The key was cold against her palm, unnaturally so, its chill seeping through leather and skin alike. It thrummed faintly, as if each heartbeat she felt was not her own but some echo carried from the ruin itself.
Aria turned toward the sealed door. The runes across its blackened steel stirred, their dim glow pulsing with slow rhythm—as though the door recognized the relic she now held. She advanced with steady steps, the courtyard quiet save for the crunch of bone dust beneath her boots.
When the key met the warded lock, the chains of glyphs across the surface convulsed. Lines of light rippled outward like veins of fire through dark stone. The steel groaned, deep and resonant, the sound rolling across the ruins like distant thunder.
Aria did not flinch. She pressed forward, forcing the relic into place.
The lock drank in the key's glow. The pale fire within the etched runes bled away into darkness, and then—silence. A single click echoed, final and absolute.
