Kai counted his steps as he crossed the bridge into Crevassemaw, tracking the rhythm like he tracked everything else. Seven gaps remained in his knowledge. Seven pieces missing before he could move on the temples. The fifth element waited somewhere in those forbidden places, and he would find it when he was ready. But the watchtower ahead stopped him cold. A trail of frozen blood led straight to its entrance, dark red against white snow. Kai approached slowly, letting wind curl around his fingers. Someone had fallen here. Recently. He found the stranger slumped against the tower's stone base, barely breathing. The man's hand clutched something to his chest—a tablet covered in symbols. Five symbols carved deep into ancient stone. The stranger's eyes locked on Kai. His lips moved once. "Real," he whispered. Then nothing. Kai pulled the tablet free and studied it in the fading light. The center symbol showed an eye surrounded by flowing lines that seemed to shift as he watched. Four other symbols marked the corners—shapes he recognized as wind, fire, water, earth. His pulse quickened. The fifth element wasn't hidden anymore. Someone had found proof, and now they were dead. Gap seven just closed. But Kai needed to know who else knew about this tablet, and he needed to know fast.

Kai slipped the tablet into his coat and left the watchtower. The stranger's death told him everything about timing—someone was already moving on this knowledge. He needed to reach the settlement before word spread. His boots crunched through snow as he counted his steps again, this time measuring distance instead of certainty. Jamie found him at the stone marker near the settlement's edge, breath clouding in quick bursts. His cousin pressed a frosted locket into his palm without greeting. "Open it," Jamie said. Inside, a second tablet fragment showed the same eye symbol, but cracked down the middle. "Someone's selling pieces. I tracked the seller to Crevassemaw, but they knew I was coming." Kai turned the locket over. A circle with a curved line marked the back—the nameless blocker's symbol, fresh enough that frost hadn't filled the grooves yet. Kai looked past Jamie to the ridge beyond the settlement. A beacon of packed snow and dark stones stood where none had been that morning. Too visible. Too deliberate. The nameless blocker wasn't just ahead of him anymore—they were watching Jamie, which meant they knew about family connections Kai had kept off every record. He handed the locket back. "How many beacons did you pass on the way here?" Jamie's face went still. "Three. Maybe four." Someone had marked Jamie's entire route like a trail for others to follow. Kai made his choice in the span of two heartbeats. He couldn't move on the temples while the nameless blocker was mapping his connections. But he could stop pretending they weren't already in the same game. He pulled out the stranger's tablet and showed it to Jamie. "We're done hiding what we know," he said. "If they're watching us, we make them react instead of wait." Jamie nodded once, and Kai felt the shift—no more counting gaps, no more patience. The fifth element wasn't the only thing hiding in those temples. The nameless blocker wanted it too, and now Kai had proof they'd kill for it.