The crack widened overnight.
By morning, the soil at the center of their camp had split clean through, revealing a narrow fissure no wider than a body—but deep, impossibly deep, lined with pale stone that shimmered like bone. No roots crossed it. No vines covered it. Not even insects came near. It was as if nature itself had collectively agreed to pretend the scar did not exist.
It did not belong.
Lina stood at the edge, brow furrowed, a vine wrapped loosely around her wrist as if Hollowmere itself was reluctant to let her go. Her feet were bare, toes curled into the moss, though she hadn't noticed. The bond between her and the forest was older than language, and today, the forest trembled.
"This wasn't just hidden," she said, voice hushed. "It was sealed."
Ash crouched beside the opening, picking up a pebble and flicking it into the darkness.
They waited.
Nothing.
No clatter. No echo. Just silence, stretching downward like a throat with no end.
"That's comforting," Ash muttered.
Across the clearing, Rylan stood with the book clutched in both hands. It had opened itself again at dawn. Not with a spell, not with a warning—just a blank page etched with a spiraling map, like the spine of something coiled, leading to a single glowing mark at the bottom.
"It's not a gate," he said softly. "It's a path. One we've taken before."
From behind him, Mira's voice cut through the air, quiet and sharp. "You mean you've taken it."
Rylan turned. Mira was standing near the twisted tree again, her posture relaxed, but her face tight with effort. The mark on her palm had spread. Thin violet-black veins now crept up her wrist, vanishing beneath her sleeve. Her skin, once warm with the light of her gift, now glowed faintly as though something inside her was trying to escape—and failing.
"I'm not letting her through," she said. Her voice was steady. Dangerous.
"We're not letting you go alone," Rylan replied.
They looked at each other for a long moment.
Varyon said nothing.
But he was already lighting a lantern.
They descended one by one.
The fissure narrowed into steps—rough-cut and uneven, carved from stone that didn't belong in this region. The texture was strange, neither porous nor smooth, as if shaped not by erosion or time, but by pressure. Heat. Intention.
As they moved downward, the air changed. Grew colder, yes—but not just in temperature. In nature. It tasted metallic, brittle. Like air breathed through a cage.
The stairway spiraled endlessly. At first, they spoke, whispered words passed between boots and flickering light. But with each turn, silence pressed harder, until their own breaths sounded intrusive.
The walls around them bore no moss. No sign of water or time. Just carvings—etched with a precision that belonged to no mortal hand. Some were intricate, curling like vines or waves. Others were crude, gouged violently into the stone as though by claws—or desperation.
Lina traced her fingers along one as they passed. "These aren't all from the same era."
"They're not all from the same world," Varyon murmured.
They kept walking.
Rylan clutched the book tightly. He hadn't told the others that it had begun whispering to him again—not in words, but in feelings. Like pages turning in the back of his skull. Like someone watching through the seams of his thoughts.
What happens when we reach the bottom?
None of them asked.
But all of them heard it.
Hours passed—
—or maybe time bent in the descent.
And then, suddenly, the path opened.
Before them stretched a vast underground chamber, cathedral-like in shape, far beneath the Hollowmere grove. Massive pillars lined its sides, cracked and worn, leaning as if under the weight of centuries. The floor was mostly stone—but pools punctuated it, dozens of them, round and still, each one smooth as glass.
Except they reflected nothing.
No light. No shadow. Only movement. Flickers of memory.
The Core.
Ash stepped in first, knife drawn. His boots made no sound on the stone. The silence was oppressive, but the pressure in the room was worse. Every heartbeat seemed too loud. Every blink, too slow.
Lina followed, then Rylan, then Varyon.
Mira entered last.
And stopped.
At the far end of the chamber stood a door.
Not of stone.
But of bone.
White and towering, it arched nearly thirty feet tall. It wasn't carved—it was grown, ribbed and jointed like a massive vertebrae. Sigils were etched into its surface, pulsing faintly red. A coiled spine curled down its center like a serpent carved into ivory.
The Gate.
Mira gasped and staggered back, clutching her chest. The veins on her arm pulsed once, violently.
"She's behind it," she whispered. "I can feel her."
