THE SHATTERED SIGIL: CHRONICLES OF THE LAST DAWN

Chapter 3:The City Beneath the Mist

Chapter 3: The City Beneath the Mist

The forest whispered secrets as Auren walked.

Each step sank into wet earth veined with faint gold light. The air smelled of ozone and rain, of magic freshly awakened. Every tree looked wrong — twisted into spires, leaves shaped like glass, roots that hummed softly beneath his boots. This was no ordinary forest. This was where the world had begun to forget itself.

He still held the shard the stranger had given him.

It pulsed faintly, answering the light in his chest. Whenever he turned toward the east, the glow brightened — like a compass of divine fire guiding him onward.

Lyra.

The thought of her made his chest tighten. He had no way of knowing if she or the others had survived the collapse of the bridge. Logic told him she was too stubborn to die quietly — but logic didn’t hold much weight anymore.

The mark on his chest throbbed again. He winced, pressing his hand over it. “You’re not helping,” he muttered.

A faint voice answered in his head.

“You walk toward what you were… not what you are.”

Auren froze, sword halfway out of its sheath. “Show yourself!”

Nothing. Only the wind.

He exhaled slowly. Either the voice belonged to the mark, or he was going mad. Both seemed equally likely.

He walked until the light changed. The forest thinned, opening into a valley shrouded in fog. There, rising from the mist, stood the ruins of Marathen — the City Beneath the Mist, once a jewel of the east, now half-swallowed by its own reflection. Tower spires jutted from the fog like bones piercing through skin. The air around it shimmered with fractured runes.

Auren descended carefully. The path was lined with old statues — guardians of forgotten gods, their faces eroded but their eyes still faintly glowing. One held an inscription barely legible beneath moss:

“All light must burn before it is reborn.”

He wasn’t sure if that was prophecy or warning.

At the city’s edge, he found the gates torn open. The ground was scorched, the stones cracked. He drew his sword as he entered, the echo of his footsteps vanishing into the mist.

“Lyra?” he called.

Only silence answered.

Then — faint movement.

A flicker of shadow between broken arches.

Auren turned sharply. “Who’s there?”

From the fog stepped a young woman, slender, wrapped in a cloak of white silk. Her hair was pale as starlight, her eyes a soft, unsettling blue. She looked human — mostly — but the air around her hummed with unnatural calm.

“You carry the mark,” she said, voice like wind through glass. “I can feel it.”

“And you are?” Auren asked warily.

“Eira Solen,” she said. “Warden of the Sleeping Sigil.”

He blinked. “You’re what?”

“The guardian of what remains,” she said, tilting her head. “You shouldn’t be here, Paladin. The world beyond these ruins is not yet ready for you.”

He sheathed his sword slowly, but didn’t let his guard drop. “I don’t have time for riddles. The Sigil of Dawn is broken — I saw it. And if what you say is true, there are others. Where?”

Eira’s gaze darkened. “Do you think you can fix them?”

“I have to try.”

“You can’t fix what was never meant to be whole,” she said softly. “The Sigils were not gifts. They were chains.”

Auren frowned. “Chains? To what?”

“To them.” She looked skyward — or perhaps beyond it. “The gods you worshiped weren’t creators, Auren. They were prisoners. The Sigils bound their essence to this world, caging their power. When the first one broke…” She hesitated. “The cage cracked.”

Auren felt the air grow colder. “You’re saying we’ve been living on the gods’ prison.”

“Yes.” Her voice was steady, but her eyes shone with grief. “And now the prisoners are waking.”

The ground trembled faintly. Somewhere deep beneath the city, a rumble answered her words. Dust fell from the broken arches. The mark on Auren’s chest pulsed faster — as if it recognized something below.

Eira stepped closer. “If you continue down this path, Paladin, you won’t save the world. You’ll free it — and that will destroy everything.”

“Then tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

She studied him for a moment, then said quietly, “Follow me.”

They moved through the ruined streets, the fog swirling around them like a living thing. Broken towers leaned against one another, covered in creeping light. The silence was total, but Auren could feel the weight of something ancient pressing on him — like a thousand unseen eyes.

Eira led him to a vast courtyard at the heart of the city. At its center stood a massive pool, still as glass, reflecting the sky above — except the reflection was wrong. It showed a world burning, inverted, bleeding color where none existed.

