Mira didn't remember falling asleep. One moment, she sat near the fire, head bowed, arms wrapped around her knees. The flames danced in her vision, snapping and spitting as if alive. Her breaths came in slow circles. The next moment, she was standing—not by the fire—but inside the basin again. Cold stone pressed beneath her bare feet, smooth and unyielding. Roots, thick as fingers and throbbing like blooded veins, wove across the ground.
No warmth. No fire. Only the hush of earth, salt on her tongue, the faint echo of water she didn't feel.
She swallowed. Behind her, the glyphs carved into the basin's edge glowed. Not gold. Not their familiar onyx. They burned a deep, seething red—slow pulses mirrored a heartbeat she couldn't hear, like a wound refusing to close.
And at the center of the basin, a figure stood: tall, slim, wrapped in white cloth streaked with ash. The fabric clung to the form yet seemed ethereal. Shaded by shadows, the face remained hidden. But Mira recognized the posture, the weight of presence. The voice was unmistakable.
"You shine too brightly," the figure whispered. Words echoed before they left the lips. Each breath stirred the air in an unnerving, oppressive way. "You always did. Even in the end."
Mira tried to step back. Her heart thundered. Her feet refused to respond. The roots tangled like sticky fingers. She sank her gaze into the basin.
"You kept them blind," the figure said. "You lit the flame. And when it came, you hesitated."
I'm not her, Mira whispered. Her own voice felt foreign.
For an instant, a breeze rattled around them. The glyphs flared.
The figure's head tilted as though indulging a curious child. "Not yet."
The words throbbed in Mira's bones, more prophecy than threat. And then the basin dissolved. The roots faded. The red glow extinguished.
She woke with a scream.
Ash's hand was on her shoulder before she reached the ground, one booted knee hitting soft earth. He bolted upright beside her, reaching for his knife as his burns flicked the camplight. "What happened?" he panted.
Mira's chest heaved. She tried to speak, but shock rattled her tongue. Her right hand flared, hot and insistent—far hotter than the embers still glowing near where she'd slept.
She pulled back her sleeve.
Her light sigil—a gentle radiant circle they'd seen in the book—had changed. A crack now ran through its center, jagged and black, and beneath it, curling outward, lines of red clung to her skin like vines.
Ash blinked. "That… that wasn't there before."
Varyon, stationed near the grove's edge, moved in without a word. He stood beside Mira, silent as a shadow, glancing from the mark to Mira's fearful face.
"She touched you," he said softly.
Blood pounded in Mira's ears. She blinked tears back. "She's inside… something. Beneath the basin. Still trapped. But not for long."
The fire snapped behind them. Rylan emerged from the dim circle of light, gait swift and purposeful. His gaze fell on Mira's arm. He didn't ask her what happened. He just said, "I need to go back down there."
Lina snapped her head up, expression fierce. "Alone?"
"She's not reaching for all of us," Rylan replied. Unhesitating. Certain. "She's reaching for me."
Ash's voice cut in. "You don't know what she wants."
Rylan's eyes glowed for a heartbeat. "Yes. I do."
No more words followed. The group tensed. Mira staggered forward but steadied herself on a fallen log. The mark burned like a truth etched in flame and fear.
That afternoon, as the sun dipped low and shadows stretched long, Varyon slipped back into the grove—alone. He didn't feel the roots whisper. He didn't see glyphs glow. But something deeper, older, haunted him.
Towering standing stones arced overhead—each carved with sigils half-worn by time. He passed them in silence. The grove's heart lay beyond, among trees blackened beyond memory. Bark wore years like scars. Light bent around them, reluctant to enter. The shadows were wrong—thin ends withdrawn from the sun's warm rays.
He paused where two trees pressed together, forming a dark passage. Stepping closer, he saw her through the narrowing space.
A figure—tall, robed, face turned away. Silent. Still. Motionless. Impossible to dismiss. Varyon reached for his blade—the ritual knife he carried for protection and prophecy.
"You're not real," he barked, voice low but loud in the hush. No tremor. No doubt. But his stomach churned.
The figure spun.
The face wasn't Syra's. It was Varyon's.
But aged. His hair was gray-streaked. His cheeks gaunt as a skull. Blood crusted down one cheek. The eyes were gone—hollow pits of darkness where soul should live.
Varyon's breath caught. He didn't move. Didn't blink. But every muscle coiled like steel wire.
"You died," he said, voice trembling in its calm. "You died."
The figure smiled. Lips curled. No warmth there—just malice. It turned away, gliding like smoke.
And then it vanished.
Varyon exhaled. His shoulders dropped. He tested his blade. Felt—wrong. It belonged to another. He looked down: his own shadow lay at his feet but was elongated—gaunt, twisted like a creature that had walked through pain. The tip of its form reached out toward him. It wasn't his.
He drew in a slow breath. He had felt her, Mira's presence and that red thirst. But this was his. They had come too far to doubt it.
Meanwhile, Rylan stood before the basin again as dusk wove its tapestry through the grove. He placed both hands on the stone rim. His fingertips scratched the carved scripts—they pulsed gently.
