Morning light spilled across the rooftops of the border town as Kael stepped out of the Adventurers’ Guild.

  The streets were already alive.

  Merchants rolled open wooden shutters. Caravans prepared their wagons. Blacksmiths hammered steel while the smell of fresh bread drifted through the cool air.

  To most people here, the town was nothing more than a frontier hub—one of many settlements scattered along the outer territories.

  But Kael had already begun to see the pattern beneath it all.

  Every frontier town was built near something.

  Old ruins.

  Collapsed structures.

  Buried systems that no one truly understood.

  The Crown’s traces were everywhere.

  Most people simply didn’t know how to recognize them.

  Kael walked slowly toward the market square, the parchment for the Northern Sink Ruins expedition folded inside his coat.

  Rank C minimum.

  Three missing scouting teams.

  Possible underground structure.

  For most adventurers, that description meant danger.

  For Kael, it meant confirmation.

  The Crown was beginning to wake.

  And if fragments were activating across the world…

  Then someone would eventually notice.

  He had to reach them first.

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  Before the Cult did.

  Before the guild scholars began digging.

  Before the wrong people touched something they couldn’t control.

  Kael stopped near a water fountain in the square and unfolded the parchment again.

  The expedition would depart tomorrow morning.

  Team requirement: four members minimum.

  Which meant he needed companions.

  Kael exhaled quietly.

  Working alone had always been easier.

  But entering an unstable structure alone was suicide—even for someone with a Sigil.

  He scanned the square.

  Adventurers moved everywhere.

  Some looked inexperienced—fresh leather armor, eager eyes.

  Others carried the heavy silence of veterans who had survived too many contracts.

  None of them would understand what the ruins truly were.

  But that didn’t matter.

  He only needed capable fighters.

  “Looking for a team?”

  The voice came from the side.

  Kael turned.

  A tall woman leaned against the fountain’s stone edge, arms crossed.

  Her armor was practical—light chain beneath a dark travel coat—and a curved blade hung at her side.

  Short black hair.

  Sharp eyes.

  She looked like someone who evaluated every person she met in under three seconds.

  “You were staring at the Northern Sink contract,” she said.

  Kael studied her quietly.

  “Maybe.”

  She smirked.

  “That’s usually what people say when the answer is yes.”

  She stepped closer and held out a hand.

  “Lira. Rank B.”

  Kael shook it.

  “Kael.”

  “Rank?”

  “C.”

  Lira raised an eyebrow.

  “And you’re going after a contract that already swallowed three scouting teams?”

  Kael shrugged slightly.

  “Someone has to figure out what happened.”

  Lira watched him for a moment.

  Then she laughed softly.

  “You’re either confident… or stupid.”

  “Sometimes the difference is small.”

  Her smile widened.

  “I like that answer.”

  She reached into her coat and pulled out two small bronze tokens.

  “Two of us already signed the expedition,” she said. “My partner and I.”

  She tossed one token to Kael.

  “If you’re serious, we leave at sunrise.”

  Kael caught the token.

  It bore the guild’s expedition mark.

  Team registration.

  “You didn’t even ask what I can do,” Kael said.

  Lira turned and began walking away through the market.

  “If you were weak,” she replied over her shoulder, “you wouldn’t have been looking at that contract.”

  She paused for a moment.

  Then added:

  “And if you were lying… you wouldn’t have taken the token.”

  Kael watched her disappear into the crowd.

  For a moment, he stood still.

  Then he looked down at the bronze token in his hand.

  The Sigil beneath his glove pulsed again.

  Stronger this time.

  Almost eager.

  Northern Sink Ruins.

  Something there was reacting to him already.

  Kael slipped the token into his pocket.

  “Looks like the next piece is waiting.”

  Above the town, dark clouds slowly gathered along the distant northern mountains.

  And far beneath those mountains…

  Hidden under layers of collapsed stone and forgotten tunnels…

  Another fragment of the Crown had begun to stir.