Page 30

Lucien doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Just waits.

groans. “Fine. Fine. Gods. You want ethically dubious, morally confusing illusions to get murdered in our place? You got it.”

He claps his hands together, a dramatic flourish that makes exactly no sense, and then his expression shifts. The mischief fades. A rare flicker of focus cuts through him like a blade. Magic pulses sharp from his chest, spreading outward in a shimmer of fractured light.

Two copies of him blink into existence. Almost identical. A little too fluid in the joints, a little too smooth in the movement. The real winces like looking at himself too long gives him secondhand embarrassment.

“There,” he mutters. “Two of me. But don’t look at them too long. They start getting… ideas.”

Elias peers at one of the clones like it might bite. “They ever try to hook up with each other?”

“Once,” mutters. “It was weird. And beautiful. And—honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Luna’s strangled cough tells me she’s trying very hard not to picture that. Which means she already did.

Even more interesting.

Orin’s watching the whole exchange with that quiet, deliberate stillness that always means he’s thinking seven steps ahead. Probably debating whether this is the stupidest plan we’ve ever had—or just the most inevitable.

He glances toward the gate, the keep looming like a corpse dressed in regalia.

“If they trigger anything,” Orin says calmly, “we’ll know the place is still alive.”

The clones start walking. Perfect gait. Perfect posture. The smile’s too smooth, though. Too symmetrical.

Not real. Not like him.

The trees shift. The path to the gate yawns open just enough to swallow them whole. They vanish into the dark like they were made for it.

We wait. Then, faint and distant—A scream. One of the clones. Then another. Wet. Muffled. The sound of flesh folding wrong. And then—nothing.

tilts his head. “Well. That’s… not promising.”

Elias clears his throat. “On a scale from ‘mildly ominous’ to ‘guaranteed death,’ where would you rank that?”

Lucien doesn’t answer. He’s already drawing his blade.

But Luna shifts. Not afraid. Not retreating. She steps forward. Not reckless. Willing. And that changes everything. Because I know what that look means. Not defiance.

Sacrifice.

I move beside her before I can think better of it. She doesn’t flinch when I speak low at her side, the words sharp enough to cut between the rest of them.

“You planning on walking in first, darling?”

Her eyes flick toward mine. Steady. Dark.

“I’m not planning anything,” she says.

Which is exactly the problem.

“You do realize,” I murmur, “that sending clones in first was the sane part of the plan, yes?”

“Then it was doomed from the start,” she replies, and there's something dry in it. Bone-deep.

I almost smile.

“You should wait until the rest of us go in,” I say instead. “Let one of us die first.”

Her mouth curves. It isn’t a smile either. Just a wound that looks like one.

“No,” she says softly. “You’d survive it. And you’d never let me forget that you did.”

She's right.

I would. I always do.

Elias is staring at the clone guts smeared on the threshold, muttering, “At least they died pretty.”

is humming the funeral dirge he wrote for himself three years ago, off-key.

And Luna steps forward again.

I follow.

Because none of us can help it now.

The Warden’s Keep waits. And it doesn’t care how many of us are real. The Keep opens like a throat. Wide. Gaping. Lined in polished obsidian that’s too smooth to be stone and too dark to reflect anything but the wrong pieces of us.

It doesn’t look like a ruin. Not anymore. Not the way I remember it—half-collapsed under the weight of the war, vines strangling its spires, rot seeping through the brick like the whole place had bled out centuries before we arrived. No. This one’s been rebuilt. Rewritten.

Branwen’s version is too perfect.

The walls shimmer faintly, not with light, but with memory—half-there illusions that flutter along the stone like dying moths. I watch one flicker just above Luna’s shoulder. A boy, maybe twelve, stitched together from shadow and pale light, running down a spiral staircase that no longer exists.

I blink.

He’s gone.

Orin steps ahead of us, deliberate. Silent. Not leading. Just… reading. This place is speaking, and he’s the only one fluent enough to keep up.

The corridor narrows as we move forward, walls curving in unnatural symmetry. Every inch of it is etched with patterns too intricate to be decorative. Spells. Old ones. The kind that don’t trigger with proximity—but with emotion. I recognize the structure, the slant of the glyphs along the seams of the floor.

Riven does too. He angles closer to the wall, fingers tracing the edges without touching.

“This isn’t containment,” he murmurs. “It’s ritual.”

I nod once, slowly. “A recall loop. She rebuilt the Keep as a memory anchor.”

Orin’s voice cuts in, calm and even. “Not just memory. Binding. She didn’t recreate the Keep to preserve it. She remade it to trap it.”

“Trap what?” Elias asks, too loudly.

The answer is obvious.

Herself.

Her power.

Her guilt.

I glance at Luna. She’s watching the path ahead with that stillness she gets when she’s calculating risk, cataloguing every detail so she can shoulder the burden before anyone else can. Her expression is quiet, but her magic brushes mine like static—unsteady, volatile, alive.

