The feeble light of the campfires shrank behind them, swallowed by a twilight that felt more like a prelude to absolute darkness than a reprieve from it. August moved with a quiet unease, his steps careful but uncertain. He didn't know why his body moved the way it did—why his feet avoided the loose gravel, why his breathing stayed shallow and controlled. It was instinct, not memory, guiding him. And that terrified him more than the dark.
Beside him, Kael moved with the deliberate precision of someone who had walked this path too many times. His staff tapped softly against the ground, the only sound in the oppressive silence. The air was heavy, thick with a tension that pressed against August's chest like a weight he couldn't shake.
"Stay low and keep your eyes on the ground," Kael murmured, his voice barely more than a breath. "These plains are riddled with hidden dips and cracks. A twisted ankle is as good as a death sentence out here."
August nodded, though his gaze kept drifting upward, toward the endless expanse of violet dusk. The stars were faint pinpricks of light, distant and cold, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were watching. He tore his eyes away, focusing instead on the uneven ground beneath his boots. He didn't want to think about what the stars might see.
They walked in silence, the crunch of their footsteps the only sound. The southern edge of the camp was marked by crumbling cairns, stone piles that had long since collapsed under the weight of time and neglect. It was here that the trail of the missing children had last been seen.
Kael knelt, his gloved fingers brushing over faint impressions in the dust. "Four of them," he said, his voice grim. "Small tracks. They were running."
"Running from what?" August asked, his voice tight.
Kael's expression darkened. "They weren't running away. They were running toward something."
August frowned, scanning the barren landscape ahead. There was nothing but desolation, the same cracked earth and jagged rocks stretching endlessly into the horizon. "Toward what?" he asked, his unease growing. "There's nothing out here."
Kael didn't answer immediately. He straightened, his gaze fixed on a shallow ravine in the distance. "The tracks lead that way," he said, pointing. "If they were looking for shelter, they might have gone down there."
As they approached the edge of the ravine, a low, rhythmic hum reached their ears. It was deep and resonant, a vibration that seemed to come from the ground itself. August felt it in his chest, a faint, unsettling pulse that made his skin crawl.
Kael froze, his body tensing. "Blighted," he said, his voice low and sharp. "But this… this is different."
August's stomach twisted. "Different how?"
Kael didn't answer. He gestured for August to stay back and crept forward, peering over the edge of the ravine. August hesitated, then followed, his curiosity overriding his fear.
The ravine was shallow, no more than twenty feet deep. In its center stood a grotesque Blightheart, a pulsating mass of fused bone and crystal that glowed with a sickly green light. The ground around it was scorched and cracked, radiating an unnatural heat. And at its base, sitting in a neat, eerie circle, were the four missing children.
Their eyes were wide and unfocused, their faces slack with an unsettling calm. They were chanting in unison, their small voices merging with the rhythmic pulse of the Blightheart. They stared directly at it, their gazes locked on the pulsing light within.
August felt a wave of nausea. The sight of the children, so small and vulnerable, sitting in the shadow of that monstrous thing, made his chest tighten. "What is that?" he whispered.
"A Blightheart," Kael said, his voice grim. "It's what's left when a creature succumbs to the curse after overusing magic. It's a focus, a source of corruption. And it's drawing them in."
As if on cue, the Blightheart pulsed, its glow intensifying. One of the children, a boy no older than eight, let out a soft gasp. A thin, inky tendril of shadow detached from the Blightheart and snaked through the air, wrapping around the boy's arm. He didn't flinch. He didn't scream. He just smiled, his eyes shimmering with a faint, star-like silver.
And then the tendril tightened.
The boy's body convulsed, his small frame jerking violently as the tendril burrowed into his skin. His smile twisted into a grotesque rictus of pain, his mouth opening in a silent scream. His flesh began to wither, his skin turning gray and brittle as the Blightheart drained the life from him. Within seconds, he was nothing more than a husk, his body crumbling into ash that was swept away by the faint breeze.
August stared, his mind struggling to process what he had just seen. The boy was gone. Just… gone. There was no time to mourn, no time to save him. The Blightheart had taken him, and there was nothing they could do.
Reality hit him like a blow to the chest. This world was brutal, unforgiving. It didn't care about innocence or hope. It didn't care about survival. It only cared about the curse, about the endless cycle of death and despair. And he was a part of it now.
Kael's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "We don't have time to hesitate," he said, his tone sharp. "If we don't act now, the others will die too."
August nodded numbly, his body moving on autopilot as Kael descended into the ravine. The older man moved with a fluid grace, his staff glowing faintly as shadows coiled around him. The air seemed to ripple as he approached the Blightheart, the tendrils of shadow lashing out at him like living things.
Kael didn't flinch. The shadows around him surged forward, meeting the Blightheart's tendrils head-on. The two forces clashed, the air crackling with energy as Kael's power overwhelmed the Blightheart's defenses. He moved quickly, his staff striking the ground with a sharp crack that sent a wave of darkness rippling outward.
The children didn't react to the chaos around them. They remained seated, their gazes locked on the Blightheart. Kael reached the nearest child, a girl with dirt-smudged cheeks, and scooped her up in one swift motion. He turned to August, his voice cutting through the din. "Take her!"
August scrambled down the slope, his hands trembling as he took the girl from Kael. Her body was limp, her eyes unfocused, but she was alive. He carried her back up the ravine, his heart pounding as Kael moved to the next child.
The process was slow, methodical. Kael's shadows shielded him from the Blightheart's attacks as he rescued the children one by one. By the time he reached the last child, the Blightheart was pulsing erratically, its light flickering as if it were struggling to maintain its hold.
Kael didn't give it the chance. He raised his staff, the shadows around him coiling into a single, massive tendril. With a sharp, decisive motion, he drove the tendril into the heart of the Blightheart. The artifact let out a deafening screech, its light flaring one last time before it shattered, the shards disintegrating into dust.
The ravine fell silent.
Kael climbed back up the slope, his face pale but resolute. "Let's go," he said, his voice firm. "We've done what we can."
August nodded, his grip tightening on the girl in his arms. As they made their way back to camp, the weight of what he had seen pressed down on him. The boy's death, the Blightheart's corruption, the children's vacant stares—it was all too much. But he couldn't look away. Not anymore.
This was the world he lived in now. And there was no escaping it.