Chapter 26 – The Threshold Below

The wind at the valley's edge was strange—not fierce, not cold, but oddly warm, as though the earth itself exhaled through ancient lips far beneath the surface. Kael stood beside Liora, his hand gently resting on her shoulder as she gazed down into the sunken land. From this height, it looked less like a ruin and more like a wound the world had never quite healed.

They had seen many things on their journey so far—twisted forests that whispered in dreams, caravans with eyes like hollow moons, and a stranger who bled feathers instead of blood—but nothing had left this kind of stillness in Kael's chest. Not fear. Not awe. Just an eerie quiet, the kind that settled into the bones and refused to leave.

Wren adjusted the pack on her back, her eyes scanning the descent with practiced care. "There's an old stair cut into the rock to the west. It's half-collapsed, but it should hold if we're careful."

Seran, who had barely spoken that morning, muttered under his breath, "If the stones don't remember the blood we spilled last time." He wasn't being dramatic. There was a weight in his voice that had nothing to do with nerves. It was memory wrapped in regret.

Kael turned to Liora, who hadn't moved. "You don't have to go first," he said softly.

But the girl looked up at him, and in her pale blue eyes, there was a resolve that felt too old for her small frame. "It's calling me. It's been calling me since before I had words for it. I think… I think it remembers me."

His heart clenched. Not because he feared what lay below—but because he feared how much of her would change by the time they came back up.

If they did.

The stair was narrow, carved into the cliffside with uneven spacing. It spiraled slowly down into the valley, hugging the rock like a forgotten vine. In places, entire sections had crumbled away, leaving gaps they had to jump with careful balance and held breath. Liora went second, after Wren, and Kael hovered close behind, always ready to catch her if her footing slipped. She never faltered.

The deeper they descended, the more the air thickened. Not with dust or moisture, but with something unseen—an atmosphere heavy with watching. It wasn't the oppressive dark of a tomb, nor the reverent hush of a temple. It was something else entirely. The land didn't just remember.

It was listening.

They reached the valley floor by late morning. From below, the ruined monoliths stood like crooked teeth around the bowl-shaped hollow. Their surfaces shimmered faintly with runes half-swallowed by moss and time. Beyond them, in the very center, a stone dais jutted from the earth like a fractured altar. And around it, forming a perfect ring, were twelve jagged stones shaped like thrones, each facing inward.

Kael moved slowly, his hand unconsciously brushing the hilt of the sword strapped to his back—a weapon he had not drawn in years, and hoped never to need again. "This isn't just a ruin," he said, his voice quiet. "This is a meeting place."

Wren was already walking the perimeter, her eyes scanning the shadows. "A council," she agreed. "Or a trial."

"Or a burial ground," Seran said, glancing around with a haunted look. "The last time I came here, only half those thrones were upright."

Liora stepped toward the dais. As her boots touched the carved stone, the runes beneath her feet shimmered faintly, responding to her presence. Not with light, but with recognition.

"They know me," she whispered. "They don't know my name. But they know my… shape. The part of me that isn't just skin."

Kael moved to follow her, but the moment his foot crossed the stone's edge, the air trembled. Not visibly, not violently—but like a breath drawn through centuries of silence.

The thrones shivered.

A voice—no louder than a whisper but felt deep within the chest—echoed faintly across the ring.

"Return."

Seran drew steel in one smooth motion. Wren shifted her stance, hand on her daggers, ready.

Kael stepped beside Liora and held out a steady hand. "It's not attacking. It's responding."

Liora's fingers brushed the central stone. "They thought we were gone. But we're not."

Before anyone could ask who she meant by we, the runes around the dais flared—not with color, but with memory. Images shimmered in the air like smoke: shadows of tall figures wrapped in cloaks of starlight, thrones filled with faces worn by time, and a child standing in the center of it all, arms outstretched as roots curled up from the floor to cradle her like vines around a seed.

Wren exhaled slowly. "That's not illusion magic."

"No," Seran said. "That's history."

Kael stared at the image of the child. She had Liora's hair. Liora's eyes. But it wasn't her. It was someone—or something—older. Someone long buried.

"I've seen this place," Liora said quietly. "In dreams."

Kael's jaw clenched. "Then we need to know why."

They explored the ruins carefully. Each throne bore a different sigil—none familiar, but all carved with deliberate reverence. Some were shaped like crowns. Others like roots. One was carved entirely from obsidian, its back scorched as if fire had touched it even now. Another was hollow, just a ring of stone with space where something had once stood and had since vanished.

Seran stopped before the obsidian one. "This was the seat of the Black Hand," he murmured. "They were one of the old faiths. Said to burn themselves alive every hundred years to remind the stars they still believed."

"That sounds insane," Wren said.

"Most things are," Seran replied. "Until they work."

Kael stood before the hollow throne and felt an odd pressure in his chest. There was nothing there. No memory. No magic. But somehow, it felt more present than the rest.

He reached out, hesitated, and lowered his hand.

Liora's voice broke the silence. "They were betrayed."

Kael turned.

She stood in the center of the ring again, her hands at her sides, eyes closed.

"They gathered here to stop something from waking. But one of them chose power instead of silence. They called it the Seed. The Ashen One. The thing that falls from dying stars."

Seran went pale. "That's a myth."

"It's a memory," Liora said. "And it's not finished."

That night, they camped at the edge of the valley. No one spoke much. Not even Seran. Wren stayed on watch longer than usual. Liora curled up beside Kael but didn't sleep immediately.

"Was I her?" she asked softly.

Kael looked down. "You're you. That's what matters."

"But what if I'm also… something else? What if the world isn't remembering me because I belong here, but because I never left?"

He wanted to tell her that wasn't possible. That destiny wasn't something etched in stone. But he couldn't. Not now. Not after the valley responded to her as if a lost child had finally come home.

"I don't care who you were," he said instead. "I only care about who you are."

She nodded, but her gaze lingered on the stars above.

Beneath the valley, deeper than any living soul had gone in centuries, something stirred.

Not with rage. Not with hunger.

But with memory.

The roots of the world shifted in sleep.

And somewhere, in the hollows between dreams, a name began to form.

Not Liora.

Not yet.

But close.