Maeve
She awoke before the dawn.
Not because of nightmares — she no longer dreamed — but because the earth itself whispered.
It had since they passed the gate.
The stones were uneasy.
Beneath her palm, the ground shivered ever so faintly, like something buried below had turned in restless sleep.
She sat cross-legged and whispered an old chant under her breath — not one of power, but remembrance. Something her mother taught her before the Hollowing took her mind. A warding hum, for forgotten places.
She felt the others stir, but did not look.
Especially not at Kaelen.
There was something different about him now. Like a thread had been pulled loose in the tapestry of his soul, and something ancient watched through the tear.
She didn't trust gods. But what she feared more were mortals who touched them and came back changed.
Rhess
He had prayed.
All night.
But the Light did not answer.
He had spoken the Psalms of Vigilance, the Verses of Flame, even the cursed fragment they found in the library below Vaelgard — the one that reeked of prophecy and dust and blood.
Still, nothing.
He looked at Kaelen, at Maeve, at the wall where shadows stretched too long for the sun's angle.
He tried to remind himself that this was not the end.
But it felt like the end.
He wondered if the Light was leaving them.
He wondered if it ever had been with them at all.
Seralyn
She sat beside Kaelen.
Close, but not too close.
She watched his eyes — the way they refused to settle on anything in this world. As if he were still walking in another. As if the smoke of that throne room still clung to him.
She wanted to ask what he saw.
She didn't.
Instead, she spoke softly.
"We're not prepared for what comes next, are we?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
His silence was not anger. It was elsewhere.
Seralyn looked at her hands, at the way her fingers trembled slightly before she forced them still.
Two souls bearing light.
That's what the skulls had said.
That's what the wall had etched.
But now she wasn't sure if the prophecy meant salvation… or bait.
She closed her eyes and whispered not a prayer, but a promise.
"If I have to drag you from the dark, Kaelen… I will."