(Page 5) Chapter 1 – The Celestial Thread | The Broken Pass

The Broken Pass – One Day Later

They traveled light.

The old road through the Broken Pass was nearly swallowed by thornbrush and stone, the path fractured by time and tremors. Every step felt like treading over forgotten graves.

Kieran led the way now, his mother’s blade strapped tight against his back. Myla followed close, jotting notes in her weatherworn journal. Symbols, whispers, threads of prophecy — all things she could feel but not yet explain.

Elira lagged behind.

Not out of fatigue — but caution.

She kept her senses trained to the treeline, where the wind moved in directions it shouldn’t. Her Celestial blood sang warnings, ancient instincts stirred from slumber.

"I still don't understand why we have to go through the pass," Myla muttered. "Couldn’t we go around? Somewhere less... obvious?"

"Because obvious is where they’d least expect us," Kieran replied with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And also… there's something buried here.”

Elira halted.

"You felt it too?" she whispered.

They all turned.

In the silence that followed, the wind died.

And then — a single horn blast echoed through the gorge. Deep. Low. Twisted. As if blown from a throat not made by men.

Myla's eyes widened. "That came from ahead."

Kieran drew his blade.

"No," Elira whispered, drawing the hood over her glowing eyes.

"It came from below."