Transmigrated into Fractured Dawn as the Awakened Cinder

They didn't speak for a while, just kept walking.

Veyla still walked ahead, quiet and steady. The only sound heard was her boots crunching through soot and old bones. Hex or at least that's what she called him—trailed behind her slowly. Every step heavier than the last.

His legs ached, his ankles stiff. His breaths fogged in front of him even though the air wasn't cold.

The trees had thinned out again, this time for good. No more rotten roots or fog-choked branches. Just open ground, flat and cracked like a battlefield long forgotten. The soil was black and brittle, ash curling up in the wind like flakes of burnt paper.

"Feels like we've been walking for days," he muttered, tiredness evident in his voice.

Veyla didn't turn around. "That's not far from the truth."

He almost asked what she meant, but she always answered with riddles and he was too tired for another puzzle.

Eventually, they reached what looked like a Cinder Shrine, though it barely resembled one. A dais lay in the center of the clearing, half-swallowed by roots and rubble. It looked way older than the rest he'd seen.

Stone warped like it had melted and re-hardened. It was probably one of the old shrines, before the change.

Veyla stepped close and knelt down, her fingers hovering over a faint circle carved into the altar's center, its sigil broken and unreadable.

"Grace had once lived here. Now there seems to be nothing," she said.