CHAPTER 80: THE WHISPERING SOUTH

The march changed.

Not in speed, nor in form. But in rhythm.

The sound of boots against snow no longer felt like travel. It felt like echo—like something was walking with them, or behind them, or underneath. The air thickened as they entered the lowlands, where the trees grew sparser and the hills sloped like folding arms. It had not snowed here in days. But the ground remained pale, like the land itself had remembered winter and refused to forget.

Leon led the column still.

But he didn’t set the pace.

Something else did.

He moved like he knew where he was going. But he didn’t. He only knew why.

They were heading south. Toward the ruins. Toward the monastery long buried by time and vine and vow.

Toward the child.

He could feel her, now. Not like a person. Like a note struck too cleanly across a broken instrument. Constant. Off. Familiar.

Beside him, Elena rode silently. She had stopped asking questions. There was no point.

Whatever had changed Leon—whatever he had become—was still becoming. To touch it now would be like reaching into hot metal and expecting it to hold still.

Behind them, Naeve kept watch. Her eyes were sharp. Sharper than usual. Not just for danger—but for signs.

She knew what old magic could do. And she was beginning to wonder if Leon was the eye’s messenger—or its weapon.

—

Far ahead, miles before the next valley bend, the wind shifted.

And the chime came again.

Not loud. But piercing. Thin as silver thread.

Leon slowed.

The troops behind adjusted, murmuring. Elena caught the signal, riding up to his side.

"What is it?"

He didn’t answer.

He dismounted.

His boots crunched into soft earth. No longer snow. Not fully. It was something else. The topsoil here was tinged faint yellow. And beneath it—stone.

Leon crouched, brushing it aside.

The edge of a symbol stared back at him.

A circle. Split down the middle. Thorn-vines curling outward.

He ran his palm across it. It was warm.

Behind him, Naeve exhaled. "What is this place?"

Leon didn’t look up. "A place no map remembers. But blood does."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "How far?"

He stood. "Less than a day. If we press through the dusk."

"And if we don’t?"

He didn’t answer.

But behind them, the wind changed again. The chime followed.

And the trees—those old, quiet trees—began to lean.

Not from wind. But from attention.

—

Far below the valley floor, where roots twisted like serpents and old bones held up ruined stone, the child finished her last mark.

The circle glowed steady.

She blinked once.

And then she whispered:

"He’s coming."

—

The ruins stirred.

Not with sound. Not with tremor. With memory.

Stone that had not borne breath in centuries exhaled. Moss recoiled. Vines pulled tighter. Dust—ancient and ash-coloured—lifted in slow spirals from between the floor cracks. And at the centre of it all, the girl stood barefoot in her circle, head tilted, as if listening to a song only she knew the end of.

She wasn’t afraid.

The echo had reached her long before his footsteps would.

Her eyes—two rings of tarnished gold—remained fixed on the ceiling above, where cracks split into branches, and branches bled into marks.

"I was the last," she whispered. "But now I’m not."

A second voice murmured through the roots. A presence. Heavy, but distant.

He walks with a shadow that has not yet been named.

She nodded.

"But it will be."

The wind didn’t blow here, and yet her hair lifted slightly, as if unseen breath had found her skin. The glow beneath her feet began to pulse, slow and even.

"Is it time?"

Silence.

Then a long, low hum. The kind that pressed behind the teeth and made your heartbeat feel out of rhythm.

She knelt. Small fingers traced one last mark into the dirt—an unbroken eye.

And when she looked up again, her eyes had changed. Not fully. Not visibly. But enough.

She had seen something.

Or had been seen.

—

On the surface, Leon’s breath caught.

Not from exhaustion. Not from cold.

He paused mid-step as they crested the final hill before the gorge—before the crumbled edges of what had once been called the Southreach Cloister. The monastery had no roof anymore. Just broken arches and walls half-swallowed by ivy and rot.

But the pulse was stronger here.

A resonance beneath the feet. Not earthquake. Not magic.

Something... older.

Elena stepped beside him, her voice low. "This is it."

He nodded. "It’s waiting."

She scanned the stone. The tower that had once been a bell-pillar now slanted like a dying tree. "For what?"

Leon didn’t blink.

"For me."

—

They left the company at the ridge.

No one argued.

Kellen said nothing as Leon handed off the reins and told him to hold the line. Naeve watched them go with narrowed eyes, her hand drifting to the hidden dagger at her back.

The air changed the moment Leon and Elena stepped through the broken gates.

It smelled of burnt salt. Of rain that never came.

No birds. No bugs. Not even the sound of boots echoed right. It all felt muffled, like stepping into the pages of a forgotten story.

Elena drew a slow breath. "I don’t like this."

"You’re not meant to."

And with that, they crossed into the hollow sanctum of the ruin.

Stone whispered beneath their feet.

And somewhere below, the child stood.

Waiting.

—

The path through the ruin wound downward, narrow and broken. Ivy clung to the walls like dried veins. Columns leaned like drunk sentries, crumbled halfway to dust. There had once been a staircase here, but time had eaten most of it. What remained was a sloped descent, half loose stones, half worn indentations—footsteps preserved in erosion.

Leon stepped carefully, never touching the walls. His eyes moved, but not to search. To remember.

"You’ve been here before," Elena said.

He didn’t answer.

Not because she was wrong.

But because she wasn’t.

The farther down they moved, the warmer the air grew. Not heat. Humidity. Like breath had lived in these halls far too long and couldn’t find its way out.

At the bottom, the tunnel opened.

A wide, low chamber—arched ceilings riddled with thorn-like carvings. In its centre, a basin. Empty. But around it, the symbols shone faint. Not gold. Not blood. Something between.

And standing in the circle at the far end, still barefoot, still silent, was the child.

She did not flinch as they entered.

Her eyes locked onto Leon. And stayed there.

Elena’s hand hovered near her blade. "Who is she?"

Leon stepped forward.

"Not who," he said.

His voice was soft.

"What comes after."

The child tilted her head.

And smiled.

Then the chamber pulsed.

Like a bell, but deeper. Felt, not heard.

Symbols flared.

And the door behind them vanished.

They were inside something.

Alive.

And it had begun.

—

The light shifted. Not brighter. Not darker. But denser, as if the air had thickened with memory. Elena’s breath grew tight in her chest, her eyes flicking to the runes now climbing the walls. The carvings were moving. Not fast. Just enough to unsettle the bones.

Leon did not flinch.

The child stepped forward. The circle remained behind her—unchanged, but somehow still watching. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

Leon knelt.

Not in reverence.

In recognition.

"I know what this is," he said quietly. "I didn’t before. But I do now."

The child extended her hand.

Elena stiffened. "Leon—"

"It’s all right."

He took the girl’s hand.

And the world blinked.

Not turned. Not shifted. Blinked.

Elena staggered as the chamber vanished and became something else. A field of stone mirrors. An orchard of silence. A memory that had never belonged to her, yet somehow wrapped around her skin like wet cloth.

Leon remained still.

The child looked up at him. Her mouth didn’t move. But her voice reached him anyway.

Do you still want to remember?

He didn’t answer.

Because the memories were already pouring back in.

Not just his.

Everyone’s.

All who had ever set foot in Southreach.

The monks.

The betrayers.

The names lost to time.

And at the centre of it all—

The moment the eye opened.

And saw them.

—

Elena screamed.

But no sound came out.

Only light.

Only truth.