The fall ended in stone and darkness.
Elara lay gasping, her chest crushed by the impact, her hands raw from clutching the key. Tomas's arms were around her, holding her as if his grip alone could shield her from the collapsing world. Dust choked the air, stinging her throat.
"Elara," his voice rasped. "Are you—"
"I'm here." The words tore out broken, but real. She forced herself upright, though every bone screamed.
Shapes moved in the haze. Anselm groaned somewhere to the left, his hammer clattering against stone. Aldric was nowhere in sight.
And the barefoot child? Gone.
The silence that followed was wrong—too heavy, too deep. The crypt above was lost; only these tunnels remained, black and twisting, carved by no hand they knew.
A slow drip echoed. Then another. Like water. Like blood.
Tomas gripped his sword tighter. "We need to move. Before they find us."
They pressed forward through the tunnels, the air damp and thick. Elara's torchlight flickered against walls etched with crude carvings—figures bowing before chains, rivers curling into spirals, faces erased. Some looked older than stone itself.
Her skin prickled. "These aren't the abbots' work."
Tomas glanced at the carvings, his jaw tight. "Then whose?"
She shook her head. "The river's."
He didn't argue.
Behind them, stone shifted.
A low scrape. Then another.
Tomas froze, raising his blade. The torchlight caught something slinking along the wall—a shadow, but wrong. Its body bent like a wolf's, its head elongated, its jaw split open wider than any creature's should. White eyes burned in its skull.
"Elara," Tomas whispered, "run."
The thing lunged.
They sprinted through the tunnels, shadows twisting along the walls, their claws scraping stone. The ground tilted downward, the passages narrowing, forcing them deeper. Elara's lungs burned, her legs trembling, but fear drove her on.
The growls followed, multiplying.
"This way!" Tomas shouted, dragging her into a side passage. The tunnel twisted, then opened into a cavern lit by phosphorescent moss, glowing faintly green.
Elara's breath caught.
The walls were covered in paintings—primitive, older than any scripture. Seven chains etched in thick black lines. And beneath them, drawn in crimson pigment, an eighth spiral sinking into the earth.
At the center of the spiral: a woman's figure, faceless, arms spread wide.
Her stomach lurched. "It's me."
Tomas gripped her shoulder, forcing her eyes to his. "No. Don't say that."
The growls drew closer.
They had no choice but deeper.
The mosslight dimmed behind them as the tunnels narrowed, twisting into throats of stone. The air grew colder, sharper, as if knives scraped the back of their lungs.
From ahead came whispers. Not human. Not shadow. A sound like the chains themselves groaning in their sleep.
"Elara," Tomas murmured, "we're not escaping."
"I know." Her grip on the key tightened until her knuckles bled. "We're being pulled."
A scream tore the tunnel.
Anselm's.
It echoed, raw, desperate. Then silence.
Tomas's face hardened. "We have to find him."
But even as he said it, Elara knew. The tunnels were not letting them choose. They were being herded. Downward. Always downward.
And whatever waited at the bottom was not chained.
The scream lingered in the tunnels, stretching thin as if the stone itself carried it further, savoring it. Then silence.
"Elara." Tomas's grip tightened on her arm. "Don't listen. Keep moving."
But she couldn't. Anselm's roar still rang in her chest—defiant, human. It had ended too quickly.
She swallowed hard, forcing her legs to move. The torchlight flickered against the carvings, making the painted spiral twist and crawl like it lived. The faceless woman at its center seemed to turn toward her, arms outstretched in welcome or in hunger.
The tunnels bent downward. Always downward. The incline was steep now, slick with moisture. Tomas's boots slid on the stone, and he had to steady her more than once. The deeper they went, the louder the whispers grew.
They were not random.
They were chanting.
Seven voices, rising and falling in a rhythm that matched the chains' tolling. But beneath them pulsed a deeper note—an eighth voice, too low for sound, felt only in her bones.
Her chest tightened. "They're calling it."
Tomas shot her a glance. "What?"
"The anchor." Her grip on the key throbbed. "It's awake."
A shadow darted across the tunnel ahead. Not a beast this time. A figure.
Tall. Robed. Limping.
Tomas raised his blade, torchlight catching the figure's face. His breath caught.
"Aldric?"
The priest staggered toward them, his robes shredded, his staff splintered. His eyes gleamed fever-bright in the flickering light.
"Elara," he rasped. His voice was hoarse, but steady. "I saw it. The river. The anchor. We are beneath it now."
Elara stepped forward, but Tomas blocked her path, sword raised.
The priest's lips curled into a thin smile. "Why do you fear me, boy?"
"Because your eyes," Tomas said coldly, "aren't yours anymore."
Aldric chuckled, a sound too deep for his chest. "Perhaps not. But they see clearer than yours ever will." He spread his arms, revealing wrists marked with fresh spirals carved into his flesh. Blood trickled down his hands. "It chose me first, Elara. I am its voice. Its chain."
Elara's stomach twisted. "No. It's using you."
"It uses all," Aldric whispered. "The Hour feeds, the river flows, the anchor waits. I have accepted what you will not."
The shadows stirred behind him, their forms shifting like smoke drawn to fire. They crouched at his feet, waiting.
"Elara," Tomas murmured, "we need to go. Now."
But her feet refused to move. The key burned in her palm, answering Aldric's spirals like a heartbeat in harmony.
Her grandmother's voice echoed in her skull: Do not trust the voices without chains.
Aldric's smile widened. "Come with me. Be more than keeper. Be river."
The torch guttered. The shadows surged.
Tomas grabbed her wrist, dragging her into a side tunnel just as the priest's laughter rolled after them, deeper and deeper, swallowed by the dark.
They ran until their lungs burned, the tunnel twisting tighter around them. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, red in the torchlight. The air grew thick, metallic, suffocating.
At last they stumbled into a cavern.
Elara collapsed to her knees, gasping. The torch sputtered, throwing faint light across the chamber walls.
And she froze.
The cavern was lined with faces.
Hundreds of them.
Carved directly into the stone, their mouths open in silent screams, their eyes gouged out. Some were eroded smooth with age, others fresh, raw. In each hollow mouth was carved the spiral sigil, bleeding faintly with glowing red.
Tomas swore under his breath, raising his blade. "What in God's name is this?"
Elara shuddered, clutching the key. "Not God's. Never God's."
The faces shifted in the torchlight, mouths opening wider, their stone voices whispering in unison:
Downward. Downward. Downward.
The tunnel at the far end yawned, darker than shadow.
And for the first time, Elara understood they were not running from something.
They were being carried.
Like water to the sea.