The basin trembled.
Not violently, not enough to crack stone or scatter dust. Just enough to hum—low, resonant—like a breath held too long. Mira stepped back from Rylan, her eyes fixed on the center of the chamber. Red light traced the fissures in the stone now, curling upward like veins around a heart too long frozen.
"She's waking," Mira said softly.
Rylan didn't answer. He was staring at the mark on her forearm—no longer gold, not even red, but both, layered like threads woven from opposing fires. The sigil was no longer just a mark. It was a window. He could feel Syra behind it, breathing with Mira's lungs, seeing through her eyes.
"Come," he said, voice rough. "We need to get back to the others."
Mira hesitated. "What if she's already inside me?"
"Then you won't face her alone."
They emerged from the tunnel into full daylight.
Lina was already waiting at the tree line, flanked by Ash and Varyon. Her arms were folded across her chest, but her stance wasn't casual. It was defensive. Protective.
"You were gone too long," she said as soon as she saw them. "We thought—"
"She's not sealed," Rylan said, not bothering with preamble. "The basin wasn't a prison. It was a scar."
The others exchanged glances.
"What are you talking about?" Ash asked, stepping forward.
"I saw the first binding," Rylan said. "The seven knights. The real ones. They weren't different people. They were… older versions of us. Or echoes. Or maybe we're echoes of them. I don't know. But they faced her together."
"And they sealed her?" Lina asked.
"No," Mira answered quietly. "They sealed themselves."
Silence followed her words.
"What does that mean?" Varyon asked, frowning.
"It means she is the Veil," Rylan said. "She is the boundary between what lives and what waits. And the only way to keep her from breaking through again was to burn something strong enough to hold her in place."
"You," Ash said. "The first you."
Rylan nodded. "He became the lock. When I was reborn, the seal weakened."
"And now she's bleeding through," Lina said, glancing at Mira.
Mira looked away.
Ash shook his head. "Then we rebind it. We do what they did."
"We can't," Rylan said. "Because they didn't bind her. They cut her away from the world using blood and fire—and one of their own became the knife."
Later, they stood in the grove again, each lost in silence.
The grove was colder now. The trees had changed, subtly. Leaves turned inward like fists. The shadows between trunks no longer obeyed the shape of light.
Rylan held the old book in his hands. Its pages had darkened, browned at the edges like skin left too long near flame. The blood-written page at its center still pulsed faintly.
"The gate remembers the Saint," it read. "And it will not close twice."
"I think that's the warning," he said aloud. "The gate is Syra. And once opened, she cannot be closed again by the same means."
Lina crossed her arms. "Then we find a new way."
Mira looked at her, hollow-eyed. "There is no new way. She's already in me."
"No," Lina said, stepping forward. "You're still here. Still you. That matters."
Mira flinched. "You don't know what she sounds like inside my head."
Ash turned to Rylan. "If you were the Veil once—could you become it again?"
Rylan hesitated. "Maybe. But if I did… I wouldn't come back this time."
Silence again. Heavy this time.
"No," Mira said suddenly. "We're not doing that. Not again. No more sacrificing someone just to delay the inevitable."
Rylan looked at her. "You said it yourself—she's already inside you."
"Exactly," Mira said. "So use me."
Ash's eyes widened. "What?"
"If she's inside me, maybe I can pull her out," Mira said. "Bring her into the open."
"And then what?" Varyon asked. "We fight her? Kill her?"
"If she's flesh, she can bleed," Lina said. Her voice was cold. "Even saints die."
"No," Rylan said, shaking his head. "You don't understand. She isn't just in Mira. She's woven into her spirit. If we force her out, it could destroy both of them."
"I'd rather burn than let her win," Mira whispered.
Rylan closed his eyes. "Don't say that."
That night, none of them slept.
Rylan sat alone near the basin, watching the cracks as they throbbed with faint red light. His breath misted in front of him. The warmth of the day had drained from the chamber, replaced by the creeping cold of memory.
He thought of the vision. Of his past self—burning, screaming, choosing.
The others didn't remember. Not fully. They weren't haunted the same way.
But Mira did.
She was the only one who saw Syra in dreams. Who heard her voice. Who felt her power churning behind her ribs every time she lit a torch with her hands.
Rylan opened the book again.
He turned to the blood-written page. Slowly, gently, he touched the center.
It pulsed once. And the ink shifted.
More words appeared.
"Flame can hold the dark. But blood must name it."
He stared.
Then read it aloud.
At dawn, they returned to the basin together.
This time, they came prepared—not with swords or spells, but resolve.
Lina stood watch at the entrance. Varyon remained at her side, a silent sentinel. Ash helped Rylan mark the edge of the basin with the runes they'd found in the margins of the old book—protective glyphs once used by the first seven.
Mira stood at the center, barefoot, arms bare, the sigil on her skin glowing faintly red-gold.
"Tell me when," she said.
Rylan stood before her, both hands on the book. "We won't bind her. Not like before. We'll name her. Call her forward. Draw her out. Then…" His voice faltered.
"Then I'll hold her," Mira said. "Long enough."
He didn't argue.
Didn't ask how long was long enough.
He began the incantation.
The glyphs lit in sequence, white to gold to red.
The stone trembled beneath their feet.
And Mira's eyes rolled back.
She gasped once—and the chamber went silent.
No sound. No breath. Not even heartbeat.
Then a new voice filled the air.
"You called."
It wasn't Mira's voice. Not fully. It layered over hers, silk over steel, warm and terrible and wrong.
The glyphs flared brighter.
Mira lifted her hands—and they were no longer her hands. They were too long, too white, veined with fire beneath porcelain skin.
"You would pull me forth?" the voice said. "You would bleed the Veil for hope?"
Rylan stepped forward. "You don't belong here."
"I am here." The smile was slow, elegant, cruel. "Because you failed to keep me out."
Rylan raised the book. "Then I name you. By fire. By light. By the mark of the Veyr."
He spoke the name from the page.
The air cracked.
Mira screamed.
The glyphs shattered, light bleeding upward into her chest.
For a heartbeat, Syra screamed back.
And then—
The chamber exploded in light.
Rylan lay flat on his back, breath gone, ears ringing.
The basin was whole again.
Mira lay inside it, curled like a child in the center of a circle burned into the stone.
Her skin was marked with soot. Her hair tangled. But the sigil on her arm was gone.
Only ash remained.
Lina was the first to move. She rushed to Mira's side, checking her breath, her pulse.
"She's alive," she whispered.
Ash helped Rylan sit up. "Did it work?"
Rylan nodded slowly. "We pulled her out."
Varyon's voice was quiet. "Then where is she?"
No one answered.
Not then.
But far away, beyond Hollowmere, beyond the forests and the forgotten towers—
A new fire kindled on the horizon.
It burned cold.
And it walked upright.
Wrapped in white.
With Mira's face.
And eyes like coal.