The fire had burned down to embers by the time exhaustion dragged at Rhea's limbs. She sat against the cold wall of the chamber, eyes heavy but mind restless. Every time she drifted close to sleep, she felt the stone humming beneath her, like a heartbeat too deep to be human.
Kael hadn't rested once. He kept watch at the mouth of the cave, blade resting across his knees, his eyes glinting faintly gold in the firelight. Even when she thought him still, she could sense the alertness in his body, taut as a bowstring.
"You should sleep," Rhea murmured. Her voice cracked with weariness.
He glanced at her, expression unreadable. "And leave you to her whispers?"
Rhea's stomach tightened. He meant the Queen. She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers as though she could shake the ghostly ache the whispers left in her skin. "She's quieter here. Not gone… but dulled."
"That's the Circle," Kael said. He turned back to the darkness beyond the fire. "It remembers power, and it shields against it. At least for a time."
Rhea hugged her knees. Silence stretched between them, heavy but not hostile. She wanted to ask him what haunted his sleepless eyes, what shadow weighed on him that even a Circle couldn't ease. But she swallowed the question. Some things Kael carried alone.
When dawn came, it was a dull gray light seeping through cracks in the cave mouth. Kael rose first, stamping out the fire and strapping his sword to his back.
"Come," he said, offering her a hand.
She hesitated before taking it. His palm was warm against her chilled fingers, a fleeting comfort.
Together, they turned toward the spiral carving at the far wall. The grooves seemed deeper in the morning light, the runes sharper, as though the stone itself had shifted while they slept.
Rhea's heart thudded as they approached. The spiral's center glimmered faintly, a shimmer like light on water.
Kael paused, frowning. "The Circle isn't only a sanctuary. It's a gate."
"A gate?"
He nodded slowly. "Between what was and what remains." His jaw tightened. "We'll find the Elders, if they live,but the path won't be one of stone."
The air around the carving vibrated, pressure building in Rhea's chest until it hurt to breathe. She reached out before she could think, her fingertips brushing the spiral's center.
The stone was warm. Alive.
Light surged outward, swallowing the chamber in brilliance. Rhea cried out as the floor seemed to fall away, her stomach lurching. Kael's hand clamped around hers, an anchor in the storm.
When the light dimmed, the cave was gone.
They stood in a vast hollow beneath the earth, a cavern lit by rivers of molten light that flowed like veins through the rock. Stalagmites rose like pillars, some carved with runes, others pulsing faintly as if alive. The air was thick with power, humming against Rhea's skin.
"This is…" She trailed off, breath stolen by awe.
"The Circle's heart," Kael said grimly. His eyes swept the cavern, shoulders tense. "And if the Elders walk anywhere, it will be here."
Movement stirred at the far end of the cavern. Figures emerged from the shadows,tall, cloaked, their faces hidden by bone masks carved with symbols. They moved with a strange grace, neither rushed nor slow, as though time itself bent around them.
Rhea's pulse thundered. Elders.
One stepped forward, staff striking stone with a hollow thud that echoed through the cavern. His voice was a rasp, layered with age and power.
"You have crossed the Circle, child of moon and shadow," the masked figure intoned. "And you bring with you the cursed line of blood and flame."
Rhea flinched. The words rang like a verdict. She opened her mouth to speak, but Kael squeezed her hand once, firm. His voice was steady, defiant.
"We came seeking counsel," he said. "Not judgment."
The Elder tilted his masked head, considering them in silence. Then, slowly, the staff lifted, pointing toward Rhea.
"Counsel you may have," the voice whispered, cold as the cavern air. "But know this,the hunger that rises will devour not only you, but the world above, if you falter. Flesh and fire cannot be parted without cost."
The cavern shuddered, as though the stone itself had spoken.
And in that moment, Rhea understood: the Circle had not only brought them to the Elders. It had placed them before a trial that could break them both.