The forest stretched endlessly around them, the thick canopy casting long shadows over the winding dirt path. Sunlight barely pierced through the dense foliage, dappling the ground with patches of shifting gold and green. The air smelled of damp earth, rich with the scent of moss and fallen leaves.

  With a slow exhale, Roland tightened his backpack straps, already sensing the arduous journey ahead. They had been walking for nearly two weeks since leaving Fraella, and still, Celeste hadn’t given him a clear answer about why they were travelling so far to close this particular gate.

  “Still not gonna tell me why we skipped over all the closer ones?” Roland asked, breaking the silence.

  Celeste smirked, not bothering to look back at him as she walked. “Because this one’s different.”

  Roland huffed. “That’s not an answer.”

  She finally glanced over her shoulder, silver-blue eyes gleaming with something he couldn’t quite place. “It’s an invitation to ask better questions.”

  Roland rolled his eyes but didn’t push her—yet.

  He remembered how insistent she had been when they first left Fraella. She had pulled out a newly updated map, marked with the latest information from Fraella’s scouts. Without hesitation, she had honed in on a location to the south, nestled deep within a remote mountain range. She had been guarded about it then as well, only revealing that she needed to confirm something before she could explain anything more.

  The first week of travel had been almost peaceful, if not for the sheer emptiness of the land. They had passed through rolling plains, crossed a few small rivers, and even camped in the ruins of an old Waypoint shrine—one of many abandoned structures left behind by forgotten travellers. They had avoided any of the old worldborn settlements.

  But as they pushed deeper into the wilds, something about the land changed.

  The forest had long since turned unfriendly. The deeper they travelled, the heavier the air became, thick with something unseen yet unmistakably wrong. The silence stretched unnaturally, the kind that pressed against the skin and made the mind itch with paranoia. Roland had spent years in the wild, but this was different. There were no birds, no distant rustling of small creatures, no wind shifting the branches above. Just the steady crunch of their boots on the worn path and the ever-present hum of something just outside perception.

  Roland had spent enough time in dangerous places to recognise when something was watching them. But no matter how many times he used his soul gaze, he saw nothing.

  “Celeste,” he muttered one night by the campfire, staring into the darkness between the trees. “Tell me you feel that.”

  She stirred from where she was tending to the flames, not looking up. “Feel what?”

  “This place. It’s… wrong.”

  Celeste finally glanced at him, her expression unreadable. “It's not just wrong. But… ancient.”

  Roland frowned. “That’s not comforting.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  She offered nothing more, and though Roland considered pressing the issue, he knew it wouldn’t matter. Whatever was coming, Celeste had already made up her mind to see it through. He would just have to wait for the answers to come.

  It wasn’t until the fifteenth day that they finally reached the base of the mountain range, where the narrow path they had been following suddenly veered sharply, leading them toward a deep ravine. The sheer drop into darkness below made Roland’s stomach turn. Jagged rock formations jutted out from the depths, and somewhere far, far below, water rushed unseen, a distant and haunting echo.

  Celeste perched herself on a boulder near the edge, letting Roland catch up.

  “You really want to know what we’re walking into?” she asked, arms crossed.

  Roland sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Celeste, I swear—if you don’t just tell me—”

  She exhaled and leaned back slightly.

  “A suspected active Deathborn lab.”

  Roland stopped breathing for a moment. He turned to her slowly. “A what?”

  “An active Deathborn’s laboratory,” she repeated. “Or what’s left of one. The scout reports were… inconsistent at best.”

  His chest tightened. He had only just begun to grasp what it meant to wield Mortana’s gift, and now Celeste was leading him straight to a place where that power might have been twisted into something unnatural. Whatever was happening here, he doubted it came from someone using Mortana’s blessing as it was meant to be used.

  He wondered what Celeste’s true goal was.

  “And you didn’t think to mention this before?”

  Celeste shrugged. “I wasn’t sure it was real until we got closer. There were just rumors—whispers of a fortress where the dead still walk.”

  Her casual tone did nothing to ease the weight settling in his gut. This wasn’t just another gate. This was something worse.

  Roland clenched his fists, trying to calm the unease building in his chest. “Why?”

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  Celeste’s expression darkened. “Because if it’s an improper lab, it had to be stopped.”

  Roland narrowed his eyes. “Improper?”

  She nodded. “Not all Deathborn research is wrong, Roland. You know that. Soul Touch, the study of the Veil, even resurrection—those things aren’t evil in themselves. The gods don’t forbid knowledge. They only punish those who take it too far.” She looked toward the distant cliffs. “That’s why I didn’t tell you before. I needed to be sure. If this is just research? Just another Deathborn trying to understand their gift? We would walk away.”

  Roland exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. “And if it’s not?”

  Celeste’s eyes hardened. “Then we burn it to the ground.”

  They walked for a few more hours, winding their way up the steep incline of the mountainside. The road had long since broken apart, the remains of an old trade path now barely more than cracked stone buried beneath thick undergrowth. The climb was gruelling, the air growing thinner the higher they went. Every step brought them closer to the feeling that they were being watched.

  Then, Celeste suddenly stopped.

  She lifted a hand, pointing toward the far cliffside. “That,” she said, “is our destination.”

  Roland followed her gaze and felt his stomach tighten.

  The fortress loomed against the mountainside, its black stone walls blending seamlessly into the cliff face, as if the rock itself had swallowed it over time. Towering archways, long since crumbled, framed what must have once been grand entrances, now choked with creeping roots and tangled vines. Time had half-buried it, erasing all signs that it had ever been built. If Celeste hadn’t pointed it out, he might have mistaken it for just another jagged formation in the landscape. Now that he looked closer Roland could see the full scale of the fortress.

