The gates of Caer Sorrow were not gates at all.
They were fangs.
Two halves of a broken jawbone, carved from some ancient beast, stood upright in the ground, curving inward to form an archway of petrified ivory. Rusted symbols danced along their surface—sigils of welcome twisted by time into warnings.
Valen stepped through first, sword sheathed but hand on the hilt. Lyra followed close, her boots crunching over pale grass and broken obsidian tiles.
No birds sang.
No insects stirred.
Just wind—dry, hollow—blowing through a city that had once ruled a thousand miles in every direction.
Now it ruled only ruin.
They passed through what might have been a market square. The buildings had melted—stone run like wax, twisted into spirals. Some doors led into nothing. Others into blackness so thick, Lyra said she could feel it.
At the center of the square was a statue.
It showed a man with wings folded behind his back like a fallen angel. His face had been shattered, but the base still bore an inscription.
Valen wiped dust from it.
"Lord Caldrin, Last Warden of Caer Sorrow. He who sealed the Deep Path."
"Sealed it," Lyra said. "But didn't destroy it."
Valen nodded. "Couldn't."
She frowned. "Why not?"
He looked beyond the statue, to a street that led downward—into the city's belly.
"Because it was never truly open. Just asleep."
They entered the lower wards of Caer Sorrow by dusk.
Down here, the air felt… thinner. Like they were walking at altitude. Every step made Lyra's limbs ache, her teeth hurt. She wrapped her scarf tighter, eyes darting at every shifting shadow.
"Valen," she said, "there's something here."
He didn't answer.
"Valen."
He stopped.
She nearly bumped into him.
They stood at the edge of a narrow corridor. The walls were covered in strange paintings—crude, childlike figures dancing in circles, surrounded by stars with too many points. Each figure had no face. Just a hollow smear.
Lyra touched one.
The wall shivered.
She jumped back. "That was alive."
"It remembers," Valen said.
"Remembers what?"
"What it was made to forget."
They found shelter in an old chapel, half-sunken into the earth. The altar had crumbled, and the stained glass above was cracked in a spiderweb pattern that caught the dying light and fractured it across the pews like blood.
Valen sat near the altar, checking his sword and sharpening the edge.
Lyra lit a lantern—no fire, just arc-glow, bottled from lightning. She held it between them.
"So what is this place really?" she asked. "Not just the city. This whole ruin."
Valen looked at her.
Then at the floor.
"You've heard of the Sundering?"
"Of course. When the gods fell."
He nodded. "That's the lie they teach."
Lyra leaned closer. "What's the truth?"
Valen's voice dropped to a whisper. "The Sundering wasn't the gods falling. It was us—humanity—being cast aside. This city? Caer Sorrow? It didn't just fall after. It caused it."
Lyra stared at him.
"That's impossible."
Valen didn't blink. "They built the Deep Path to touch the stars. They wanted to rewrite what humanity was."
"Who's 'they'?"
He didn't answer.
But Lyra remembered the statue. Lord Caldrin.
"And you think… something still lives down there?" she asked.
"I know it does."
She shook her head. "Then why are we still here? We should leave—warn someone—"
"Who? Sanctum? The kings? The Inverse Choir? They're too busy praying to shadows and wearing crowns made of bone."
He stood.
"No one's coming to save us."
She stood too.
"So what then? We go down?"
Valen met her eyes.
"We seal it. For real."
That night, Lyra dreamed of faces.
Not people. Just faces.
Empty. Eyeless. Singing.
When she awoke, her mark was glowing again—pale blue, like frostbite under her skin.
She looked at Valen. He was already watching her.
"You dreamed too," she whispered.
He nodded.
They descended at dawn.
The chapel held a hidden stair, its steps slick with age, winding in a spiral that went far deeper than any normal structure. The walls were tighter here—slick with moisture and vein-like roots that pulsed as they passed.
At the bottom was a door.
Seven locks.
None visible.
Valen placed his hand on it.
A pulse ran through the air.
He bled from his nose but didn't move.
The mark on Lyra's hand blazed.
The door opened.
Inside the Deep Path, there was no light.
Even their lantern flickered and died, as if the darkness ate it.
So they walked blind, one hand on the wall, the other gripping blade or breath.
Time passed strangely.
Lyra whispered, "How far do we go?"
Valen's voice came like a ghost. "Until the song starts."
She didn't ask which one.
She already knew.
When it began, it was not a song.
It was a heartbeat.
Low. Slow.
Then another joined.
And another.
Until the world pulsed with the sound of a slumbering thing remembering it had teeth.
In the distance, something stirred.
Not walked.
Not slithered.
Stirred.
As if the space itself bent to welcome it.
Valen stopped.
Lyra stood behind him, trembling.
Ahead, a shape bloomed—like a flower of bone and breath, opening in reverse. A mouth with no end. A throat lined in faces.
The Choir was not dead.
They had retreated.
And now they returned.
Valen drew his sword.
Lyra raised her palm.
The Deep Path screamed.
But this time—they didn't run.
They stepped forward.
Together.