Page 13 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE VAULT brEATHES BACK

Kali’s emotional state: Controlled chaos. Every instinct screamed to move fast, but she forced stillness. Precision was power. But the Vault—it was watching her now.

T

he night split open at the mouth of the East End warehouse.

Kali stood beneath the storm-dark sky, shadows curling up her calves like living ink.

Her wrap-around coat clung to her body, slit high enough to reveal the blade strapped to her thigh and the shimmer of her shadow magic weaving just beneath the skin.

The scent of her perfume—Voodoo Lily: hints of oud, frankincense, rose—curled on the wind like temptation and warning.

Vaerkyn prowled at her side, silent and monstrous, eyes glowing like molten embers. The hellhound’s presence alone made the air hum with dread. His size dwarfed even the tallest enforcers. No one questioned his loyalty, not after what he did to the Crimson Thorns' last spy.

Irina stood at Kali’s right flank, armor black as grief.

Her expression was unreadable, but the air crackled between them with tension and intent.

Behind them, six elite enforcers—each chosen for their resistance to shadow corrosion—fanned out in disciplined silence.

Every one of them bore psychic runes etched directly into their skin, mind-barriers constructed by Astraeus himself .

“This is the drop point,” Irina murmured, scanning the crumbling walls with a sweep of her enchanted eyes. “But it’s not just a vault. It’s a threshold.”

“Between?” Kali asked, her tone low, calculated.

Irina’s voice dropped further. “Memory and madness.”

Irina shifted, subtly tightening her stance beside Kali. Not protective—ready. Their gazes met for a fraction of a second. No nod. No words. Just that iron-clad certainty they'd built from blood and survival.

I'm with you. Always.

Kali stepped forward. The sigil scrawled in blood at the warehouse’s heart pulsed—slow and deliberate.

Astraeus snarled in her mind, voice vibrating like metal dragged across stone. "This place remembers what your grandfather buried. And it wants to be found."

“Then let’s greet the past.”

Kali stepped into the circle.

Her heel struck the central glyph, and reality dropped out from beneath her.

The world inverted. The warehouse dissolved into a spiraling corridor of voidglass and memory, where every step echoed like a forgotten thought trying to claw its way back to the surface.

The air warped. Runes coiled like serpents across the black stone walls, whispering secrets older than blood.

Her name echoed off the walls: Allani. A curse. A prophecy. A summons.

A voice rose—inhuman. Not Astraeus. Not even of this world.

“Return what was stolen.”

“Return the shadow-born key.”

Kali bared her teeth. “Come get it.”

Heat slammed into her like a tidal wave. Enforcers buckled. One hit the stone, gasping.

Lev moved fast, yanking the man back across the boundary ward. “The Vault’s scanning us. Testing for fractures.”

Kali’s veins blackened. Her skin rippled with power. Her shadows surged and roared, feeding off the ancestral call.

Pain clawed up her spine like a thousand burning needles, her old scars flaring under the pressure. She ignored it. The Vault didn’t deserve her weakness.

Astraeus pressed harder on her skull. "This isn’t a vault. It’s a mouth. And it remembers your blood like it remembers pain."

Then—light. A shimmer bloomed from the center glyph. Runes coalesced into a projection—an echo from the past.

Her grandfather.

Younger. Fierce. Regal in his own menace. Crowned in shadows .

“If you’re seeing this, it means you’ve broken protocol. The Vault was never meant to open. Not without the Fifth Flame.”

Kali’s breath snagged. Her pupils dilated.

“What the fuck is the Fifth Flame?” she muttered.

Irina shook her head, stunned. “There’s nothing in the archives. Nothing.”

The echo continued, voice like thunder in a storm cellar.

“The Flame is not a person. It’s a convergence. A choice. The moment you decide to burn it all for the truth.”

The image of her grandfather shattered into dust and light. Kali stood frozen, her breath caught in her chest, heart pounding with a mixture of fear and realization. The word convergence echoed through her bones like a thread pulled taut.

Burn it all for the truth.

The words rattled in her skull, and for the first time, doubt crept in—what was she about to burn?

What would be left when it was all said and done?

She had always been warned against crossing this line, but now.

.. the pull was undeniable. Her grandfather had told her to stay away.

But here she was, standing in the very place he had forbidden her to enter.

Was it worth the cost? Could she burn it all for the truth, and would the price be her soul, her sanity, or something worse?

Could she? Would she ?

Kali’s gaze flickered to the sigil on her palm, the thread that pulled her toward the truth and to the very heart of the Spiral Mouth. What had her grandfather truly seen in this Vault? What had he known that made him bury it so deep?

Her fingers clenched. She couldn’t stop now. But what was she really about to burn for the truth? Her soul? Her sanity? Would this decision unravel everything she had built—or was it her only chance to stop the Spiral? To stop herself from becoming something unrecognizable?

Her jaw tightened, and the weight of it sank in like a stone in her stomach. Her grandfather had warned her with his last breath. Yet, here she was, the lines already drawn, her fate already set in motion.

Astraeus’ voice rang out in her skull, harsh and unrelenting: "This is where you learn if you’re still worthy of your bloodline, little shadow. The Vault won’t let you leave unless it takes everything you’ve got. And once the Spiral Mouth wakes, it doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done."

The Vault reacted instantly. The spiral corridor moaned. Stone screamed. The floor buckled.

“Pull out,” Kali snapped. No one questioned her. They ran.

Her sigil burned like a brand beneath her glove. Not warning; Invitation.

The Vault sealed behind them with a thunderous hiss. Kali’s pulse hammered in her chest, her body still vibrating with the energy of the place. She wanted to look back, to acknowledge the weight of what they’d just triggered, but she didn’t .

This isn’t the end, little shadow, Astraeus warned in her mind.

But before silence reclaimed the night, a whisper slipped through the closing gap. 'The Spiral Mouth is awake.' And this time? It knew exactly who she was.