The road to Varethis was one of silence and decay.
Kael moved through the withered fields, the scorched earth cracking beneath his boots. The air hung thick with the scent of old death, yet no carrion birds circled overhead. It was as if even nature itself had abandoned this place.
He gripped his broken blade, its ruined steel humming faintly with an unnatural energy. The sigil branded into his arm pulsed again, sending a crawling sensation up his spine. A curse, yes—but also a key. He could feel it now. Something in the distance was calling to him, pulling him toward the ruined city like a whisper on the wind.
As Kael climbed the jagged rocks leading to the city gates, he took in the sight of Varethis.
The once-great capital of the First Empire stood in eerie stillness. Its towering spires were shattered, its walls scorched by some forgotten war. The massive Gate of Atonement, carved with the names of the condemned, loomed open. A warning. An invitation.
Kael entered.
Inside, the silence deepened. Shadows pooled unnaturally in the streets, stretching and shifting even though the black sun remained unmoving in the sky. The buildings—once grand halls, marketplaces, and temples—stood like hollowed corpses.
Then, the whispers began.
Faint at first. A susurrus of forgotten voices threading through the ruins. Kael turned sharply, his crimson eye scanning the darkness. Nothing.
He moved forward, hand tightening on his blade. He was not alone.
A sudden gust of wind howled through the streets, carrying with it a voice—low, ancient, and full of hunger.
"You return… forsaken one."
Kael's breath hitched. He turned toward the source of the voice—an archway leading into the ruins of what had once been the Grand Library.
A figure stood there, half-draped in shadow. A man? No. Something less… and more.
Its face was obscured beneath a hood of tattered gold, and in its skeletal hand, it clutched a long staff crowned with a dull, blackened crystal.
Kael did not speak. His grip on his sword tightened.
The figure chuckled, the sound dry and brittle. "Still clinging to steel, even after death?" It took a step forward. "You do not remember me, do you?"
Kael's cursed eye burned. Fragments of memory clawed at his mind—shattered images of fire, a throne of bone, and this very figure standing before him in the depths of a long-forgotten nightmare.
The figure extended its skeletal fingers toward him.
"Come, lost one. The past is not yet buried."
A surge of cold power wrapped around Kael, dragging him into the shadows of the library.
And then, the world shattered.
---
End of Chapter 2