Chapter 55
Chapter fifty-five
The interior was colder than she expected. Not desert-cold, but death-cold. The temperature dropped with each footstep, and the stone beneath her boots felt slick with condensation despite the air remaining dry.
“Anyone else feel like we just walked into a burial mound?” she muttered.
Kaelith brushed past her, his hand grazing the stone wall. “I think that’s exactly what it is.”
Fenn followed without comment, but his hand rested on the throwing knives belted at his waist.
After several minutes of walking, the corridor opened into a larger chamber, the ceiling so high it vanished into darkness.
Along the walls, light shone from the crystal veins, illuminating reliefs carved directly into the black stone.
The scenes were gruesome: great beasts of fire and water locked in battle, men and women half-transformed into monstrous forms of wind and ash, claw and flame.
Ancient warriors, mid-shift, fighting an enemy that looked…
Bile surged in Rynna’s throat, and the world lurched as her knees gave out.
Fenn caught her under the arms just as Kaelith closed in from behind, their bodies bracing hers between them. But she barely noticed. Blood roared in her ears, a relentless drumbeat that drowned everything else out. While pain ripped through her skull, shattering her vision.
She wasn’t in the chamber anymore.
Metal flooring. Cold. A viewing pane stretching wide before her.
From it, she saw a world below, splintering apart like glass under pressure.
Shockwaves rippled across continents. Cities disintegrated in a wash of fire and light.
The atmosphere itself peeled away in ribbons.
She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came.
No sound. No breath. Just the silent implosion of a planet.
She clutched at Fenn, nails digging into his chest, while Kaelith’s arms wrapped tightly around her front, anchoring her against the storm raging through her mind. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the memory snapped shut.
She gasped like she’d been dragged underwater, scraping at her scalp with both hands as if she could dig the images out again. She knew it mattered, but the Weaving shoved the memories back into their box, locking them away where she couldn’t reach.
“Rynna. We’re here. You’re safe.” Kaelith’s voice came low against her ear.
“Kae…” The sob escaped her as she wiped the wetness from her cheeks, forcing herself upright even as her legs trembled.
Get it together, Rynna. She tried to calm the pounding in her ribs.
“What was that?” Fenn asked, hands steadying her at her waist.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t—” Her fists clenched. “The Weaving won’t let me remember.”
The dread clung to her like smoke, spinning in the corners of her thoughts, close enough to taste, but just out of reach. She didn’t have a name for what they faced, but deep down, she knew she’d stood against it before.
But why would the Weaving hide it from her?
Rynna exhaled, forcing the last tremor from her limbs.
“Whatever it is, we’ll face it together.” Fenn’s hand slid down her arm in a brief squeeze before he stepped past her toward the nearest wall. “These look like stories from the ancient bloodlines,” he said, studying the carvings. “And of what came before.”
Kaelith looked at Rynna, searching. She nodded once, and only then did his attention move to the wall, reaching toward one of the figures mid-shift.
“Of what came before, and how it ended,” he murmured.
“When the enemy came, bringing the Source with it,” Rynna finally joined them, following Kaelith’s fingers.
Then, a sudden lurch made the floor rumble under them.
“Move!” Fenn barked, grabbing Rynna and tossing her to the side.
The floor where she'd been standing split open as serrated stone blades burst upward with enough force to break bone. Beside them, Kaelith twisted sideways with inhuman speed, narrowly avoiding a second trap of blades scything through the air.
“Defenses.” Kaelith’s irises began to slit. “This place doesn’t want us here unless we can prove we belong. Without the Source.”
Rynna scrambled to her feet, only for a second wave of movement to knock her sideways. The wall on her right twisted open like a maw, and a gout of pale blue fire flared toward her. She didn’t have time to dodge or blink, and pain flashed bright across her side before she hit the ground.
“Rynna!” Fenn was beside her in seconds, his body halfway shifted—teeth elongating, hands gnarled into claws.
“I’m fine,” she lied, pushing herself upright, but her right arm buckled beneath her.
She looked down and choked. The flesh along her forearm had melted away in slick, glistening sheets. Muscle hung in ragged strands, sinew exposed, blood weeping slow and dark from a mess of torn tissue and charred skin.
“Oh fuck.” The words scraped out of her before she could bite them back, and her vision swam as the world tilted again.
