We ran.
Not the casual, let's-hide-and-wait-this-out kind of run, but the kind where your lungs burn and your legs beg for mercy and still you keep going, because behind you are a dozen magic-hating zealots with glowing weapons and very strict ideas about divine-class threats.
We darted through shattered alleyways and crumbled archways, the city ruins now a deadly maze of collapsing stone and flickering old wards. Somewhere behind us, the Spellbreakers shouted commands, their boots slamming like war drums against ancient stone.
Lirien led the way. She moved like she'd memorized the city—slipping through cracks and ducking under fallen balconies like water through a broken pipe.
I tripped. Twice.
"This would be easier," I gasped, "if you gave me a damn map."
"This was a temple district. You're lucky I know which ruins don't collapse if you breathe on them."
Another explosion shook the air behind us. Dust rained down from above. We ducked into the archway of a ruined bell tower just as a chain of lightning arced across the sky.
"Okay, I get it," I said, crouching behind a stone pillar. "Spellbreakers bad. I'm worse. We're unpopular. What now?"
Lirien peeked out, then pulled something from the folds of her robes—a small glass vial, shimmering with violet and gold. She handed it to me.
"What is this?" I asked.
"A distraction."
"Cool. What kind?"
"The big kind."
Before I could object, she tossed it through a broken window. A second later, there was a sound like the world exhaling—and then a rush of violet smoke exploded out into the open square.
Voices behind us yelled, now confused.
She grabbed my wrist. "Move."
We bolted again, but this time we turned down, toward the sunken part of the city—past what might've once been a shrine, into the yawning dark of a collapsed library or catacomb. As we descended, the temperature dropped.
"Tell me we're not running deeper into a haunted ruin," I said.
"Would you prefer the Spellbreakers?"
I opened my mouth, closed it, then sighed. "Lead on, oh wise crypt-dweller."
The dark swallowed us.
Only after several turns, with the noise above fading, did we slow. Lirien lit a small orb of light—soft and blue like moonlight—and let it hover above her palm.
We were in a hall of broken pillars, the stone choked with moss and old bloodstains. Mosaics covered the walls, faded almost beyond recognition, but I could just make out images—men bowed before a horned figure. A sky split in half. A god on a throne of silence.
"This was Kaer's sanctum," she said quietly.
"Great. Let's just chill in the Evil God's basement. Totally safe."
She glanced at me. "You're not exactly allergic to forbidden places."
"You say that like it's a compliment."
"It's not."
We paused in the central chamber, which had once been a sort of altar space. The altar itself was long since cracked in two, but something pulsed faintly from beneath it.
A heartbeat. Not mine.
I took a cautious step toward it. "Is that normal?"
"No."
Comforting.
Then I heard it—soft, almost inaudible over the hush of ancient stone. A scrape. A footstep.
We weren't alone.
Lirien heard it too. She spun, pulling a dagger from beneath her sleeve, eyes scanning the shadows.
A whisper, like cloth brushing over stone. Then—
A figure lunged from the darkness.
He wore a half-rotted tabard, symbols of the old Church faded but still visible. His face was covered in ash and scars, eyes wide and white with fanatic fire.
"For the Light!" he screamed—and the dagger in his hand flashed.
I stumbled back. Lirien moved fast, but not fast enough.
The fanatic's blade sank into my shoulder.
Pain flared—white, hot, immediate.
I cried out, falling to one knee, vision swimming.
Lirien retaliated. Her dagger plunged into the man's gut, once, twice. He fell with a gurgled prayer, blood soaking into the ancient floor.
The moment stretched.
The silence after was heavier than the fight itself.
I clutched my shoulder, blood seeping between my fingers. "That—was not on the tour brochure."
"Fanatics," she muttered, kneeling beside me. "Leftovers from the old order. Some stay behind, waiting for signs of Kaer's return. Guess he saw one."
"Lucky me."
She pulled the blade free gently. I screamed again, biting down on my jacket sleeve. She poured something bitter and burning onto the wound, then wrapped it tight.
"You'll live," she said.
"Thanks, Doctor Doom."
We sat in silence for a long minute. My breath came ragged. Every heartbeat sent a spike of fire through my arm.
Then I looked up at her. "Why didn't he go for you?"
Lirien's expression darkened.
"Because he recognized you."
The blood had mostly stopped by the time we crawled into the narrow space behind the shattered altar, where a half-collapsed corridor led to a dry chamber lined with prayer niches and forgotten bones. Lirien's bandage was tight, and the pain had become a throb instead of a roar.
I leaned against the cold wall, breathing carefully.
"Fanatics aren't supposed to survive that long, right?" I asked.
"They usually don't," Lirien replied, brushing dust from a niche carved with sigils too ancient to read. "But this city warps time. Some fade. Others… wait."
"For centuries?"
"If they believed hard enough."
I didn't like the way she said that—like belief could hold back death.
"Still doesn't explain why he recognized me," I muttered.
Lirien didn't speak right away. She knelt, fingers tracing one of the sigils absently. "That dagger was sanctified. His mind was already gone. All he had left was a purpose. He saw you and thought his gods gave him a second chance to finish the sealing."
"But I'm not Kaer," I said, more to myself than to her. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't summon shadows or start a cult or threaten the gods."
"You walked into a seal that only Kaer could break. You made the dungeon awaken. The city listens to you."
I looked down at my hands.
"Then maybe the city's an idiot."
She actually smiled at that. Just briefly.
Outside, the wind howled through the broken vaults. Stone shifted above us.
I asked the question I'd been avoiding.
"If I really am Kaer Xal'zhur reborn… why do I still feel like a normal guy? I get tired. I make dumb jokes. I don't even know any magic."
"You don't feel like him," Lirien said. "Because you're not him. Not fully. You might share his mark, his echo. But you are still you."
"That doesn't sound like a great combo."
"It might be the only hope this world has left."
I glanced at her. "You sound awfully hopeful for someone who just watched me bleed all over a death god's old prayer room."
She gave me a long look. "Kaer ruled with fear. You keep making jokes."
"I deflect with humor. It's a coping mechanism."
"Keep doing it. The last thing the world needs is another grim-faced god with a vengeance complex."
I tilted my head. "You've put a lot of thought into this."
"I've had years."
"Right. Waiting for a god. Got it."
A beat passed. I could feel the silence settling again, the kind that makes thoughts grow loud in your head. Then Lirien sat beside me and said softly:
"Kaer never meant to become what he did. The world shaped him into a monster. But before that, before the battles and the blood, he wanted to protect people. He built sanctuaries, not armies. You're still early. You could choose a different path."
I stared into the dark.
"What if I don't want any of it?"
"Then we run. And hide. And live small."
She turned to me, eyes sharp in the dim blue light.
"But I don't think you were brought here just to hide."
Before I could respond, the stone beneath us pulsed again. Faint. Subtle. But real.
I felt something awaken.
It wasn't evil. It wasn't even angry. Just... aware.
Like something deep within the city had just turned over in its sleep.
"What was that?" I whispered.
Lirien stood, drawing her dagger again. Her voice was steady.
"Another ward breaking."
"From what?"
"Us."
I looked at the black stone floor. Old runes were glowing now, faint and steady—only where my blood had touched the cracks.
The altar room was waking up.
"I didn't mean to do that," I said.
"I know."
"So… what now?"
She looked at me, jaw tight.
"Now we find out what else your blood can open."
And far above, somewhere in the ruins of the upper city, a bell rang for the first time in centuries.
Not as a warning.
As a welcome.
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