By noon the last traces of the forest were gone. The world turned to gray and rust: scree slopes, narrow ridges, and the endless hush of wind slipping through the Crests. Every step upward thinned the air until conversation felt like work. The sun hung white and distant, but warmth still bled from the stone itself. It was as if the mountain kept the memory of long-buried forges.

Theo laid a hand to the rock face and drew it back quickly. “It’s hot. Like the inside of an oven.”

Boaz nodded. “Heat without fire.”

Aldryn brushed his fingers along a seam of red ore. “Volcanic pockets, perhaps. The Terran built where stone ran warm, but I can’t say more than that.”

Lyra smirked. “For once, you don’t know?”

“I know only the sound of their words,” Aldryn replied. “Not their secrets.”

The trail wound higher until the ridge ended in a sheer wall of basalt veined with ember-colored lines. A narrow cleft split its center, barely wide enough for two to stand abreast. From it drifted a faint heat and the low hum of moving air. Duln’s steps faltered. Kiera caught her elbow. The Terran’s breathing rasped; her gray skin looked dusted with fine powder.

“Close,” she whispered. “Gate hides in cleft. Stone warm because forges sleep below.”

Jaxson squinted into the fissure. “Doesn’t look like a gate.”

“Terran never show door,” Duln said, voice thin but firm. “Stone must trust before open.”

They made camp a few paces from the wall. No wind reached this hollow, only the steady, furnace-dry warmth that seeped from the rock. Theo propped his crossbow against a pack; Lyra rolled her shoulders with a groan. “Feels like we’re camping inside a bellows,” she muttered.

Boaz gave a faint smile. “I know. The mountain’s still breathing from its work.”

“Stone don’t breathe,” Duln corrected gently. “It remember. Long memory, slow heart.”

As dusk gathered, the heat grew thicker instead of fading. Duln sat apart from the small fire, head bowed, hands resting on her spear. The light showed patches of gray creeping along her forearms, spreading like lichen across skin.

Kiera knelt beside her. “You’re weakening faster.”

Duln’s eyes opened halfway. “Curse wake now that forest gone. Boaz’s fire keep me only while near. Sigil fight the sundering, but cannot win forever.”

Boaz crouched nearby. “The curse; this is from the Sigil’s breaking, right?”

Duln nodded slowly. “When leafs torn apart, world break with them. Each race bound to one law. Terran: stone and depth. Leave it, and breath turn heavy. Body remember ground.”

Aldryn’s face softened. “You’ve been dying since the day we met.”

She managed a faint smile. “Dying slow. Good for journey.”

Theo looked at his feet, unable to meet her eyes. “You said we needed you to find the gate. Can you still…?”

“Yes,” she said. “While Boaz near. His flame hold curse quiet. Enough time.”

The fellowship fell silent. Even Mika and Thorne lay still, sensing the weight of her words. Boaz sat beside her as the fire dwindled. The warmth from the mountain pulsed faintly through the ground, matching the rhythm of the Sigil beneath his tunic. “We couldn’t have come this far without you,” he said.

Duln reached into her cloak with shaking fingers and drew out a small, dull-red stone carved with faint runes. It glowed from within like an ember caught in ash. “Sigilstone,” she said. “Ember-ore from Terran forge. Gate know it. When time come, hold high.”

Boaz accepted it reverently. The heat of it mingled with the Sigil’s own warmth until both throbbed in unison.

Kiera placed a gentle hand on Duln’s shoulder. “Rest now. We’ll keep the fire close.”

“Rest,” Duln echoed softly. “Yes. Stone already wait.”

Night deepened. The hum of air through the cleft filled the silence like a heartbeat. When Boaz lay back, the rock beneath him was warm as skin, and he wondered if the curse itself had made the mountain pulse, or if it was only his own heart answering the slow rhythm of the world.

Dawn came pale and colorless, turning the cliff face the hue of cooled iron. The fire had burned out in the night, yet the air still shimmered with the mountain’s dry heat. Frost and ember, side by side, the strange balance of this high country.

Boaz woke first. When he sat up, he saw Kiera already kneeling beside Duln. The Terran hadn’t moved since midnight. Her hands, once rough and calloused, had taken on a dull sheen, the color of ashstone.

