Chapter 64 – The Frozen Path

The morning frost bit deep as the Dawnbound expedition rode north, wind threading like cold wire through cloaks and leather bindings. Trees thinned with each mile, giving way to craggy ridgelines and iron-gray skies. Though spring had begun to stretch its fingers across the southern valleys, the highlands remained locked in winter's grip. Every breath became a cloud, every sound muffled under snow and silence.

Lucian led the company, a dozen strong, his new blade—still unnamed—sheathed across his back. Laila rode beside him, her hawk-like gaze scanning the horizon. Tista marched on foot, as usual, apparently immune to discomfort. Selia brought up the rear, her horse limping slightly from a cracked shoe but carrying her weight without protest.

Their goal was simple: follow the path from Viremount to the blackened crater known now as Ember's Hollow, where Selia had found the last active beacon. If another creature had indeed slipped through before the gate closed, it would leave a trail. And Lucian meant to find it before it found anyone else.

By the third day, they reached the remains of a village called Stonereach. Nothing stood taller than waist-high. Roofs had caved under ice, walls charred by old fire. The well was dry. They found no bodies—but no survivors, either. Only the strange signs Selia had described: claw marks in stone, shredded armor, bloodless earth.

"The beast hunts, but not for food," Laila said as they examined the site. "It's searching. Or purging."

Lucian crouched beside a half-buried boot, its laces still tied. "It's killing anyone who might've seen the beacons."

"Covering its trail?" Tista asked.

"Or following orders," Selia muttered.

They camped that night inside the ruins of the village chapel. The stained glass had long since shattered, leaving only jagged teeth of color in the frame. Lucian sat against a broken pew, polishing his sword in silence.

Laila approached him, holding two steaming mugs of bitterroot tea. She offered one. "You've hardly said a word all day."

"I'm trying to listen."

"To what?"

"To the land. The wind. Something's… wrong out here, but I can't name it."

She settled beside him, her voice low. "It's always the quiet before the shift. Before something breaks."

Lucian glanced at her. "Do you think we're doing the right thing?"

She didn't answer at first. "We made something new. That's rare. And now we protect it. Yes, I think it's right—even if it kills us."

That night, Lucian dreamed.

He stood on a shore of glass, and the stars overhead flickered like candle flames. A figure waited at the water's edge—faceless, tall, cloaked in black smoke. When it spoke, its voice came from everywhere.

You closed one gate. Others remain.

Lucian tried to draw his sword, but his arms felt buried in stone.

The enemy is not the beast that hunts you, Dawnbound. The enemy is the one who taught it to.

He woke with a start, heart pounding. The dream felt more like a warning than a vision.

At dawn, they continued.

By the sixth day, the snow deepened and the temperature plummeted. Ice clung to everything. The mountains had no mercy. But neither did the Dawnbound.

The trail finally shifted at a gorge near Ember's Hollow. Trees here had been torn in half, not by weather, but by something massive. Claw marks ran up the faces of cliff walls—twenty feet high. Tista bent beside a print in the snow, nearly the size of her torso.

"Still fresh," she said. "Three toes. Taloned. Heavy stride. It's moving northeast."

Selia frowned. "Toward the burial sites. The old Precursor vaults."

Laila swore. "If that thing's heading for the vaults, it's not just erasing evidence—it's looking for something."

Lucian nodded grimly. "We pick up the pace. From now on, we travel by night. It's hunting in the dark, but so are we."

Two nights later, they found the cave.

It yawned beneath a stone ridge like a wound in the world, and the air that spilled from it was warm—unnaturally so. Steam curled upward despite the snow. Bones littered the mouth of the cavern. Some animal. Some not.

Lucian ordered a perimeter established while he, Laila, Selia, and Tista entered.

The tunnel descended in long, spiraling arcs. The deeper they went, the more the walls shimmered—not with moisture, but with faint luminescence. Runes etched in unfamiliar language pulsed softly, like heartbeats.

They emerged into a chamber the size of a temple hall. In the center was a black obelisk, fractured near its crown. At its base lay a corpse—seven feet tall, armored in silver chitin, face frozen mid-scream.

Selia knelt beside it. "This isn't the creature we're chasing."

"No," Lucian agreed. "This is something it killed."

Laila circled the obelisk. "There's a pattern here. These aren't just beacons. They're keys."

"Keys to what?" Tista asked.

"Not gates," Selia murmured. "Memories. This whole place—it's a vault. It holds something, or someone, meant to stay forgotten."

Lucian's jaw tightened. "Then we destroy it."

But before he could act, the temperature dropped.

Not the cold of weather—but of presence.

A sound echoed through the chamber. Not a roar. Not a growl. A breath.

And then it stepped from the far shadows.

A creature cloaked in dark sinew and bone, its body shimmering between forms—sometimes beast, sometimes man, sometimes… neither. Its eyes burned like dying stars.

It didn't charge. It didn't speak.

It watched.

Lucian stepped forward, blade drawn. "We're not afraid of you."

The creature cocked its head. Then it spoke—not with lips, but mind to mind.

You should be.

And in a flash, it vanished—leaving only darkness, a storm of wind, and the shattering of the obelisk behind it.

The cavern nearly collapsed, and the party barely escaped with their lives.

They emerged into moonlight bloodied, coughing, and silent. The obelisk was destroyed, but so was any clue about what it held.

Lucian looked north, toward the frozen ridge beyond Ember's Hollow.

"The real enemy is still ahead," he said.

Selia nodded. "Then we don't go back. Not yet."

Tista wiped blood from her lip. "Good. I didn't feel like retreating."

Laila stepped beside Lucian. "What do we call it? That creature?"

Lucian thought of the dream, of the shore of glass.

"The Harbinger," he said.

And in that moment, the true war began.