The forest thinned as the group of people crossed into the borderlands of Centremeia, the trees growing sparse and twisted, their black bark was unnaturally cold to the touch.
Rycrux Crestford walked ahead of his men without slowing down his pace, his dark cloak barely stirring despite the wind that cut sharp against the others people faces.
Three days had passed since he left Moonshire Dawn Sect, and in that time, the trail of the earthquake's origin had led him nowhere.
Reports from farther sects spoke of strange tremors, of skies shimmering with colors no charmer could explain, but nothing could pointed out a clear source for such strange phenomenon.
Only a lingering pressure in the air could tell, it's faint and cosmic, like something vast had passed through the world of Creignmeia and left its scent behind.
"Young Master, we should make a camp soon. The sun's almost down, and our men are tired." said by Doren, the young scout assigned to accompany him. He was barely older than seventeen, freshly initiated into the Investigation Faction, and still hadn't learned when to keep his mouth shut around Rycrux.
"Then let them rest. I'll continue ahead alone." Rycrux said and didn't turn around.
Doren hesitated, glancing at the other two charmers trailing behind them. "Alone? Young Master, that's not–" Doren voice halted after hearing Rycrux next word
"It's an order." Rycrux's voice was flat and final, the kind that didn't invite any argument.
The dangerous elegance in his tone made even seasoned knights fall quiet, so it was not surprising that Doren swallowed whatever protest he'd been building and simply bowed.
"Yes, Young Master. We'll set the camp here and wait for your return."
Rycrux said nothing more before melting into the shadows of the forest, his shadow charm curling around him like a second skin.
'It was easier this way.' Rycrux thought. He preferred silence than having conversation and being alone than having any company.
His father called it discipline, but his mother thought it was loneliness. He didn't know which one was true.
The deeper he walked, the more the air seemed to hum in a low vibration that settled beneath his skin like a static before a storm. It wasn't threatening exactly, but it wasn't natural either.
Something ancient stirred beneath the pressure and it was something that made the hair on his arms rise despite the void charm running cold through his veins.
He stopped at a small clearing, kneeling to press his palm flat against the earth. His Void Charm curled instinctively at his fingertips, a dark thread of space bending faintly around his hand as he tried to read the residual energy left behind.
Nothing definitive came. Only a strange, distant warmth buried somewhere under the cold trace of cosmic disturbance, as though two very different forces had crossed paths here and left their echoes tangled together.
"Cosmic Energy? And there's something else." he murmured under his breath.
He'd read enough books and old texts enough to recognize the cosmic-aligned energy when he sensed it, faint as it was, but the second trace defied categorization.
Rycrux felt it achingly familiar, though he couldn't place why. Like a memory that belonged to someone else, pressing against the inside of his skull.
His hand tightened into a fist as a sudden headache bloomed behind his eyes, sharp and disorienting.
Then the world blurred.
A woman with silver hair stood beneath a sky full of stars that didn't belong to any world he recognized, her hand outstretched toward him, her voice calling a name that wasn't his own.
"Come to me."
He reached for her, and the moment his fingers brushed hers, the stars around them shattered into a thousand screaming lights.
Rycrux staggered back, his breathing ragged. He tried to calm down and steady himself up.
The clearing was empty. There's no woman, no stars, nothing else but the quiet rustle of leaves and the distant call of some nocturnal bird.
"What was that," he said aloud, his voice was unsteady in a way he even despised it.
It wasn't the first time he experience that. Fragments like this had haunted him since childhood, brief and disjointed, always slipping away before he could grasp their meaning.
His father dismissed them as part of him growing up, because of a powerful bloodline within him.
He straightened himself, forcing his expression back into a practiced calm he was used to have.
'Whatever it meant, it wasn't relevant to this mission.' He thought.
He was here to investigate the unexpected phenomenon that happened within Creignmeia, not to chase ghosts from dreams and those fragments that made no sense at all.
And yet, his feet carried him forward, deeper into the forest, following that faint cosmic warmth as though something inside him refused to let it go.
By the time he returned to camp, the moon had risen high, casting silver light over the small fire his men had built. Doren looked up immediately, relief written plainly across his young face.
"Young Master, you're back. Did you find anything?" Doren asks
Rycrux settled by the fire, his expression unreadable. "There's traces. Nothing too conclusive."
"Traces of what?" one of the older charmers asked, a broad-shouldered man named Feris who'd served the Crestford family for over a decade and had long since learned not to fear Rycrux's coldness.
"Cosmic energy. Strong enough to leave a mark on the land, and it's too faint, that I can't even trace its source directly. Whatever caused the tremor didn't linger here. It passed through." Rycrux said simply.
"Passed through to where?" Doren asked, leaning forward.
Rycrux's gaze drifted south, toward a direction that felt inexplicably right, though he couldn't explain the exact certainty but there's something that's gripping his chest.
"Southemeia," he said finally. "Celestia Kingdom, if I had to guess."
Feris frowned. "That's a significant journey from here, Young Master. And Celestia Kingdom is not exactly known for anything cosmic right. It's just a kingdom like any other, isn't it?"
"I don't know. If it's not Celestia Kingdom then perhaps it's coming from the Havenmyst Forest." Rycrux's voice was quiet, almost distant.
"Nevertheless, there's something is pulling me to that direction and I intend to follow it." Rycrux continued.
Doren exchanged a glance with Feris, clearly uncertain but wise enough not to question his young master's judgment out loud.
"Young Master, should we send a word to Sect Leader Cruxco first?" Doren carefully asks
"Send a report of what we've found so far. Tell him I'll go towards Southemeia to investigate further." Rycrux stared into the fire, watching the flames twist and curl around, though his thoughts remained fixed on that impossible vision, the woman with silver hair and a voice that had somehow felt like his home.
'Come to me.'
He didn't understand why those words lodged themselves so deep in his chest, why his hand still trembled faintly when he thought of reaching for her. It was foolish and irrational, everything he'd trained himself seemed to have lost just because of ger presence.
Later, once the others had settled into sleep, Rycrux remained awake by the dying fire, his silver-violet-grey eyes fixed on the stars scattered across the sky.
Faint shadow-marks traced along his forearms, a quiet reminder of the void charm that ran through his veins, older and deeper than he fully understood.
He thought of his father's words before he'd left. Investigate quickly, and come home safely. Nothing about strange dreams or unexplainable force pulling a him towards a kingdom he had no reason to care about.
But deep down, something in him refused to dismiss it as just a mere coincidence.
"Whoever you are, you'd better be worth all this trouble." he murmured to the stars, his voice barely audible.
The stars gave no answer, only twinkled in silence, indifferent to the quiet turmoil stirring beneath Rycrux composed exterior.
Rycrux closed his eyes, and for the first time in so many years, he allowed himself to wonder, and decided to chase it all the way to its source. In a kingdom he'd never once set foot in.
Not knowing that it will lead him to the most precious thing he could ever wish for.