It was time to move.
The four of us—myself, Aleks, Zayn, and Thalia—made our way into the middle realm just as we had last time, and just as Thalia and I had so many times over the past month; I’d created a portal that was more or less reliable by establishing two points of similar magical energy, one in both Noctaris and Nerithys. They called to one another, forging a path between those realms that we could follow like a thread through the darkness.
We landed in our familiar spot, right at the base of a crumbling watchtower, in the shadow of the twisted and broken remains of the Midna Palace gates. But instead of turning toward the palace as we always had before, we turned to the road that ran between that palace and the village of Vestral.
It had been easier to move through this realm’s chaotic energies the last time we visited—during our trip to the library at the palace—with Aleks at my side, his magic helping to balance the chaos.
He had a similar effect, this time, too. More subtle, but still there. Still helping rather than hurting. I took it as a hopeful sign that we would figure out some way to regain our equilibrium, and I clung to that hope with everything I had—even though it was difficult to be optimisticin a place like this.
A bleak landscape stretched before us, a dismal painting in varying shades of grey and brown. Lifeless earth, skeletal trees, crumbling stone. The sky above it all was a sickly yellow-grey, as if the sun itself were diseased. The ground occasionally rumbled, testing our balance. I didn’t know the exact cause of that shaking, but it was common here; I’d always imagined it as a side effect of the Above and Below pulling apart, leaving the realm of Nerithys quaking in between them.
“I forgot how cheerful and inviting this place was,” Zayn muttered, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
Thalia tossed him a look but said nothing, only gripped her own weapon more tightly. She’d been quieter, less combative than usual since Orin’s death, her grief now manifesting as a cold, sharp focus that didn’t break now.
Aleks walked slightly apart from the rest of us, his expression guarded. I caught him glancing at his hands more than once, as if checking to make sure they were still his own. Or making certain no wayward magic was leaking from them, maybe.
We walked the road into Vestral in silence. Once there, we moved through the ruins of that village with a similar wariness, past homes reduced to hollow shells, doors that hung crooked on broken hinges, empty food stores and wells that had long since run dry. In more than one of the collapsed buildings, I saw scattered bones—human and animal alike, bleached white by time.
The farther we walked, the more dramatic the destruction seemed to become. On the far side of the village, entire streets had been swallowed by fissures in the earth.
“The temple should be at the very edge of the city,” I said, consulting the map Eamon had given us. “Past the old market district and through what’s left of the merchant’s quarters.”
“Assuming that temple still exists at all,” Zayn said doubtfully.
“It does,” said Aleks. His gaze shifted to me as he quietly asked, “Can’t you sense it?”
I hesitated, closing my eyes and focusing for a moment, before nodding. “A concentration of magic. It feels muted—old, residual—but like there’s lots of it.”
We pressed on.
The market district was a maze of collapsed stalls, broken pottery, and rusted scraps that crunched beneath our boots. As we cleared a path through the debris, I continued trying to feel out that concentration of magic ahead of us, to get some sense of what we were getting ourselves into.
Something soon rose over the initial impression of muted power: Something more…alive, but unsteady. Like a dying heartbeat.
I moved to the front of our group, leading the others toward that faintly beating heart, until finally we rounded a corner and there it was: a structure known in Vaeloran legend as the Temple of Ascension.
And the Chamber of Echoes awaited us down below, hopefully.
Unlike everything else in this realm, the temple itself stood untouched by decay. Burnished gold walls glowed with their own inner light—not reflecting the sickly sun above, but radiating something warm and reddish. Jagged towers rose on either side like stalagmites jutting from a cave floor. Between them stood a central structure, solid and imposing, its pillars supporting a domed roof over an open-air platform. I could easily picture ceremonies unfolding on that high platform, crowds gathered in the courtyard below to bear witness.
Carved into every wall were symbols I recognized from my studies: the ancient language of the gods. I couldn’t read much of it reliably, but most of the etchings seemed to be prayers ofsome sort, maybe blessings offered by the people of Vestral in an attempt to garner favor with the gods and their chosen Vaelora.
And at the center of it all, an imposing door of solid black stone awaited us.
“Well,” Zayn said, breaking the uneasy silence. “That door’s not ominous-looking at all.”
The unsteady heartbeat seemed to be coming from that door. As I stared at it, it grew stronger. Faster. My shadows stirred beneath my skin, restless and eager. Light rippled along Aleks’s arms in response.
“It’s…reacting to us,” I realized. “It feels like it’s demanding our attention, doesn’t it? Like it’s trying to pull us forward.”
Aleks looked at the light dancing across his palm, studying the brightness and the hand holding it as if again making sure it was all his own. His expression darkened. “Let’s not keep it waiting, then.”
A path of white stones led us through the temple grounds, past withered gardens and fountains that held only dust and more dry bones. I tried not to look too closely at those bones. Tried not to think about all the things that had died when this realm had fallen into ruin, knowing that Noctaris could very well meet the same fate. The desolation here felt horribly…different. In Noctaris, there was death and darkness, sure—but it had always felt more like a world sleeping, just waiting for the right moment to wake.
Here, the ruin felt more permanent. Final.
Aleks moved toward the door without hesitation. I hurried to follow, with Thalia and Zayn close behind.
