"…he appeared out of nothing. No portal. No sound. Just—there."
I froze before I even realized I was listening.
The corridor was dim, cold stone pressing against my side as I leaned closer to the slightly open door. I wasn't supposed to be here—I was on wall duty until twenty minutes ago. But my feet had wandered. Or maybe my curiosity had dragged here the mont I saw Lydia storm through the inner gate with two officers behind her and vanish into this room.
I didn't hear the General respond, only the steady rhythm of his pacing—heavy boots echoing on the wooden floor inside.
Lydia's voice stayed firm, precise. "One of our scouts spotted him near a forest ridge north of the elven territories. Said he looked like he'd been through hell."
I held my breath. My shoulders were still sore from training, but now I barely felt them. The words pulled everything else out of focus.
"A weapon?" the General asked, finally.
"No. Not imdiately," Lydia said. "But the ones who saw him—they're calling it an angel."
I blinked.
Angel?
She kept going. "Six wings. Scorched, bloodied. Body torn open, but still standing. He was shaking. His eyes weren't… human. But they weren't gone either."
A pause.
"Then he spoke. Just once. Said: 'Free him. His chain.'"
My throat tightened.
"And then?"
"He disappeared."
The General swore quietly. Wood creaked. Maybe he was sitting down. Maybe just burying his face in his hands.
Lydia's voice didn't waver. "He looked like the one from the beginning. The warning. The six-month prophecy. The sa wings. Sa… presence. Sa silence."
The sa silence echoed in now. Heavy and cold. I backed away from the door before I could hear anything else.
The hall outside was mostly empty, just a few officers passing in the distance and one torch sputtering in a bracket by the stairs. I made my way down quickly, trying to look casual, even though my heart was still hamring.
I hadn't even had ti to process what I'd just heard when Cealith appeared out of nowhere like he always fucking did. Right in my path, hands behind his back, half-lidded eyes watching like he already knew.
"Nikita wants you," he said.
He turned before I could even react, expecting to follow.
I caught up, still replaying that sentence in my head—'Free him. His chain.'
We moved through the southern corridor of the fortress in silence. Patrol banners rustled gently along the walls as wind slipped through open arches. I still slled like sweat and dust from the wall shift, and I hadn't eaten since morning.
"You always stand in people's way like that?" I muttered.
Cealith tilted his head slightly, his tone bone-dry. "Only when they look like they're up to sothing."
I didn't answer that. He didn't push.
"How are you?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Not dead. Yet."
"Comforting."
He glanced at , just a flick of those strange, glass-colored eyes. "You?"
"…Still standard division."
"Still breathing, then."
I gave a tired chuckle, but there wasn't much behind it.
A few steps later, he said, "I saw your fight. Against Miguel."
I tensed up. "Oh."
"You were better than before," he added. "Less flailing. More aim."
"That your way of saying I still suck?"
"It's my way of saying you improved."
Nikita was already ard and ready when we reached the gear room—leather straps, field pack, a short-bladed spear strapped over his shoulder, and his usual resting expression that looked like it had been carved out of stone.
He looked up once we entered. "Good. You're both on ti."
Cealith made no comnt. I just shrugged.
"Is this about the new ruin?" I asked, seeing the map spread across the table.
"Yeah." Nikita didn't waste ti. He tapped a small circle drawn near the southern hills. "Scout team found an opening. Partially collapsed. It's not just surface debris. It goes down. Deep."
He rolled the map up without waiting for questions. "I'm putting a team together to check it out. Small. Quiet."
Cealith raised an eyebrow. "Just us?"
Nikita nodded. "You and Aleks."
I blinked. "?"
"You've been in a ruin before," he said without missing a beat. "And you made it out. That's more than most."
It wasn't flattery. Just a fact. Still, it ant sothing coming from him.
"We're not taking a squad?" Cealith asked.
"No. Less noise. Less risk."
I adjusted the straps on my gear. "So we're just walking into a buried mystery dungeon with nothing but three guys and a prayer?"
Nikita almost smiled. "If it makes you feel better, two of us are good at killing things."
"Ha. Hilarious."
He tossed a waterskin. "We leave in ten."
We left just after sunrise.
The world was quiet, too quiet, like even the wind was holding its breath. The trail south was rough, mostly cracked soil and broken stone, winding through hills that looked like they'd been punched into the earth by so ancient god in a bad mood. There were no birds, no animals, not even bugs. Just dust, the occasional rustle of dry grass, and the steady rhythm of three horses plodding through a landscape that didn't want us there.
I rode in the middle. Cealith up front, Nikita behind. Nobody talked for the first half hour, which didn't surprise —Cealith wasn't exactly a conversationalist, and Nikita only opened his mouth when sothing needed saying. I watched the sun crawl slowly across the edge of the horizon, the light spilling over distant ridges like soone dragging a sword across the sky.
Eventually, the silence started itching under my skin. I cleared my throat.
"So…" I said, loud enough to be heard but not enough to sound like I cared too much. "How's life as a living legend?"
Nikita didn't turn. "Loud."
I blinked. "That's it?"
"You don't sleep much when the entire camp thinks you're immortal."
I looked back at Nikita, who raised an eyebrow. "Sounds familiar."
"Do people talk to you more now?" I asked.
"Only when they want sothing," Nikita said.
"Well, that sounds fun."
"It's not."
Right. Of course not. What the hell did I expect? Champagne and statues?
I let it go for a minute, watching the trail wind into a canyon. The walls around us started rising, the sky narrowing above. The light dimd, and the temperature dropped a few degrees.
Then Cealith glanced over his shoulder. "You were listening."
I blinked. "Huh?"
"Back at the fortress. The door."
I paused. "You… saw ?"
"Your shadow was longer than the wall," he said simply.
