They left the village at dawn, the Echo wrapped in cloth and tucked into Kaelen's pack, its warmth a constant presence against his back. Aldric stood at the edge of the huts, his staff in his hand, his face shadowed by the hood of his cloak.
"You know where you're going?" the old man asked.
"The Hollow Forge," Kaelen said. "The third piece is there."
Aldric nodded slowly. "The Forge is not like the Dominion. There are things there that have been waiting for a thousand years. Things that the Skylords made and then abandoned. Things that hunger."
He looked at Theron, and his eyes were sad.
"The boy is strong. Stronger than you know. But the Forge will test him. It will test both of you. And not all who enter come out the same."
Kaelen put his hand on Theron's shoulder, and the boy did not flinch. "We'll face it together."
Aldric smiled, and there was something in that smile that might have been hope. "Then go. And may the Firstborn watch over you. They have been waiting for this moment for a very long time."
They walked south, into the Ash Wastes, and the world behind them faded into memory.
The Ash Wastes were not like anything Theron had imagined.
He had thought they would be barren, empty, a desert of ash and bone and the memory of fire. But there was life here, of a kind. Twisted trees that grew from cracks in the black stone, their leaves the colour of rust. Creatures that scuttled in the shadows, their eyes glowing in the darkness, their bodies covered in scales that shimmered like oil on water.
And the air was thick, heavy, charged with something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
"The Aethyr is thin here," his father said, walking beside him, his hand on his blade, his eyes scanning the horizon. "The Skylords' power doesn't reach this far. But there are other things. Older things. Things that have been sleeping since the Firstborn fell."
They walked for three days, the Echo guiding them, its light pulsing stronger as they drew closer to their destination. And on the third night, when they were camped in the shadow of a fallen tower, Theron saw something that made his blood run cold.
A light, far to the south, pulsing in the darkness like a heartbeat. Not the soft, warm light of the Echo. Something else. Something that burned with a heat that he could feel from miles away.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing toward the light.
His father's face was grim. "The Hollow Forge. The fires that were lit a thousand years ago, when the Skylords first began to build their weapons. They have been burning ever since. Waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
His father did not answer. He just stared at the light, his hand tight on his blade, the marks on his chest pulsing in rhythm with the Echo.
And in the darkness, something that had been sleeping for a thousand years began to stir.