The town of Kireth Hollow was silent when they arrived.
Built into the bones of a collapsed mountain, its stone homes sat like hunched figures, cloaked in dust and shadow. The air was too still. Not a bird in the trees, not a voice on the wind — only the heavy weight of watching silence.
Elira frowned. "This isn't just abandonment. Something pushed them out."
Aran knelt near the town square. A scorched sigil marked the stones — one he didn't recognize. But the feeling it gave him was ancient and wrong. Not flame. Not void. Something in-between.
"Stay close," he told his son. The boy obeyed without protest, clutching his practice blade tight.
They moved through the ruins carefully, Elira using her sightstone to trace faint energy lines under the earth. It pulsed… like breath. Like something was alive beneath the stones.
That's when the whispers began.
Faint at first — no louder than wind through leaves. But they grew sharper. More distinct.
Aran…
He froze. The voice was familiar.
Aran…
It was his mother's voice. Long dead.
Don't forget the fire you buried.
He gritted his teeth, drawing the flame inward. The Oathbrand was far away, entombed in the Flame Hall, yet still, a golden spark leapt across his palm. He focused, anchoring himself in the now.
"Elira," he said. "It's trying to divide us."
She nodded, her eyes closed in concentration. "It's a bleed. A soul-bond trap. Something under Kireth is feeding on memory."
A shriek pierced the earth.
The ground cracked beneath them, and a figure rose — fleshless, faceless, its form stitched together from the voices it stole. It spoke not with words, but with names.
Aran. Elira. The boy.
"I know you," it hissed. "I am every vow you broke."
Aran stepped forward, golden fire erupting around his arm. "Then you've forgotten what I became after."
And with a roar of flame, the road beneath them lit anew — not with destruction, but with resolve.