Chapter 13: An Echo of Ashes

Dead Man’s Pass lived up to its name. The air grew thin and biting, and the winding trails were little more than crumbling ledges over bottomless ravines. For two days, they pushed on, their progress measured in agonizing inches. Leo moved with a mountain goat's sure-footed grace, but Emilia, battered and pushed beyond her limits, stumbled often, her raw hands scraping against the unforgiving stone. The drone’s hum had faded behind them, but a deeper silence had taken its place—a watchful, waiting silence that set Emilia’s teeth on edge. They were being followed. Not by the high-tech grid of Shadow Claw, but by something older, more primal. A presence that knew these peaks as its own. On the third morning, as they navigated a narrow defile shrouded in mist, it happened. A shifting rock, a cry torn from her lips, and Emilia fell, sliding down a steep, gravelly slope. Leo’s hand shot out, but he was a second too late. She landed hard at the bottom, her ankle twi