The journey resumed beneath a sky brushed in pale ash and pearl.
No more talk of stars. No more forerunners. Only the rhythm of footsteps and the low, quiet hum of the root fragment resting in Argolaith's palm.
He carried it like something sacred, wrapping it in a cloth of dark weave and binding it at his belt, where it pulsed with a gentle glow only he could feel.
It didn't pull like the rune did.
It guided.
Softly.
Patiently.
The group moved southwest, crossing dry hills where the wind tasted of charcoal and stillness. Nothing lived here—not visibly. No birds flew overhead. No insects hummed beneath the dry roots. The land wasn't dead.
It was waiting.
By the second day, the hills gave way to trees—though none were green.
They entered a forest of ashen trunks and blackened bark, each tree twisted in agony, their limbs curling like the frozen hands of corpses reaching skyward. No leaves. No moss. Just silence, broken only by the crunch of brittle twigs beneath their boots.