Kiera looked up as he approached. “It’s spreading.”

Duln’s eyes opened slightly at the sound. “Morning,” she rasped. “Still here. For now.”

Lyra stirred nearby, hair tousled, rubbing her eyes. “You look…” she caught herself, grimaced. “You look tired.”

“Stone not sleep,” Duln said. The corners of her mouth turned upward for a moment. “Soon I not, either.”

Aldryn crouched close, careful not to touch her arms. “You said the Sigil’s presence slowed it. But it’s still taking hold.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Boaz’s fire lend breath, but curse older than him. Older than all of us.” Her gaze drifted toward the narrow cleft where the heat sighed outward. “Gate near. I feel it. Stone hum louder today.”

Theo crouched on the far side of the fire pit, fiddling with a broken strap, his usual chatter gone. “We’d better not waste time.”

Boaz shook his head gently. “We’ll move when she says we can.”

Duln’s eyes found him. “Good heart,” she said. “But I cannot go with you. Gate will not take me.”

That silenced them all.

Kiera whispered, “You mean you won’t survive the descent?”

“I mean,” Duln said, voice barely audible, “curse stop at threshold. Stone know its own. If I try to pass, body turn before step complete. I am Outcast.”

Theo let out a slow breath. “What do we do without you?”

She reached for her spear, fingers stiff. “Boaz carry ember-ore. Gate know the craft that shaped it. Show stone; it will answer. My task end here.”

Aldryn looked at her, frowning. “There must be another way. Some rite…”

She cut him off with a small shake of the head. “No rite strong enough. Only truth. I walk as far as curse allow.”

Kiera bowed her head, pressing her palm against Duln’s arm despite the rough, cold texture. “Let us walk it with you.”

They packed in silence. Even Jaxson’s usual quick movements had slowed, as if the thin air pressed on them all. The trail wound upward beside the basalt wall, narrow but steady. The warmth intensified; sweat gathered at their brows though the sun still hid behind thin clouds.

Duln leaned heavily on her spear. Boaz stayed close, the Sigil’s faint glow casting a reddish sheen on the stone. Duln’s skin caught that light and seemed to drink it, buying her another few steps. The others noticed but said nothing.

After a long climb, they reached a small shelf where the path widened. The cleft above them breathed out waves of heat, and faint glimmers of orange light flickered deep inside. They paused there, the company gathering instinctively around Duln.

She sank slowly to one knee. “Here,” she said. “I stop here.”

Lyra’s voice broke the stillness. “You sure? We could try…”

“No,” Duln said simply. “Better to end facing home.”

Boaz knelt beside her. “You kept your promise. You brought us to the gate.”

Her cracked lips curved faintly. “Promise kept, yes. Now you keep yours. Sing true when gate wake. Fire answer song, not shout.”

“I will,” Boaz said.

She looked to Aldryn. “Old one, you know words for farewell?”

He hesitated. “A few,” he admitted. “Learned long ago from a Terran traveler in the Reaches. I can try.”

“Try,” she said. “Stone not care if accent wrong.”

Aldryn nodded slowly and began to speak, low and rhythmic, in a language rough as gravel and deep as a drum. The words carried little meaning to the others, yet their sound wrapped around the ledge like the echo of a cavern. Duln’s eyes closed as she listened, her breathing slowing, her gray hand steadying against the stone.

Kiera’s voice joined softly beneath his, wordless at first, rising into a thin, haunting melody. It wasn’t a hymn the fellowship knew, but the tone carried peace: a bridge between his coarse chant and the stillness of the air. The others bowed their heads without being asked.

When the chant ended, Aldryn’s voice shook. “It is done.”

Duln opened her eyes again, the faintest smile there. “Good sound,” she whispered. “Stone remember.”

Boaz reached for her hand, but she pulled it gently back. “Not yet. Still breath left.” She pointed toward the cleft. “Go. Find gate. I follow with eyes.”

He swallowed hard, then nodded. “We’ll be close enough for you to see.”

“Good,” she said. “That enough.”

