The forest was still silent.
As if it, too, was listening.
The others had gathered closer after Mira's scream, but they kept their distance now. Not out of fear—none of them would admit to that—but from a shared uncertainty, as if the firelight might suddenly cast unfamiliar shadows.
Mira sat with her knees drawn to her chest, fingers tangled in the hem of her tunic. Her skin still burned where the mark had flared. The memory of Syra's voice lingered in her ears like the echo of a dream she couldn't quite shake.
Across the camp, Rylan paced near the boundary stones. He was speaking quietly to Lina and Ash, his words clipped and tight. He hadn't slept in days, not truly. None of them had. The closer they drew to the end of this journey—whatever end it might be—the more unraveled time felt.
Mira was unraveling too.
She felt it in the seams of her soul.
The line between herself and Syra was thinning.
And for the first time, she wasn't sure she wanted it to hold.
Far below, Varyon stared at his name scrawled in blood.
The lantern in his hand flickered, casting long, broken shadows across the chamber walls. The blood had dried centuries ago, but the message was fresh in his mind—too fresh.
"Varyon of the Ninth."
He didn't remember being anyone other than who he was now: a knight, a loyal protector, a reluctant believer. But the words on the wall knew better.
And so did the sigil.
It was etched beside his name—spiraling and jagged, like a brand burned into the stone. The same sigil he'd seen before, on the black blade they'd buried months ago. The one that had refused to dull, no matter how deep the soil. The one that whispered when touched.
That blade was gone now.
Vanished from where they'd hidden it beneath the ancient stone crypt.
And he had a feeling it hadn't left on its own.
Varyon reached toward the wall, fingers trembling. When his skin brushed the dried blood, the cold leapt into him.
And something else came with it.
A whisper.
"You were always the end."
He staggered back.
Not because of the voice—but because of the memory.
It came rushing into him like a wave breaking through a shattered dam.
Fire.
A circle of stone.
Syra on her knees, not smiling, not triumphant—but pleading.
And his own voice—ragged, furious, breaking.
"You chose this."
"You let them die."
"You made me your knife."
Then the black blade rising.
Her blood on his hands.
And still, she whispered:
"I only opened the gate. You're the one who walked through."
Varyon gasped.
The memory was gone.
But the guilt remained.
Back at camp, Mira stared into the flames as the others debated what to do next.
"We need to leave this place," Ash said, glancing toward the dark treeline. "Whatever's buried here is waking up."
"We're not running," Lina snapped. "That's what Syra wants. For us to scatter."
"She wants Mira," Rylan said. "She's said it again and again. Mira is the thread holding her to this world. If we run, she'll follow."
"She isn't a thread," Mira said quietly.
They turned toward her.
Mira looked up, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. "She's a mirror."
Ash frowned. "What do you mean?"
"She's not forcing her way into me. She's… answering something that's already there. A hunger. A need. I feel it every time I fight. Every time I use the light."
Rylan stepped closer. "You're stronger than her, Mira."
She gave a thin smile. "That's the thing. I'm not sure I want to be."
Silence.
Then, slowly, Mira stood.
"I need to see her."
Lina rose immediately. "Mira—"
"I need to know what I really am. Not what you want me to be. Not what the prophecy says. Not what the first Mira was. Me."
"No one's stopping you," Rylan said quietly. "But you're not going alone."
That night, the five of them descended together.
Past the basin.
Past the sealed glyphs.
Deeper into the underchambers where time ran thin and breath came shallow.
The stone around them was colder than before, less like a ruin and more like the inside of something alive. Red veins pulsed faintly in the walls. The deeper they went, the louder the whispering became.
Not from Syra.
From the gate.
At the final threshold, Mira stopped.
A great circular arch rose before them—twenty feet high, lined with broken runes and flanked by two statues long since crumbled to dust. In its center, a shimmer—barely perceptible—like heat rising from stone.
Mira stepped toward it.
And the shimmer thickened.
A veil.
Not metaphorical.
Literal.
The others watched in silence as she reached out—and touched it.
She was no longer underground.
She stood in a field of stars, skyless, groundless.
At the center of it, Syra waited.
But this was no vision.
Mira knew it this time.
This was real.
Syra looked the same—cloaked in white, a crown of burning light around her brow, hands folded neatly. But her expression was not cruel.
It was tired.
"Mira," she said.
Mira narrowed her eyes. "Stop using my name like you know me."
"I do know you," Syra said. "I've been you."
"No," Mira whispered. "You're not me. You're not even human anymore."
Syra tilted her head. "Is that what you think I lost?"
Mira stepped forward. "You betrayed the Seven. You tore the Veil. You killed the Lightbearers."
"I was the Lightbearer," Syra said. "And the gate I tore open was made from my own light."
The field pulsed around them.
"You think you know the story," Syra said softly. "But you only know the ending."
"Then tell me," Mira said. "Why did you do it?"
Syra looked past her, into the endless dark.
"Because we weren't winning, Mira. We were delaying. The dark was always going to come. I opened the gate because I thought—I hoped—there was something beyond it. A way to end the cycle. I was wrong. But I saw it. The truth."
"And what truth is that?" Mira asked.
Syra's eyes burned.
"That the only way to hold back darkness is to become the wall that breaks it."
"You mean sacrifice," Mira said.
"I mean transformation." Syra stepped forward now. "You're afraid of me because you feel it too. The fire. The hunger. The knowledge that light alone isn't enough. That sometimes, fire must answer fire."
Mira's hands clenched at her sides. "I won't become you."
"You already are."
Mira raised her palm—and light bloomed from it.
But Syra did the same.
Their palms matched.
The same light.
The same mark.
The same soul.
When Mira woke, the others were dragging her away from the gate.
She was cold. Not with fear—but clarity.
"I saw her," she said hoarsely.
Rylan knelt beside her. "What happened?"
"She's not trying to break in," Mira whispered. "She's trying to break out."
"What?" Lina asked.
"She's been trapped inside the Veil. All this time. Not dead. Not ascended. Sealed. And the light I've been using—it's hers. Or… maybe mine. I don't know anymore."
"Are you still you?" Ash asked.
Mira looked at him—and something in her gaze had changed.
She wasn't sure what the answer was.
Two nights later, they sat together around the fire again.
The forest was not silent anymore.
The wind had returned, bringing with it the sound of distant thunder and the scent of smoke on the horizon. Something was coming.
Rylan stood slowly. "We have a choice," he said. "We can finish what they started. Or we can try something new."
"Sealing won't work," Mira said. "Not again. She said so herself."
"Then we don't seal," Varyon said. "We unbind."
Lina frowned. "That's madness."
"Maybe," Rylan said. "But maybe it's time we stop pretending we can fight this with old answers."
Ash stood too. "Then we go back. We find the first gate."
"Where it all began," Mira said quietly.
The others looked at her.
And for the first time, no one questioned her authority.
Not even herself.
Far beneath the mountain, in the place where the gate had cracked once before, something opened its eyes.
Not Syra.
Not Mira.
Something older.
Something that remembered the first fire.
And the ones who lit it.
The Ninth would return.
And this time—
The wall would not hold.