"The pain is almost gone," I tell her, surprised to find it's true. "I can breathe without feeling like glass is scraping my insides."
Eira's mouth curves into a small smile. "The Flame accelerates healing. The sacred fire burns away more than just physical damage." Her gaze studies me with unnerving focus. "You carry other wounds, though. Ones that no flame can touch."
My heart stutters. Does she know what happened between Lurok and me? The thought is unsettling.
"I don't—" I begin, but she raises a hand, silencing me with the gesture.
"Naga instincts run deep," she says, her voice taking on a rhythmic quality, as if reciting something ancient. "When those instincts are challenged, it stirs storms inside even the strongest warriors. The winds of change are rarely welcomed when they first arrive."
I swallow hard, feeling exposed beneath her sightless stare. "I don't understand what you mean."
“Do you not?” Eira's milky eyes seem to see straight through me. "When the threads of fate begin to weave their pattern into the Loom of Legacy, even the strongest warriors may falter beneath their pull." Her slender hand rests on mine. "Some souls resist the current of fate longer than others. The river still flows, regardless."
I stay silent, trying to unravel her cryptic wisdom.
"Time reveals all truths," Eira murmurs, as if reading my thoughts. "Even those we hide from ourselves." Before she can continue, Leira appears in the doorway.
"Your chamber in the palace is ready, Serin," Leira announces, either missing or ignoring the tension. "The healers say you're well enough to leave, as long as you take it slow. I can show you some of Vessan-Kar on the way if you're up for it."
I rise from the cot, steadying myself against its edge. "Sounds good.” I pause, turning to the Temple Elder. "Thank you, Eira, for... everything."
"Remember, Serin," Eira says, "sometimes the fiercest storms rage before the clearest skies."
The ancient naga's words hang in the air like smoke, mysterious yet somehow illuminating as we leave the Flame room behind.
"First, I want to show you where Varok and I were married… er, I mean bonded." Leira's eyes light up with memory as she moves ahead, guiding me deeper into the Temple of Threads. The corridors spiral through stone in a living rhythm, as if the temple itself breathes.
Soft light washes the walls. Spiraling glyphs etched deep into the stone glow with a pale silken radiance, their curling lines winding across the surfaces like living calligraphy. I trail my fingers along one particularly intricate sequence and feel a faint vibration beneath my skin, as if the symbols hum with a memory older than the mountain itself.
“This is the ceremonial chamber where Crimson Bond Ceremonies take place,” Leira says, her fingers rising unconsciously to the serpent stone medallion resting at her throat.
As she touches the pendant, it glows. Obsidian veined with ember-red and molten gold pulses beneath the surface, like fire in stone. The medallion warms briefly before she lets go.
"It's breathtaking," I whisper, neck craning toward the vast domed ceiling high above. "I can't imagine how terrified you must have been, facing this all alone."
Leira's smile turns wistful. "I was," she admits, "but Varok made me feel safe, even though our first few days together were difficult.”
Above us, hundreds of thread-thin crystal strands hang from the arched ceiling. They sway like frozen rain caught mid-fall. The crystals shimmer softly in the warm air. Their delicate forms tremble as we pass beneath them. Light dances across Leira's face, illuminating the happiness she's found in this strange, beautiful world.
“What does this say?” I ask, tracing the elegant spiral of characters carved beside one of the serpent-shaped columns.
Leira leans closer, squinting at the glowing script. “Something about the first bonding between elements,” she guesses. “My naga language skills are still… evolving. Varok says my pronunciation is so terrible it disturbs the Ancients,” she laughs.
We pass columns shaped like coiled serpents, their scales bearing ancient names. "Bonded pairs from centuries past," Leira explains. Their history weighs quietly on the air.
We reach another door, and the stone slab yields to Leira’s approach, flowing open without a seam. Beyond it stretches a broad tunnel that slopes gradually downward, carrying us out of the sacred stillness of the temple and into the deeper arteries of the city.
The change is immediate.
The pale blue-green glow of the ceremonial halls gives way to warmer light. The keh’shalin veins thicken in the stone. Gold and amber threads pulse through the walls like slow-moving lightning beneath the rock. The tunnels feel less like a monument and more like a living organism. Breathing, expanding, and contracting almost imperceptibly. As if the mountain itself draws quiet breaths, just like the water whispered to Lurok in his secret cavern.
Leira gestures to branching pathways. "This is the residential district," she explains, her voice dropping to a respectful hush. "Each entrance leads to a naga den.”
Some doorways stand open, revealing glimpses of interior chambers. Amber light spills across polished floors. Others remain sealed, smooth stone faces hiding the lives behind them. I wonder which Lurok calls home and what lies within his den. Are there treasured memories, or does it stand as cold and barren as the silver eyes that once warmed me but now cut like winter wind off a glacier.
Life flows around us like a current. Naga gliding past in small groups, their scaled bodies catching the golden light in flashes of bronze, copper, and midnight blue. A Talon with obsidian scales pauses mid-slither, lowering his head to Leira in a gesture of unmistakable respect. Behind him, a female with copper-flecked scales does the same, her eyes warming with recognition. But farther along, three naga exchange sharp glances, their mouths tightening as we approach, eyes sliding away with barely concealed contempt.
A flicker of movement catches my eye. I glance back to find four armed Talons gliding behind us, I had not noticed before, their scaled bodies moving with such liquid grace that their weapons make no sound against their armor.