“This,” Eira said, kneeling beside it, “is the Mirror of the Sigils. It remembers what the world has forgotten.”

Auren stared at the reflection. The image shifted — showing the Sigil of Dawn cracking apart, the explosion, the firestorm. Then, another vision — six Sigils floating in a circle, their light intertwining. And in the center, a shadow — a figure cloaked in radiance, faceless, vast.

“The Veiled One,” Eira whispered. “The god that was never meant to awaken.”

The figure raised its hand in the vision, and one by one, the Sigils began to fracture.

Auren’s jaw tightened. “This is what’s happening now?”

“Yes. And the mark on your chest means you are connected to it.”

He turned to her sharply. “You said you were the Warden. Why haven’t you stopped this?”

Eira looked away. “Because I tried. And the last time I did, an entire kingdom turned to glass.”

Her voice trembled. “The Sigils are not power, Auren. They are memory. Fragments of the gods’ essence left behind when they were sealed. Every time one awakens, it consumes whatever it touches. You carry one of those fragments now.”

“So what happens to me?”

“You burn,” she said simply. “But you’ll burn bright enough to lead others to their doom.”

The words hit like a sword. He looked down at the reflection again, at the image of himself glowing like a dying star. “Then what choice do I have?”

“Find the others,” she said. “Before they do.”

He looked up. “They?”

Eira’s expression darkened. “The ones who serve the Veiled One — the Cult of Dusk. They believe the end of the Sigils will free the gods completely. They’re already hunting the shards.”

Auren thought of the cloaked stranger from the forest. “I’ve met one of them.”

“Then they already know who you are.”

The sound of a horn cut through the air — distant, echoing through the ruins. Eira’s eyes widened. “Too late.”

They came through the mist like ghosts — armored riders draped in black banners, their mounts breathing smoke. The Cult of Dusk had arrived, and their leader rode at the front — a tall figure wearing a mask of silver and night. His voice carried like steel scraping across stone.

“Hand him over, Warden,” the leader said. “He belongs to the Sigil now.”

Eira stepped between them. “Over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged.”

Auren drew his sword, the mark on his chest flaring to life. The riders dismounted, blades gleaming with black flame. The ground trembled beneath their boots.

Eira whispered a spell, her hands glowing with blue fire. “You fight well, Paladin?”

“I manage,” Auren said, smirking slightly. “Try not to die.”

“Likewise.”

The first wave struck.

Steel met sorcery in a blaze of light. Auren cut through one cultist, then another, his sword blazing with white fire. Eira sent waves of energy ripping through the ground, turning stone to molten glass. But the cultists kept coming, whispering prayers to the Veiled One as they fought.

“The light will break,” they chanted. “The dawn will die.”

Auren spun, parried, struck. Every movement fed the mark’s glow until his entire body was radiating with blinding energy. The enemy faltered — just for a moment — as the sigil flared brighter than the sun.

Then everything went white.

When the light faded, the courtyard was silent. The cultists lay scattered, their armor cracked, their weapons melted. Eira stood panting beside him, her magic spent. “Remind me,” she said weakly, “to never stand too close to you again.”

Auren dropped to one knee, exhausted. The mark on his chest still burned, but now it was dimming, fading into a faint ember.

“They’ll send more,” Eira said. “You need to leave before—”

A new voice interrupted.

Calm. Familiar. Dangerous.

“Before what?”

Lyra stepped out from the mist, cloak torn, eyes burning with fury and relief. Behind her came two surviving soldiers. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Kael.”

Auren smiled faintly, despite everything. “You found me.”

She crossed her arms. “Of course I did. You’re a walking beacon of divine chaos.”

Eira studied her warily. “Another mortal bound to the flame?”

Lyra glanced at her. “Scholar. And yes, he’s mine.”

Eira arched a brow. “Yours?”

“Figuratively,” Lyra said quickly. “Mostly.”

Auren sighed. “You two can argue ownership later. We need to move.”

Eira nodded reluctantly. “Then I’ll come with you.”

Lyra frowned. “And who exactly are you?”

Eira met her gaze, calm and unflinching. “The only person who can tell you how to stop the gods from waking.”

The three of them stood in the fading light, the air around them humming with quiet power. Somewhere beyond the horizon, thunder rolled again — a deeper, older sound than before.

The world was breaking faster than they could follow.

And their only choice now was to run straight into its heart.

End of Chapter 3