The wind shifted again, carrying the smell of ore and deep heat. Behind them the peaks of the Crests loomed sharp against the washed-out sky, and ahead, the narrow fissure waited, glowing faintly, breathing warmth that felt more like promise than threat.

The sun climbed until the world was nothing but white and gold.

Heat shimmered across the cliffs, pooling in the cracks of the basalt like liquid glass. Even the air seemed to hum, not alive, but full of pressure, as if holding too much light. Duln remained where she had stopped, high on the ledge that overlooked the final approach to the cleft. The company waited below her on the trail, no more than thirty paces away. Close enough to see the rough shape of her smile, too far to catch her if she fell.

She sat with her spear across her knees, gaze fixed east toward the faint shimmer of the fissure and the mountains beyond. Her skin had turned the color of frostbitten stone, and when she moved, it sounded faintly like sand shifting under weight.

Kiera shaded her eyes. “We should go to her,” she murmured.

Boaz shook his head. “She said to keep the path clear. She can still see us.”

“She shouldn’t be alone.”

“She’s not,” Aldryn said quietly. “Not truly.”

The fellowship stood in uneasy silence. The heat pressed against them, heavy and dry. A single raven, Nevara, circled once above the ridge and drifted, as if even shadow avoided the light.

Theo glanced upward. “It’s almost noon.”

Boaz nodded, unable to take his eyes from Duln. “She said the sun would call her home.”

Lyra folded her arms, eyes stinging from glare and from grief. “She also said the curse only stops when it’s finished.”

No one replied. The light reached its peak. For a moment everything went still, no wind, no sound, just the mountain, the company, and the sun burning overhead. Duln straightened, lifting her chin to the brightness. The motion looked deliberate, almost proud.

From where they stood, Boaz could see the change beginning. The gray that had crept along her arms deepened to white, the texture smoothing until it caught the sun and gleamed. Tiny fractures laced outward across her skin like veins of quartz. She drew a slow breath, one last, deliberate inhalation, and exhaled softly, her shoulders easing.

Her voice reached them faintly, carried on the heat. “Fire-bearer,” she said. “Do not fear the deep. Stone remember the light.”

Boaz took an involuntary step forward. “Duln…”

She looked at him, the faintest hint of humor in her expression. “Always speaking when silence wiser,” she murmured.

The words were her last.

Light burst briefly along the cracks of her skin, as if the sun itself answered. It faded, leaving behind only stillness. The stone that had been Duln caught the noon glare and shimmered like polished marble, every detail of her face preserved: the strength in her jaw, the faint crease between her brows, the softness around her mouth.

Kiera covered her lips with one hand. “Oh, Duln…”

Theo let out a long, unsteady breath. “She’s beautiful.”

Lyra blinked hard and looked away. “She’d hate us saying that.”

Jaxson nodded once. “She’d tell us to keep moving.”

Boaz stood motionless, his hand closing around the ember-ore in his pocket. The Sigil beneath his tunic pulsed once, strong and low, as if acknowledging what words could not.

“She can still see us,” he said softly. No one argued.

They lingered only a little longer, long enough for Kiera to gather the faint scattering of gray dust that had drifted to the ledge below and let it slip between her fingers. The wind caught it and carried it upward toward the statue, the tiny cloud flashing gold as it passed through the light.

They turned to the trail. Every few steps, someone looked back, Aldryn with bowed head, Theo with a scowl meant to hide grief, Lyra with her jaw set tight. Boaz was last. He looked up one final time.

The figure on the ridge was luminous in the sun, turned eastward toward the mountains she had never stopped calling home. The spear across her knees caught the light like a flame frozen mid-flicker. For an instant Boaz thought he saw her smile again, or maybe it was only the heat shimmer bending light in kindness.

He lowered his head. “Rest well, daughter of stone,” he whispered, and followed the others into the cleft’s shadow.

They followed the cliff for half that afternoon, climbing toward the soundless heat that shimmered above the stone. The path narrowed to a ledge no wider than two men abreast, its edge dropping sheer into red haze. Beyond it rose a dark wall streaked with seams of ember-ore. The air grew still and smelled of metal after rain.

“This is the place,” Boaz said. Even speaking felt intrusive.