Rylan stepped forward, voice tight. "So can I."
The pools around them remained still, yet Rylan had the sense they were watching. Judging. Waiting.
Varyon approached one. In its surface, he did not see his reflection.
He saw a version of himself—cloaked in black, kneeling in this same chamber, carving something into the floor with a blade. Blood ran in perfect lines across a sigil. That Varyon looked up.
Their eyes met.
Same face.
Different soul.
"Veyr," Varyon whispered. "The Ninth Circle…"
"What now?" Ash asked, voice tight. "We knock?"
Rylan opened the book again.
Where the map had ended, a new phrase had appeared:
To seal the Saint, the Veyr must fall again.
He stared at it for a long time, mouth dry.
Last time… he had burned.
"No," Lina said, voice sharp. "Not again."
Rylan looked up, startled. "What?"
"I saw it," she said. "In the pool. You—the last you—lighting the flame. Becoming it."
"It worked," he said.
"It killed you," she replied.
"And it held her," he said, gesturing to Mira. "For a time."
Mira stepped forward, her palm glowing faintly. "We're not repeating history. We change it."
Ash looked at the door. "Unless the door doesn't want it changed."
And then—
The mirrored pools began to ripple.
Not from wind.
Not from water.
But from something beneath.
The ground quaked beneath them, subtly at first—then harder.
A faint crack echoed through the chamber, followed by a distant grinding.
The door was stirring.
Rylan turned sharply. "Back!"
They all moved, weapons drawn, gathering near the center of the room. The pools around them trembled.
Then—one erupted.
Not water.
Memory.
A figure surged upward in flickering light—Syra's form, shadow and flame woven into one. Eyes hollow. Voice a whisper across every surface.
"You cannot close what you were born to open."
Mira stumbled backward.
But the figure did not approach her.
It moved toward Rylan.
"You carry the flame. The first and the last. You burn not to seal, but to summon."
Rylan gritted his teeth. "Not this time."
"Then you will fall," the voice said.
Another pool cracked open.
Another echo of the past.
Lina, but twisted—eyes black with vines strangling her skin.
Ash—his reflection bleeding shadows, a blade buried in Varyon's chest.
Mira—eyes violet, a crown of bone rising from her skull.
They were all there.
Every version of themselves that had come before.
Every failure.
Every curse.
"No," Mira said, her voice rising. "That's not us."
"You were," Syra's voice answered. "You will be again."
The Gate pulsed.
It throbbed with ancient life, its sigils glowing brighter.
Cracks began to form along its edges.
"She's pushing through," Varyon said.
"We don't have time," Ash added.
Rylan turned to Mira. "We go together."
"No," she said, stepping toward the door. "I go first. Alone."
"Mira—"
"Listen to me." Her voice shook, not with fear, but power. "You said it yourself. I'm the door."
Her hand reached out, touching the bone surface.
It didn't burn her.
It welcomed her.
"Mira, wait—!" Rylan called.
But it was too late.
The Gate opened.
Inside, the light swallowed her whole.
There was no floor. No shape. Only pressure. Like standing inside a heartbeat. Like existing inside a thought.
Then—Syra.
Not a girl. Not a monster.
A mirror.
"You've come far," Syra said, stepping from the void.
Mira said nothing.
"You remember now, don't you?" Syra's eyes softened. "You always remember… right before the end."
"I'm not here to end," Mira said. "I'm here to choose."
A long silence.
Then—Syra smiled.
"For the first time," she said, "you might."
Outside the Gate, the chamber shook harder.
Cracks spidered across the walls.
The pools shattered, spilling not water—but possibility.
Rylan dropped the book. It disintegrated into flame.
Ash shouted, grabbing Lina as part of the ceiling gave way.
And Varyon turned to the Gate.
"She's doing it," he said. "She's facing herself."
The bone door shuddered.
Then—light.
Violet, gold, and red—blending.
The air ripped.
And from within the Gate—
Mira stepped out.
Whole.
Changed.
No sigil. No mark.
But power in her eyes. A calm they had never seen.
"She's gone," Mira whispered.
"No," said Rylan. "She's you."
Mira smiled faintly.
And behind her, the Gate crumbled into ash.