  “How the hell has no one noticed this before?” he muttered.

  Celeste leaned against a nearby boulder, arms crossed. “Because ruins like this are everywhere,” she said. “The Motherborn have been walking the worlds since before your kind were even created. They’ve built cities, fortresses, temples—some abandoned, some still hidden. There’s no tracking them all.”

  Roland frowned. “Even one like this?”

  She gestured toward the fortress. “Especially one like this. The best way to hide something is to let time do the work for you.”

  Roland exhaled, turning back to the ruins. The idea that there were countless places like this—old, forgotten, possibly still holding secrets from the Veil Keeper Wars—made his skin crawl.

  They crept closer, careful not to disturb the unnatural stillness around them. Roland kept his soul gaze open, scanning the ruins for anything out of place. It didn’t take long before he saw it—a soul, but something about it was wrong.

  At first, it looked like any other, glowing faintly against the backdrop of the ruined fortress. But as he focused, a chill ran down his spine. The soul wasn’t just there, it was tied down. Strands of something unseen, something twisting, anchored it in place. It flickered, struggled, but no matter how it wavered, it didn’t move.

  “I need to get closer,” Roland murmured.

  Celeste gave him a sharp look but didn’t stop him. Together, they moved forward, keeping to the cover of broken stone and thick roots. When they rounded the next corner, Roland felt his breath hitch.

  The sight that greeted him was horrifying.

  It was a Worldborn, a knight in rusted, broken armor, but his flesh was wrong. His skin had already begun to decay, peeling in places, revealing sickly pale muscle beneath. His fingers twitched against the hilt of a sword, his stance stiff, unnatural. He stood like a man who hadn’t drawn breath in a long time.

  Celeste didn’t hesitate. “We need to talk to it.”

  Roland glanced at her. “Talk to—?”

  Before he could finish, she had already stepped forward, daggers loose in her hands. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice steady.

  The knight’s head snapped toward them, and Roland had to fight the instinct to raise his weapon.

  Then, to their shock, it spoke—or at least, it tried to.

  A low, rattling sound pushed from its throat, the words wet and broken, the decay having set in too far. But its meaning was clear.

  "Kill me."

  Roland froze. He had expected hostility, madness, but this was neither. There was no rage, no mindless hunger—just a plea.

  Celeste, however, didn’t hesitate.

  With one swift motion, she closed the distance, daggers flashing. She buried both blades into the knight’s chest, straight through the decayed armor. The force of the blow should have been enough to kill anything.

  The knight staggered, a guttural noise escaping its lips.

  Then, slowly, it straightened again.

  The wounds were still there, fresh and leaking, but the knight didn’t fall.

  Roland took a step back. “Celeste—”

  “I see it,” she said, voice grim.

  The knight lifted its broken sword slightly, as if confused. It looked down at the new wounds in its body, then back at them, uncertain.

  "I am dead." The knight’s voice was barely more than a whisper now, each word slurred and broken, as if the decay had reached more than just his flesh. "I need… to move on."

  Celeste’s expression darkened. “Then why haven’t you?”

  The knight twitched, a violent shudder running through its already broken frame. It didn’t answer, but Roland could see the truth plain as day.

  Its soul was still there, still trapped.

  Roland swallowed hard, unease pooling in his gut. Souls weren’t meant to linger like this. Whatever was binding it wasn’t letting go.

  He took a slow step forward, carefully drawing on his training. He muttered a quiet prayer for the dead, a simple rite meant to guide lost souls beyond the Veil. The words left his lips, the divine energy in his mark stirring—but nothing happened.

  The knight stood, unmoving. His soul flickered but did not waver.

  Roland tried again, putting more force into the words using more power from his mark, but the result was the same. The soul didn’t want to stay. It simply couldn’t leave.

  His fingers curled into fists. He didn’t want to do it, but if a simple rite wouldn’t work, then he had no choice. Stepping closer, he reached out with Soul Touch, his awareness stretching into the flickering presence before him. If he could just sever whatever was holding it, if he could—

  Pain jolted through his fingers.

  He recoiled sharply, gritting his teeth as the sensation faded. That was not supposed to happen. Whatever was binding the soul was stronger than his ability to interact with them.

  Roland exhaled, frustration bubbling beneath his skin. “It’s stuck.”

  Celeste raised a brow. “I figured that much.”

  He turned back to the knight, whose vacant eyes followed him with an eerie sort of awareness. It hadn’t moved since he had tried to help. It simply stood there, waiting.

  Then it took a step forward.

  Roland tensed. The knight took another step, slow but deliberate.

  Then another.

  It was following them.

  Roland took an uneasy step back. "Celeste—"

  Before he could say anything else, she moved.

  In one swift, brutal motion, Celeste lunged forward, daggers flashing. With surgical precision, she severed both of the knight’s feet at the ankles. The force of the blow sent it crashing to the ground, the dull thud of metal and decayed flesh ringing through the ruins.

  Roland stared at her, jaw tightening. "Was that necessary?"

  Celeste flicked the blood from her blade, unfazed. “Yes.”

  His hands clenched. “We’re supposed to be helping—”

  “We’re supposed to be understanding,” she cut in sharply. “I needed to see how strong this reanimation is and how it works.”

  Roland exhaled sharply, shoving down his frustration. She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  The knight—footless and now crawling—let out another slurred whisper.

  "I am dead. I… I need… to move on."

  Roland could still hear the desperation in its voice. And yet, it still wasn’t dying.

  Which meant they needed to figure out how to help it.