The ember-ore in his hand pulsed once, a heartbeat of light that answered the mountain. Faint glimmers ran outward along the rock, tracing patterns that vanished before they could be named. Theo crouched to study the marks at their feet. “These runes; same pattern as those we met in the forest. They came from here, all right.”

Lyra scanned the heights. “They’re still here. Watching us, maybe.”

“Let them,” Jaxson muttered. “We’re not the ones hiding.”

Aldryn brushed dust from a carved symbol half-buried near the wall. “No tomb,” he murmured. “Look at the stonework: recent. Repaired. This place is tended.”

Kiera’s gaze moved toward the fissure splitting the rock. Heat breathed from it in slow waves, not alive but constant, like the exhale of a forge. “If the Terran keep this sealed,” she said softly, “they have a reason.”

“Or a fear,” Aldryn added.

Boaz stepped closer. The Sigil beneath his tunic throbbed in answer to the ember-ore’s glow. “Either way, this is the way Duln meant us to find.”

The cleft widened gradually, no more than a body’s width at first, and opened into a shallow alcove. The walls inside were smooth, black, and warm to the touch. Veins of red light shimmered faintly under the surface, ore responding to the stone in Boaz’s hand. At the alcove’s center stood a single slab of darker rock fitted so precisely it looked poured from shadow.

“The gate,” Theo breathed.

Lyra frowned. “Doesn’t look open.”

“Not yet,” Boaz said. He lifted the ember-ore higher. The veins brightened, branched across the wall like roots of fire, and dimmed again. The slab did not move.

Aldryn studied it, brow furrowed. “The Terran forged their doors to answer certain harmonies: metal, heat, voice. The stone knows its kin. But it won’t yield until it chooses to.”

“So it’s sentient now?” Lyra asked.

“No,” Aldryn said quietly. “Just obedient. To them.”

Silence settled. Far below, faint echoes drifted through the rock: hammer on metal, or maybe the groan of deep machinery. It was impossible to tell which.

Theo’s eyes widened. “Did you hear that?”

Kiera nodded. “They’re alive.”

A shiver passed through the group. It wasn’t fear so much as the weight of being overheard. The sound faded quickly, swallowed by stone. Boaz pressed his palm against the gate once more. The warmth that answered was unmistakable, heat traveling through ancient craft. “They know we’re here,” he said.

They made camp a short distance from the entrance, unwilling to wander farther in or away. The air stayed hot enough that no fire was needed. Every word echoed. Every silence seemed to listen.

Theo polished the ember-ore absently, its glow throwing ripples of red across his hands. “You think they’ll come for us?”

“Not today,” Aldryn said. “If the gate opens, it will be because they decide it should.”

Lyra leaned against the wall, eyes half-closed. “Let’s hope they still remember what mercy looks like.”

Kiera set a hand on the stone beside her, feeling its subtle vibration. “If Duln could find kindness in us,” she said, “maybe they can too.”

Boaz glanced toward the fissure. “She said truth opens the way. Maybe that means they’ll see it in us before they see it in the stone.”

Jaxson snorted lightly. “Let’s hope your truth speaks Terran.”

Even that earned a few tired smiles. Laughter came easily now, thin but welcome. The tension had to go somewhere.

As evening deepened, the heat ebbed. The red veins along the wall cooled to dull copper, but the faint hum within the rock persisted, steady as breath. The sun dipped behind the Crests, and the ledge fell into shadow.

Boaz sat apart again, the ember-ore cupped between his hands. When he looked at it carefully, he saw the shimmer of the veins within. They were slow, patient, alive with purpose. “She said the stone loved truth,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s testing ours.”

Aldryn joined him quietly. “Or waiting to see if we belong here.”

“Do we?”

The old mage considered. “You carry a piece of what broke them. That’s not belonging; that’s reckoning. If they open their gate, it will be to weigh your fire, not to honor it.”

Boaz nodded slowly. “We’ll do what we’ve always done and be honest.”

“That may be the hardest thing you’ve done yet,” Aldryn said, and placed a hand briefly on his shoulder before moving back to the others.

The sky dimmed to violet. From their camp they could still see, far above, a glint of sunlight catching the distant ridge. For an instant it flashed from Duln’s statue like a mirrored spark, and everyone turned to watch. The light lingered a moment longer than it should have and faded as the sun slipped fully away.

