The spiral still burned beneath his feet.
It pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, patient, alive.
And Pao couldn't move.
He gasped against the cold dirt, hands clawing the scorched earth. His nose dripped blood. His vision swam with shadows that whispered his name—not the one he carried, but another.
One he hadn't spoken since Drevos Hollow burned.
"Kezrith… Vorr."
The name coiled in his mind like a serpent. Not spoken, but remembered. Echoing through marrow and mind, a parasite of syllables older than human speech.
He spat blood and tried to stand.
Pain lanced through his chest—his Lanternbrand searing bright.
The glow from the summoning circle flickered, then receded, pulling back into the lines like breath drawn in after a scream. The fog beyond the clearing began to return, slowly, crawling like a patient predator.
Pao staggered to his feet. The spiral had gone dark. For now.
But something had heard him.
Something was awake.
He didn't run.
Running was for people who didn't know the rules. And out here, the rules were all that kept you alive.
Don't look directly at the ones that don't breathe.
Don't speak the names.
Don't run unless you know where it ends.
He moved—slow, controlled, one hand pressing his satchel against his chest, the other gripping his cracked charm like a prayer. The glass shard had finished breaking. It was useless now. That alone made his gut twist. Those charms were tied to place and blood. You didn't just find another one in the woods.
And he couldn't make more. That was Master Solon's craft.
The path ahead led deeper into the eastern ridge, away from Drevos Hollow. That was good. The cults rarely lingered in the lowlands this long after burning a settlement. They had what they wanted.
Usually.
But Pao knew Drevos Hollow wasn't random.
He remembered the signs now. The strange cattle deaths. The dying water wells. The black leaves that fell in summer.
All ignored.
Until the bells rang and the sky turned red.
He clenched his jaw and pushed forward.
It was an hour before the mist thinned. The trees grew wider apart, and the soil became less charred. He found a crumbled waystone etched with the old sigil of the Guild—a triangle over flame—and knew he was near an abandoned outpost.
It wasn't much. Just ruins now.
But ruins meant shelter. Maybe even supplies.
He pushed through the overgrowth and stepped into the remnants of a camp. Half-collapsed tents, broken stone benches, and a rusted lantern hanging from a shattered post. It swung gently, though no wind blew.
He approached slowly.
His heartbeat still hadn't returned to normal.
You summoned something.
Or maybe something summoned you.
That was the fear, wasn't it?
That these spirals, these old ruins, these names—they weren't just traps. They were calls. Invitations. Not from this world. Not even from the dead.
But from below.
He collapsed near a broken wall and opened the satchel.
The exorcist's manual was still there. Bound in crowskin, inked in death. Half of it was scorched beyond recognition, but some pages remained.
He flipped it open to the diagram he feared the most—the Spiral Teeth Invocation.
There it was. Same shape. Same fangs. Same mark from the clearing.
He wasn't imagining it.
Solon had forbidden him from even studying this page.
"This is not for unranked eyes," he had said. "You don't learn the higher names. They learn you."
Now he understood.
He turned to another page, older and barely legible. A list of monarchs—Seven.
Only five names remained visible. The rest had been smeared or torn:
Vhal'Tyrran – The Scourge of Pride
Sael'Raveth – The Tongue of Lust
Dro-Malekh – The Dreamless
Uggoroth'Kael – The Maw Unending
Kezrith Vorr – The God-Eater
Pao stared at the last one.
His vision blurred.
He hadn't spoken the name aloud.
But it still reacted.
The page felt hot in his hands.
He slammed the book shut.
Exorcists weren't born. They were chosen. But the choosing wasn't divine—it was desperate. Cities funded Orders, villages trained apprentices, and the Guild—what was left of it—sent out ravens to mark the fallen places.
Each Guild city had a bell tower. When a tower bell rang thrice without stopping, it meant one thing:
A Monarch's cult had returned.
That was what happened in Drevos.
They rang the bells.
No one came.
And the spiral ate the rest.
Pao wiped his face and reached into his coat.
A letter. Crumpled. Sealed in black wax. It was the last task Solon gave him:
Take this to Azoran Reach. To the Archivist. The last one who still remembers what we were.
Tell her the Spirals are waking.
He hadn't made it far. Drevos to the ridge was only three days on foot. The Reach was another six—assuming he could avoid death cults, wildspawn, and the other things that crawled the ruins at night.
Assuming whatever he summoned didn't find him first.
He folded the letter again and tucked it away.
His Lanternbrand had cooled slightly, but the skin around it was still raw. It had never done that before.
Never pulsed.
Never bled.
He didn't know what it meant—but he had a guess.
He wasn't just marked anymore.
He was linked.
The sky was darkening by the time he stood again.
He knew better than to stay in one place too long. The spiral hadn't followed him. Yet. But if he was right—if that was Kezrith Vorr's mark—then something much worse might follow.
He wrapped the manual in cloth and retied his satchel. Then he took the broken charm, kissed it once, and left it under the stone bench.
It had kept him alive for years.
Now, he'd have to rely on something else.
Not spells.
Not relics.
Not even hope.
Just the one thing left in this world that mattered:
Resolve.
Pao turned east.
Toward Azoran Reach.
Toward whatever waited in the deep fog.