38.- Whispers of The past

Twilight painted the sky of New Eldrin with a golden glow that filtered through the tall stained-glass windows of the royal chambers, casting long shadows on the polished marble floor. The runes carved into the walls – protective seals forged after a century of reconstruction – shimmered with a faint luminescence, as if absorbing the last rays of the sun sinking behind the city's floating towers. Alaric stood alone, his imposing figure silhouetted against the window, his ethereal armor resonating with a soft hum as his fingers traced the map of Eldoria that rested on an ebony table. The borders had changed in a hundred years – the forests had expanded with magical life, the northern mountains rose sharper under new watchtowers – but his gray eyes, weathered by a century of vigilance, remained fixed on the lines that marked the past.

Archmage Elian had retired minutes before, his robes whispering against the floor as he left behind an echo of cryptic warnings: "If that force still slumbers, awakening it could bring a new end." Alaric had nodded, his face impassive, but the mage's words weighed on his mind like stones in a turbulent river. A hundred years had passed since "The Catastrophe" – the night the sky bled red, the earth roared beneath their feet, and an inhuman energy had struck him like an impossible heartbeat. He had been there, at the forefront of a collapsing castle, his hands searching for Darius among the rubble as the world shattered. They had sealed the cracks, raised New Eldrin from the ashes, and woven a lie about a comet to calm a broken people, but Alaric could not forget. He couldn't stop feeling that something was still there, waiting in the shadows.

He turned away from the map, his heavy breath filling the silence of the room, and walked towards an open window that overlooked the city's floating towers – their structures of stone and magic rising like beacons in the twilight. The voices of the dukes still echoed in his head: Darius asking to close the past, Gareth mocking the shadows, Seraphina demanding proof, Elmond insisting on the rumors from the north. They had lived through the same thing as him – the fractured sky, the roar that wouldn't cease – but they seemed willing to bury it under a century of reconstruction. Alaric could not. His fingers, encased in the ethereal armor that had sustained him since then, gripped the edge of the window, the cold metal beneath his skin an anchor against the memories that haunted him.

The air was still, too still, and for an instant, the twilight seemed to hold its breath. Then, a cold breeze entered through the window, a gust that did not belong to the peaceful sunset of New Eldrin. It carried a whisper – a sound that was not human, a vast and distant echo that slid through the room like a thread of mist. It did not form words, but its weight struck him like an invisible wave, a murmur that seemed to emanate from something immense, something that breathed beyond the horizon. The runes on his armor vibrated for an instant, a hum that ran across his skin and made him tense, an icy chill running up his spine as if time itself had rewound.

Alaric froze, his breath catching in his throat as the whisper enveloped him. It was the same echo – the same inhuman heartbeat he had felt a hundred years ago, when the sky turned red and the earth opened beneath his feet. His hands trembled, a cold sweat covering his forehead as the sound transported him back to that night: the roar filling his ears, the shadows moving in the storm, the weight of a power he could not comprehend crushing him against the shattered ground. The whisper was softer, more distant, but it carried the same essence – an echo of something that did not sleep, something that was awakening. His fingers tightened further against the edge of the window, the marble creaking under his strength, and his eyes widened, searching the horizon for a sign that was not there.

"What are you?" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper lost in the wind, his heart beating with a rhythm he hadn't felt in a century. The air stilled again, the whisper fading as quickly as it had come, leaving only the echo in his mind – but not in the room. Elian was no longer there, the guards were not running through the corridors, New Eldrin was not trembling. It was his, his alone, a message that the wind had brought for him and no one else. His hands trembled for another instant, and a cold sweat ran down his back, his fingers releasing the window as he turned towards the table with a sharp movement.

It wasn't imagination – it couldn't be. He had felt that power before, he had seen the sky fracture and heard the earth roar, and this whisper was a warning, an echo he could not ignore. His mind spun with Elmond's words – "something is moving in the northern mountains" – Elian's – "an entire universe awakening" – and the shadows that the orcs feared to name. A hundred years had passed, but time had not erased what he knew in his bones: what had shattered Eldoria still lived, and now it was breathing again.

He approached the map, his footsteps echoing in the empty room, and took a pen with fingers that trembled not from fear, but from urgency. The ink stained the parchment as he wrote an order to the Adventurer's Guild, his handwriting firm despite the sweat dripping from his forehead. "Teams to the north," he scrawled, the words as sharp as his voice. "Seasoned trackers, perceptive mages – search for runes, energy, any sign. Depart tonight." He couldn't wait for the dukes, he couldn't wait for Darius to deny it or Gareth to mock it – the whisper had found him, and he would not rest until he found answers. He sealed the parchment with the royal emblem, a winged dragon that seemed to tremble under his hand, and summoned a messenger with a shout that broke the silence.

The young guard entered, bowing quickly, and Alaric handed him the parchment without a word, his gaze fixed on the window as the twilight faded into night. "To the Guild, now," he ordered, his voice sharp as a newly sharpened blade. The guard nodded and ran out, his footsteps echoing in the marble corridors. Alaric was left alone again, the silence enveloping him like a cloak, but the whisper still resonated in his mind – an echo he could not silence. His hands trembled for another instant, and a cold sweat covered his skin as he looked north, the mountains barely visible under a sky that seemed to hold its breath.

Hundreds of leagues from New Eldrin, in the depths of a forgotten dungeon, the echo of the whisper arrived like an invisible thread, sliding through the dark tunnels to the main chamber. The golden cocoon, woven by vines that had grown for a century, trembled subtly, the black roots pulsing with a crimson light that intensified for an instant. The floating orb hummed, a low beat that reverberated on the walls covered with phosphorescent moss, and the black flowers that dotted the floor shivered as if awakening from a long sleep. In the heart of the cocoon, something moved – a shift so slight that the silence contained it – and eyes opened in the darkness, shining with a gleam that revealed no form. The whisper had arrived, and with it, the awakening had begun.