Mist thickened as Caelum and Selka climbed the forest's outer ridges, entering the highlands where pale glaciers loomed like jagged teeth. Frozen streams glowed with faint blue light beneath the moon, and every gust carried the scent of old, bitter ice.
Days blurred together in a cycle of exhaustion and restless sleep. Caelum's dreams grew strange: visions of flickering shadows fighting in worlds unlike their own — a laughing youth soaring among floating isles, a furious figure battling amid rivers of molten stone.
They awoke each time with their hand on their katana, breath frosting in the air.
On the third night, Selka led them to an ancient ruin: a maze of stone corridors carved into a mountainside, half-buried in shifting snow. Arches bore sigils so worn they were almost erased. Inside, echoes whispered like distant voices.
"This was a sanctuary once," Selka murmured. "A place where the first Guardians met to decide how to seal the worlds apart."
As they navigated the labyrinth's icy halls, shadowy shapes slithered just beyond the lamplight. At the heart of the ruin, they found an altar: a slab of obsidian etched with three interlocking circles — the same mark as the masked figure's star.
Caelum touched it, and their mind exploded with visions: three worlds dancing in darkness, threads of blue, gold, and red twining and fraying. A voice, low and cold, echoed in their skull:
You cannot sever what you are bound to.
They staggered back, katana scraping stone. Selka pulled them away, eyes wide with worry.