Chapter Thirty-Four
It feels as though the mountain shudders with every step I take downward—an almost imperceptible tremor, as if it’s warning me that I’m crossing a threshold not meant for mortal feet.
My boots strike the obsidian steps with a hollow thud that echoes far too loudly in the enclosed space.
The sound stretches into the depths ahead, swallowed and returned by the dark in a way that makes it feel like the staircase goes on forever.
The torchlights waver against the walls, casting long, uneasy shadows that ripple over carved patterns. Symbols, some of them eerily similar to the ones I saw in Ziek’s village. Recognition prickles at my skin.
So that’s how the mountain hides itself.
Illusion, deception, wards older than memory. Woven into the stone itself.
The flames waver again, brushing warmth against the cold air, and the symbols seem to shift beneath the flickering light, as if they pulse, or breathe, or watch.
And still, the stairs descend, pulling me deeper into the truth the mountain meant to keep buried.
By the time I reach the end of the staircase, my legs throb with a dull, relentless ache. The thought of climbing all the way back up makes something inside me wilt, and I don’t envy that future version of myself in the slightest.
The chamber at the bottom is cramped and breath-stealing, the ceiling so low I know that if I so much as jumped, or even rose onto my toes, it would brush the top of my head.
The torches here burn weaker, their flames shrinking into trembling blue tips that barely light the air around them.
The cold deepens, coiling around my ankles and wrists until my breath emerges in thin wisps of white smoke.
I take the final step onto the flat stone floor, and my heart jerks as a low rumble vibrates through the chamber.
The wall ahead stirs—stone grinding against stone—peeling back layer by layer like a massive door awakening after centuries of sleep. Dust shakes free in soft clouds. The air shifts, warmer and strangely sweet.
Then the glow appears.
Brilliant. Iridescent. Too bright for such a colourless place.
It spills through the widening crack in the stone, washing over me, painting the walls with shifting hues—blue, gold, violet—colours that don’t belong in the dark. Colours that feel alive.
I stand frozen as the light reaches me, touches me, and pulls the breath straight from my chest. My lungs feel heavy with hesitation, a weight pressing against my ribs, but my feet carry me forward anyway—one step, then another—until the light becomes everything.
It swallows the shadows. It swallows me.
Inside the chamber, my eyes adjust slowly.
My boots splash as I move, and I look down to find myself standing in a shallow pool.
It’s barely an inch deep—just enough to lick the soles of my boots—yet it glows like starlight caught in liquid form.
Silver. Amethyst. Indigo. The colours ripple across the surface like shifting constellations.
Then something stirs the water.
A small wave, delicate as a whisper, rolls outward. The pool shimmers, and at its centre an altar begins to rise, stone pushing up through the radiant liquid as though the mountain is exhaling it into existence. Atop it sits the gem.
The breath catches in my throat.
I can only stare—wide-eyed, jaw slack—as its brilliance fills the room. I never truly believed I would see it. The legend. The gem that should not exist. I half expected the stories to crumble into dust the moment I got close.
But here it stands before me, glowing like filtered moonlight, as though carved from the moon itself. Its reflection dances across the shimmering pool, amplifying the weak torchlight until the whole chamber feels alive with resonance.
Only when my heartbeat slows enough for sound to return do I notice the darkness lingering behind the beauty.
Frozen faces.
Figures scattered throughout the pool, half-submerged, half-standing—petrified statues with expressions locked in shock. Some mid-step. Some reaching. Some turning to run. Their limbs twisted in the final moments of panic, as though the truth of their fate had struck them a second too late.
Unworthy of the Gifts. Unworthy of the gem.
I swallow hard.
These people made it through the Hollow, through the trials, through the mountain’s shifting labyrinth. They were judged worthy to attempt this final test, but not worthy to survive it. The thought sobers me instantly, driving a cold spike straight through my spine.
I’ve come this far, pushed past every limit I thought I had, and yet… my soul could stay buried here forever, trapped among these silent failures.
How long would it take before Ryder and River came looking for me?
If they even saw through the Peak’s deception.
If they even made it across the canyon’s gaping mouth.
Or would I just be another monument left to gather dust—one more forgotten pilgrim swallowed by the mountain, waiting to be drained by Nyxos in the end?
The door behind me shudders, then seals itself with a final, echoing click. The passage I came through dissolves, smoothing back into a seamless wall.
No return.
No retreat.
This is the path I chose—
And the only way out now is forward.
Ripples of water whisper against the mountain’s inner wall, their echoes stifled by the dark stone. I step toward the slab, its sudden brilliance searing my eyes. After days entombed in darkness, the light still cuts like a blade.
Here goes.
I steady my breathing and repeat my intentions in the quiet of my mind, willing myself to become as clear and as honest as the gem before me. No malice. No falsehood. Only purpose.
Save the Gods. Save the world. Save Ryder.
Destroy Nyxos.
If Lunaris feared him as deeply as I do, then she will hear me. She will lend me the strength to end him.
My hand trembles as I reach for it, hovering just above the surface while I pull my thoughts into one final, focused breath. It’s now or never.
I slam my palm down.
The energy hits me instantly—a tidal force awakening every nerve at once. My head snaps back, vision blurring to white. My eyes roll skyward and, for a moment, I feel myself slip free of my own body, watching from somewhere just outside the flesh that can’t contain the power flooding through it.
‘Who claims my stone for their own?’
The voice reverberates through my mind, vast and echoing, as though spoken from inside my skull and from a great distance all at once.
I blink my eyes open. I’m still in the pool—yet nothing around me is the same. It’s as if I’ve slipped to the other side of it.
No petrified bodies.
No jagged rocks closing me in.
Only endless, depthless white stretching in every direction.
As my vision adjusts, a shape emerges: a throne, shimmering as if carved from condensed moonlight.
Upon it reclines a dark-skinned woman, draped over the seat like a silken cloth, her posture lazy and regal all at once.
One leg dangles casually over the armrest, as if this ethereal chamber is nothing more than her living room.
Her hair is silver—not metallic, but a soft, luminous white that catches and echoes the glow of the pool.
Her eyes lock onto mine, sharp enough to make my breath hitch.
Slowly, she lifts herself from her languid sprawl, drawing her legs forward and perching upright on the throne.
Her head tilts, studying me with a curiosity that feels both divine and dangerous.
She crooks a single finger, and my body lurches toward her at once—dragged through the whiteness as if yanked by an invisible thread. I’m weightless, helpless, a puppet hauled to its master with no more resistance than a leaf in a storm.
‘Who are you?’ She asks.
“Asha… Asha Calloway.”
I swallow hard. She takes my hand, cold and impossibly soft, and her eyes flare white for a heartbeat—luminous and unsettling.
‘Ah… a Star.’ Her smile spreads, slow and sickly sweet. ‘I haven’t had one of those in a while.’
“I-I’m the last one left,” I manage.
‘Willing to gamble the fate of your entire race,’ she muses, tilting her head. I drop my gaze, unable to withstand the weight of her stare.
‘And you deem yourself worthy of my power?’
Her tone drips with the promise of a trap.
“I… I hope so.”
‘And you believe your heart is pure?’
My breath catches. After a moment, I force myself to nod.
She considers me for one long, unreadable beat.
Then her lips curl.
‘Okay,’ she purrs, tightening her grip on my hand. ‘We’ll see.’
She seizes my head with both hands and forces me downward. My body yields instantly, sinking until I’m lying half-submerged in the water, its cold surface trembling beneath me. Her shadow falls over my face, her gaze a weight heavier than her grip.
‘The water will decide.’