Cold swallowed Ashen whole.
Not the sharp bite of winter air, but a deeper cold—one that slid beneath skin and memory alike, dragging thoughts slow and heavy. The world beyond the gate did not rush to meet him. It pressed in, thick as water, forcing him forward step by step.
Stone ground beneath his boots.
Ashen blinked, fighting the urge to retch. The forest behind him was gone. The screaming had vanished, replaced by a vast, hollow quiet that felt deliberate.
He stood in a corridor.
It stretched impossibly far in both directions, carved from black stone that drank in what little light existed. The walls were etched with symbols—variations of the mark burned into his chest—layered atop one another as though generations had tried to say the same warning and failed.
Mara stumbled in behind him, catching herself against the wall.
"Well," she muttered, voice echoing strangely. "This is worse than I imagined."
Ashen almost laughed, the sound brittle. "You imagined this?"
She gave him a look. "I imagined something. Not… this."
The air shifted.
A deep, resonant clang rolled through the corridor, vibrating through bone and stone alike.
A bell.
Ashen doubled over, clutching his chest as pain flared. The mark burned, then pulsed in time with the sound.
"That wasn't from the town," Mara said. "Was it?"
"No," Ashen whispered. "It's closer."
The corridor ahead rippled.
The air grew colder.
Not suddenly—slowly, as if the corridor itself were drawing a long breath. The walls darkened, the etched symbols sinking deeper into shadow until Ashen could barely make them out.
Then the shadows moved.
At first, he thought it was a trick of the light. A stretch. A flicker.
But the darkness detached from the stone.
It slid free in long, thin strips, like skin being peeled from bone. Shapes unfolded themselves from the walls with wet, whispering sounds—joints bending the wrong way, limbs pulling free where no limbs should exist.
Mara sucked in a sharp breath beside him.
The figures did not walk. They dragged themselves forward, bodies elongating and snapping back like something half-remembered trying to wear a human shape. Where their faces should have been, there was only smooth shadow—except when the light caught them just right.
Then eyes opened.
Too many. Too close together. Blinking out of sync.
Ashen's stomach twisted.
"Don't move," he whispered. "They're… measuring us."
One of the shadows leaned closer.
Its head tilted, stretching unnaturally as it examined him. A mouth split open where there hadn't been one a moment before—jagged, vertical, filled with darkness instead of teeth.
Bearer, it breathed.
The word scraped through Ashen's skull like broken glass.
Cold fingers brushed his thoughts, rifling through memories that weren't offered—his mother's face, fever-bright eyes, the sound of bells tolling on the day she was buried.
He gasped.
Mara swore, gripping his arm. "It's inside your head."
You carry the ache, the shadows whispered together. The absence. The hollow where the seal drinks.
Ashen clenched his jaw, forcing the whispers back. "I didn't ask for this."
The shadows recoiled slightly.
None of you ever do.
Another shape crawled forward, its body folding in on itself until it loomed inches from Ashen's face. Its surface rippled, briefly reflecting him—but wrong. Older. Hollow-eyed. The mark on his chest split open like a wound.
Ashen staggered back.
Mara raised her knife, hands shaking. "Get away from him."
The shadow laughed.
The sound wasn't noise—it was pressure. It pressed down on Ashen's ribs, his lungs, his heart.
Steel cannot cut what remembers you.
The corridor darkened further, shadows multiplying, hemming them in. They pressed close enough that Ashen could feel their cold seeping into his skin, into the mark itself.
Then—
A deep clang rolled through the corridor.
The shadows froze.
Every eye turned toward the sound.
Slowly, reluctantly, they retreated, melting backward into the walls like blood soaking into stone.
A massive door began to take shape where they had stood, its surface carved with chained bells.
Mara exhaled shakily. "Next time," she said hoarsely, "let's not stand still."
Ashen wiped cold sweat from his brow.
"They weren't trying to kill us," he said.
She looked at him. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
He stared at the door.
"No," he whispered. "They were trying to remember me."
Mara stared at the door. "That doesn't look reassuring."
"It's the first seal," Ashen said, though he didn't know how he knew.
From the darkness beyond the door, something vast stirred. The air thickened, pressing in on Ashen's ears.
You may pass, the voices said together. But blood must answer blood.
The door groaned open just enough to reveal a blade embedded in the stone floor—ancient, narrow, its edge shimmering faintly.
Mara swore under her breath. "Absolutely not."
Ashen stepped toward it.
"Ashen, stop," she said sharply. "You don't know what that will do."
"I know what not doing it will do."
He knelt, fingers closing around the hilt. The metal was warm.
When he drew the blade across his palm, pain blossomed sharp and real. Blood welled, dark against pale skin, dripping onto the stone.
The symbols flared.
The corridor shuddered as the door opened fully.
Beyond it lay a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow. Chains stretched from wall to wall, anchoring a colossal bell suspended over a chasm. Cracks ran through the bell's surface, leaking dim light like wounds.
Something moved beneath it.
Ashen's blood soaked into the stone, and the mark on his chest answered, glowing in time with the bell's slow, ominous sway.
Mara stepped up beside him, jaw set. "Next time you're planning something like that," she said, "warn me."
Ashen managed a thin smile. "Next time, I'll try."
The bell rang once.
The sound rolled through the chamber—and something far below laughed.