Kael sat silently beside the closed book, the mark on his chest still glowing faintly. He could feel something shifting within him, like a door slowly creaking open. Selene knelt nearby, watching him with a worried expression.
"You were gone for a moment," she said softly.
"I wasn't gone," Kael replied. "I was… shown."
Images still danced behind his eyes—visions of forgotten wars, of ruined cities, of a god with thorns for a crown. He couldn't tell if they were memories or warnings.
Selene stood, her boots stirring the ash-laced ground. "We need to leave. Whatever power was sleeping here… it noticed you. That bell—it was a summoning."
Kael rose slowly, steadying himself. "I know."
They began the climb back up the winding stairs. The air felt thinner now, as if the very world had drawn in a breath and was holding it, waiting. When they reached the surface, the sky had darkened. A red moon had risen, bleeding light across the valley.
Waiting outside the shrine was a figure—hooded, still.
Selene drew her blade. "Who are you?"
The figure lowered their hood. It was a woman, her eyes glowing faintly red, and her skin marked with swirling black tattoos that pulsed like ink in water.
"I've come for him," she said.
"For Kael?" Selene asked, stepping forward.
The woman nodded. "The bell was not meant to awaken. The name written in the book… has meaning. His blood is not just cursed—it remembers."
Kael stepped in front of Selene. "What does that mean?"
The woman's expression was sad, almost reverent. "You are not the first to bear the Thorn. You are its last. And that means everything you do next… will echo forever."
Before he could respond, the woman touched his forehead with two fingers.
A rush of images surged through him again—memories not his own. A battlefield under a dark sky. A crown breaking. A promise whispered over a dying fire.
Then she was gone—vanished into mist.
Selene looked at Kael. "What did you see?"
He looked down at his hands. "I think… I was someone else once. Someone important. Someone dangerous."
"Kael…"
"But I'm still me," he added. "And I need to know the truth. All of it."
They stood together beneath the bleeding moon, wind brushing through the ash around them.
Whatever came next, Kael knew now: the past wasn't done with him. And he couldn't run from it.