Page 52 of The Midnight Death Match

“You’ll fail them.”

“You’ll kill him.”

“You’ll break like the rest.”

They circle me like vultures.

Einar curses under his breath, rubbing his temple. His face flickers briefly—not physically, but like I’m seeing two versions of him at once. The hunter and a corpse.

I gasp, fear gripping me.

“Steady.” Lys’s voice cuts through the illusions like a cold tether. “Stay present.”

I grit my teeth, locking my gaze on the glowing rune on my sword hilt.

The whispers dull. The wards shift again.

Behind me, one of the rebel scouts drops to his knees, hands clutching his head, lost in whatever vision the city feeds him. Another stumbles, breathing in ragged gasps. One of the scholars bursts into tears.

“They won’t all make it,” Harek says quietly.

“No,” Lys agrees, still calm. “They won’t.”

The reality of our mission slams into me. “We need to turn back. Only my father and I should continue on.”

Lys stares at me. “We’re in too deep now. It’ll be worse if we back out.”

“We aren’t backing out. No, we’re saving them.”

He moves forward again, unbothered, and we’re forced to follow deeper into the rotted city. I hurry to catch up, and the others follow.

We descend into a spiral chamber, half-buried beneath the twisted remains of a collapsed tower. The wards thin as we near the center, as if we’ve passed through the worst of their defenses—or as if something deeper is now content to simply let us enter.

The chamber looks older than the rest of Courtsview, its walls etched with circular symbols. Layered hunter crests are spliced together in ways I’ve never seen. The markings pulse faintly with old, fading magic. At the far end sits a massive door, laced with embedded bloodstone veins. The hunter’s crest glows faintly along its surface, the mirrored version.

Lys steps forward, voice soft but sure. “Here.”

Harek tenses beside me, his eyes full of doubt. “How do you know this?”

Lys lays a hand against the center of the door. “Because I’ve spent years studying what everyone else tried to forget.”

A hum answers his touch. The stone door shudders then begins to slide open, groaning as it reveals the chamber beyond.

The air inside is chilled, older. An archive stretches in a wide circle with rows of scroll racks, glass cases holding fragmented relics, long-decayed tomes wrapped in protective magic that flickers and struggles against time.

We step inside carefully, the weight of countless lives pressing down on us from unseen corners.

“This is…” I search for the right words.

“The beginning,” Lys finishes for me.

Harek scowls.

Einar’s brows furrow as he scans the runes above each shelf. “Much of this is incomplete.”

“Enough survives.” Lys looks around. “We have what we need to understand what was done.”

Part of me wants to smack him for his never ending riddles, another part of me is curiously fascinated.