Ash rose from the ground, dancing through the air as if searching for someone to carry its memory. The earth, stirred by the footsteps of strangers, breathed heavily — like an old warrior who hadn’t held a sword in years. And yet, in the silence of this abandoned place, there was something more than emptiness.

Tarion stepped across the threshold of the ruins, where once stood the Tower of the Keepers of the Southern Wind. Now, only a crooked ring of stone half-buried in soil remained. He paused, glancing back at Maili and Laina who followed close behind. Laina’s hand rested on her dagger. Maili said nothing, but her eyes flickered like flame in the breeze.

— “This place… speaks,” Maili whispered.

— “It’s just the wind,” Tarion replied — though he didn’t believe it himself.

The wind was saying something. It didn’t whistle — it groaned. As if something buried deep beneath the earth was trying to claw its way to the surface through cinders and time. When Tarion placed his palm on the ground, it felt like something answered — not a voice, not a whisper — a pulse.

— “Be careful,” Laina drew her dagger. “There’s something here.”

And in that same instant, a shadow rose from the debris. It had no true form, but moved with intent. A phantom, woven from ash, old magic, and forgotten oaths. Maili raised her hands, blue sparks flashing from her palms. Tarion, without hesitation, drew the fragment of an old staff — a gift from Falen.

— “This isn’t just a spirit,” Maili murmured. “It’s a resonance echo. It repeats the final pain of this place.”

— “So we’re hearing death?” Laina asked.

— “We’re hearing its echo,” Maili nodded.

The battle wasn’t purely physical. Words carried weight — as did memories. And when the shadow lunged at them, Tarion didn’t shout a spell — he cried out a phrase he had carried in his heart:

“The world has not gone dark!”

The reaction was immediate. The ash trembled, and the shadow pulled back. Laina slashed through the air with her blade, its edge bursting with silver flame. Maili stood with arms extended as if in prayer. Her voice rang calmly, but deep — in an ancient tongue known only to the shamans of old bloodlines.

— “We are not enemies,” she said. “We are an echo on a different note. We are the ones who listen.”

The shadow halted. In its core, something human flickered — a face, twisted by pain. Perhaps one of the lost Keepers. Perhaps just an image, shaped by the Song itself.

— “He remembers,” Tarion said. “The Song. He still holds it.”

And then the ash crumbled. The shadow vanished, leaving behind only a fragment of a symbol — a circle with a line through its center. Maili gently picked it up.

— “It’s a key. Not just to the past. But to our path ahead.”

⸻

As they returned to camp, Tarion walked in silence at the front. His heart beat heavily. Not from fear. From understanding. Resonance wasn’t dead. It had been hiding. In shadow. In ash. In memories waiting to be heard.

— “What now?” Laina asked.

— “Now we go where the Song still echoes,” Tarion replied. “Even if that’s into the very heart of silence.”

And far off in the night, beyond the reach of hearing — something answered.