CHAPTER 88: THE PULSE BENEATH

Levan rose and brushed the dust from his gloves, and Ilaria followed suit, gathering her cloak as she stepped closer. He caught the movement from the corner of his eye, the way she was trying to look composed when her boots sank unevenly into the glassy soil, and for a fleeting moment, something in his chest eased.

So determined. So herself, even here.

They reached the small cluster of knights gathered near the ward’s southern edge. Their faces were drawn, eyes fixed on the ground where one of them knelt.

"What did you find?" Levan asked.

The knight shifted aside, revealing a shallow patch where the ash and crystal markings had failed to hold. Beneath it, something faintly glowed. A pattern carved deep into the glassy earth. It was not part of their circle. The lines were older, sharper, and etched with a precision that no human hand could match.

Levan crouched, his shadow falling across the sigil. "How deep?"

"Hard to say, Your Highness. It runs beneath the wardline and follows the curve eastward." The knight said. "We thought it was just light until it pulsed. It could be a ward."

At that word, the soil gave a faint tremor as if stirred by its own memory. Ilaria’s breath caught as she watched the whole thing. The carved symbols shimmered faintly gold, then dimmed again, like a heartbeat retreating underground.

She glanced at the nearest knight beside her, whispering, "What is it?"

The man hesitated before answering. "It was an old magic, princess. From before The Accord fell and The Balance was established. They say the ground here remembers every oath sworn on it and every one broken."

Her eyes widened. "You mean it’s alive?"

He gave a grim half-smile. "Alive enough to hold a grudge."

Levan studied the marks in silence, his gloved fingertips hovering just above them as a faint shimmer glimmered beneath his palm, checking the wards himself. "Not ours," he confirmed. "And not new."

The knight’s brows drew together, his voice even but edged with unease. "But records show no patrols have crossed this boundary since the beast incursions began. If these markings predate that, then whoever made them should not still be standing."

"Then perhaps they aren’t," Levan said grimly as the wind pressed close, carrying that same hollow whisper through the air.

Ilaria felt it all too — the pull, the hum, the strange weight that seemed to thrum beneath her ribs.

"The marks are settled too deep," his finger hovered over the obvious dip of soil. "Here, the soil had time to harden around them. And this glow is reacting to memory, not presence. They were made by someone who knew how to speak to this place, not a soldier or a wanderer, and certainly not anyone still breathing."

He drew his hand back, dusting his gloves. "If the soil’s still answering to that voice, it could explain the disturbances. The beasts don’t come here without reason, they’re drawn to the cracks where the veil thins first."

He sighed, rubbing his temple. "And since the Blithe clings to what’s left of the First Dragon’s fall, corruption drawn to the scent of what it once was. The wards have been fractured, rebuilt, and cracked again and again. That’s enough to stir every beast within its reach."

Harken thought for a moment after hearing the prince’s words, trying to decipher it through his own deduction. "Then, if someone... or something tampered with what was left here, it might’ve twisted the balance. The beasts weren’t always this vicious. What if the Blithe didn’t just infect them, but was guided to?"

A murmur rippled among the nearby soldiers, quickly silenced when Levan’s gaze shifted toward them. It was not possible. Hell, anyone who had ever studied the Blithe would have called it an absurd assumption.

The Blithe was not something that could be guided. It was the remnant of an age no living soul could comprehend. A corruption born from ancient dragonfire and dying gods, from the collapse of a power so old that even the archives could not name it. Logically, no mortal lived long enough to remember what kind of magic birthed it, let alone command it.

Even the kingdom’s own patron, the Black Dragon — the oldest and most knowing of their kind — had fallen into silence when the Blithe was mentioned. If a being carved from primordial flame would not speak of it, what right did men have to believe they could touch it, shape it, use it?

And yet...

Levan’s gaze swept across the silvered horizon, where the air still shivered with that unnatural hum. After what had happened these past days, he could no longer say it was impossible.

The Noctharian scholars had sought, of course. From Noctharis’ obsidian spires to the silver towers of the Kingdom of Eryndralis, countless minds had tried to trace The Blithe’s origin and name the corruption that devoured both beast and man alike. But the deeper they delved, the less the world seemed willing to let them remember.

Even Lysander had once crossed the kingdom to Eryndralis in search of truth. He had spent three cycles beneath The Chronspire, walking among the memory vaults of The Silver Dragon’s Chroneseers. If anyone could unearth the shape of what had been forgotten, it was them — the keepers of time and record, whose archives held echoes of every oath, every war, every birth written in silver light.

But when Lysander returned, he brought back little more than silence. Eryndralis had not denied him. They had shown him only enough to understand that some memories were buried for a reason. That the Blithe was not born from the First Dragon’s death, but from what had answered it.

"Where time fractures, corruption breathes."

Levan could still remember the way Lysander had said it, half in jest as he always did when brushing against things better left buried. The man had a habit of digging too deep, of chasing knowledge as if it might bend to his will. But even he had known where to stop.

Not even Lysander, with all his arrogance and curiosity, had dared provoke the Chroneseers.

He did not answer right away. When he did, it was too calm to mirror the trouble running through his facade. "It’s possible," he said quietly, almost thoughtful. "Perhaps the Blithe was never just a ’plague’. Corruption feeds on intent. And maybe if someone found a way to speak to it... they could command it."

Levan exhaled slowly, gloved fingers brushing against the dim sigils carved into the soil before he stood at once. "Noctharis once searched for truth. Eryndralis refused to speak it. When even the keepers of memory guard their tongues, you learn that some truths were meant to be feared."

The knights looked tense as he spoke. "So if the Blithe has truly— undoubtedly been guided, then it’s no longer memory we’re fighting. It’s will."

He turned slightly, and for a heartbeat Ilaria caught the faintest change in his expression, not fear, but recognition. As if he had expected this. As if he had been looking for it. The glow beneath their feet flickered again, chasing across the carved line like liquid fire before fading into stillness.

Levan’s voice was calm when he spoke again, but it carried that undercurrent of command and sterness like he was not sure what to believe anymore. "Double the wards around this section. No one steps beyond it after nightfall."

The knights saluted at once and moved to obey. They worked in silence now, voices hushed, movements brisk and deliberate. Salt and Hallowbloom was drawn in fresh circles, the scent of burnt sage and metal mingling in the air as new wards were sealed into place.

The air felt heavier after, as if the ground itself had drawn a breath and refused to let it go. Even the wind, restless moments ago, seemed to falter, curling low around the camp as the last embers of daylight bled into grey.

Ilaria watched the sigil until it disappeared under fresh layers of ash and salt, the light sealed once more. But even as it dimmed, she could still feel the pulse of something vast and waiting beneath them.

Ilaria lingered a step behind Levan, her eyes following the line of his shoulders and the stillness in them that was not calm but control. He had not spoken since issuing his orders, yet she could feel the weight of unspoken thought in every breath he took.

She wanted to ask what he was thinking, what he knew, if only to kill the curiosity in her head, but something in his silence warned her off. The faint gold light that had flickered beneath his gaze startled her, as if whatever stirred beneath the earth was not the only thing waking.

Somewhere beyond the wardline, a low, distant rumble rolled across the plains. It might have been a distant thunder, or something answering the pulse they had just disturbed.