The cave swallowed the sound of the waterfall the moment Alpha stepped inside. Darkness pressed close, wet stone slick beneath his fingers. His breath steamed faintly, swallowed by the stale air. For a heartbeat, he thought he had stepped into nothingness itself.
But then he saw it.
A faint glow, pale as dying embers, flickered deeper within. It wasn't firelight. It was cold, thin, and ghostlike, reflecting off the uneven walls. Alpha crept closer, every step measured, his instincts clawing at him to turn back. The Labyrinth had already nearly killed him once. If this was another trap, he wouldn't survive.
He pressed on anyway.
The glow revealed a chamber—wide, hollow, with stalactites hanging like fangs from the ceiling. And in the center, resting against a jagged slab of stone, sat a skeleton clad in rusted armor.
The bones were not brittle white like the shambling corpses Alpha had faced. No. These bones were blackened, charred as if scorched by fire. The armor, though rust-eaten, still bore the remnants of etchings—sigils long forgotten, carved with a precision that spoke of ancient nobility. A broken sword lay across its knees.
Alpha froze.
The thing was still. A corpse. Just another relic of the Labyrinth. Yet something about it was different. Its presence weighed on the chamber like a stormcloud.
He took a cautious step forward.
The skeleton's head rose.
The grinding crack of bone against bone echoed like thunder. Empty sockets burned with dim blue light, faint yet unyielding. Alpha staggered back, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The skeleton moved slowly, deliberately. Its hand, all jagged knuckles and blackened sinew, closed around the hilt of the broken sword. It rose to its feet with the grace of a warrior, not the clumsy shamble of the undead.
Alpha's body screamed at him to run. But his legs stayed rooted.
The skeleton did not advance. Instead, it lifted the broken blade into the air, then lowered into a stance.
A sword stance. Precise. Disciplined. Timeless.
Alpha blinked, realization dawning. It wasn't attacking. It was showing him.
The skeleton's empty sockets fixed on him. Then, with a motion slow and deliberate, it repeated the stance, and again, until Alpha understood.
It wanted him to copy.
Alpha's throat felt dry. His hands shook as he reached for the shard of iron he had scavenged earlier. It wasn't a sword, not really, but it would have to do. He mirrored the skeleton's movements, clumsy at first, his limbs too rigid, his stance uneven.
The skeleton did not relent. It moved again. Again. Each correction silent, but clear.
Alpha's muscles burned. His breath grew ragged. Yet he persisted, sweat dripping down his brow as he forced his body to obey. Hours seemed to slip past in silence, broken only by the scrape of bone and the hiss of Alpha's breath.
Finally, his stance held.
Not perfect. But steady.
The skeleton stopped. For the first time, it inclined its skull. A nod.
Alpha felt a shiver race down his spine.
This wasn't an enemy. It wasn't a mindless monster. It was a teacher.
He lowered his shard of iron, chest heaving. "Who… are you?" he whispered.
The skeleton tilted its head, as if pondering the question. But no voice came. Only silence.
Nameless.
Alpha understood then: this knight had no name to give. Only the legacy of its blade.
The blue fire in its sockets flickered once, twice, and then dimmed. The skeleton returned to its slab of stone, laying the broken sword across its knees once more. It stilled, as if returning to slumber.
Alpha remained standing in the chamber, heart pounding, mind racing. He had not spoken much since leaving the slave yard. Words felt empty, useless. But now, one thought echoed loud and clear:
He had found something more valuable than freedom.
He had found a guide.
The Labyrinth was alive, shifting, cruel. Yet here, in this place of bones and silence, Alpha felt the faintest spark of purpose kindle within his chest.
The ember of fate.
And though he did not yet understand it, he knew this meeting would shape everything to come.