Year 217 After the Era of Ruin

  15th Day of the Month of Ashes,

  The morning was silent. Too silent.

  Kael’s men, usually loud even after a night on watch, remained wrapped in a heavy muteness. They had only slept in brief intervals, haunted by the red lights that had stalked them in the ruins’ darkness. Even after leaving that cursed place behind, the feeling of being watched lingered.

  Kael said nothing as he gathered his belongings. He knew something had changed.

  The remnants of the past were not just lifeless ruins. They still moved. They still breathed.

  As they resumed their march, the wind picked up, lifting clouds of ash and dust. Lysara discreetly approached Kael, her face marked with exhaustion, though her gaze remained as sharp as ever.

  — “You haven’t said a word about what we saw last night.”

  Kael kept walking, silent.

  — “Those… things were not ordinary creatures, Kael.”

  He finally sighed, slowing his pace.

  — “I know.”

  She waited, staring at him, trying to read his thoughts.

  — “These things shouldn’t exist. We’re talking about weapons from another time. Relics the world should have forgotten. But they’re still here… and they still work.”

  Lysara shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off the cold.

  — “Does that mean someone—or something—is keeping them operational?”

  Kael slowly nodded.

  — “Maybe. Or maybe we’ve awakened something that had been sleeping for too long.”

  A silence settled between them, broken only by the sound of their footsteps on dry earth.

  Then, the wind shifted.

  Kael stopped abruptly, listening intently. A whisper. Faint, almost imperceptible, carried away by the breeze.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lysara heard it too, freezing in place.

  — “Did you hear that?”

  Kael nodded, his hand instinctively moving to the hilt of his sword.

  The other soldiers, noticing their sudden halt, exchanged anxious glances.

  And then the whisper came again.

  Not a word. An indistinct murmur, like an echo from another time.

  Kael quickly turned his head, scanning the horizon. Nothing. Yet the atmosphere had grown heavier, as if the very air weighed down on their shoulders.

  Darius, walking at the rear of the group, cleared his throat, uneasy.

  — “What the hell is this now…?”

  A soldier stepped forward, visibly nervous.

  — “Commander, we shouldn’t stay here. We might be followed.”

  Kael hesitated. Everything inside him screamed to move, to leave this place before it was too late. But something… something told him to stay.

  That whisper… he had heard it somewhere before.

  He suddenly turned toward a rock formation a few meters away.

  — “Set up camp here,” he ordered firmly.

  Lysara frowned.

  — “What? But—”

  — “I need to check something.”

  Without waiting for an argument, he walked away alone, leaving his group exchanging perplexed looks.

  He had to know.

  The whispers grew slightly louder as he neared the rocks. Not like a calling… but like a warning.

  He followed a narrow crevice and suddenly stopped.

  In front of him, hidden behind a fallen rock…

  A skeleton.

  Kael clenched his teeth. But this was no ordinary corpse.

  The skull was partially melted, as if seared by an intense heat. Yet the body remained intact, still clad in remnants of ancient armor—dark metal engraved with unfamiliar symbols.

  But the most disturbing part… was what it held.

  A journal.

  A worn, leather-bound notebook, blackened by time.

  Kael hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out and picking it up.

  The moment he opened it, his breath caught.

  Pages filled with frantic writing, scribbled as if the author had known they had little time left.

  Sketches of machines resembling the Guardians… maps of long-forgotten cities…

  And in the center of one page, a single sentence written in trembling letters:

  “We dug too deep. We awakened what should never have been disturbed.”

  Kael felt his blood run cold.

  These ruins…

  They weren’t just remnants of an old world.

  They were tombs.

  He slowly closed the journal, tucking it beneath his cloak before straightening up.

  The wind blew again.

  And this time, the whisper seemed clearer.

  Like a voice from the past.

  Like a warning.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the realization settle in.

  Then, without a word, he turned back and rejoined his men.

  He wouldn’t tell them. Not yet.

  Because he knew they hadn’t just escaped certain death…

  They had brushed against a secret no one was ever meant to uncover.