She’d been burned before. But not like this. That fire hadn’t been fire. Not truly. It clung too long. Sank too deep. Whatever it was, it was meant to consume.
Kaelith dropped beside her, one knee on the ground. His hand hovered just above the mangled mess of her arm, fingers twitching like he wanted to touch but didn’t dare. His eyes flicked between the wound and Fenn.
“You need to keep going,” Rynna ground out, teeth grinding as she tried to push herself upright again. “It’ll heal.”
She flexed her fingers. Or tried to. But they didn’t move. There was just a dull, dead weight hanging from what remained of her forearm.
“Eventually. Probably.” Her voice pitched high.
Kaelith didn’t answer. Instead, he shrugged out of his shirt with a tug, the fabric lifting over the hard lines of his torso. Muscles coiled and flexed beneath pale skin where shining black scales rolled like oil just beneath the surface—and for a half-dizzy heartbeat, Rynna couldn’t look away.
She let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “Now is really not the time, Kae.”
“Such a filthy mind, pet,” he said with a crooked smile, already ripping the shirt into long, crude strips.
Then, the ground groaned beneath them, again, vibrating in her bones.
“Another attack.” Fenn moved faster than thought, one arm hooking under her knees, the other bracing her back and lifting her.
“Ahhh!” Pain lanced through her ruined arm at the movement.
“Hold on,” Fenn muttered, looking for escape.
The earth split open behind them, a column of molten flame slicing up from the ground. Pivoting, he dodged the eruption by inches, then launched upward—boots scraping rock as he slammed his claws into the wall, holding them aloft, above the flames now incinerating the ground below.
Kaelith spun in his wake, body moving like water.
He ducked beneath a burst of heat and smoke, twisting sideways as a shard of burning rock tore through the air where his head had been.
Then he was there, half-clinging to the wall beside them, the serpents beneath his skin lashing out to anchor him in the stone.
“The traps are likely made for Hollow-born or followers of the enemy.” His voice was a hiss as he quickly wrapped the strips of bloodied fabric around Rynna’s mangled arm, binding it tight.
Fenn nodded. “Everything is resistant to Source power. Any who tried to grip the wall in that way would quickly fall and die.”
The fire roared below, heat rising in suffocating waves as the wall holding them up shuddered, stone groaning like something alive, like it wanted to shake them loose.
Fenn's grip tightened, fingers biting deeper as Kaelith braced with a hiss, the serpents beneath his skin digging further into the rock.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the wall went still, and the scorched floor began to rearrange itself.
Chunks of stone slid back into place with a sound like bone grinding in its socket.
What had been chaos moments ago now eased into order, revealing a set of stairs unfolding from the far side of the chamber, descending in a tight spiral.
“Do we just…” Rynna gnawed at her lip.
“Yes.” Fenn adjusted his hold, tucking Rynna tighter against himself with one arm.
She tried to protest, but the pain gnawing through her arm turned her voice into a broken croak.
Then he jumped, air rushing past in a hot, ash-laced gust, until his feet struck the stone below with a jarring thud.
Landing in a crouch, he absorbed the impact with practiced ease, keeping Rynna shielded in his embrace.
Above them, Kaelith released the wall, the serpents beneath his skin bursting free just before his feet hit the ground beside them.
The flames had retreated, and the path forward waited.
Fenn started forward, still carrying her.
“Put me down,” Rynna muttered, her voice steadier this time. “I can walk.”
He hesitated, just a second, then obeyed, lowering her gently to her feet. Biting back a wince, she cradled her bandaged arm against her body, finding her balance before nodding once. And together, they descended.
The walls pulsed with dim light, and the carvings changed, now showing the arrival of the enemy.
It was a shadow that descended from the stars, bringing the first signs of the Source in long, coiling tendrils.
At first, the shifters welcomed the power.
Then came the assimilation, and elemental forms turned brittle, corrupted.
Bloodlines were severed. Beast-forms lost.
Kaelith stopped mid-step. “It didn’t just bring the Source. It used it to rewrite the world. To change the code of power itself.”
Fenn’s expression darkened. “And once they realized it, the shifters fought until they were extinct.”
“Not all extinct.” Rynna’s working fingers traced his arm as they crossed an unseen threshold, opening into the final chamber.
“Oh my…” she started as light pooled from nowhere, revealing walls carved in a perfect dome, every line bending toward the center, toward—