The catacombs didn't have doors.
They had mouths.
Kaelen stood before the entrance—a jagged fissure in the cliffside beneath Eldmere's Old Docks, half-hidden by rusted chains and the carcass of a beached leviathan. Its ribs arched like cathedral arches, bleached white by salt and time. The stench of rot and ozone clung to the air, thick enough to taste.
Mira adjusted the strap of her satchel, eyes scanning the ground. "No guards. No wards. Just… this." She kicked a skull half-buried in gravel. It rolled, jaw unhinged in a silent laugh. "Too easy."
"Not easy," Kaelen said, crouching. He brushed mud from a stone tile. Beneath it: a mosaic of interlocking hands, each finger branded with a different rune. "It's an invitation. And invitations from the dead always come with teeth."
He pressed his palm flat against the mosaic.
The ground trembled.
Not from below—from within. As if the stone itself remembered being walked upon by gods.
A voice, dry as bone dust, echoed from the fissure:
"Speak your regret, and I shall grant you passage."
Mira scoffed. "That's it? Confess and walk in?"
Kaelen didn't answer. He knew better. In the Choir, they'd called this the Threshold of Unspoken Sins. Not a test of honesty—but of precision. Say too little, and the path stays sealed. Say too much, and the catacombs drink your memory like wine.
He stepped forward. "I regret… that I believed silence could save her."
The fissure groaned open, revealing a staircase spiraling down into blackness. The air that rose from it carried the scent of wet parchment and burnt hair.
Mira stared at him. "That's all?"
"It's enough," he said. "Because it's true."
The descent took twenty-seven steps. Kaelen counted. Everything here demanded accounting.
At the bottom, the tunnel widened into a chamber lit by veins of violet crystal pulsing in the walls—raw Echo-Magic, bleeding from the earth. The floor was tiled with shattered mirrors, each shard reflecting not their faces, but moments they'd tried to forget.
Mira saw her brother laughing on a rooftop, sunlight in his hair—before the locket, before the whispers, before he became a puppet.
Kaelen saw Elara standing in the Ashveil library, holding a book that wasn't a book—it was a cage made of light. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Only smoke.
"Don't look too long," he warned. "These mirrors don't show the past. They show the wound."
As if summoned, a figure emerged from the far archway.
She floated rather than walked, barefoot on the glass, untouched by its edges. Her skin was pale as moonstone, her hair white despite her youth. She wore a gown stitched from pages of forbidden texts—ink still bleeding from the seams. Around her neck hung a pendant: a human eye suspended in amber.
"Kaelen Veyne," she said, voice like wind through a crypt. "You left without saying goodbye. Rude. For someone who once called me sister."
Kaelen's hand went to Whisperfang—but didn't draw. "Lyrra. You're supposed to be dead."
"I died," she replied, smiling faintly. "But death is just another archive. And I've always loved libraries."
Mira stepped beside Kaelen, hand on her knife. "Who is this?"
"The Choir's finest scholar," Kaelen said quietly. "And the one who taught me how to unmake a soul."
Lyrra tilted her head. "Flattery won't spare you, little ghost. Why are you here? To find Elara? Or to bury her again?"
"I'm here because you're using stolen memories to widen the rift," Kaelen said. "Joren's pain. The dockworkers'. Even your own."
Lyrra's smile faded. "Pain is the purest ink. And the Pantheon is thirsty."
She gestured to the walls. The violet crystals flared. From the shadows, figures emerged—pale, hollow-eyed, moving in perfect unison. Husk-Walkers: corpses animated by Echo-Magic, their minds replaced with fragments of Lyrra's stolen knowledge.
"You could leave," she offered. "Walk back up those twenty-seven steps. Pretend you never came."
"And let you turn Eldmere into a feeding ground for Ygris?" Kaelen's voice stayed calm. But his mind raced. Lyrra wasn't just powerful—she was logical. Every move she made served three purposes. If she wanted them dead, they'd already be ash. So why talk?
Because she needed something.
"You don't want the rift open," he realized aloud. "You want it controlled. You're trying to become the new Veil."
Lyrra's eyes gleamed. "Clever boy. Still sharp, even after all these years."
Mira frowned. "What's she talking about?"
"The Veil isn't a barrier," Kaelen explained, never taking his eyes off Lyrra. "It's a filter. It keeps the Pantheon's influence diluted. If the rift tears wide open, Ygris consumes everything. But if someone becomes the Veil—anchors themselves between worlds—they can ration the god's power. Become its steward… or its jailer."
"And which am I?" Lyrra asked softly.
"Neither," Kaelen said. "You're desperate. Because you know you can't hold it alone."
Silence.
Then Lyrra laughed—a sound like breaking glass. "Always seeing deeper. That's why they chose you for the Final Rite. Not because you were strong. Because you understood sacrifice."
She raised a hand. The Husk-Walkers lunged.
Mira drew her knife—but Kaelen grabbed her wrist. "Don't fight them. They're not alive. They're echoes. And echoes can be rewritten."
He turned to Lyrra. "You carved the Mark of the Unbound Tongue on my door. You sent Joren's body to the surface. You wanted me to follow the trail. Why?"
Lyrra's expression flickered—just for a heartbeat. "Because Elara isn't just trapped in the rift. She's holding it together. Her mind is the keystone. If she breaks… so does reality."
"And you need me to reach her," Kaelen finished. "Because only I can speak the language of her memories."
"Yes." Lyrra's voice cracked. "But I won't let you take her back. Not while the world still needs her as anchor."
"So you'll keep her in agony forever?" Mira snapped.
"I'll keep her alive," Lyrra shot back, eyes blazing. "Would you trade one sister's suffering for millions of deaths? Tell me, thief—what's your price for morality?"
Mira opened her mouth—then closed it. No clever retort. Just the weight of truth.
Kaelen stepped forward, alone. "There's another way."
Lyrra narrowed her eyes. "Name it."
"Let me enter the core chamber. Not to free Elara—but to reweave her bindings. Strengthen them. Make her prison unbreakable… from both sides."
"You'd condemn her to eternal silence?"
"I'd give her peace," Kaelen said. "And you control over the Veil. No more sacrifices. No more Husk-Walkers."
Lyrra studied him. Calculating. Weighing lies against logic. Finally, she nodded. "One condition. You go in alone. And if you try to break her free… I'll unravel your mind thread by thread until you beg to become a Husk-Walker yourself."
"Agreed."
Mira grabbed his arm. "Kaelen—"
"I'll be back," he said, meeting her gaze. "Watch the mirrors. If they start showing your future… run."
The core chamber was a sphere of black stone, floating in a void of swirling mist. At its center, suspended in a web of silver filaments, was Elara.
But not as he remembered her.
Her body was translucent, woven from light and memory. Her eyes were open—seeing everything, remembering everything. And around her, orbiting like planets, were shards of her stolen self: a child's laughter, a lover's promise, the moment she realized Kaelen would refuse the ritual.
Kaelen approached slowly. "Elara."
She turned. Her voice was a chorus—dozens of versions of herself speaking at once.
"You shouldn't have come. He's watching. He's always watching."
"Who?"
"The one who wears your face in the dark."
Before he could ask more, the filaments tightened. Pain lanced through Elara's form. She screamed—a sound that fractured the air.
From the shadows, a figure emerged.
Tall. Cloaked. Face hidden.
But when it spoke, the voice was Kaelen's own.
"You always were sentimental, brother."
The figure lowered its hood.
It was him. Younger. Cleaner. Eyes full of certainty.
Kaelen's blood ran cold.
This wasn't an illusion.
It was his own memory, weaponized.
And it knew every lie he'd ever told himself.