself, sharpening her blades in silence.
Teren poured over the map again and again, muttering about "shifting ley-lines" and "displaced echoes."
And Aris… watched Syaoran
Not with suspicion
With fear
Not of what he might become
But of what he already was
---
Three days into the highlands, they reached the place the Oracle had marked long ago—where magic bled from the rocks and the wind whispered names never spoken aloud.
Drelthane's Spine.
A jagged mountain range once used by the ancient Veilborn as a fortress during the First Silence War. Now abandoned. Forgotten.
Except by the dead
---
The path narrowed into broken stairs carved from obsidian and veinstone. Carvings etched the walls—memories sealed in stone.
Syaoran touched one and gasped
A flash of battle—Veilborn warriors fighting shoulder to shoulder against monstrous things made of chain and fire, led by a hooded king with a crown of blades.
Another carving showed a man standing alone, arms raised, as a storm of lightning burst from him, destroying an entire sky-ship.
And beside him… a girl, her hand on his chest, whispering something through tears.
> "Don't become like him."
---
They pressed deeper into the ruins, until the light above was lost and the air grew heavy with magic.
Kira lit a small flame in her hand. "There's something wrong with this place. I can't feel the wind anymore."
Teren glanced around nervously. "That's because there is no air. The ruin is sealed. Yet we're still breathing."
Syaoran's eyes narrowed. "It's the Veil again. It's keeping us alive… or watching us."
---
Then they found it.
A cathedral of stone, buried deep beneath the Spine.
At the centerb a tomb. Broken. Empty.
But on the floor, a single rune still pulsed with weak light.
Aris stepped forward slowly.
"It's the mark of the First Veilborn"
Teren's voice was shaking. "This isn't just a ruin. This was his throne. His grave."
Syaoran stared down at the rune, and without knowing why, he spoke the name written there:
> "Rael."
The ground shuddered
And from the shadows behind the tomb, something stirred.
A guardian—ancient, half-stone, half-shadow, bearing the form of a knight wrapped in broken chains
Eyes burning blue
Voice like thunder!
> "You are not him"
> "But his blood walks in you"
---
The guardian raised its rusted blade.
> "Then you must prove you are not his mistake"