Kael left the settlement before dawn.
He didn't announce it. Didn't wait for the lights to fade or the guards to change. He simply moved when the silence inside him settled into something almost calm.
The road the token indicated wasn't marked.
That was the first sign.
It wasn't a path in the usual sense—no ruts from carts, no worn stone, no signposts. Just a narrow stretch where the land seemed less resistant to being crossed, as if the world itself had grown accustomed to letting people pass without remembering them.
Kael followed it.
The token in his hand stayed cool, but when he drifted too far from the invisible route, it warmed slightly. Not enough to burn. Just enough to correct.
He didn't question how it worked.
Anything that answered this cleanly had already decided what it wanted from him.
The terrain shifted subtly as he walked. Hills flattened where they shouldn't. Trees leaned away from the route instead of over it. Sound behaved strangely here—wind passed, but didn't linger; footsteps landed, but never echoed.
Kael adjusted without thinking.
This place favored restraint.
After an hour, the token cooled completely.
Kael stopped.
The route ended in a shallow clearing surrounded by stone pillars half-buried in the earth. They weren't arranged in a circle. They weren't symmetrical.
They were broken.
Whatever this place had been, it hadn't finished collapsing.
Kael stepped into the clearing.
The silence inside him tightened—not in warning, but in recognition. The hum in his chest shifted, aligning faintly with the space around him.
So this wasn't just a shortcut.
It was a remnant.
Kael moved toward the nearest pillar and brushed his fingers against its surface. The stone was smooth, worn by something other than weather. Faint grooves ran along it, too deliberate to be natural.
Not writing.
Structure.
The air changed.
Kael felt it immediately—pressure building, not outward, but downward. The clearing seemed to sink, as if the ground itself was remembering weight it had once carried.
Kael withdrew his hand.
Too late.
The space behind him folded silently.
Not a gate.
Not a breach.
A seal loosening.
Kael turned, posture shifting from travel to readiness. He didn't reach for the silence. He let it hover close, coiled but restrained.
If something came through here, it wouldn't be a scout.
And it wouldn't be accidental.
The stone pillars vibrated faintly.
Kael exhaled once, slow and steady.
So this was what the token had led him to.
Not safety.
Not answers.
A place where the world had failed before.
And might do so again.