The cavern swallowed Serin's roar, leaving behind a silence far more terrifying than the clash of steel. Cael's legs carried him because Liora dragged him, not because he chose to run. His heart hammered in his chest, the fossil pulsing in his hands as though keeping time with his terror.
The narrow tunnel swallowed them, closing out the cries of hunters and the blazing arcs of Serin's blade. The sound of rushing water grew louder, filling the darkness ahead with its promise of escape.
Liora didn't slow. Her dagger dripped blood, her braid clung to her sweat-soaked neck, and her eyes blazed with something close to fury. But even fury seemed too small a word.
At last, the tunnel widened, and they stumbled into a chamber where an underground river tore through the stone. Its waters glowed faintly, not from torchlight but from the crystals embedded in the walls and bedrock. The river looked alive, carrying ribbons of pale blue light that swirled in spirals, like veins under the earth's skin.
Cael gasped. "What is this place?"
Liora yanked him forward to the water's edge. "The River That Remembers. Old as the caverns themselves. Too wild for the priests to dam, too deep for them to chart. It runs beneath their holy city, beneath their towers and temples, but they can't control it. That's why we use it."
"We?" Cael asked, voice breaking. His head spun from everything—the fossil's pulse, Serin's sacrifice, and the weight of words he could barely understand.
But Liora gave him no time to stumble through questions. She shoved him toward a half-broken raft wedged between rocks. It was nothing more than lashed timbers, patched with hides. She cut it free with her dagger and shoved it into the river's current.
"On," she commanded.
Cael hesitated, staring at the black water. The fossil pulsed harder in his grip, almost warning. "And Serin? We can't just leave him—"
Her eyes snapped to his, sharp as steel. "Do you think he didn't know? He went into that cavern carrying his death with him. The Ashen Blade isn't meant to survive battles—it's meant to end them. If you waste his sacrifice by standing here whining, then you kill him twice."
Her words struck like a slap. Cael climbed aboard, his body shaking. Liora leapt after him, and the current seized them, pulling them into darkness.
---
The river carried them swiftly, slamming the raft against stone walls, spinning it in violent circles before tossing it forward again. Cael clung to the wood, water spraying his face, his ears filled with the roar of the current.
At last, the river calmed. They drifted through a long corridor where the water slowed and widened. The crystals above glowed brighter here, and Cael could see the cavern ceiling stretching high overhead like the ribs of some enormous beast.
For the first time since Serin's stand, there was silence.
Cael let out a shuddering breath. He looked at the fossil in his hands, still glowing faintly. "What… what just happened back there? Why were they after me? And what did Serin mean, that I was marked?"
Liora leaned back, exhaustion pulling at her limbs, though her eyes never softened. "You really don't know, do you?"
"I don't even know what questions to ask anymore," Cael admitted. His voice cracked, half with fear, half with despair. "The priests have always taught that we are nothing but a ladder—that every creature climbs from one rung to the next, chance by chance. That we are here by accident, like sparks from a fire. But the fossil—" he held it up—"it doesn't feel like chance. It feels like it knows."
Liora stared at the fossil, her lip curling. "The Spiral priests feed you the ladder because it makes you small. If life is just chance, then nothing matters. You'll obey because you think you're nothing more than dust pretending to be flesh. But if the world isn't random—if there's a pattern, a design, a reason—then you might start asking questions they can't answer. Dangerous questions. That's why they kill."
Cael swallowed, the pieces grinding in his mind. "Then Serin… he carried that blade to find someone like me?"
"Not like you," she corrected. "You."
The words settled heavily, more suffocating than the cavern air.
Cael looked again at the fossil. The Spiral etched into it was faintly shifting, glowing and fading like breath. "But why me? I'm not strong like Serin, or fierce like you. I'm just a scholar who read too much."
Liora leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "Exactly. You question. Do you think Serin was chosen because he could swing a sword? No. He was chosen because he already doubted. That's why he survived carrying the Ashen Blade. It destroys men who believe too deeply in the Spiral. It only answers to those who see beyond."
Cael's stomach turned. Serin had been carrying not just a sword, but a curse.
The raft drifted past another wall of crystals, their light reflecting off the water in mesmerizing patterns. For a moment, Cael forgot his fear, watching the spirals form and fade.
"Why do they call this the River That Remembers?" he asked quietly.
Liora's expression softened just enough for her voice to lose its edge. "Because it carries echoes. Watch." She dipped her hand into the water. Ripples spread out, glowing faintly. Then, faint whispers rose from the current—voices, old and broken, like fragments of memory.
Cael's breath caught. He leaned closer. Among the whispers, he thought he heard a chant, faint but familiar. The Spiral ascends, the Spiral descends, all by chance, all by chance.
He shivered. "It's… it remembers their prayers?"
"It remembers everything," Liora said. "Every voice, every word spoken near it, every cry drowned in it. That's why the priests fear it. Because the river doesn't lie. It doesn't forget. If you listen long enough, it'll show you what they hide."
Cael stared at the glowing water, heart pounding. A river that remembered. A fossil that pulsed with meaning. A blade that answered only to doubt.
The Spiral's certainty was cracking in his hands, in his mind, and it terrified him.
Finally, he asked the question that gnawed at his chest. "Liora… what happens if the Spiral is wrong?"
She met his gaze, and for the first time since he'd known her, her expression was not anger but something quieter, heavier. "Then the world is far more dangerous—and far more beautiful—than they've ever told you."
The raft drifted on, carrying them into shadows deeper still.
And behind them, far away, the cavern where Serin had fallen groaned with echoes the river carried forward—echoes of battle, of fire, of a man who believed that truth did not hide.