Kael #2
“Your people didn’t seem eager to help when they saw you in chains.” I bite.
“They’re scared! Of course they won’t help when they know what is waiting for them when they do.”
“Disparage my people, and I will do the same for yours.”
“You would still defend your precious gods?” she asks, her voice warbling the tears streaming down the stone walls. “After what you heard Calis admit in front of you?”
I say nothing.
“You haven’t felt the tide of desperation from people you call your own. I will tear the lies out by their roots. I will restore the balance.”
The words sink deeper than any blade. I should argue. I should remind her what the Light stands for—but a part of me doesn’t seem to know anymore.
We sit until the cave forgets the sun ever existed.
Our breaths turning slower, quieter in the confined space until I’m almost asleep.
Then, she stands. Shadows slide up her calves like a living soul, settling around her shoulders.
For a heartbeat, she looks softer—like someone easing out of armour—but then the violet light in her eyes hardens, and the softness is gone.
“Where are you going?” I ask before she can walk away. The question tastes of guilt.
She tilts her head, a small, barbed smile lining her features. “Why should I stay with someone who thinks their gods are saviours? Why are you even here, Kael?”
Because I’m the only one who cares for the truth. Because I owe my people answers. Because, I have no idea myself, only that the voice tells me.
None of that comes out. Instead, I simply tighten my grip on the miren crystal in my pocket, grasping the last shred of my faith.
She kneels so close I can see the salt drying on her lashes. Her shadows rearrange themselves into a faint cage around her knees, as if they too, are listening for the voice that walks inside her.
“You saw the war,” I say quietly. “You saw the truth, and—”
She doesn’t let me finish. “And you?” The corner of her mouth lifts into a snarl. “What did you see in there, Kael? Aside from the shrine’s pretty lights?”
I want to tell her everything—the whisper that crawled into my skull, the promise to burn the darkness out of me if I helped her, the needle of fear that set my bones humming.
Instead, I say, “I saw enough.”
“You saw nothing but a girl surrounded by lies, walking into a pool only to emerge with the truth.”
“You want vengeance,” I say, seeing the truth through her words.
She nods. “I want balance.”
“As do I. And that is why I am here. Show me your truth, and I will shout it to my people until the world begins to right itself.”
The lines around her eyes ease, her jaw softening at the solidity of our allegiance. Though her body is here, her mind is somewhere else, wrapped in a silent conversation.
“Seren?”
Her gaze shifts back to me as she closes the space between us. Noses almost touching, her palm lands on my chest, pressing against the pocket of my tunic. My breath breaks, an electric charge coursing through me. My heart hammers against those fingers of bone as I force my gaze away from her mouth.
Her palm moves slowly, tracing the muscle beneath the fabric, until she finds what she is looking for. She digs into the pocket, pulling the object out before retreating toward the wall. My lungs unlock, the sudden exhale cutting through the static humming between us.
“You carry their token,” she says to the coin, her fingers tracing the smooth edges.
“It was given to me long ago.”
She studies it, the metal catching the orange glow from my palm. “I’ve seen this before—in another lifetime.” Her voice turns hollow, echoing from a different era as the coin twirls in her fingers with an unnerving, clockwork precision. “A time when it was used to open other hidden doors.”
“I—I didn’t know,” I mutter. My mind flashes to Cato—my mentor, the only other shadow-scholar I’ve ever known. He had pressed it into my hand with no instructions, only the weight of a tradition passed down to those of us who study the dark.
Then she does what no one in memory has ever dared: she stands, her hands tracing a specific area of stone as if by memory. She presses the coin into a gap in the wall’s runes. The metal hisses—a thing waking from a long sleep—and a hairline fracture illuminates in the stone.
A draft of stale air pushes through the crack carrying the scent of coal, iron, and rain on hot earth.
“Paths,” she whispers. “They always leave a seam.”
“But—how?”
Silence.
The seam widens just enough for a pair of shoulders. Beyond, a narrower gallery yawns, pitching steeply downhill. The sound rising from the depths is older than the city—the low rumble of a distant tide, or the vibration of a long-buried bell.
Seren looks at me then. Not as a goddess, and not as a girl, but as a companion on a terrible road. “You wanted to go where the truth resides. Here’s your chance.”
My wrist flares, the mark convulsing beneath the surface as if the shadows are trying to claw their way out of my veins. For a heartbeat, I imagine the sweetness of being unburdened—a world where truth and balance finally meet.
I rise and step into the seam. Behind us, there is a small, final clink on the ground. The stone closes with the softness of forgotten pages turning.