I keep my eyes locked on her, unable to reconcile the fragile girl from the slums with the woman before me.
Kael’s gaze sharpens, his voice low and commanding. “How do you know that?”
“I just... do,” Seren replies, her voice trembling slightly. “I canfeel it. It’s like a whisper in my mind, like I’ve always known. You can’t feel it? Hear it?”
Ronyn leans against a nearby pillar, his bow slung casually over his shoulder, though his eyes are anything but casual. “You’re saying the walls are talking to you?”
“They’re not talking,” Seren says quickly, almost defensive. “It’s more like... they’re singing. And I understand the melody.”
“Who? Who are the people? The lost ones?” I question, confused.
“I don’t know. But they feel familiar,” Seren offers, working it all out in real time.
Her words send a shiver down my spine, and I grip my daggers tighter. The air feels heavier now, charged with an energy I can’t explain, and the pull in my chest becomes almost unbearable.
“We need to move,” Kael says, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. “If Seren can feel the etchings, they might lead us to what we’re looking for. Seren, does it say anything about how to access the chamber below the temple?”
Seren nods, stepping forward with a confidence that feels out of place in this eerie, sacred space. She leads us deeper into the temple, her hand brushing the walls as though guiding herself by touch alone. The patterns on the stone seem to shift as we move, the constellations twisting and weaving into new forms. It’s mesmerizing and unsettling all at once.
Then, she stops abruptly, her gaze fixed on a section of the wall where the etchings form a spiral, their golden lines glowing faintly. “Here,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “There’s a passage they would like us to enter.”
Ronyn steps forward, inspecting the wall with a critical eye. “I don’t see?—”
Before he can finish, Seren presses her palm against the center of the spiral. The stone shudders, the sound reverberating through the temple like a low growl, and then the wall begins to shift. The stones pull apart, revealing a narrow staircase that descends into darkness.
“Of course,” Ronyn mutters, rolling his eyes. “Because nothing bad ever happens in dark, hidden staircases.”
Kael shoots him a sharp look, and Ronyn falls silent, though his grin doesn’t fade.
We descend slowly, the air growing colder with each step. The pull in my chest is almost painful now, a constant tug that makes it hard to focus on anything else. The staircase opens into a vast chamber, its walls lined with more etchings that seem to shimmer and pulse in the dim light. In the center of the room stands a pedestal, and on it rests a blade.My blade.
It’s beautiful, its hilt encrusted with gemstones that catch the faint light and cast fractured rainbows across the chamber. The blade itself seems to hum with power, its edge sharp enough to split the air, and runes are carved into the blade.And it’s calling to me.
But as I step forward, the air splits apart with a roar. Shadows erupt from the walls, and the illusions begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELYSSARA
My heart hammersin my chest as I watch Seren clutching her head, her eyes wide and glassy, as if staring into the void. She staggers backward, her muttering incoherent, her trembling hands clawing at the air as though warding off invisible monsters. Her breaths come in ragged, shallow gasps, the sound mingling with the pounding of my own blood in my ears.
“Stay together!” Therion growls, his voice low and guttural, his axe primed in his hands. His movements, normally deliberate and calculated, are jerky and unsteady, his sharp eyes darting to every shadow. “It’s a trick! They’re inside our minds!” His voice cracks on the last word, uncharacteristically unhinged.
Kael stiffens at my side, his hands gripping the hilts of his twin swords so tightly his knuckles blanch. His breath is harsh, uneven, and when I glance up at him, I see a flicker of something I never thought I’d see—fear. His face is ashen, his jaw locked, but his eyes betray him, wide and haunted, as if he’s already lost the battle within.
And then it crashes over me.
The chamber dissolves in an instant, the walls replaced by the crooked, suffocating alleyways of the Virellin slums. The stench ofrot and desperation chokes me, filling my lungs with bile. My heart stutters as I hear the familiar cries of the slums—the shuffle of starving bodies, the wails of children, and above it all, the muffled screams of my parents.
“No, no, no,” I whisper, shaking my head violently, my vision blurring. “This isn’t real,” I murmur to myself.
But it feels real. It smells real. The dirt-covered cobblestones are gritty beneath my feet, the air hot and humid with the rankness of the streets. I whirl around, and there they are—my mother and father, their faces twisted in agony as the King’s guards drag them away, leaving a trail of blood wiped across the ground in their wake. My mother’s screams are broken, guttural cries that pierce through me, and my father’s voice, usually so strong, cracks as he shouts my name.
I stagger forward, my legs barely functioning, my chest heaving with sobs I didn’t know I had in me. “Stop!” I scream, my voice raw. “Stop, please!” But they don’t. They can’t. My hands pass through the guards like smoke, the weight of my powerlessness pressing down on me like the world itself is collapsing.
My mother’s eyes meet mine for a fleeting moment, wide with terror and something worse—resignation. She knows what’s coming. She knows there’s nothing I can do. And then she’s gone, her cries fading as they vanish into the endless, dark alleys of Virellin.
I crumple to my knees, the blood-smeared ground soaking into my trousers. “No,” I whisper, my voice a broken plea. “Please, no...”
