The man stepped inside without waiting for permission, boots whispering over the stone as though he owned the place. The door closed behind him, and the faint clink of the lock sliding back into place echoed in the confined air.
The lantern-light revealed a face at once unfamiliar and unsettling: sharp-boned, with eyes that reflected the dim glow like shards of polished obsidian. There was no insignia on his robe—no sect colors, no crest—yet the fabric was rich, the weave finer than anything worn by the guards.
Xao Xao's stance shifted, ready to spring. Rhen raised a hand, stopping her.
"You followed us from the Lotus Pool," Rhen said. It wasn't a question.
A slow, crooked smile. "Followed? No. I was waiting."
"For what?" Xao Xao demanded.
The man ignored her, eyes locked on Rhen. "For you to stop pretending you belong here."
The words slid under Rhen's skin like cold steel. "You seem very sure of yourself."
"I've been sure for a long time," the man said. "Ever since the fractures began. You don't sense them the way others do. You hear them."
Rhen's gaze didn't waver. "And if that were true?"
"Then you're exactly what I've been searching for."
Xao Xao stepped in, voice sharp. "You're speaking in riddles. Who are you?"
The man finally looked at her, and his smile softened—but it wasn't kindness. It was assessment. "You're the anchor. The reason he hasn't burned himself hollow yet."
Her jaw tightened. "That's not an answer."
"No," he agreed, "it isn't."
He turned his back on them, pacing toward the far wall, trailing his fingers along the stone as though feeling for some hidden seam. "This hall is a clever cage. Drains you slowly, leaves you obedient without chains. But its builders made one mistake."
"And that is?" Rhen asked.
"They built it on something older. Something hungrier."
The man stopped, palm pressed flat to the wall, and for an instant—just an instant—the lantern-light warped, bending toward his hand. The air tasted faintly of ozone.
"You think you can break us out?" Xao Xao said.
"I know I can," the man replied, glancing over his shoulder. "But freedom is never free. I'd need something in return."
Rhen exhaled slowly. "Let me guess—me."
The smile returned. "Your instincts serve you well."
Silence stretched. Rhen's mind was already turning, weighing options, tracking the faint pulse in the stone beneath them—the same old channels he'd touched earlier. Whoever this man was, he knew about them too. That made him either an invaluable ally… or the most dangerous person in the city.
Finally, Rhen said, "Tell me what's waiting outside these walls. Then I'll decide."
The man's expression darkened—not anger, but something colder.
"Outside?" he said softly. "The fractures aren't just in the sky anymore. They're in the streets. In the blood of the people. You think you're running out of time, Rhen?"
He stepped closer, voice dropping to a near-whisper.
"Time's already run out."
The lantern hissed as the flame guttered low.
And from somewhere beneath the floor came a sound like stone grinding against stone… except it was moving.
***
The grinding continued, low and rhythmic, as though some vast wheel were turning in the dark. Dust sifted from the ceiling, drifting lazily through the lantern's wan glow. The air thickened—not with smoke, but with something heavier, pressing into their lungs like invisible hands.
Xao Xao's fingers twitched toward her blade. "That's not coming from the hallways," she whispered. "It's coming from below."
The stranger didn't answer. He was listening—not with his ears, but with his breath, head tilted slightly, as though catching the cadence of something ancient. Then he murmured, almost to himself: "It's waking."
Rhen moved closer, his qi sense stretching like fine silk threads through the stone. At first there was only the usual sluggish current of the hall's suppression wards. But then—beneath that—he felt it: a deep pulse, older than the city, moving in slow waves through the foundation.
It wasn't raw qi. It wasn't spiritual energy at all.
It was memory.
"What exactly," Rhen said, voice low, "did they build this hall on?"
The stranger turned, and for once his smile was gone. "A burial ground. But not for people. For an oath."
Rhen's brow furrowed. "An oath?"
"Some vows aren't spoken in words," the man said. "They're carved into the bones of the earth. This one was meant to sleep forever."
Xao Xao's grip tightened on her sword. "You're saying the fractures woke it."
"No," the man said softly. "You did."
The floor shuddered, subtle but enough to ripple the lantern light. The sound below grew louder, more deliberate. There was weight to it now, the sensation of something dragging itself closer.
Rhen's instincts screamed at him to run, but the hall's walls were still dead stone. "If you know how to break this place, now would be a good time."
The man's eyes glinted. "I can't do it alone. The wards are woven too deep. But with your reach—" he stepped closer, lowering his voice "—and her anchor, we can tear a hole big enough to slip through."
Xao Xao gave Rhen a sharp look. "And once we're through?"
The man didn't answer right away. His gaze flicked toward the floor, where a hairline crack had begun to creep across the stone, black as spilled ink.
"Once we're through," he said finally, "we run. And we don't look back."
Rhen didn't like it. Every instinct told him this man's offer was bait—sharp, well-set, and meant to close around him. But the crack in the floor was spreading, and from it seeped a cold so profound it burned.
He weighed the choice quickly. Stay, and face whatever was clawing its way up from the bones of the earth. Or gamble on a stranger who knew his name without being told.
"Fine," Rhen said. "Tell me what to do."
The man's expression sharpened, almost predatory. "Center yourself. Forget the suppression around you—it's only surface frost. Reach past it. Downward. Touch the flow beneath the wards, and pull."
Rhen knelt, palms flat to the stone. He exhaled, sinking his awareness past the numbing resistance of the hall. It was like forcing his way through layers of wet cloth, slow and suffocating. But then—there it was: the pulse. Slow, steady, waiting.
He gripped it. Pulled.
The lantern flame flared violently, throwing jagged shadows across the walls. The wards shuddered, their tight weave loosening just enough for a trickle of qi to slip through.
The man slammed his own hand against the wall, feeding that trickle into the seams of the stone. Symbols older than the sect's founding bled to life across the surface, glowing faintly.
Xao Xao stepped between them and the crack, blade drawn, as the grinding below turned into something far worse—a wet, tearing sound, like flesh being pulled from bone.
"Almost there," the man hissed.
The stone wall in front of them trembled, then split along a seam no one had noticed before. Cold air surged through, carrying the scent of pine and wet earth.
"Go!" the man barked.
Rhen grabbed Xao Xao's wrist, pulling her through the gap. The man followed last, and the moment his foot left the hall, the crack in the floor erupted.
He didn't look back, but he felt it—an immense presence spilling upward, its awareness brushing his mind like the shadow of a hand on his throat. It wasn't sight, or sound, or touch—it was the memory of all three, pressed together in impossible ways.
And it knew his name.
They emerged into the night air, the city's walls distant in the gloom. The wind carried the faint, discordant hum of the fractures overhead.
Rhen turned to the stranger. "Now you tell me who you are."
The man smiled again, faint and unreadable.
"Names," he said, "are oaths. And we've already woken one too many tonight."