Drellhok had changed.
Or maybe it hadn't — maybe he had.
Thojin moved like a ghost through the lower sectors, slipping between rusted gates and tunnels swallowed by fungus. The silence wasn't new. But it felt different now.
Like something was watching.
Not with malice.
With memory.
He kept his cloak tight around his arm. The mark still pulsed beneath the fabric — faint, slow, like a second heart learning how to beat.
His steps felt heavier than usual, though his body carried no wounds. Whatever had happened in the vault — whatever had healed him — left no scars. Only questions. And silence.
He avoided patrol routes, choosing the crumbled paths known only to orphans and rats. Along the edge of Sector Three, a collapsed stairwell led to a forgotten ruin buried beneath ash and rust.
He had only heard rumors. Whispers traded in the dark — of an old place beneath the ridge where prayers once lived. Seren had mentioned it once, her voice quiet even then:
"They've erased the gods, but not the echoes."
He had never dared come here.
Until now.
He pushed the warped door open. It groaned like metal mourning.
Inside, it was colder. Drier. Still.
Safe.
Almost.
Statues lined the walls, their faces scraped away. Their hands, however, remained — open-palmed, as if in offering. The floor was covered in blackened dust. The air smelled of dry stone and ash-filtered light.
In the far corner, behind a shattered altar, lay a study room half-swallowed by a fallen ceiling. But one wall still stood intact — marked not with magic, but with forgotten script. Etchings too worn to decipher. Still, they hummed with something ancient.
He sat beneath it, resting his head against the cold wall.
And let his body finally sleep.
Dreams found him quickly.
But they did not bring peace.
He drifted through black water. Past stars that spun in reverse. His body flickered — child, man, child again.
Then a corridor.
Golden light. A voice calling his name. Not like memory. Like blood.
He turned.
Two figures stood at the end of the hall.
His parents.
Their faces blurred, twisted by distance or time. Their eyes were missing, replaced with darkness that shimmered like oil. His mother knelt, whispering something he couldn't hear.
His father stood behind her, silent.
Then — they looked at him.
Without eyes.
And extended their hands.
He hesitated.
Then stepped forward.
They pressed something into his chest — not metal, not flesh.
A word.
Kagen.
He staggered back.
His pulse spiked.
The corridor twisted.
Stone peeled away like paper in fire. The light cracked.
And then—
A voice.
Not his own.
Not kind.
He is not supposed to know.
Not yet.
Thojin gasped awake, heart hammering.
The prayer hall was quiet.
Dust hung in the air like slow-falling snow. Light filtered through cracks in the ceiling, casting broken shapes across the floor.
He sat up slowly.
The mark on his arm tingled beneath the wrap.
"Kagen…" he whispered.
The word felt heavier now. Not mysterious. Personal.
But it brought no echo. No warmth. No voice.
Only silence.
He stood, knees stiff, and moved back to the altar wall. His fingers grazed the edge of the old carvings. Whatever they had once meant, they no longer spoke.
Only waited.
He left before nightfall overtook the sector completely.
But he didn't know he was already being followed.
Far above, where the air thinned and the ash blew in long, whispering trails, something moved.
Three shapes — cloaked in skin and silence — traced the scars left behind by what had happened in the vault. They did not rush. They did not speak.
They listened.
They walked the paths no others dared to walk — not hunters, not rebels. Creatures like them were not made to chase. They were made to witness.
And now they followed something they didn't yet understand.
He had moved through walls. Through sealed ducts. Through warded ruins.
But the echo of what he had become — or what had answered him — still lingered.
The smallest among them knelt beside an ash trail, letting two fingers hover just above a discolored crack in the ground. It did not glow. But it remembered.
Another turned its head slowly toward the east. "He drifts near the forgotten hollow."
The tallest of them tilted its head, listening to the city breathe.
They stood.
Not in unison.
But in rhythm.
Then disappeared again into the dark — leaving only ash, silence, and a city beginning to stir.