“She still guards the path,” Kiera whispered.

Boaz nodded. “And the gate guards what comes next.”

They settled for the night within reach of the warm rock. The last of the ember light played across their faces, flickering on packs and blades, painting their shadows long and wavering. Beneath them, the mountain murmured with faint, rhythmic echoes of metal on metal, the deep pulse of unseen labor, proof that the Terran lived still, somewhere far below.

None of them said it aloud, but each felt the same uneasy truth: the gate would not stay closed forever. When Boaz closed his hand around the ember-ore, the light dimmed but did not die. It beat softly against his palm, as though answering a call he could not yet hear.

They built no fire. The stone itself gave off enough warmth to keep the night from biting, and none of them wanted to draw more attention than the ember light already did. The camp sat within the hollow beside the fissure, half open to the sky, half wrapped by the mountain’s heat. The rock glowed faintly red beneath their palms, breathing warmth that felt almost like the pulse of the world.

Kiera unrolled her blanket beside the wall. “It’s strange,” she murmured. “I can feel the warmth but not the heart of it. Like sleeping beside someone who never breathes.”

Lyra glanced toward the cleft. “Maybe that’s because someone does breathe, just not near enough for comfort.”

Theo gave a quiet snort. “Wonderful. Exactly what I wanted to imagine before trying to sleep.”

Jaxson stretched his legs out, settling his back to the rock. “Get used to it. Down there’s nothing but stone, echoes, and people who’d rather we didn’t visit.”

“People,” Kiera said softly, “or kin?”

No one answered. The wind from above was faint now, only a whisper sliding down the cliff. The ember-ore pulsed once in Boaz’s hand, reflecting in each of their eyes. For a long time they sat in that shared glow, saying little.

At last Aldryn spoke. “In all my years I never thought I’d see the work of the Terran alive again. I used to think the stories exaggerated; their forges that sang, their doors that sealed themselves at a word.”

“Do you still think they’re stories?” Boaz asked.

The old mage looked at the fissure. “No. But I wonder what song the forges are singing now, and to whom.”

Theo lay on his pack, eyes on the stars framed by the cleft above. “One about uninvited guests, and what to do with them.”

Sleep came in fragments. The mountain’s hum never stopped. It wasn’t loud, but it carried through the bones, steady and patient, like a heartbeat under stone. When Boaz drifted off, the rhythm followed him into dreaming.

He found himself walking through endless halls of iron and fire. Sparks fell from high chimneys, forming constellations that mirrored the stars above ground. Terran smiths moved around him as shadowed figures, their faces hidden behind masks of brass. Their hammers struck in measured unison, each blow sending ripples through the floor.

At the center of it all stood Duln, unchanged, though her skin was the color of marble veined with gold. She leaned on her spear and watched him approach.

“You found the gate,” she said.

“It won’t open,” he answered.

“It will,” she said. “But not for impatience. Stone need song, not force.”

He looked at the hammers rising and falling. “Their song?”

“Yours,” she said, and smiled, a small, knowing thing. “They wait to hear if your fire remembers mercy.”

The vision shattered with a sound like metal cooling in water.

Boaz woke in darkness, heart pounding. The ember-ore glowed faintly beside him, warm but calm. Around him the company still slept, faces touched by red light. He pressed his palm to the stone floor. The hum was stronger now, no longer a whisper, but a slow, deliberate rhythm.

“They know,” he murmured. “They’re listening.”

When morning came, the sky above the ridge was the color of hammered silver. Thin light spilled down the cliff and caught the edges of their packs, their blades, the curve of the ember-ore in Boaz’s hand. It was cool for the first time since they’d reached the Crests, the air still heavy with heat but laced now with expectation.

Theo crouched near the fissure, rubbing soot from his fingers. “Something moved last night,” he said. “Fresh dust. Look. These grooves weren’t here before.”

Aldryn joined him, tracing the faint parallel lines in the stone. “Sliding plates. Not natural.”

Lyra rose, hand on her sword. “So they’ve been working on the other side.”

“Or watching,” Jaxson said.

