The cave mouth was a ragged, dark tear in the world, a wound left by Kaelen's failure. For a long moment, no one moved. They stared into the darkness, the promise of water warring with the primal fear of the unknown, of what might dwell in the deep, silent places of the earth.
Hemmet was the first to break. With a choked cry that was half-sob, half-triumph, he scrambled over the fallen rubble and plunged into the opening, his thirst overriding all caution.
"Wait!" Elara called out, but it was too late. His frantic footsteps echoed back for a few seconds, then faded.
The others looked to Kaelen, their faces a mixture of hope and terror. He was still standing where his outburst had left him, a statue of shame and exhaustion. The cave was a testament to his lack of control, a dangerous, unpredictable variable.
"It could be a dead end," a man named Tomas whispered. "Or a nest of something worse."
"Or it could lead to water," Elara countered, her practical nature reasserting itself. She looked at Kaelen, her gaze not accusatory, but expectant. He was still their guide. He had to lead, even from a place of brokenness.
The weight settled back onto his shoulders, heavier than ever. He took a shaky breath and approached the opening. He placed a hand on the newly broken stone, feeling the jagged, violent song of the fracture. It was his own rage made manifest. Shame washed over him.
He closed his eyes, pushing his awareness into the cave. He did not send a pulse of power, but a thread of perception, the barest whisper of the Fourth Note. He listened.
The song that came back was ancient and deep. It was not the sickly, corrupted melody of the surface, nor was it the pure, vibrant hum of the Sky-Anvil. This was a different music altogether—a slow, resonant bass note of immense pressure and patient, geologic time. It was the under-song of the world, the bedrock's own melody. And woven through it, clear and unmistakable, was the liquid silver chime of flowing water. A lot of it.
"It's safe," he said, his voice hoarse. "The stone is old and strong. And there's water. A river, I think."
That was all the confirmation they needed. Hope, a fragile, desperate thing, flickered back to life. They gathered their meager belongings and, with Kaelen leading the way, stepped into the darkness.
The air was cool and damp, a relief after the harsh wind. Kaelen summoned a small, glowing stone from his pouch—the one he had communed with at the Sky-Anvil. Its warm, golden light pushed back the oppressive black, revealing a tunnel that was not a natural cave, but something else. The walls were too smooth, the floor too level. It was a passage, carved by intelligent hands.
"The Delvers," Elara murmured, her voice full of awe. "My father's journal mentioned them. A reclusive people who lived deep in the mountains long before the first Stone-Singers. They were said to have mapped the veins of the world."
They moved forward, the only sounds the scuff of their feet and the distant, growing murmur of water. The passage began to slope downward, and the air grew heavier, thick with the smell of wet stone and something else… something metallic and sharp.
After what felt like an hour, the tunnel opened abruptly into a cavern so vast Kaelen's light could not reach the ceiling. But it wasn't the size that stole their breath.
It was the city.
Carved not from stone, but directly into the living rock of the cavern, were towers, bridges, and dwellings of breathtaking complexity. Spiral staircases wound around massive stalactites, and delicate arches spanned underground chasms. It was a masterpiece of stonecraft, a symphony of the Second Note made permanent. But it was also utterly, completely silent. A city of ghosts.
And running through its center was a wide, powerful, subterranean river, its water glowing with a soft, ethereal blue light. The source of the clean scent. The source of the song.
But as Kaelen's senses adjusted, he realized the city's song was wrong. It was a frozen melody. The stone, though beautifully shaped, held no warmth, no memory of the lives that had once inhabited it. It was as if the song had been… interrupted.
His light fell upon a nearby wall, and he saw it. Scratched into the stone, over and over, were the same frantic, jagged symbols. They were not part of the Delvers' elegant craftsmanship. They were a scar, a final, desperate message.
And near the base of the wall, half-submerged in the glowing water, was a skeleton. Its bones were not scattered, but lay in a peaceful, reclined position, one hand outstretched towards the river as if in gratitude. Unlike the bleached white of old bones, these were stained a deep, lustrous black, like obsidian.
Elara gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. The others crowded behind them, their wonder turning to dread.
Kaelen knelt, his heart pounding. He didn't need to touch the bones to feel it. They held no corruption, no whisper of the Blight. Instead, they hummed with a profound, peaceful silence, a note of perfect, final rest. The black coloration wasn't a stain; it was a transformation. A choice.
This was no victim of the Blight. This was a Delver who had chosen to end their life here, by this water. But why?
He looked up at the frantic carvings on the wall, then down at the peacefully resting skeleton. Two contradictory stories. A city frozen in an instant of terror, and a single, serene death.
The answer, he knew, was in the water. The beautifully, impossibly clean water that glowed with its own inner light, flowing through a graveyard.
What had the Delvers discovered down here in the dark? And what price had they paid for this pristine, glowing river?