Chapter 3 The Whispering stones

The mist clung low to the forest floor as Darius tightened the straps on his leather pack. Morning light bled through the dense canopy overhead in pale shafts, catching the moisture in the air and turning it to silver.

Behind him, the fire they'd used last night was already a memory-doused, scattered, and hidden with practiced care. The way Kael had drilled into them: never leave a trace. Darius glanced over his shoulder at the others.

Kael stood silent at the forest's edge, one boot resting on a moss-covered rock. His eyes scanned the treeline like a predator sniffing for signs of prey-or danger. He hadn't said much since they'd crossed the Redvine Creek, and that silence was beginning to wear thin on the rest of them.

Lysa, meanwhile, was sitting cross-legged near a thicket of fern, running her fingers along the edge of a rusted compass. She was muttering again-an incantation, or perhaps a curse. With Lysa, it was hard to tell.

"Do you think they'll find the trail?" Joren's voice cracked through the stillness.

Darius looked at the youngest member of the group. Sixteen, barely grown, but with eyes that had seen too much war. He adjusted the boy's shoulder strap and offered a quiet shake of the head. "Not before we find the Ember."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Joren said.

Kael stepped forward, eyes fixed on the ravine ahead.

"There's an old path through the Whispering Stones," he said at last. "No roads. No markers. Just voices."

"Voices?" Joren asked.

"They say if you listen too long, the forest remembers your name."

Lysa finally stood, brushing the moss from her cloak. "And if it remembers your name, it calls you back. Forever."

Darius frowned. He'd heard tales of the Whispering Stones-twisted rock formations deep in the Korrath Wilds. Some believed they were cursed remnants of the Old War. Others claimed they were alive, listening to the words of passersby, storing every whisper like secrets in stone.

Either way, they had no choice.

"Let's move," Kael said.

---

The trail disappeared an hour into the woods.

The ground sloped into a tangled mess of gnarled roots, slick with dew and half-buried under leaves that crackled like bones underfoot. Each step was a negotiation with gravity.

The forest had changed. The air grew colder, heavier. The birds that had sung at dawn were silent now, and the wind carried no scent. Only the trees spoke, their ancient bark creaking in the stillness.

And then the stones began.

At first, they looked like just rocks-large, moss-covered boulders jutting up from the forest floor. But as they moved deeper, the shapes grew stranger. Twisted. Sharp. Formations that resembled faces, mouths wide open, frozen mid-scream. Others looked like hands reaching from beneath the soil, clawing for the surface.

Lysa touched one.

"Don't," Kael warned.

She withdrew her hand but said nothing.

The group moved cautiously now. Darius kept one hand on the hilt of his short blade. His other held a crumpled scrap of parchment-the last map drawn by his father before he vanished here two years ago.

A red 'X' marked the center of the Stones.

The Ember was supposed to be there.

---

They made camp by twilight, in a clearing surrounded by stones shaped like thrones. The fire was small-no more than a handful of coals under a grate-and the conversation was tighter than ever.

"We're being followed," Kael said, voice low.

Darius stiffened. "How many?"

"Too quiet to tell. Maybe one. Maybe more."

"It could be an echo," Lysa offered, stirring her tea. "These stones play tricks."

Kael's hand gripped the hilt of his axe. "They're not the only ones."

Darius stepped away from the fire and opened his father's journal. He'd read it a dozen times, but something was different now. The ink seemed darker. The script, more desperate.

'If the stones speak, do not answer. If they sing, run. If you see the face of the forest, offer blood and move on.'

He closed the journal.

They were close.

---

That night, the forest whispered.

Darius sat first watch. At first, it was nothing more than a breeze. But then he heard it-a voice. Soft. Familiar.

"Darius..."

He froze. The fire hissed behind him. His breath caught.

"Darius... you left me..."

It was his father's voice.

He turned sharply, blade drawn, eyes scanning the darkness. No one.

Then the whisper came again, closer this time. "You left me. Just like your mother."

"Shut up," he muttered.

The stones echoed the words. "Shut up... shut up... shuuut..."

Darius stood, heart pounding, and looked to the others. Kael was already awake, staring at him with grim understanding.

"They're in your head," he said. "Don't give them anything real."

---

Morning brought little comfort.

Joren was gone.

They found his cloak snagged on a jagged stone, and his footprints led deeper into the stone valley.

"No blood," Kael noted.

"That doesn't mean he's alive," Lysa said.

Darius clenched his fists. "We go after him."

"It's a trap," Kael said. "He's being used."

"I know," Darius said. "But he's still one of us."

They followed the prints.

---

The deeper they went, the worse the whispers became.

They spoke in dozens of voices-some familiar, others not. The voices of lost friends, lovers, enemies. The dead.

Kael stuffed wax into his ears. Lysa sang a binding chant under her breath. Darius pressed the journal tight to his chest and forced each step forward.

Then the path opened.

A massive stone dais rose before them, ringed by monoliths taller than houses. In the center stood a pedestal. And on it-a flicker of red flame, hovering in midair. The Ember.

Joren knelt before it, eyes blank.

"Joren!" Darius shouted.

The boy didn't move.

Kael stepped forward, but Lysa held him back. "Too fast," she said. "It'll trigger something."

Darius sheathed his sword and approached slowly, heart thundering.

"Joren. Can you hear me?"

The boy whispered something, too soft to catch.

Darius leaned in.

"...I see her."

"Who?"

"...my sister."

Darius grabbed his shoulders. "She's not here. It's a trick. Snap out of it!"

Joren blinked, and for a moment, clarity returned.

Then the flame pulsed.

The stones screamed.

---

A wall of force threw Darius backward. The pedestal cracked, and the Ember flared like a star. Kael dragged Darius to his feet as Lysa raised a shield of light, barely holding off the waves of energy bursting from the monoliths.

Joren screamed.

And then, silence.

The Ember floated inches from Darius's face. Its light was warm. Comforting.

And it spoke-not aloud, but in his mind.

"You seek truth. You must give memory."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Kael was shouting something, but it sounded far away.

The Ember pulsed again.

"One memory for one truth. Choose."

He felt it digging, reaching into him. It showed him flashes-his mother's face. A snowy hill. The first time he held a sword. His father's final words.

"No!" he cried.

But it was too late.

The Ember took something.

And in return, gave him a vision.

---

Darius stood in another time.

He saw the world burning. Towers crumbling. Black ash pouring from the sky. He saw a figure cloaked in flame, standing atop a mountain of bones.

Then, he saw a temple. Hidden beneath the roots of a dead tree. Inside-something alive. Something watching.

He gasped as the vision faded.

Back in the present, the Ember hovered before him. Diminished.

Kael stared. "What did you see?"

"A place," Darius said, voice hoarse. "The Ember isn't the end. It's a key."

Lysa helped Joren to his feet. The boy was pale, shaken-but alive.

"We have to go south," Darius said. "Beyond the Blackspire Range. To the Temple of Ash."

Kael nodded slowly. "Then we leave now. Before the stones wake again."

As they turned to go, the stones around them shifted-just slightly. Watching.

The forest remembered.

And it would not forget.