The ink writhed across the parchment like a living thing, reshaping its markings into an unmistakable form - a path.
Ilira traced it with a careful finger, her breath catching as the new symbols settled into place. The coordinates led toward a desolate stretch of land, a place with no recorded history, no travelers' accounts, no mention in even the most obscure records.
"This region doesn't exist," Vaedin murmured, eyes locked on the shifting ink. He ran a hand over the parchment as if expecting it to vanish beneath his touch.
Sivrin scoffed, flicking his coin into the air again. "Tell that to the map. It seems pretty convinced otherwise."
Ilira was barely listening. The Hollow Star's whisper had grown stronger, curling into her thoughts like an insistent tide. It wanted them to move - now.
She gathered the map, rolling it tightly before tucking it into the folds of her coat. "We leave at dawn."
---
The journey was uneasy.
As they neared their destination, Ilira felt the Hollow Star's voice shift - no longer whispering, but pulling. The landscape grew too quiet, the air too thin, as if they had stepped into a place that had forgotten what it meant to exist.
Vaedin spotted the first signs of something unnatural. "Look at these ruins."
The structures were unlike any civilization they had studied - carved from stone that shimmered as if refusing to hold form, its edges blurring whenever Ilira looked too closely.
And then, the map shifted again.
The ink bled, rearranging once more. Not just reshaping -reacting.
Sivrin ran his fingers over the warped stone, his expression unreadable. He had seen ruins like these before - not here, but somewhere. A fleeting, fractured memory, buried in the stolen minutes he could never quite piece together.
Sivrin took an uneasy step back. "I don't trust that thing."
Ilira ignored him, spreading the parchment against the uneven ground. The new markings revealed something written in a language none of them recognized.
Then the whisper of the Hollow Star became a voice.
"You are not meant to be here."