Cold radiated upward. Beneath the basin, in that earthen pit, shadows skittered.
He closed his eyes—remembered the difference between fear and duty. He felt his palms pressing. Felt the flush that crept up his arms. Felt the words forming beneath him.
And then he heard it: not Syra's voice. His.
From before.
From when he had burned.
"You sealed us once. Will you burn again?"
The voice cracked the air around him. It ignited memory: flame-hot pain memory. The sacrificial moment when he sealed away something horrible, terrible. Something that frightened him more than death.
He opened his eyes to the red glow—softer than before, but still pulsing.
The basin shook, fracturing in soft ribbon lines. He stepped back. The ground trembled.
He reached down and unbuckled his satchel—old leather, paper-cracked. The book inside burst open, pages fanning out as though struck by wind.
A new page bled into existence in the center—ink not in light or fire, but in blood. His blood? Was he bleeding onto it now, or had it chosen its medium?
He stared at the letters inscribed:
"The gate remembers the Saint. And it will not close twice."
Rylan shook. Took in ragged breaths. The blood dried into the shape of twisted runes only he recognized. It felt alive.
He pressed a palm against the stone basin—steel in his heart. He let the revelation sink: they hadn't sealed Syra or whatever lived beyond. They had only paused something ancient. The basin's seal was cracking. Syra's presence wasn't a memory—it was a summons. And it had already reached into Mira's mind, manifested in Varyon's shadow.
Rylan swallowed. The evening's hush was shifting—the wind sighed through the roots. He knew he had to go deeper. Somewhere beneath the roots lay a gate they had forged long ago—a wise, terrible place. It was buried, dormant… but not sealed. Not anymore.
He felt Mira's mark pulsing in sync with the basin's beat—a second heart in the night's chest. He felt Ash's knife at his hip, waiting. He felt Lina's eyes behind him, searching.
"My friends," he whispered.
His breath formed a pale cloud that vanished.
He stepped away from the basin—but not backward. Forward. He headed for where the ground sloped downward—beyond the basin's rim. Into darkness that would not be extinguished. Into the place where gate lay waiting.
Night had nearly swallowed the grove. Moths the size of his palm drifted like lost souls between the stones. The trees closed in. The roots rose like open veins around the path. Rylan's boots made no sound. The basin receded behind him, but he could still feel its pulse… felt his own heartbeat accelerate and slow with it.
At the path's end, he found the falling stones. A fissure in the earth. Barren dirt. A nearly invisible column of runes carved vertically down the stone face. Each rune was slightly darkened—some already bleeding a faint red. The thunder of sky threatened overhead, but no clouds moved.
He knelt and touched the runes. His fingertips brushed over one that looked like a star. The moment he killed pressure, a tremor ran up his arm.
He remembered what he had done. They had sealed this gate centuries ago—when Syra had bound herself to it for the first time. Rylan had taken part. They had written the vow in blood oil. They had sealed their names—and in doing so had locked something away.
Something that both saved and cursed them.
He closed his eyes, dug through memory. Felt the pain of arcane energy burning his flesh. Teeth flared blue-white flame. He stilled.
He stood. Held up his wrist—saw the new sigil mark etched there in red and black.
He murmured, "It remembers the Saint."
He wedged his shoulder into the stone and rammed the fissure. Rock groaned. The runes flared. Dust showered on his hair.
The chamber beneath the grove sighed in response—a long, living sound.
He heard the echo of his past self: "Will you burn again?"
He unbuckled the book and pressed its edge against the runes. The blood-inked page glowed. The letters twisted and stretched, as though alive.
He hesitated but only for a breath. Then he spoke his vow:
"I will finish this. Whatever it costs."
Meanwhile, back by the fire, Mira trembled but stood. She brushed against her mark—ran a fingertip along the red crack. It pulsed. Flickered. Hummed like a chord struck in the air. She could still hear faint whispers—Syra's voice folded inside her mind. Not a threat, but insistence.
Nearby, Lina held the journal and the old book Rylan carried. Every page she'd read spoke of endings—or beginnings that they interrupted. She closed one, opened the other—the pages changed.
Ash paced. He'd never stopped. He checked his knife, sheath scratched against his belt.
And Varyon watched. Shadows from the grove fell like shattered glass around them. His own shadow mirrored the basin's crack. It stretched long and jagged.
He pulled a leather cord from his pouch. It held a knife with a silver blade engraved with runes he'd never written. He pressed the edge to his palm and let heat bead at the cut—blood welled instantly and ran down his skin.
He whispered, "If it's waiting for me too, I'll bring myself into the answer."
An echo like stone rolling down underground rippled through the grove. Mira looked up, eyes wide. A pulse of wind flicked leaves. Ash dropped to a knee. Lina whispered, "He's done it."
They did not speak again.
At the basin's lip, a light flickered.
Suddenly, Rylan's voice—low and steady—drifted upward:
"It's time."
And so their vigil deepened.
They waited in the hush of ruined roots and broken seals. Above, wind and night watched them. Below, the gate thrummed with memory, hungry for resolution.
The basin glowed darker now—red as the blooded sky.
They came.