Kaelen stepped first, sword drawn, its red glow casting flickers across the shattered ground.
“This place stinks of old power,” he muttered.
Nyra moved silently beside him, her eyes scanning the shadows. “And something else... watching.”
Seris lingered near the entrance, her flame flickering uncertainly. “We are not alone here. The god beneath speaks in silence. Listen...”
Then it hit.
A pulse.
Not sound. Not magic. Something inside their minds.
A shared vision.
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They stood in a cathedral of bone and fire. Pillars made of writhing bodies. A throne of screaming ash.
On it sat a faceless figure, vast and terrible, wrapped in chains of light that bled shadow.
The God Within.
It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. A single gesture sent a wave of pain and memory crashing into them.
-
Kaelen saw the battlefield where he lost everything—except the sword now humming at his side.
-
Nyra saw her first kill—when she stopped being a daughter and became a weapon.
-
Seris saw herself… still in the cult, her hands dripping with flame and blood, grinning.
Then, silence.
The vision faded.
They collapsed on the stone floor of Zaul’Tor, gasping, sweating, trembling.
“That... thing…” Nyra breathed.
Seris stood slowly, her voice shaking. “That was no memory. It was a warning.”
Kaelen’s grip tightened on his sword.
“Then let it know—we’re coming.”