She steps over the next seam in the floor, and the corridor changes.

Subtle.

The walls stretch. The air shifts. The illusion of space is clever. It makes you believe you’re walking straight, but the ground curves. We’re already descending. I can feel it in my calves, the subtle pull of gravity down, down, down.

The torches flicker—but not with fire. They burn with something cold. A silver flame that doesn’t warm or glow, but consumes. As we pass them, they vanish one by one, snuffed out by our presence.

Or welcomed.

I’m not sure which would be worse.

Elias sidles closer to Luna, like he’s going to whisper something important, something useful. He opens his mouth.

Then closes it.

Then says, “So… hypothetically… if I heroically passed out in the next ten minutes, would you carry me?”

Luna doesn’t look at him. “No.”

He nods solemnly. “That’s fair. I wouldn’t carry me either.”

snorts behind us. “I would. But only if you promised to wake up screaming.”

“Noted.”

Their voices echo too long. The walls catch sound and hold it. Twist it. I hear Elias’ voice bounce back half a beat behind us, but it’s wrong—slurred and slightly deeper. Like it belongs to someone else.

Caspian moves closer to the left side of the hall, his hand brushing over the wall’s etched surface like it might bite.

“She built this place like a reliquary,” he says quietly, more to himself than us. “Not a fortress. A shrine.”

“To what?” Luna asks, finally speaking.

He looks at her, and for once, the smile he gives isn’t sharp or broken. Just tired.

“To whatever was left of her after she lost everything.”

hums low behind us. “That’s not creepy at all. Definitely not walking through a haunted echo chamber designed by a dead megalomaniac who still might be alive in some horrifying, semi-divine, blood-drenched way.”

Orin’s head tilts slightly, and he speaks for the first time since the hall shifted.

“She is not alive.”

His tone is final. But not comforting.

Elias glances at him. “But?”

“She left her will here.”

That shuts everyone up. Because we all understand what that means. Branwen didn’t build this to protect herself. She built it to preserve her intent. A fortress sealed in blood and magic, not to survive—but to remember her purpose and keep enacting it, long after her body turned to dust.

A necrotheurgic stronghold. A living memory.

We reach the atrium. It spirals out suddenly, like a mouth unhinged. The ceiling yawns high overhead, an endless vault of black glass and bone-white marble. At the center of the room, suspended by chains that vanish into shadow, is a throne made of antlers and ash.

No one sits in it. But we all feel it watching. Below it, carved into the floor, is a circle I recognize. Old empire. One of the original binding seals.

Luna steps forward first, as if drawn by something quieter than language. Her boots stop just at the edge of the ring. Her magic pulses once—faint, then sharp, like a heartbeat echoing off the stone. And then the glyphs ignite. Silver fire, identical to the torches, races through the carvings in the floor. The seal pulses with light—then stabilizes. Not in warning.

In recognition.

“She’s keyed into it,” Riven murmurs, stepping beside her, voice low.

“Of course she is,” Lucien says, voice flat, unreadable.

“She’s not just part of the pattern,” I say slowly. “She’s the anchor point now.”

The ring on the floor isn’t just reacting to Luna’s presence—it’s responding. As if it has been waiting. As if it already knows she’s the one who can finish what Branwen started. Luna doesn’t move, but every line of her body holds that taut stillness that comes not from hesitation, but from calculation. She’s measuring something. Consequences. Distance. How many of us will bleed if she takes another step.

I study her face. She’s not afraid, not drawn to dramatics the way the others might be. She’s silent, but in that silence, she’s making decisions. Dangerous ones. Her magic brushes mine again, a brief static flicker like something too volatile to fully restrain. It coils at the edge of her skin, shimmering low and deep like a second heart—and the Keep responds to it. The carved floor pulses once, steady now, not erratic. Acknowledging her. Not Branwen. Her.

“This isn’t about legacy,” I say, stepping forward, voice low but sharp enough to draw every eye to me. “We’re not here to preserve what Branwen left behind or trap what’s left of her in another damn seal. That bitch is already dead. This place isn’t sacred because she made it so. It’s sacred because she buried something in it. A contingency. A way out.”

Luna shifts her gaze toward me, and for once, she doesn’t look like she wants to tear me apart for saying what everyone else is too careful to admit. Her eyes are cold, but clear. Focused. She's listening, not because she trusts me, but because she knows I’m right.

“She built another pillar,” I continue, letting the thought slide into the open like poison, “and she hid it here, beneath the bones of a ruined stronghold no one would ever think to search. Because we all assumed this place was already dead.”

Orin, steps forward with the quiet purpose of someone ancient enough not to waste movement. His gaze sweeps across the seal, then to Luna. “She built the Hollow in her image. But she didn’t trust it. She modeled it after her empire, her rituals, her war. But the real power? The way back to the world she lost?” His gaze settles like gravity on Luna. “She wouldn’t have risked that being found. She would have buried it at the center of a place no one could reach. Except someone like her.”

