The road to Grythvault was gone.
What remained was a memory of stone—half-swallowed by roots, frost, and time. As he crested the final ridge, the valley opened like a scar, and there it stood: Grythvault.
Its towers were broken, half-eaten by ivy and age. The walls shimmered with old enchantments, pulsing like ghostly veins. Mist gathered thick and low, and it wasn't natural. It moved with purpose.
He hesitated.
He still wasn't used to the quiet—Serin's absence was too loud. She would've said something like "If the mist wants you lost, walk like you've already found something."
He stepped forward anyway.
---
The air grew colder. Wet. The fog curled against his boots like fingers.
Then something moved.
Something big.
A shape rose from the courtyard—beast-shaped, but wrong. Bark-skinned. Horns coiled like ancient wood. One massive silver eye blinked open and fixed on him. Its breath came in long, slow puffs that disturbed the mist in rhythmic spirals.
Kael froze.
Wait.
That name—
It had echoed in the tunnels before. Whispered in dreams. Muttered by a voice that wasn't quite his own. He'd dismissed it—another fragment from another life. But now, hearing the silence speak it back to him in his own pulse, he knew.
He didn't remember being Kael.
He just was.
Like a sword remembering its name only when drawn.
Kael. Not his first name. Not his last. But the one that mattered now.
He whispered it aloud, and the fog responded—curling tighter, as if listening.
The beast lifted its head. It didn't charge. It didn't growl.
It bowed.
Not in fear, but in recognition.
Kael stepped forward slowly. "You know what I am."
The creature traced a single glowing rune in the air. He recognized it: Echo-blood.
A name. A title. A curse.
He placed a hand on the beast's snout. It was warm, pulsing faintly like a living tree.
Then it turned and walked toward the shattered gates of Grythvault, pausing only to glance back once.
An invitation.
Kael followed.
And for the first time, he didn't feel like a mistake walking in borrowed skin.
He was Kael.
And this was the path.