First-Person: Nyra
The silence that follows feels wrong. It's too deliberate — as if the world itself is holding its breath.
Then, the floor beneath us shifts. Stone groans, dust rains down, and the mural wall splits apart in a perfect line. Behind it, darkness ripples like water.
Kael moves first, drawing his blade though he knows steel means nothing against this kind of magic. His mark glows faintly through his shirt, pulsing in time with mine.
"It's calling," I whisper.
He glances at me. "You hear it too?"
It's not a sound, not exactly. More like a pull — deep in the chest, in the bones. A magnetic ache dragging us forward. I step closer before I even realize I'm moving.
The air near the opening hums. When I reach out, my fingers don't touch stone — they sink through something soft and fluid, like a curtain made of light.
"Nyra—" Kael starts, but it's too late. The magic takes me.
For a moment, there's only motion — falling and floating at once, the world around me dissolving into red-gold streaks of light. My pulse races, my skin burning with the mark's energy. Then, just as suddenly, my feet find solid ground again.
I open my eyes.
The chamber is gone.
We stand in a vast cavern bathed in pale light. The ceiling rises so high it disappears into shadow, and from it hang hundreds of crystalline threads, each one glowing with faint color. They sway gently, whispering like wind through glass.
Beneath our feet, the ground is not stone but a mosaic of shifting light — runes that rearrange themselves as we step.
"This…" Kael murmurs. "This isn't part of the ruins."
"No," I say, awe stealing my breath. "It's beneath them."
The mark throbs again, pulling me forward toward the center of the cavern. There, a pool of dark water mirrors the ceiling perfectly — but when I peer closer, the reflection isn't mine.
It's another woman. Pale skin, eyes like silver flame. The same mark burns along her throat, spiraling upward until it disappears beneath her jaw.
She looks at me as if she's been waiting centuries.
"Who are you?" I whisper.
Her lips curve, but the voice that answers isn't spoken. It slides into my mind like smoke.
I am what remains of what you were meant to be.
The surface of the water ripples, distorting her face.
Kael steps closer, tension in every line of his body. "Nyra—what do you see?"
"She's… me. Or she was."
The reflection shifts again. Now it shows a vision — flames consuming a temple, figures in red cloaks chanting as two people stand bound by light. The same symbols, the same mark.
Then, the woman turns her gaze toward Kael.
And you, she whispers in both our minds, are the price that was never paid.
A shock of cold tears through the connection. Kael staggers back, clutching his chest, his mark flaring painfully bright.
"Kael!" I reach for him, but the water surges up between us, liquid and alive, rising like a living veil.
The voice returns, softer now.
Two lives. One flame. The old balance must be restored.
The water stills. The reflection fades.
I kneel beside Kael, his breath shallow, the glow fading slowly from his skin. He looks up at me, eyes filled with questions neither of us can afford to ask yet.
Above us, the crystalline threads begin to shiver — and then one by one, they start to break, falling like shards of light.
The realm is shifting again. Whatever magic kept it sleeping has awakened fully now — and it's aware of us.