Nikita looked between us. "What are you talking about?"
"There was a eting," I admitted. "Lydia and the General. I overheard it."
"And?" Nikita asked.
I shifted in the saddle. "So kind of being showed up near an elven settlent. North-west of here. Just… appeared. Covered in blood. Six wings. People are calling it an angel."
Cealith looked back ahead, silent. Nikita's fingers tightened slightly around his reins.
"And?" Nikita said again.
"It said sothing. 'Free him. His chain.' Then it vanished."
For a mont, no one said anything.
Then Cealith, quiet: "That sentence doesn't sound like a warning."
"What does it sound like to you?" I asked.
"A command."
Nikita exhaled, long and slow. "Or a last request."
"You think it was dying?" I asked.
Cealith didn't answer.
"Was it the sa as the one from the beginning?" Nikita asked. "The one that gave the warning?"
"Lydia thinks so," I said. "She said it looked the sa. Sa presence."
"That thing disappeared before anyone could even talk to it," Nikita muttered. "And now another one shows up. Bleeding. Raving about chains. Then gone again."
I swallowed. "You think they're connected?"
"Everything's connected," he said.
We rode in silence after that. The canyon twisted, narrowed, then opened into a basin. There, half-buried in rubble and overgrown stone, stood the entrance.
The ruin.
It didn't look like a building.
It looked like a wound.
Black stone, smooth as glass, jutted out of the ground at impossible angles, like the earth had been peeled back and sothing underneath had clawed its way out. Strange carvings ran along the surfaces—so sharp, so circular, none familiar. The entrance was a jagged split in the ground, leading into shadow. No gate. No markings. Just dark.
"Fuck," I muttered. "That's not ominous at all."
Cealith dismounted without a word. Nikita followed, tying his horse to a rock. I did the sa, though my hands weren't exactly steady.
We unpacked fast—torches, rope, rations, blades. Nikita tossed a knife I hadn't seen before. Compact. Double-edged. Handle wrapped in dark leather.
"Keep it close," he said.
"Planning for a fight?"
"Always."
We lit torches and approached the opening.
The air shifted.
It hit like walking into an old crypt—dry, but cold, not from temperature but from sothing else. Like the walls had been holding their breath for centuries and just now exhaled.
"It's colder," I said.
"It's not," Cealith replied.
I looked at him. "What?"
"It's not colder," he repeated. "It's emptier."
That shut up real fast.
We stepped inside.
The stone swallowed sound.
No echoes. No drip of water. Just the muffled crunch of our boots and the low flicker of torchlight against obsidian walls that weren't really black, not exactly. Closer to that void-color oil takes when it catches fire—dark, shifting, with hints of sickly green and bruised purple hiding beneath the surface. The passage angled downward in a slow spiral, each turn tighter than the last.
I didn't like how smooth everything was. No tool marks. No cracks. Like it hadn't been carved at all—just… grown.
We walked for maybe ten minutes without speaking. Every few steps, I caught myself glancing over my shoulder. There was nothing behind us, but the air didn't feel right. It was like being underwater with no weight, no direction. Every breath was shallow. Not because of fear—because the place didn't want us breathing.
"How far does this go?" I asked eventually, just to hear sothing human.
Nikita didn't answer. Cealith just tilted his torch and muttered, "Longer than it should."
Comforting.
Eventually, the spiral opened into a wider hall. Arched ceiling, walls etched with more of those symbols—so glowing faintly, others almost pulsing. Not with light, exactly, but with… presence.
I touched one before I could stop myself.
It felt warm. Not hot. Just slightly above body temperature, like soone's skin. And for half a second, I thought I heard sothing—like a breath, exhaled into my skull from the inside.
I pulled my hand back instantly. "Okay. Nope. No more of that."
"You touched it," Nikita said without turning.
"Yeah, thanks. I noticed."
"I told you—"
"Don't touch what I don't understand, I know. It looked harmless."
Nikita glanced back. "So do you."
Cealith snorted. That might've been the first ti I'd ever heard him laugh. It was weird. Not bad. Just weird.
The hall ended in a circular arch, broken in the center. Past it, a vast open chamber stretched out in quiet, oppressive stillness. No light reached it, not even from our torches. The shadows just… devoured everything. The floor was sunken, the walls curved inward, giving the space the feel of a massive stone heart. Every instinct in said not to go further.
Naturally, we went in.
I stepped across the threshold and felt the temperature drop again—this ti real. My torch flickered, dimd for a second, then stabilized. Cealith took the lead. Nikita moved to my left, close but not crowding. We didn't speak. We didn't need to.
In the center of the chamber was a raised stone platform. It looked like an altar but felt like a grave.
And on it—sothing lay still.
Not quite human. Not quite machine. Not dead.
It was long, longer than any man. Arms like twisted marble, skin semi-translucent, pulsing faintly with lines of light beneath the surface like veins made of liquid gold. A tallic crown hovered an inch above its head, unmoving, anchored by nothing. Around its body hung fragnts of rusted chains, broken and floating midair, as if gravity had forgotten them.
Cealith stopped walking.
Nikita tensed, his hand drifting near his weapon.
I couldn't move. My chest felt tight, my legs locked.
The thing on the altar opened its eyes.
They weren't eyes.
They were stars, frozen mid-collapse, filled with more ti than I could understand. They looked past . Through .
Then they focused.
On .
It opened its mouth. And the voice that ca out wasn't loud—but it felt loud. It hit behind the ribs, in my spine, in the softest parts of my skull.
"We…"
I flinched. Nikita took a half-step forward, his weapon halfway drawn.
"We will be erased."
The chamber trembled slightly, dust falling from above. My torch flickered again.
"All of us."
The voice cracked, turned sharp. Desperate.
And then it scread—
"Because HE is gone!"
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