The air within the temple pulsed—hot, then freezing. Every breath Kane took burned like ash in his lungs. Eva's boots barely scraped the ground as she lunged toward the rising figure. Her dagger gleamed silver in the flickering red glow, and for a brief moment, it felt like time stilled.
Then the figure moved.
Faster than a man should. Faster than anything should.
Eva struck, blade first—but it passed through smoke. Not air, not flesh—smoke. The masked figure dissolved like mist and reformed behind her, mask now turned slightly sideways. Watching.
No eyes. Just the mask. Cracked, bleeding from its fissures.
Kane threw his satchel across the floor, spilling out protective charms, salt vials, and old pages of scripture he barely understood. He shouted a name—one written in the margins of their map:
"Ashrem!"
The name rang through the chamber like a bell, and the figure shuddered.
A ripple moved through its form—one of pain or recognition, they couldn't tell. But Eva used the moment to leap back to Kane's side.
"He's bound to the sigil," Kane hissed, unrolling the parchment and placing it beside the glowing mark on the floor. "If we can overwrite it—"
The masked thing turned toward them.
It didn't walk. It drifted. Closer. The candle flared again, taller than Kane's height now, the flame bending inward like a spiral eye.
Eva knelt, slashing her palm with the dagger. "Use my blood."
"What?"
"Just do it!"
Kane dipped his fingers into the offered blood and smeared it over the sigil—carefully, one motion at a time. The chalk lines hissed and began to sizzle. The air snapped like static. From the dark corners of the temple, whispers rose again—hundreds of voices. Or just one voice, broken into pieces.
"Ashrem is watching. The seal breaks. The gate opens."
The masked figure reached them.
But as it raised its hand, Kane completed the final stroke.
The glow from the floor turned white-hot. A column of light shot upward, hitting the ceiling and piercing through the stone like it was paper.
The creature shrieked—not from its mask, but from everywhere. The sound reverberated through their bones.
Then—collapse.
The mask fell to the floor with a clink.
Silence.
The candle extinguished itself.
Eva trembled as she reached down and picked up the broken porcelain.
It was warm.
Kane sank to his knees, breathing hard. "What the hell was that?"
Eva didn't answer immediately. She stared at the mask, then turned it over. On its back, scrawled in what looked like dried blood, was a symbol neither of them had seen before.
A door.
A crimson door.
And under it, a phrase:
"When the fifth burns, the gate will not close again."
Kane looked up at her. "There are four more temples."
Eva nodded. "And someone's already lit two."
Kane's voice lowered. "Then we're running out of time."