Chapter 6 - The Gate Speaks

The wards held for forty-three more minutes.Senna counted every one by the uneven cadence of Azraath's heartbeat beneath her cheek. They remained on the cave floor, bodies entwined in quiet defiance of the world ending outside. His coat covered them both like a dark wing; her legs were draped over his, one hand splayed across the steady rise and fall of his chest. Every so often he would shift—barely a movement—and draw her infinitesimally closer, as though distance itself had become the enemy.The cave air had grown thick, scented with pine resin, wet stone, and the faint metallic tang that always preceded his shadows. Neither spoke. Words felt too small for what had passed between their mouths only minutes earlier.Then the wards faltered.A single stutter—subtle, almost apologetic. The silver-blue runes dimmed to half-strength before clawing back to brightness. Another flicker followed. Then another.Azraath's arm tightened around her waist."They found the eastern breach," he said, voice low and calm. Too calm.Senna lifted her head. "How many?""More than we can count in torchlight." His fingers traced idle circles on her lower back—comforting, possessive. "The high priest is at the fore. His fervor is… loud. It echoes."She turned toward the cave mouth. Beyond the wavering barrier the sky had fractured into a lattice of crimson veins. Stars bled behind the cracks like wounds that refused to close. On the ridge above, silhouettes multiplied—dozens, perhaps more—torches spitting sparks into the wind. Snatches of chant drifted down: rhythmic, furious, threaded with something almost ecstatic.Senna pushed to her feet. Cold rushed in where his warmth had been. She wrapped her arms around herself, the ruined silk gown offering no protection.Azraath rose in one fluid motion, shadows rippling off his shoulders like spilled ink returning to its master. He settled his coat properly, the movement deliberate, ceremonial."Ten minutes," he said. "Perhaps twelve. The wards collapse the instant steel kisses them.""Then we meet them before that happens," Senna replied.He studied her face—searching, almost pleading. "You could still run. The far slope drops into the black pines. They would lose your scent among the needles.""Don't." The word came out edged. "Don't offer me the coward's door. I already chose the hard one."Azraath exhaled—a sound that carried centuries. "And I chose not to watch you bleed again."The wards flickered longer this time, light guttering like a candle in a storm.Then the voice arrived.It did not speak from the air. It spoke from inside—inside bone, inside blood, inside the hollow places fear calls home. A voice without throat or tongue, layered and vast, polite in the way an ocean is polite before it drowns you.Vessel.Senna went rigid.Azraath's hand snapped to her waist, yanking her flush against his side. His other palm flattened over her heart as though he could physically block the intrusion.Beloved instrument, the gate continued, returned at last to the altar you were born for.Senna pressed her own hand over his, trapping it there. "That's the gate," she breathed."Do not answer," Azraath ordered, voice steel.But it pressed on, gentle, inexorable.The path curved. You wandered. Yet every loop circles back. The wound has waited. The wound remembers its medicine.A tug bloomed behind Senna's sternum—not pain, but pressure. Invisible stitches pulling her toward the cave mouth, toward the red-fractured dark beyond the wards. She dug her heels into stone."It's… trying to reel me in."Azraath spun her to face him, palms cupping her cheeks with desperate precision."Eyes on me," he commanded. "Only me."She locked onto violet-black irises that burned brighter than the runes. Fear lived there—raw, ancient, human in a way nothing else about him had ever been."Do not listen," he repeated. "It speaks every lie it has ever tasted."He lies best to himself, the gate murmured, almost affectionate. Three hundred seventeen years of exquisite self-deception. But you see through veils, little prophet. You have died forty-seven times holding truth between your teeth. Come. Let me drink. Let the wound close.Senna's knees threatened to give. Azraath caught her weight, steadying her against his chest."I'm not leaving," she forced out between clenched teeth.You always leave, the gate answered, soft as lullaby. You scream. You bargain. You mock the pomegranate seeds. And still you bleed for me. Because you were carved from the same dying star that birthed the wound. You belong here.Azraath snarled—true animal sound—and thrust his free hand toward the cave mouth. Shadow erupted from his palm, blacker than absence, crashing against the ward barrier like a thrown spear. The runes screamed in protest, flaring white-hot.The gate laughed—low, indulgent, eternal.You cannot cage what was made to be opened, little calamity. You were forged to destroy. She was forged to heal through destruction. Keep her and watch reality tear wider.Senna wrenched herself half-free, facing the cave mouth."Shut. Up." Each word a blade. "You're not profound. You're a door with abandonment issues. That's all."A beat of perfect silence.Then colder amusement rippled outward.Bold for something so recently meat."I've had forty-seven dress rehearsals," Senna snapped. "I know all your lines. I'm improvising now."The wards buckled—cracks racing across silver-blue lines like lightning in reverse.Azraath hauled her behind him, body a living shield."They're here."The high priest stepped into torchlight at the hollow's edge—face carved with fanatic ecstasy, eyes fever-bright. Cultists fanned out behind him, ritual blades gleaming. Roots erupted from stone, thicker now, armored in glistening black ichor, curling upward like living siege towers.The high priest lifted his dagger high."Lord Veyr!" His voice cracked with rapture. "The gate hungers! Deliver the vessel or stand apostate before the wound!"Azraath answered with shadow-forged blades—long, wicked arcs that lashed toward the barrier.The wards gave one final, shrieking wail—and shattered.Night poured in.The gate's pull surged—threads tightening around Senna's ribs, dragging. She stumbled forward half a step before Azraath caught her wrist and yanked her back against his chest."Hold," he growled.She wrapped around him—arms locked at his nape, legs circling his waist—like they were one creature facing the storm.The first cultist charged.Azraath met him with night-made steel—severing arm from shoulder in a single, surgical stroke. Blood sprayed; the man howled. Others surged.Roots whipped.Torches died in bursts of shadow.The high priest raised both arms and began a new chant—words that tasted of rust and despair.Through the chaos the gate whispered only to Senna:Come home.She pressed her lips to the side of Azraath's throat—quick, fierce, a vow."I'm already home," she answered it.Azraath roared.Shadow detonated outward in concentric waves—hurling cultists backward, snapping roots like dry twigs, snuffing every torch in a breath of absolute dark.For three heartbeats the hollow went still.Then the high priest laughed—high, mad, triumphant."You delay. You do not deny. The script is written!"Azraath turned, Senna still locked around him like living armor."Then we burn the script," he said.Mouth brushing mouth, heartbeat slamming against heartbeat, they advanced into the fray.Not to fall.Not to kneel.To tear the ending free of prophecy's handsand write one of their own.