Boaz stepped forward. The Sigil’s warmth grew stronger with each pace. The air around the cleft shimmered faintly, and the low hum that had haunted the night vibrated now at the edge of hearing, deeper and steadier.

“They’re close,” he said. “Closer than they want us to know.”

Kiera folded her arms. “Maybe they’re deciding whether we’re worth the risk.”

Theo glanced toward her. “If they wanted us dead, they could’ve done it while we slept.”

“Comforting,” Lyra muttered.

Aldryn adjusted his staff, voice soft. “No. They’re deliberating. The Terran never acted without consensus. Even their stones were built in councils.”

Boaz stared into the fissure. “We must show them we come in peace.”

Jaxson groaned. “You’re not going to knock, are you?”

Boaz ignored him. He reached with the ember-ore, holding it just inside the fissure’s glow. The light brightened at once, spilling red across the rock. The veins within the walls lit in response, spreading upward and outward in silent conversation.

For a moment the warmth grew so intense he had to squint. The Sigil beneath his tunic pulsed, echoing the same rhythm. A note, low and resonant, rolled through the air, too deep to be sound alone. The rock shuddered once and stilled. The light faded. The cleft went quiet again.

Boaz lowered his arm slowly. “They heard me.”

“And?” Lyra asked.

“They’re thinking about it.”

Theo blinked. “Thinking?”

Boaz smiled faintly. “You can feel it, can’t you? The hum’s changed.” He was right. The vibration running through the ground had altered. It was subtler now, more measured, like breath drawn in before a word.

Kiera touched the stone. “It feels… aware.”

“Not aware,” Aldryn corrected gently. “Attentive.”

They stepped away from the fissure, instinctively forming a loose semicircle. The mountain’s warmth swelled once and steadied again. They spent the rest of the day waiting. None of them dared wander far. Theo sketched the runes again; Lyra cleaned her crossbow; Jaxson paced. Kiera sat beside Boaz, her knees drawn to her chest, watching the light change on the cliff.

“Do you think they mourned her?” she asked quietly.

“Duln?”

“She was one of them. Exiled, but still Terran. Do you think they felt it when she turned to stone?”

Boaz thought of the pulse beneath his feet, of the rhythm that had deepened since noon yesterday. “Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why the gate stirred when she died.”

“And maybe they’ll know why we’re here.”

“I hope so.”

She looked at him for a long moment and nodded toward the ember-ore. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so small can lead us this far.”

Boaz smiled faintly. “Duln said the stone remembers truth. It’s carrying her truth as much as mine.”

Kiera’s hand brushed his shoulder, brief but steady. “You carry it well.”

As dusk returned, the air grew heavier again. The fissure glowed faintly from within, its heat sharper now, less even. Somewhere deep inside, metal struck metal: a single, deliberate tone, clear as a bell.

Theo froze. “That wasn’t the mountain.”

“No,” Aldryn said softly. “That was them.”

They gathered near the entrance. The ember-ore brightened on its own, light pulsing to match the distant rhythm. The Sigil echoed it once, like an answering heartbeat.

Kiera whispered, “They’re calling.”

Boaz stared into the fissure, his expression unreadable. “Not calling,” he said. “Testing.”

The sound came again, three strikes this time, evenly spaced, then silence. The light along the fissure’s edges dimmed, leaving only the ember-ore’s glow.

Jaxson exhaled slowly. “I guess that’s our invitation.”

Aldryn shook his head. “No. It’s a question.”

“And what’s the answer?” Lyra asked.

Boaz closed his hand around the stone. “Tomorrow.”

That night none of them slept. They kept quiet vigil beneath the ridge, the faint light of the ember-ore painting their faces in alternating fire and shadow. Above them the stars burned hard and cold; below them, unseen, the Terran fires burned hotter and patient.

When the first hint of dawn touched the cliffs, the mountain answered with a slow, deep vibration that rippled through the ground like a drumbeat. The fissure’s surface glowed again, subtle, rhythmic, breathing in time with the pulse of the Sigil.

Boaz rose, every movement deliberate. “It’s time,” he said.

The others followed his gaze into the crimson dark. The gate still stood closed, but the mountain no longer felt indifferent. It was ready.

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