Mira didn't sleep that night.
Even when the others returned to the surface — their faces drawn, their clothes soaked in dirt and sweat — she remained still in her tent, wrapped tight in her blanket like a soldier in hiding. She watched them from behind the flap, eyes wide but dry, fingers curled into the fabric as if it could shield her from something far greater than cold.
They spoke in hushed voices. Some tried to joke, desperate to break the tension, but it all fell flat. The laughter died quickly. No one said what they were all thinking.
The basin had changed something.
Not just down there — not just in the stone, or the glyphs, or the seal — but in them.
Her sketchbook lay by her side, still unopened. She hadn't touched it since the voice first whispered her name. It used to be her anchor. Her way of understanding the world. Line by line. Shape by shape. But now… now the act of drawing felt dangerous. Like if she so much as moved her pencil, she might make something real.
She could still hear the voice. Not with her ears. With something deeper. Something that throbbed beneath thought. It was like the echo of a name half-remembered in a dream — hers, and not hers.
Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw it. The glyph that had burned itself into the stone.
Her mark.
But wrong.
It hadn't joined the others. It hadn't found a place.
It had replaced one.
And no one would say which.
At dawn, Mira slipped away.
She didn't run. That would've drawn attention. Instead, she moved with quiet purpose, boots brushing against dew-wet grass, fingers trailing the edge of her coat. She didn't bother with a pack or a weapon. Whatever waited for her at the basin, she wouldn't be able to fight it.
She didn't mean to keep secrets. But she couldn't bear the thought of the others trying to stop her. Especially not Varyon. Not after everything.
The woods didn't resist her passage. The trees, normally thick with twisted roots and thorny undergrowth, seemed to open before her like a curtain. The path — barely visible, carved by memory more than use — was straight and unbroken. Even the birds remained silent. The world held its breath.
Hollowmere had always been strange. But now it felt... aware.
As if it recognized her.
As if it had been waiting.
She reached the basin just as the sun crested the treetops, light filtering through the canopy in broken shafts. The air was colder here. Still.
The glyph was still there. Burned into the stone like a brand.
She didn't want to look.
But she did.
And as her hand hovered above the mark, her skin began to glow.
It started softly — the usual warm gold that always accompanied her connection to the Lightwell. A magic she had carried since childhood. A part of her.
But then something else began to bleed into it. Darkness. Not shadow — shadow could be defined. This was absence. The edges of her light curled like smoke caught in water, gray and silver and wrong.
It was familiar.
And it wasn't hers.
She gasped and pulled away, stumbling back, nearly falling.
"No," she said aloud, voice cracking. "I'm not yours."
The basin remained still.
But the glow didn't fade.
Back at camp, Varyon noticed.
It wasn't unusual for Mira to wander. She needed time alone. They all did, these days.
But something about the way the air felt that morning — the silence that seemed to stretch too far — told him this wasn't a simple walk.
He waited, just long enough to make sure it wasn't his own fear talking. Then he gathered his things and followed.
The grove was quiet. Unnatural. The way the shadows moved didn't match the light. They stretched too far. Pulled in strange directions. He kept one hand on the dagger at his belt, though he wasn't sure it would help.
Varyon descended into the basin's hollow and saw her.
Mira stood motionless, her back to him, one arm at her side, the other still raised, as if afraid to touch the air again.
"You shouldn't be here alone," he said.
She didn't turn. "Neither should you."
He walked up beside her, hands tucked into his coat pockets. His eyes fell to the center of the basin.
The glyph had changed.
It was still hers — still the shape she'd worn around her neck since they were children, a symbol of her connection to the Wellspring — but now it shimmered with something else. Corruption threaded through it like veins of oil in clear water.
And below it, something new had begun to surface.
Faint. Unfinished.
But unmistakable.
A second mark.
Rylan's.
Or what had once been Rylan.
Veyr.
Varyon's voice lowered. "It's not a seal anymore, is it?"
Mira finally looked at him. Her face was pale, her lips dry. But her eyes — her eyes burned.
"No," she said. "The seal is breaking. And we're not stopping it."
"Then what are we?"
She took a breath. Shook her head.
"We're the final pieces. Not replacements. Not guardians. Keys. It's using us to finish what it started."
Varyon went still. "You think the others know?"
"I think," she said slowly, "they've always known."
Later that evening, the campfire burned low.
Rylan stood near the edge of the clearing, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the trees like he expected something — or someone — to walk out of them.
Ash approached from the side, flicking a pebble between his fingers like it was a coin. He didn't say anything at first. Just stood there.
"You look like someone who's seen the end of the world," he finally said.
Rylan didn't laugh. Didn't even smile.
"I might have."
Ash tossed the rock gently into the fire. It hissed in the embers.
"Was it familiar?"
Rylan turned. His eyes were darker than usual. Not bloodshot. Dim.
"Yeah," he said. "That's the worst part."
Ash nodded slowly. "You're not him. Veyr. That thing from the visions. That wasn't you."
"No," Rylan whispered. "But I think I was made from what was left of him. From the... ashes."
"Still," Ash said, "you chose to be Rylan."
"That might not be enough."
That night, Mira dreamed.
But not of Hollowmere. Not of the grove. Not of the Circle of glyphs or the runes or the tunnels that led down into something far older than stone.
She dreamed of herself.
Standing in the basin, the circle complete, her feet rooted to the stone. Her arms outstretched, palms glowing with power she didn't understand.
Light poured from her. Gold, then silver, then something that had no name. Something that didn't shimmer but devoured.
And from the basin's center, something rose.
It wasn't a creature. Not in the way she understood creatures. It had no eyes, no face. But it had presence. Enormous. Unrelenting. Like an idea too large to hold in a single thought. It crawled from beneath her, unfolding in spirals.
And it spoke.
Not in words.
In voices.
All of them hers.
All of them twisted. Broken. From a thousand versions of herself that had stood in that circle before. Or would.
And the whisper came:
"You let us in."
She woke gasping.
The tent felt too small. Too hot. Her skin was slick with sweat. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
She looked at her hand.
The glyph had appeared again.
Not drawn. Not branded.
Grown.
Like a second skin. Silver and black, shimmering like oil in moonlight.
Not gold.
Not light.
Not hers.
And the glow wasn't fading.
It pulsed, slow and steady. Like a heartbeat.
Like a door opening from the inside.
In the morning, they gathered.
No one said why.
No one needed to.
Varyon was the first to speak. "It's not about resealing the basin anymore."
Ash nodded. "It was never about sealing anything. It was about changing who was sealed."
Rylan's jaw tightened. "It's rewriting us. Preparing the next cycle."
Mira stepped forward. "Then we break it."
They all looked at her.
"No one breaks the basin," Varyon said.
"Then we do what no one else ever has," she replied. "We finish it. Not as keys. Not as vessels. As ourselves."
Ash laughed once. A bitter sound. "That'll kill us."
"Maybe," Mira said. "Or maybe it'll set the others free."
There was silence.
Then Varyon nodded. "What do we need to do?"
Mira looked down at her hand. The glyph pulsed once.
"We go back," she said. "And we stop waiting for it to choose us."
"We choose ourselves."
And somewhere beneath them, in the bones of Hollowmere,
the old voice stirred.
Not angry.
Not afraid.
But curious.
The keys had turned.
And the door…
…was almost open.