The path narrowed into a gash between hills, flanked by cliffs draped in moss and iron-red lichen. The sky above had dulled to a colorless gray, and the wind had gone still—as if the very world was holding its breath.
Xerces didn't like it.
Neither did Sael.
"This place is wrong," the hunter muttered, eyes narrowing as he scanned the overgrown stones. "Too quiet. No birds. No sign of anything living."
Mira paused beside a jagged boulder. "Maybe that's good? Peaceful, even?"
"No," Xerces said. His voice was low, shadowed with memory. "The world doesn't go silent unless something hungry has passed through it."
They moved slower now, picking each step with care. A thick, unnatural fog began to curl around their ankles, clinging to their clothes like cobwebs. The road ahead twisted down into a shallow ravine where the remnants of stone ruins jutted from the earth like broken teeth.
"Looks like some kind of shrine," Mira whispered, her breath forming clouds.
Sael knelt near the edge of the trail, fingers brushing strange indentations in the earth. "These markings—they're fresh."
Xerces's eyes flared dimly behind the veil of his illusion. "Not human."
They descended together, weapons drawn, spells coiled like sleeping serpents beneath Xerces's fingertips. The shrine below had once been circular, but time and violence had shattered it. Great slabs of slate had tumbled inward, surrounding a single standing obelisk carved with words too faded to read.
That's when they heard it.
A low, shuddering chant—like breath dragged through water. The fog thickened. A sudden pressure coiled around their minds, pressing into their thoughts, whispering in voices they could not understand.
Xerces stopped. So did Mira and Sael.
And then it emerged.
From beneath the stone, the ground itself heaved. Cracked. A long, sinuous form slithered out of the earth—not flesh, but shadow, stitched together by bones and blackened roots. Its head was a mass of eyeless sockets, and its body stretched like a coiled centipede, made of half-digested corpses and rotting tendons.
"A Wyrm of Witherrot," Xerces breathed. "A death-binder. Someone summoned this thing. Recently."
Mira stepped back, her eyes wide. "That thing eats magic, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Xerces said grimly. "And we're about to feed it a feast."
The creature lunged.
It moved with unnatural speed, its body shifting between physical form and smoke, mouths opening along its length. Sael darted right, blade flashing as he tried to draw its attention. Mira raised her hands, summoning a burst of radiant energy, but the moment it struck the beast's hide, the light sputtered out, swallowed by the dark.
Xerces stepped forward, robes swirling, eyes burning green behind his mask of humanity.
He tore the illusion away.
Bones gleamed in the gloom, crowned with a halo of necrotic fire. He raised both hands and spoke a word in a language long buried by ash.
The ground beneath the creature split open, and black tendrils erupted—skeletal arms reaching from the dead earth, dragging at the Wyrm's body.
"Runes! Mira, carve the ward!" he shouted.
Mira didn't hesitate. She skidded to the shrine's base, drawing sigils in the stone with her blood-slicked dagger. The Wyrm thrashed, jaws snapping, and a piece of Sael's coat was torn away in a near miss.
"I need more time!" Mira cried.
Xerces pressed forward, chanting louder. Flames danced between his ribs. His magic pulsed, desperate and hungry, but the Wyrm devoured every bolt of power he threw at it.
His vision blurred.
He was giving too much.
Too soon.
And then he saw Mira—eyes bright, hand trembling as she drew the final symbol. Sael drove his dagger into the creature's side, holding it back for just a heartbeat longer.
The sigils blazed.
The shrine pulsed with golden fire.
The Wyrm screamed—not from pain, but from being denied. It coiled back, unraveling, its form dissolving into smoke and bone as the light consumed it.
And then… it was gone.
Only silence remained.
Xerces fell to his knees.
Mira ran to him, arms catching his shoulders as he sagged. "Hey—hey, stay with me!"
"I'm fine," he muttered, though his skull throbbed and his ribs ached.
"You burned too much," she said. "Again."
He didn't argue. Couldn't. He just looked up at her, at the light in her eyes, and nodded once.
Sael leaned against a broken column, breathing hard. "Who the hell raises a Witherrot Wyrm and leaves it behind like a rotting trap?"
Xerces stood slowly. "Someone who doesn't want us reaching Varkir Hold."
Mira's gaze darkened. "The Nocturne?"
"Or worse," Sael added. "Something older. That shrine wasn't built by any human hand."
Xerces stared at the cracked stone altar, where runes still flickered faintly.
"We're not the only ones chasing forgotten power," he said. "And whoever came before us—left a message."
He stepped forward, brushing away ash from the altar's base. Beneath the soot, a single word had been carved in deep, jagged lettering:
"Beneath."