The Breach roared behind them, a gaping wound in the fabric of Ashreign's sky.
The group stood on the broken stones, the dust of their failure settling in the twilight.
No one spoke.
Not right away.
Cassiel let the silence stretch, feeling it settle in his lungs, his bones. It wasn't the simple silence of defeat — it was the heavier silence of knowing that they had been too slow, too weak, too human.
He turned first.
"We can't follow him now."
Mirae kicked a fragment of stone, sending it clattering off into the mist. "So what? We just leave him to whatever thatwas?"
"We don't have a choice," Bastion said, voice low. "You saw it too. The Breach wasn't made for us."
Elior rose, brushing dust from his knees. "It would consume us before we took three steps."
"And what about him?" Mirae snapped. "You all saw what he looked like. That wasn't someone who wanted to be found."
Cassiel stared at the place where Ilyan had vanished, mind whirring.
He had looked back. For a heartbeat, he had hesitated.
There had been recognition. There had been something that could still be reached.
Or maybe she was fooling herself.
He clenched her fists until her knuckles whitened.
"We need a new plan," he said. "Before this city eats us alive."
They retreated from the Breach, back into the skeletal remains of Ashreign.
The path had shifted again — of course it had — forcing them through narrow alleys framed by leaning towers. It was a city built like a mouth, all teeth and hunger.
Cassiel led without speaking, cutting a way forward with his instincts, a sense sharper than sight.
Behind him, the others fell into step — reluctant, bruised, but still moving.
It was something.
It was enough.
For now.
They found temporary shelter in what had once been a library.
The books were gone, eaten by mold or stolen by the crawling things that whispered in the dark. Only the shelves remained — towering ribs of forgotten knowledge.
Cassiel dragged a broken bench to the center of the room and sat.
The others gathered.
Mirae slumped onto a fallen pillar, stretching her legs. Bastion leaned against the doorframe, sword in easy reach. Elior knelt, drawing symbols into the dust with a shard of glass — wards against wandering spirits.
No one spoke of Ilyan.
Not yet.
Cassiel broke the silence first.
"We have two goals now," he said. "Survive this city. And find out what that Breach actually is."
"And Ilyan?" Elior asked without looking up.
"If we find the way through," he said carefully, "we find him."
It was the best he could offer.
Mirae flipped her knife between her fingers, a constant, metallic beat. "You really think there's a way?"
Cassiel thought of the way Ilyan had looked back.
he thought of the bells tolling.
He thought of the way the air had tasted — coppery, sharp, alive.
"I think Ashreign hides more than it shows."
Bastion grunted. "It hides too well. The ground under our feet could be a mouth ready to swallow us."
"Then we'll move faster," Cassiel said. "We don't give it the chance."
That night, they took turns keeping watch.
Cassiel dreamt — if it could be called dreaming.
Of Ilyan standing at the Breach, hand outstretched, mouth moving without sound.
Of a city where the statues moved when you weren't looking, where bridges snapped like traps, where the bells counted down to something worse than death.
Of a voice — no, not a voice — a presence whispering:"Everything breaks. Everyone is rewritten."
He woke with a gasp, heart pounding, sweat cold on his back.
Across the room, Elior looked up from his vigil.
"Bad dream?" he asked softly.
Cassiel wiped his face, composing himself. "No. Just a reminder."
"A reminder of what?"
He stood, stretching sore limbs. "That we don't have time to waste."
The next morning — if it could be called morning, in a place where the sky rarely changed — they moved again.
Ashreign greeted them like a shifting puzzle.
Streets that should have been straight curved into spirals. Bridges that should have led across dropped off into bottomless pits.
Mirae cursed under her breath.
"This place is alive."
"It's worse," Elior said grimly. "It's aware."
Cassiel led them carefully, following not paths, but patterns — the way the buildings leaned, the way the echoes of their footsteps doubled back, the way the cold seemed to thicken in certain alleys.
He didn't know where she was going.
But something inside her did.
And it was leading him somewhere important.
They reached a courtyard where a statue stood at the center.
It was cracked, weathered, missing an arm.
Its face, however, was untouched.
A young man, smiling sadly.
Cassiel froze.
Mirae approached first, circling the statue, blade in hand. "Another trap?"
Bastion tested the ground with his boot. "Feels... stable. For now."
Elior ran fingers over the base of the statue, brushing away grime and lichen to reveal an inscription.
Cassiel stepped closer.
The words, when revealed, made her stomach twist.
"To the one who crossed too far."
Beneath it, a carving of the Breach itself — spiraling, infinite, a maw yawning open.
And beneath that — a map.
A map of Ashreign.
Cassiel inhaled sharply.
The Breach was not the only tear.
There were others.
Smaller. Hidden. Scattered across the city.
And perhaps — she thought, hope prickling like a dangerous fever — if they could find enough of them, they could weave a path.
Not through brute force.
But through understanding.
Through the bones of Ashreign itself.
They camped by the statue that night, lighting a small fire with torn scraps from abandoned shops.
Cassiel sat apart, studying the map by flickering light.
Mirae sat down beside him, silent for a while before speaking.
"You really think we can find him again?"
Cassiel traced the spiral on the map with one finger.
"I think he wants to be found."
Mirae snorted. "Could've fooled me."
Cassiel smiled grimly. "People lost in the dark don't always know how to call for help."
"Neither do the monsters."
Cassiel met her gaze.
"Then we'll learn to tell the difference."
Mirae leaned back, watching the stars shift uneasily above.
"You think he's still himself?"
Cassiel hesitated.
"I think... he's fighting."
And that was enough for her.
It had to be.
They set out again at dawn.
Following the hidden cracks.
The secret paths.
The quiet places where Ashreign forgot to twist reality.
Every step was a gamble.
Every breath was a risk.
But they moved forward anyway.
Because somewhere, beyond the spiral, beyond the hunger, beyond the silence...
Ilyan waited.
And this time, they wouldn't be too late.