The stairway descended farther than it seemed to be.
Kaal held a torch, the flame flickering blue at the edges, though there was no incoming air. Lyra moved ahead of him, blade drawn, eyes sharp. The stone underfoot was ancient, each step worn, grooved by time and more than human passage.
They hadn't spoken since entering the ruin.
Not out of silence, but because something in the air demanded quiet. Like the place itself was alive.
The walls were etched with carvings, spirals again, broken by crescent shapes and strange, branching glyphs. Some pulsed faintly when their torchlight touched them, but faded again when passed. It was like the ruin recognized Kaal, and shivered in response.
Lyra paused, holding up a hand. "Do you hear that?"
Kaal stilled. "No."
"Exactly." She looked back. "Too quiet."
He listened harder. No dripping water. Not even the scrape of her boots. Just… silence. Pressed in like hands on either side of the skull.
They reached the chamber at the base of the stairs.
It opened like the inside of a broken dome, half-collapsed, ringed with columns wrapped in old roots. In the center stood a raised stone altar, covered in the same spiral-carved patterns. Something shimmered faintly atop it.
Lyra stepped toward it, cautious. "Could be a trap."
Kaal moved to her side. "Everything here is possibly a trap.
As they approached, the markings on the altar lit up, soft gold light trailing through the carvings like veins coming alive.
Kaal's breath caught. The glow reflected in his eyes.
"It's reacting."
"To You" Lyra added "You're glowing."
He reached out. Hesitated. Then touched the edge of the stone.
A pulse burst outward, silent but hard, like a pressure wave. Lyra stumbled back, blade raised.
Kaal didn't move.
The light flowed up his arm like smoke, threading along his veins.
He gasped and stepped back, clutching his wrist. The glow faded, but didn't vanish. His fingers still shimmered faintly.
Lyra didn't lower her blade.
"Kaal… what the hell was that?"
"I don't know," he said, breathing hard. "I...just touched it."
"Stone doesn't light up from curiosity."
Kaal met her eyes. "I think it recognized me."
She looked at him for a long moment. "That's not a good thing."
Before either of them could speak again, the walls shook.
It was faint at first, just dust shifting. But then a crack split through the far side of the chamber. From it, a noise emerged, not a growl, not a roar. Something deeper. Lower.
Kaal grabbed his torch. Lyra was already at his side.
"What now?" she muttered.
Then it came.
From the crack, dragging its body in pieces, too many limbs, its face half-formed, like something sculpted wrong and then abandoned. It moved like liquid and bone, with eyes that were not placed right.
Lyra lunged.
The creature met her with unnatural speed. She slashed across its chest, it split, then closed again, like flesh wasn't real to it. It struck back, knocking her into one of the pillars with a crash.
"Lyra!" Kaal shouted.
She was up in a flash, bleeding but breathing. "You're well now, don't just stand there!"
The creature turned to Kaal. It paused.
And then, instead of lunging, it lowered itself, like bowing. Like submission.
Kaal froze.
Lyra didn't see this.
"What are you doing?" She shouted. "Move!"
The creature suddenly agitated ,reared, charging him, jaws splitting into a vertical maw.
Kaal raised his hand, not out of thought, but reflex.
And the air between them shattered.
A ripple of light, like warped glass, exploded outward. The creature slammed into it, shrieked, and fell back, writhing.
Lyra stared. "What did you...?"
"I didn't mean to...."
The creature tried again.
This time, Kaal reached for the dagger at his belt. Something inside him shifted. His blood felt hot, and his mind stilled.
His body moved not like that of someone who had been bed-ridden for months, but it was like his body remembered his sword training once more.
He stepped, pivoted, slashed upward as the creature lunged, and the blow struck deep and true.
Clean. Precise.
The beast staggered. Lyra came in from the side, finishing it with a vicious double strike. The creature shrieked once, then dissolved into mist.
They stood in silence, the echoes of their breathing filling the chamber.
Kaal was still holding the dagger.
He looked down at his hands. They didn't shake. They should've. Something had moved through him, not his own, not fully. He hadn't called it. Hadn't controlled it. Just reacted, like his body had been waiting for permission.
Lyra looked at him, slowly lowering her blade. "Since when do you know how to fight like that?"
"I'm a prince, do you know how many assassination attempts I faced before my illness and during?" He attempted to hide.
"If you can fight like that, why have I been carrying your weight."
Just the afterimage of the motion, burned into his limbs like something remembered from another life.
"I don't know," he said honestly.
Lyra narrowed her eyes.
But she didn't press.
They left the ruin before the silence could return.
And as they walked, Kaal rubbed his wrist where the light had entered him.
It was warm still.