Lindarion found Lira near the edge of the ridge trail, sharpening her shortblade on a whetstone with lazy precision.
Her coat was dusted in frost from earlier patrol, eyes clear, as always, like nothing could surprise her, just disappoint.
She didn't look up when he stopped next to her.
But she said, "You're thinking too loud."
He folded his arms, scanned the path ahead, and replied, "Luneth didn't sleep."
"None of us did," Lira said. A pause. Then, "She worse?"
He glanced back toward camp.
Luneth was still in the same position. Seated. Still. Staring at her own hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Something's wrong," he said. "Not tired. Not injured. Not even magical backlash."
"She touched the rune?"
"She didn't have to." Lindarion's eyes narrowed. "It touched her."
Lira slowed the motion of her blade once. Just once. Then resumed. "Then she's lucky."
"Not the word I'd use."
"I would," she said. "You haven't seen what it does to someone unlucky."
He didn't ask. She wouldn't answer.
He crouched down beside her instead, watching the path curl out between stone ridges and mountain-shadow.
"Have you seen something before?" he asked.
"Parts," she said. "Scattered pieces. Wrong angles buried in tunnels no one charted. Words in stone no one wrote."
"You think it's the same rune?"
Lira shook her head. "I think this one's complete."
His mana core hummed beneath his ribs. Still refined. Still holding steady.
But every hour near the rune had added another note to the pulse, something like anticipation. Or hunger.
She sheathed the blade, stood, stretched.
Then. "What are you going to do about her?"
"That's honest," she said, brushing snow from her shoulder. "Don't let it become a habit."
By the time they regrouped, the wind had shifted. Not stronger. Just sharper. Less mountain-air, more silence.
The kind that meant something was missing, animal noise, tree-branch chatter. Sound that should've been there but wasn't.
Kael noticed it first. "Ridge's quiet."
"No echo," Mekir added, his voice low, like he didn't want to wake the stone.
"Dead air," Rythe muttered. "Bad omen."
Lindarion took point. Lira to his right. Sylric behind them, already flipping a coin between his fingers. Mekir stayed toward the rear with Derran.
Stitch kept just behind the vanguard, muttering ingredients under his breath.
She didn't look at him.
Too close for someone who didn't trust her own footing.
He didn't call it out.
He just adjusted pace and let her shadow his left.
No one else said a word.
They began moving east, deeper into the pass.
The stone curved downward. Not much, but enough to feel it. Like walking the rim of something massive, hollowed out. The rune lines were no longer visible, but the pressure remained.
Underfoot, the trail turned smoother.
"Still nothing?" Lindarion asked, his voice just loud enough to carry to Lira.
"No animals," she replied. "No insects. Ground's dry, but too soft. Something's draining the heat."
Sylric gave a low whistle. "Never seen a mountain eat temperature before."
"Then you've been walking the wrong mountains," Lira said.
They passed a narrow fissure that stretched thirty feet up into the rock. Inside: a perfectly round shaft. No torch marks. No soot. No heat-stress at the edges.
"That's not a cave," he said.
"No," Lira replied. "It's a vent."
"For something else."
Thirty minutes deeper, they reached the fork Velna had mapped out days before. She'd drawn it sharp, almost angry, and labeled it with only one word: Beyond.
There were no torches here. No scratch marks from scouts. Just frost built up in fine, unnatural veins.
"We move through the main arc," he said. "Follow the cut in the left wall."
Stitch hesitated. "What if it loops?"
"Then we walk the long way back."
The others didn't argue. Even Kael, who usually had something to say about navigation, just shifted his axe on his back and fell into step.
The ground sloped again, this time steeper.
The corridor ahead widened unnaturally. Smooth stone. No tool marks. No signs of carving.
It had always been there.
Lindarion felt the pulse under his foot again.
Like his core was being tuned to match something older.
He glanced at Luneth.
Her jaw was clenched tight.
That scared him more than anything.
The room opened into a circular chamber.
Maybe thirty meters across. Perfect dome overhead. At the center, nothing.
No altar. No platform.
Lindarion walked five steps inside.
His mana flared against his will, reflex, not power.
The core inside him responded with a slow roll of heat. Not dangerous.
Lira walked ahead, crouched near the edge of the chamber, tracing her fingers over the floor.
A seam in the rock. Circular.
No glow. No mana. Just geometry.
Kael crouched next to her. "Another rune?"
Sylric joined them, eyes narrowed. "It's not just a seal. It's a receiver."
"For what?" Lindarion asked.
The word echoed across the dome like a sentence.
Lindarion didn't speak for a while.
He walked the perimeter. Slowly. Listening. Waiting.
The pulse in his spine was steady now. Familiar. Not urgent.
The system hadn't said anything since his last breakthrough. No messages. No updates.
But he didn't need prompts anymore.
He could feel it. Each step closer to whatever this was, his mana became clearer. Leaner. Like the mountain itself was distilling it down.
Eventually, he sat near the center.
Luneth remained just behind him.
He didn't open the door.
But he placed his hand on the seam.
And the seam breathed.