Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The forest broke open near the edge of the ravine.

Old trees leaned like drunk sentries, roots torn by frost and time. Stone outcroppings jutted up between frost-bitten shrubs, and the trail narrowed to a strip no wider than a cart axle.

Lindarion dropped low behind a half-collapsed boulder and raised one fist. The group behind him halted instantly, Lira to the right, Sylric just behind, Luneth already ghosting between shadows without a word.

He scanned the ridge above.

No signal flares. No movement.

Nothing.

"This is where Velna's team was supposed to check in," he said quietly.

No one replied.

Because they knew what that meant.

He reached out.

Mentally.

Ashwing.

A hum answered, not words, not thoughts. Just presence. The burn of coiled fire and compressed air in his blood.

Now.

A low roar echoed above the clouds seconds later.

Ashwing dropped into view like a descending god, wings tucked, claws extended. He landed beyond the tree line with a thud that rolled through the ground.

The mercs tensed.

Ashwing didn't roar.

Didn't flare.

He lowered his head and stood silent.

Lindarion approached and rested a hand against the dragon's neck.

Warm. Stable.

"I want eyes in every direction," he said, not raising his voice. "They should've met us here."

Kael cursed quietly. "You think they're dead?"

"No," Lindarion said. "Not yet."

He turned back to the ravine mouth, tight rock, narrow slope, and shadows deeper than they had any right to be.

"We go in quiet. Keep formation. If we find the rune—they're close."

And if not?

Then someone was already bleeding.

—

The ravine narrowed faster than it should have.

The trees thinned, then vanished entirely, giving way to raw rock and jagged steps carved into the slope, recently. The stone was still sharp at the edges, not yet worn by wind or moss.

They moved in silence.

Ashwing couldn't follow. The trail was too narrow. He crouched near the top, tail twitching, eyes glowing faintly under the canopy like a god left in waiting.

Lindarion led the descent.

Every step buzzed at the base of his spine. Not magic. Just wrongness. Like they were moving toward something that didn't want to be seen.

Lira stayed behind him, half a pace off. Kael and Mekir watched the rear. Luneth scouted to the left, steps soundless, blade sheathed but fingers curled.

Then they saw it.

It didn't glow.

It didn't hum.

It just was, cut straight into the cliff face like someone had tried to flatten geometry into stone.

Three intersecting lines, each taller than a man, with precise angles so sharp they didn't look chiseled, they looked pressed. Pressed with something massive. One edge curved down, vanishing into the stone like a buried arc.

Lindarion stepped closer.

The air wasn't warm. But his mana reacted. Subtle. Like it recognized the pattern even if his mind didn't.

Sylric crouched beside it, running a gloved hand over the line.

"No mana in the carving," he said. "It's inert. But it's not natural. And it's not decorative."

Kael looked up at the curve. "Part of something bigger?"

"Much bigger," Lindarion said. "We're only seeing a fragment."

Lira moved further along the cliff, eyes scanning for more. "It continues past the bend. Same depth. Same angle."

Luneth's voice came from behind a nearby rock. Quiet. Cold.

"There's a camp. Empty."

Lindarion turned. "Our scouts?"

"Not their camp," she said. "Someone else's."

They looked back at the rune in the wall.

This wasn't theory anymore.

It was real.

It was massive.

And they were standing in the middle of its foundation.

—

Luneth didn't wait.

She was already slipping between boulders by the time Lindarion turned toward her voice.

The path to the camp was tight, stone pressed in like teeth. But the space opened just enough beyond the bend to fit three tents, a cold firepit, and a set of crates that hadn't been fully unpacked.

No bodies.

No signs of blood.

No signs of life.

Lira stepped in second, blade already half-drawn.

Sylric crouched by the firepit, sifting through ashes with the back of a spoon. "Dead at least two days. Left fast. Didn't eat."

Kael pulled open one of the crates, dry rations, untouched. Beside it, a half-filled canteen and a broken mug.

"No signs of a fight," Lindarion muttered. "No one packed. But no panic either."

Luneth knelt by the largest tent.

She pulled back the flap.

Inside were sketches.

Dozens.

Rough charcoal. Some more precise. All of them showing sections of the same rune, each drawn from a different angle. Curved portions. Angular branches. One had a scale mark: six meters per quadrant.

Mekir picked one up. "They were mapping it."

Lindarion stepped inside.

The sketches were layered. Annotated in multiple hands. Pinned at the edges like someone was working out something too big to hold in their head.

"Scholars," Lira said.

Sylric nodded. "Or hired observers."

"They didn't run," Lindarion said. "They were taken. Or silenced."

He scanned the tent again.

One sketch caught his eye, set apart from the others, half-folded under a box.

He pulled it free.

Unlike the others, it wasn't a clean line drawing.

It was rough.

Rushed.

Drawn with shaking hands.

It showed the rune. But distorted. Not complete, interrupted mid-curve.

And at the center of the circle was something else.

A shape.

Not a figure. Not a symbol.

Just a dark, jagged void scratched so hard it tore the parchment.

Like whoever drew it didn't want to draw it.

Like they had to.

Lindarion folded it once. Slipped it into his coat.

"Burn the camp," he said.

Kael blinked. "All of it?"

"They already found this place once."

Lira lit the first tent.

The others followed.

And behind them, the sketches turned to ash.

—

The fire was gone before the scouts came back.

Luneth stood at the far edge of the clearing, hood up, eyes on the ridge. Her blade wasn't drawn, but her hand hadn't left it in ten minutes.

Then movement.

Rythe came first.

Silent.

She emerged from the trees without a sound, spear strapped to her back, eyes fixed straight ahead.

Lindarion saw her face and knew immediately, she definitely saw something.

Not something that tried to kill her.

Something worse.

Something she couldn't understand.

Kael moved first. "Report?"

She didn't answer.

Just walked past them and sat near a rock.

Didn't speak.

Didn't blink.

Didn't sleep.

Ten minutes later, Velna returned.

Her usual calm had curdled into silence. Her steps were sharp. Too precise. She didn't look at anyone. She dropped her pack on the ground, sat with her back against a tree, and pulled a dagger into her lap.

Not to clean it.

Just to hold it.

Finally came Derran.

He limped.

Not badly.

But he limped.

One cut across his thigh. Not deep. Already bound.

His eyes were narrowed. Not in pain. In focus.

He walked up to Lindarion. Stopped. Met his eyes.

"Nothing attacked us," he said.

"But something saw you," Lindarion replied.

Derran nodded once.

"That's all I've got," he said. "You want details, ask someone who didn't nearly piss themselves for no reason."

Lira handed him water. He drank. Didn't thank her.

Sylric approached from the side, voice low.

"Still think this is a lost excavation?"

Lindarion stared at the scouts.

One shaking.

One gripping steel.

One just waiting.

"No," he said. "Now I think we're already inside the thing they built."