The forest felt older that morning, as though it had been holding its breath for centuries and had just now decided to exhale.
Mist drifted low over the moss, curling between roots like smoke seeking a home. Lumora's boots pressed softly into the damp earth, each step quiet but deliberate. Nyxie padded ahead, her steps so light they barely bent the ferns.
"You've been silent for hours," Lumora murmured. Her voice was meant to be casual, but the forest swallowed the words, leaving them strangely hollow.
Nyxie didn't turn. "Listening," she replied.
"To what?"
"The ground," Nyxie said simply. "It's... humming."
Lumora frowned. She paused, crouching to press her fingertips into the moss.
Cold seeped into her skin, but beneath it... yes. A faint vibration. As if the earth itself was carrying some distant, patient song.
By midday, the trees thinned, giving way to the ruin. It wasn't marked on any map—they'd have missed it entirely if the mist hadn't parted for just a moment. Stone spires jutted from the ground like broken teeth. The air here was heavier, as though the sunlight had to fight its way through layers of time.
They stepped into the heart of it—a sunken plaza littered with crumbled pillars and half-buried carvings. The carvings were... unsettling. Serpentine shapes. Eyes that seemed to follow them.
"It feels like we're being watched," Lumora whispered.
Nyxie didn't disagree. Instead, she drifted toward the center, where a slab of black stone lay tilted, almost like a coffin that time had forgotten to bury completely.
And then they heard it.
The whisper.
It was not quite a voice and not quite a sound—more like the memory of one. It wound itself around their thoughts, pulling at them.
Help me...
Lumora's breath caught. The tone was not cruel. Not even demanding. It was weary. Wounded.
Nyxie's ears twitched, her eyes narrowing. "It's coming from... under there."
"Under...?" Lumora followed her gaze to the black stone. "That's impossible."
"Everything we've done the past two years was impossible," Nyxie shot back, already running her fingers along the edges, searching for a seam.
The whisper came again, this time a little stronger, brushing against their minds.
Please... the chains burn...
Lumora's chest tightened. She glanced at Nyxie, who was now prying at the cracks with her dagger.
"Nyxie... if he sealed this—"
"Then maybe he made a mistake," Nyxie interrupted, her voice sharp. "If someone's suffering, we don't walk away."
It was the kind of sentence Lumora could never argue with—not without feeling like a coward.
So she knelt beside Nyxie, placing her glowing palms against the cold stone. Light bloomed under her hands, running like molten gold through the cracks. The earth trembled—not violently, but like something long asleep was shifting in its bed.
A deep, aching sigh filled the plaza. And for a brief moment, the mist seemed to shiver.
Somewhere far below, the chains began to break.
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