They didn't say much climbing out of the valley.
Not because there was nothing left to say. Too much, really. All of it jammed up behind their ribs, twisted and sharp-edged and not ready to come out clean. So they walked. Crunch of boots on gravel. Harness buckles ticking against armor. A grunt now and then. Not speech—just reminders. We're still moving. We're still here.
Verek led.
Not with orders. Not with pace. Just presence—that steady rhythm of someone who knew the weight of what came next and wasn't trying to outrun it. The kind of silence that said, Keep up. We don't stop unless we have to.
Behind him, Ezreal's pack hummed. Low, crawling, wrong. The red shard was still wrapped in layer after layer of wardcloth, but even smothered, it made the air itch. Not a sound. More like a mosquito in the bloodstream—buzzing under the skin, dancing at the edge of perception. A note only they could hear.
Ezreal hadn't looked at it since they sealed it. Didn't have to. Verek caught it in his shoulders, in the way his jaw clenched when the wind shifted. The shard had a voice, and it spoke straight into the marrow.
Caylen trailed a few paces off, one hand brushing the ridge wall like it might fall out from under him if he didn't keep it in line. His fingers left faint streaks of blood on the stone. Cracked knuckles. Burned cuticles. He hadn't noticed, or maybe he had and just didn't care.
Verek didn't ask. He didn't need to.
The road curled east again, dragging them back toward Phokorus—but it didn't feel like retreat. Not now. The map in Ezreal's satchel pulsed again, fresh ink etching itself like veins into the margin, whispering a new direction. East. Through Kaelith's city. Through her.
By midday they'd reached the upper roads, the rock flattening out under moss-thick stone and forgotten trade paths. By nightfall, they stopped at a stream barely wide enough to name—more runoff than river, more gutter than creek. Frogs called from the reeds in voices like rusted bells. The trees huddled close around the camp, crooked and wary.
The shard stayed buried.
No one touched it. No one sat too near it. Not fear. Reverence with teeth.
Verek knelt beside the fire, one hand extended to catch the warmth—not for comfort, but calibration. He needed to feel the real heat, the kind not born from a cursed sliver of dragon queen. His fingers flexed in the glow, still stained with shadow from the fight. He hadn't even drawn steel in that keep, but the fight had marked them all.
Dax stabbed at the coals like they owed him answers. Sparks leapt. One caught Verek's wrist and fizzled out. He didn't flinch.
"Still think this is just relic hunting?" Dax asked, voice low and sour.
Ezreal didn't look up. "No," he muttered.
Dax blinked, surprised by the agreement. Verek wasn't.
Caylen sat like someone hollowed out, elbows on knees, hands knit together like they were the only things holding him in place. "If Malarath's chasing shards," he said, voice thin, "then he's not scavenging. He's building something. A pattern. A ritual. A circuit."
"Or a lock," Ezreal added, thumb running along the edge of his gauntlet like he could read omens in the seams.
"Locks aren't the problem," Dax grunted. "It's what's behind 'em."
He looked to Verek, like maybe the words would sound more solid coming from him.
"You really think there's a dragon queen," Dax said, "curled up inside that egg just waiting to be let loose?"
Verek didn't answer right away. He watched the flames. Watched how they swayed in time with the shard's pulse, even buried.
Then: "People don't build cages unless something tried to get out first."
Caylen nodded slow. "That's what I said."
"It's what we're all thinking," Verek said.
The silence after wasn't awkward. It was earned.
Ezreal unrolled the map. The illusion still clung to it—gilt edges, royal calligraphy, like a ceremonial scrap from some church archive—but Verek knew better. The thing pulsed with quiet menace, alive in ways no parchment should be. It wasn't just a tracker. It was a witness.
New lines had drawn themselves. Faint, but unmistakable.
Aelwryn.
Not just her territory. Her court. Her name.
Dax leaned over, lips pulling back in something between disdain and dread. "Great. One shard down and we're waltzing into the Fey Queen's glade like we didn't just wake every ancient thing between here and the mountains."
"She's not just court," Caylen said, rubbing the back of his neck like it ached. "She helped draft the Accord. She's older than Phokorus. Older than the Council. Older than—"
"Half the gods," Verek finished. His voice was low, steady. Not reverent. Certain.
He looked across the flames at Ezreal. "If anyone remembers the pattern… it's her."
Ezreal folded the map again. Careful. Like it might bleed.
"She'll know what we're carrying," he said.
"She already does," Verek replied.
Dax scowled. "Assuming she hasn't already grabbed a shard and picked a side."
Verek met his gaze without blinking. "She has."
That stopped them cold.
Caylen shifted. "How would you know that?"
Verek's hand flexed once in the dirt. "Because she didn't stop Malarath. And she could have."
Ezreal's eyes darkened. "She's letting this happen."
Verek nodded once. "She's testing it. Letting the game play out until the outcome favors her. Or until we prove her wrong."
Dax muttered something coarse under his breath.
"We're not going in blind," Caylen said. "We've got proof. A shard. A map. A trail of things that don't stay dead."
Verek looked toward the treeline. Toward the east. "We've got leverage," he said. "We use it."
"She'll feel the shard when we're close," Ezreal said.
"She already does," Verek repeated.
Caylen straightened up, firelight catching the edge of defiance in his eyes. "Then let her. Let her feel it."
Dax snorted. "One fragment down."
Ezreal's gaze didn't waver. "Unknown amount to go."
That wasn't just a number anymore.
It was a countdown.
Not just for them—but for something beneath the world. Something watching. Waiting.
The fire popped.
No one moved.
And far below them, deeper than stone or salt or story, something else turned its head.
It knew they were coming.
And it wasn't asleep anymore.