“If the portal is here,” Riven says, stepping beside her, his voice lower now, almost intimate, “it won’t open for just anyone. She had to embed it in something. In someone.”

“And now it’s waking,” I add, letting my eyes settle on Luna, not looking away. “Because it sees her.”

Luna tilts her head slightly, not enough to break that perfect stillness, but enough to speak volumes. “I don’t want Branwen’s power,” she says, her voice calm, controlled. “I’m not her.”

My response is immediate, even, and without apology. “You don’t need to want it. You have it.”

She doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t protest. She simply breathes in once, steady and shallow, then lowers her gaze to the floor where the glyphs are still glowing beneath her boots. The seal remains dormant—but alert. A predator in wait. The kind that doesn’t chase. The kind that knows its prey will come willingly.

Behind us, Elias fidgets. He mutters something to that sounds like a joke, and snorts, but there’s no real humor behind it. There never is when Luna’s involved. Elias steps forward, attempting levity like it’s a shield. “So… we’re just gonna hope the glowy death seal is the path to a secret portal and not… you know, spontaneous combustion? Great. Love this plan. Very safe. Very normal. I give it… eight out of ten fireballs.”

“I’d say nine,” adds cheerfully. “But only if Lucien goes first.”

Lucien’s look could flay stone. “I’d rather burn.”

“You might get your wish,” I mutter.

Orin’s voice slices through the noise, firm but quiet. “This seal is older than any of us. It’s a binding ritual, yes—but not one meant to tether a soul. It’s an anchor. One side to hold the Hollow in place. One to tear a hole through it. Branwen would’ve needed both. She only built one pillar before she fell. This was her fail-safe. If she failed to escape—this place would open the way back.”

“And now it needs her magic to complete the circuit,” I finish, letting the weight of it sink in. “And it’s already recognized Luna as enough of her to try.”

She steps forward once, into the outer ring.

The reaction is instant.

The glyphs bloom brighter, cascading around the circle like a pulse of starlight. Not violent. Not inviting. Just inevitable. I watch her body absorb the shift without hesitation, but I can feel it—how every nerve in her skin goes taut, how her breath sharpens, how the power curls low in her spine and doesn’t settle. She’s a fuse. A conduit. Branwen’s magic isn’t clinging to her—it’s circling her, waiting for her to choose.

Orin turns to her, the words slow and deliberate. “The pillar will be buried behind the final seal. Once it opens, we’ll know if she built the way out—or something worse.”

Lucien moves sharply. “You’re saying she has to finish it.”

“She already started it,” Orin replies. “There’s no turning back now.”

Luna lifts her eyes to his. And then, slowly, to mine.

Her voice is quieter this time. Not uncertain. Just resigned. “What happens if it opens something else?” My answer isn’t kind. But it’s true.

“Then we deal with it. Or we die in here with it.”

She holds my gaze. Doesn’t look away. And then she nods once, deliberate.

She steps fully into the seal. And the Keep begins to wake. The glyphs surrounding her flare brighter, casting warped shadows across the marble floor that writhe and twist, alive in ways shadows shouldn’t be. The light isn’t light at all—just the illusion of it, pulled from some other plane, bending through Luna’s presence like a prayer spoken in reverse.

We’re both watching the same thing: the way her magic coils outward, not like it’s being forced from her—but like the Keep is siphoning it, coaxing it with reverence, with hunger.

A low grinding begins beneath our feet.

The seal doesn’t just glow now—it shifts. Stone plates slide beneath the glyphs, rotating in precise, measured rings. Each layer beneath her begins to unlock a new level of the ritual, and with it, the entire room groans. Not metaphorically. The Keep moans, like it hasn’t moved in centuries and is furious at the intrusion.

Then the chains suspending the throne begin to shiver. Not violently. But with the sound of something too large to be hidden anymore.

Behind it—subtle at first—an outline appears.

A vertical slit of space, seamless and jagged, splitting down the wall like a surgical incision being pulled open by invisible hands.

I exhale once, slow and sharp. “There it is.”

The door behind the throne is not a door. Not exactly. It’s an archway cut directly into the Keep’s foundation, stone swallowing itself inward. It shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t there when we came in. But it’s always been there, hasn’t it? Branwen didn’t need it to exist. She just needed it to wait.

The light inside the doorway pulses with a different kind of energy. Not Hollow magic. Not Branwen’s blood-spun madness. This is older. Wilder. It feels like falling and drowning and being born all at once. Whatever’s through there—it isn’t part of this realm.

Luna steps forward, and the seal dims beneath her as if it’s released her from the ritual now that its purpose is fulfilled. Her movements are slow, deliberate, and she doesn’t look back—not at me, not at any of us. She walks toward the throne, toward the doorway yawning open behind it like a god’s open mouth.

I follow. Of course I follow.

Riven is already behind me, his hand near his blade, not because he expects to use it, but because it’s instinct to guard her, even now.