Seren
The fall steals my breath.
For a heartbeat, there is only the rush of air and the thud of my pulse. Then the darkness catches me—not hard, but soft, as if it had been waiting. The shadows cradle me, slowing my descent until my feet touch slick stone.
They slither away, and I frown, trying to remember a time when they felt this…tangible. I’ve landed in a chamber vast enough to swallow the Guild Hall whole. Every breath carries the biting blend of brine and tempered steel.
Thin streams of light needle through cracks in the ceiling, catching on droplets that hang like stars before vanishing into the black pool. A soft echo of trickling water rings out—the stone walls crying for the secrets they hold.
“Where are we?” I whisper, my voice drowning in the silence.
Home, she breathes, her words slithering down my spine. The first root. The wound they built the city over.
Warmth blooms across my chest as my pendant responds. Faint runes carved into the walls offer a reply, glowing a deep crimson like embers under ash. The floor slopes toward a pool at the centre, its surface like glass, reflecting a night sky that holds no stars.
Behind me, a splash. Kael.
He surfaces, gasping, water streaming from his hair. Muttering profanities, he wipes the wetness onto his tunic. Neither of us speaks. The silence here is an oppressive blanket that absorbs all sound.
Our eyes turn as one to the circular pool. Kael flinches, rubbing his wrist, while my pendant answers with a bloom of heat.
“This must be the shrine,” I mutter, my hand over my heart as I will the heat at my chest to cool.
“I don’t understand. I’ve studied the records of the city for years, I’ve never read about this before.”
Phantom fingers stroke the inside of my mind: Historical amnesia.
“I guess the Light built over this so long ago that those who remembered have passed.” Stones dig into my soles as I move towards the water. The closer I get, the louder my pulse becomes until I realise it isn’t my heartbeat at all—it’s the water, throbbing in rhythm with my breath.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yeah, it feels like a heartbeat,” he says. He follows me to the edge, his hand catching my arm. “Careful.”
Shadows skim the black glass, sending ripples in their wake. “It feels…alive.”
“It feels old.” His voice trembles despite his stoic stature. “We have no idea what it is. We should approach with caution.”
Caution. I don’t feel the warning. I feel a calling—a pull toward something that feels dangerously like home. An amused hum escapes me, and I search Kael’s face. His eyes have darkened into steel, his brow furrowed so deep it casts a shadow over his gaze.
“Don’t tell me the shadow-scholar is scared of a little black water.”
Kael whips his head toward me, eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. In this half-light, he looks menacing, but I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
“I’m not scared,” he says through gritted teeth. “We have no idea what this is—or what it’s capable of. But if you want to be the willing volunteer, by all means, knock yourself out.” He crosses his arms, his posture a stiff wall of defiance.
My shadows trace idle circles around the pool, tendrils of black skimming the surface. The pad of my bare feet echoes off the stone as I move to the edge, my toes dangling precariously over the lip.
From the inky depths, a glow rises—pale as moonlight. Runes bloom across the surface in concentric circles, forming a crescent and an eye. My breath catches; it’s the symbol from my drawings, the one that haunts my dreams.
Step in, daughter. A brush of a ghost-breath strokes my ear.
I sink to a kneel, my fingers brushing the surface. I expect a chill, but a welcome, lukewarm calm takes its place. My reflection stares back—not my own face, but the woman from the mirror in the abandoned cart.
Hers.
She offers a warm smile, an invitation to the deep.
My foot breaks the glass surface, sending ripples spiralling outwards. My leg sinks, not into flowing water, but something viscous—a layer of dense, unyielding gel.
“Seren, stop.” Kael says, his voice cracking. “You don’t know what it will do.”
“There’s only one way to find out. I have to do this.”
The liquid climbs my skin, winding like threads of ink. It is kin to my shadows. I submerge until the substance coats my collarbone. Every pore registers the thick tension as it presses evenly—an inescapable, intimate pressure.
There’s no bottom. I’m suspended, encased in a block of deepest amethyst, the colour of a bruise. The faint light from the room catches on the surface, illuminating a thousand tiny air bubbles trapped around me—a silent chorus, sharp as screaming glass.
My shadows climb over my face like a dark shroud. Tendrils snake into my nose and mouth until the world vanishes, and all I see is black.
Cities of black stone flash in my mind. A woman with violet-rimmed eyes, her hands weaving stars. My breath slows, heavy as silt as the dark begins to anchor in my lungs.
Forgive me for what I am about to show you, child.
My thoughts snake around an invisible thread, finding a voice at the far end: But why—?
A deep vibration cuts me off, burying itself in my bones.
White flashes blind me. People clothed in black lie dead on the darkened stone; others flee for their lives. Screams. So many screams. Blood like midnight ink lines the walls and masks the faces of the fallen. Split throats, severed limbs, flames devouring houses, streets, and lives.
Laughter pierces my skull. This devastating destruction carves a crater in my chest, a cold vacuum where my heart should be, churning into a silent vortex.
Their sorrow—their agony—feels like sweet, bitter air to the hungry void. The real horror is how easily I breathe it in. I can’t tear my eyes away; to look away feels like a deceit.
Slender, elongated fingers reach out, moving with my thoughts—but they are not mine. The nails are too sharp, too manicured. Too dark.
Wisps of black smoke move furiously from person to person, desperate to save those worthy of saving. But it’s no use.
I look up and see my temple burning. Gold flames lick the black stone, smoke cascading toward the sky. Robes of white and gold streak past. Three gilded masks loom over me, their shadows creating a heavy curtain of darkness.
Then, a flash of white.
A scream tears through my throat. Mine.
Then, nothing.
I’m being dragged out of the gel, the pulling sensation tearing me away from the screams reverberating in my brain.
“Seren!” Muffled shouts echo around me, dissolving into silent ghosts.
The pool flares white. Light and shadow twist together, forcing my eyes to squeeze shut.
I stumble into a heap on the floor, Kael’s arms reaching for me just as the glare dies.
Above us, the symbols on the walls blaze brighter than before; altars, murals, three women bound by a single chain of fire.
Kael wraps an arm around my shoulder as convulsions take over my body. His warmth penetrates my jumpsuit, and the intimacy of it sickens me—not after what I saw done in the Light’s name. I flinch, shaking him off, my muscles twitching as I struggle to stand.
Nyx’s voice floods the chamber—no longer a whisper, but a vibration that rattles the stone and my bones alike.
As one wakes, two yet sleep. Sisters stir, ready to emerge from the deep.
“You hear that too?” I whisper.
Kael doesn’t respond, but he dips his chin, the whites of his eyes stark in the dull space.
The glow of the pool fades, leaving only the fiery after-light veining the walls. My hands shake; the water drips from them like bruised blood. I feel his gaze on me—studying me as if I’m something new. Something terrible.
“What happened?”
He doesn’t pull his eyes away. It doesn’t seem like he can.
“I—I don’t know. I think—” I wipe the remaining substance from the fabric on my arms, searching for words that can carry the magnitude of those images. “—I think I saw the moment she died.”
Shivers snake across my skin as I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling the cold absence of the gel. The glossy surface of the pool remains unbroken, untouched—as if I had never been there at all.
“What did you see?” he asks.
My gaze slides to his, but my vision isn’t with him. It’s back in the pool, trapped under the three masks looming over me. “The Triarch.”
Above us, the ceiling groans. Dust rains down as the Light’s foundations begin to crack.
“What have you done?” Kael asks, watching motes of stone fall into the dark water.
Something deep inside finds the words for me. Before I can stop them, they release: “What I was born to do.”
Her whisper returns, softer now. Almost tender.
Run, my child. The sun remembers what it buried.