The dawn that broke over the basin was a pale and bloodless thing, light filtering weakly through smoke and the ragged remnants of stormclouds. We had survived the night, though survival felt less like triumph and more like postponement. The fissure was gone, leaving no scar in the earth, no trace of the light or the creatures. Only the bodies remained—the mangled, lifeless forms of men who had trusted me enough to follow me into this wilderness.
I stood among them, my boots heavy with ash and blood. The stench was unbearable, a mix of burned flesh and stone dust. My men moved with the quiet efficiency of despair, binding wounds, stacking corpses, whispering prayers to gods that had long since abandoned the South. They avoided my eyes, though I felt them on me all the same. Watching. Weighing.
Kael came to me as the pyres were lit. He carried no shield now, only his sword, its edge chipped and blackened from the night's battle. His armor hung loose, dented, as if it too had grown weary of carrying his weight. His face was carved from stone, but in his eyes was a storm I could no longer pretend not to see.
"We can't keep this up," he said quietly, so the others would not hear. "Every day we bleed more, and for what? A System that throws us against shadows? An oath sworn to ashes?"
I looked at him, searching for the man who had once stood unshakable at my side. Kael, the shield of the South. Kael, who had been my brother in all but blood. Now he looked at me as if I were the very storm that threatened to break him.
"The South still stands," I said, though the words tasted hollow. "And while it does, so must we."
"Does it?" His voice sharpened. "Do you even know what we're marching toward? Or are we just following the whispers of your cursed System until there's no one left but you?"
The words struck like a blade. I opened my mouth to answer, but the truth clung like ash to my tongue. I did not know. I had no map, no prophecy to cling to. Only the System, and its endless demands.
Kael's hand tightened on his sword hilt, though he did not draw. "You've changed, Ryon. Every battle pulls you further from us. Last night—you moved like something that wasn't human. Even the creatures faltered before you. Do you know what it looked like, from where I stood?"
I swallowed hard. "Tell me."
"It looked like the System didn't need us at all. Only you. And the rest of us—your brothers, your soldiers, your friends—we were just kindling to keep its fire burning."
The pyres crackled then, sending sparks spiraling into the morning sky. The men began to sing the old mourning chant, their voices ragged and thin. I wanted to answer Kael, to give him something that would hold him to me, to us. But I had no words. Only the echo of the System's command in my skull: Prove it. Prove you are the vessel.
We marched again that afternoon. The basin was left behind, its smoke rising like a black crown against the ridges. The road—if it could be called that—narrowed, forcing us single file along a cliffside path. The drop below was sheer, a plunge into mist and nothingness. The men walked with eyes fixed forward, each step a prayer that the ground would not crumble.
I walked near the front, Kael behind me. The silence between us had grown into something alive, a gulf wider than the abyss below. I felt it pressing on my back, heavier than the mountain itself.
By dusk we reached a plateau where the land stretched flat and barren. Here we found the remains of a village—if it could still be called one. Blackened beams jutted from the earth like broken ribs. Ash coated the ground so thick it rose in clouds at our steps. Not a soul remained, not even bones. Only silence, and the faint smell of char that had seeped into the stones.
Kael found me there, his shadow stretching long in the firelight. "You saw it again," he said, not a question.
I nodded. "The System wants… something. It speaks of an oath."
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "An oath? Do you even remember the last oath you swore, Ryon? To me. To the men. To never lead them into madness. Do you think they don't remember?"
I stood, anger sparking through the numbness. "Everything I've done—every battle, every drop of blood—it has been for them. For the South."
"Has it?" Kael stepped closer, his voice low but fierce. "Or has it been for that thing inside you? That whispering curse you call the System? Tell me, Ryon—when was the last time you bled for us, not for it?"
His words cut deeper than any blade. I wanted to strike back, to deny him, but the silence that followed was an answer in itself.
The wind rose, carrying ash across the square. Kael's eyes never left mine, and in them I saw not just doubt but decision. The kind that cannot be undone.
"I swore an oath to follow you," he said softly. "But oaths can break, Ryon. Just as men can."
He turned and walked away, leaving me with the ruins, the System's whisper, and a hollow in my chest deeper than the fissure had ever been.
That night, sleep did not come. I sat by the dead well, staring at the stars through a veil of ash. The men slept fitfully, their dreams haunted by what had risen from the fissure. Only I remained awake, listening to the silence, waiting for the System to speak again.
It did not.
But Kael's words did, over and over, until dawn broke once more.
And with it came the knowledge that something between us had shattered. An oath broken, though neither of us had spoken the words.
The road ahead stretched into shadow, and for the first time, I was not sure who would still be walking beside me when it ended.