There was no floor.
The stones split like glass, and the world inverted. Elara's scream tore from her throat as she fell, the key burning against her palm, the roar of the chain echoing in her skull.
But the fall did not end.
The crypt, the torches, Tomas's hand reaching for hers—they all blurred, stretched, melted. The walls folded into themselves, the ceiling stretched into black sky, the ground a river of light beneath her. She was falling, but not down—through.
Through hours. Through years. Through centuries.
Her breath caught.
She was standing in the same crypt, only younger—its walls uncracked, its runes glowing steady and whole. Men and women knelt before the chains, their robes white, their faces hidden by veils. They chanted words she did not know, their voices resonant, steady.
A figure stood among them.
Her grandmother.
Younger, stronger, her hair black, her eyes burning with determination. She pressed her palm to the chain, and Elara saw the same mark—the spiral with three intersecting lines—carved into her skin.
Her lips moved, and Elara heard the words inside her, not with her ears:
I am the hour. I am the lock. I am the silence between.
Elara staggered forward, reaching, but her hand passed through the vision like smoke.
The crypt dissolved.
She was in the village square. The bell tower tolled endlessly, the sound so loud it split the sky. The villagers writhed in the streets, their shadows twisting, detaching, rising like serpents. Tomas fought among them, his blade broken, his face pale with terror. His eyes turned to hers, but instead of recognition, there was only emptiness. His voice was not his own when he spoke:
You chose wrong.
The vision shattered.
She gasped and found herself standing in darkness. Absolute. Soundless. The key pulsed in her hand like a heartbeat.
Then footsteps.
Soft, deliberate.
The barefoot child stepped from the dark, their silver eyes glowing faintly. "You see now, don't you? The Hour is not a moment. It is a river. Every time it strikes, another piece of the world is washed away. You are not fighting the Guardian. You are fighting time itself."
Elara's throat was dry. "Then why the chains?"
"To slow the river. To bind the flood. The Guardian drinks so that the world may last another cycle." The child tilted their head, smiling faintly. "But rivers always carve new paths. And chains always rust."
Her pulse thundered. "Then the eighth chain—"
"Anchors the riverbed." The child's voice was soft, but sharp. "Bury it, and the river consumes all. Reforge it, and the river slows… but at a price."
Elara's chest tightened. "What price?"
The child stepped closer, their voice a whisper in her ear. "Your life. Their lives. Every choice is blood."
The darkness trembled. She felt Tomas's hand again, pulling her, dragging her back. His voice, this time real: "Elara! Wake up!"
The visions fractured, collapsing, shattering like glass.
And she was falling again—stone rushing up, air burning her lungs.
Elara fell, yet she did not.
The darkness was both rushing past her and pressing against her, heavy as stone. Her scream became a whisper, then an echo, then silence. The key in her palm was the only anchor, pulsing in a rhythm that felt wrong, too fast, like a heart in panic.
Then—light.
Not the glow of torches but the pallid shimmer of moonlight spilling over a village she knew. Her village. But wrong.
The streets were empty. The doors hung open. The bell tower loomed crooked, its bell cracked in two. Shadows moved along the walls, long and thin, but cast by no bodies.
"Elara," a voice whispered.
She turned.
Tomas stood at the well, smiling faintly, his eyes too wide. His hand lifted in greeting, but his shadow stretched unnaturally long, crawling toward her like a living thing.
"Stay with me," he said. His voice was warm, tender—wrong.
The shadow surged for her.
She stumbled back—and the world melted.
She was in the crypt again. Not as it was, but as it would be. The chains were shattered, their fragments floating in the air like dying stars. A pit yawned in the center of the chamber, swallowing light, swallowing sound.
At its edge stood Anselm.
But his hammer was gone. His hands were bound in iron, chains wrapping his arms, his chest, his throat. His mouth opened in a scream, but no sound came out—only a rush of shadows spilling into the pit.
"Help him!" Elara cried, running forward.
But as she reached for him, the chains lashed out, wrapping her wrists, her ankles. They pulled her down, dragging her toward the pit.
She screamed—
And stood in a field.
Green grass. Summer sky. The river winding quiet in the distance. For a heartbeat, she thought she was safe.
Her grandmother sat on a stone nearby, her hands folded, her hair streaked with silver. She looked tired, but her smile was gentle.
"You always dreamed of peace," the old woman said softly. "But peace is never given. It is kept, and keeping it costs dearly."
Elara's throat tightened. "Grandmother—what do I do? The chains are breaking. The Hour is speeding up. I—I don't know how to fix it."
The woman's eyes softened, but her words were sharp. "There is no fixing. Only choosing." She leaned closer, her whisper cold against Elara's ear. "Seal it and lose yourself. Break it and lose them. That is the law of silence."
Elara's chest heaved. "No. There has to be another way—"
Her grandmother's face darkened, melting, her skin cracking to ash, her voice becoming many voices.
Join. Join. Join.
The sky split.
The river of light returned, roaring, dragging her down.
The barefoot child was waiting.
Their bare feet pressed against nothing, their silver eyes gleaming in the void. They looked almost sad.
"You chase futures as though they were choices," they said softly. "But futures are rivers. They do not bend for you. Only the chains force them to flow slow."
Elara's breath came in shuddering gasps. "Then tell me what the eighth chain is!"
The child smiled faintly. "It is what you fear most: an anchor that does not bind the Guardian, but binds you."
Her grip on the key faltered. "Me?"
"The keepers are not chosen by blood. They are chosen by the river. It has chosen you."
Her chest clenched. "No."
"Yes," the child whispered. "You are the lock, Elara. You always were."
The void trembled. The tolls boomed again, not above, not below, but inside her skull.
DONG. DONG. DONG.
Too many. Too fast. The Silent Hour folding in on itself, striking all at once.
She screamed, clutching the key, light blazing from her chest, her veins, her very breath.
The visions shattered.
Stone slammed her body. Air fled her lungs. She gasped, choking, the crypt's stink of ash and blood snapping her back into the present.
Tomas's hands were on her shoulders, shaking her. His voice broke through the ringing in her ears. "Elara! Elara, stay with me!"
Her vision swam. Aldric lay sprawled against a wall, unmoving. Anselm groaned, dragging himself from a pile of shattered stone. The barefoot child crouched nearby, untouched, their silver gaze fixed on her.
And deep below, in the cracks of the floor, she felt it—something vast, something waiting. The river itself, rushing, hungry.
The Hour had not ended. It had only just begun.