Beneath the city lay a world untouched by sunlight. The entrance was hidden behind the crumbling wall of an abandoned chapel, where ivy strangled the stone and doors rotted on their hinges. Esther had found it as the ashes bade her—guided by instinct, by the pull of her amulet, and perhaps by the unseen hand of her bloodline.
Horace slipped through first, sleek as a shadow. Morrigan alighted upon a cracked lintel, her eyes glinting in the dim. Esther pressed her palm against the concealed stair, whispering the word for open, and the stones gave way with a groan, revealing a spiral descending into blackness.
The air grew colder as she went down, her lamp casting a wavering glow upon the narrow walls. Carvings etched into the stone caught the light—crosses defaced, serpents coiling, eyes that watched from every surface. Watcher marks.
Yet beneath them, older still, she saw another sigil: the serpent devouring its own tail. The Harrow crest.
The deeper she went, the stronger the air smelled of damp earth and age-old bones. Soon the narrow stair gave way to an open chamber, where skulls were stacked in careful rows, grinning eternally from their niches. Their hollow sockets seemed to follow her as she passed.
Horace slunk ahead, tail low, ears twitching. Morrigan circled above, her wings stirring the dust of centuries.
At the heart of the catacombs lay a great door of iron, rusted but unbroken. Upon it was carved the sigil of the Watchers—but beneath it, scored deeply as if by defiant hands, was the Harrow crest.
Esther pressed her palm to it, the amulet at her throat flaring cold. The mark the Watcher had branded upon her hand glowed faintly, and the door trembled.
"Blood for blood," she whispered, remembering the ashes' warning. She pricked her finger with her ritual blade and pressed it to the mark.
At once the iron shuddered, groaned, and swung inward.
The chamber beyond was vast, lit not by torch or flame, but by a strange phosphorescence that clung to the walls like veins of moonlight. At its center rose a stone altar, older than the city above, older perhaps than even the Watchers.
Upon it lay a book. Its cover was bound in cracked leather, darkened by time. No dust dared settle upon it.
Esther approached slowly, reverently. Her hand hovered above it before she dared touch. When her fingers met its surface, a chill swept through her body—an old, familiar current, as though her ancestors themselves stirred within her blood.
The book opened at once, pages fluttering without her command until they stilled upon a single passage.
Words written in a hand she somehow recognized, though it belonged to a woman centuries gone:
"To the Daughter of Flame:
Your blood is covenant.
Your hand is key.
When the Watchers rise, you must awaken the Serpent.
For only through shadow may balance be restored."
Esther's breath caught. Her bloodline was not curse alone—it was weapon.
But the last line struck her like a blow:
"Yet beware—for the Serpent devours even those who summon it."
The chamber groaned around her, the skulls rattling faintly in their niches. Horace hissed, Morrigan shrieked, and Esther knew the Watchers would not let her linger long.
She closed the book, clutching it to her chest.
The descent had given her truth. But truth came with teeth.