The carvings blazed with light, casting dancing shadows across the ruined hall. A low hum vibrated through the stones beneath Elara's knees. The pendant still burned cold in her hand, its pulse syncing with her heartbeat.
Tarin stood frozen, eyes wide. "Elara, the walls—"
She looked up. The carvings moved.
The serpent slithered, its tail coiling. The eye blinked once. The girl in the carving raised her burning hands.
Raphael stepped in front of Elara protectively, sword still drawn. "What is this sorcery?"
"Not sorcery," Elara whispered. "A memory... replaying itself."
Then the air cracked again.
From the shadows behind the altar, another figure emerged. But this one wasn't masked. This one wore Elara's face.
Tarin let out a strangled gasp. Raphael's grip on his sword faltered.
The other Elara—older, eyes lined with sorrow, flames wreathing her shoulders—stepped forward. She raised her hand, palm glowing with fire. "You shouldn't be here yet. Not until the tenth gate."
The real Elara rose shakily to her feet. "Who are you? What is this?"
The double gave a sad smile. "I'm what you'll become. If you keep chasing truth through fire and blood."
Before anyone could react, the flames around her surged and consumed her form, leaving nothing but ashes on the stone floor.
Raphael moved forward, but Elara grabbed his arm. "No. It was a vision. Not real. A warning."
Tarin stumbled back. "I don't like this. None of this. What tenth gate? What does it mean?"
Elara turned to him, eyes blazing. "It means we've only seen the beginning."
Suddenly, a deep rumble echoed through the keep. The dais cracked. The altar split open, revealing a spiral staircase descending beneath the keep.
Raphael looked at Elara. "Do we go down?"
"We have to. If that thing was protecting this... then whatever's below is worse. Or more important."
They descended in silence, the air growing colder with each step.
The stairway opened into a vast underground chamber. Crystal pillars jutted from the earth, glowing faintly. At the center was a massive stone door carved with the same sigils as Elara's pendant.
"Another lock," Raphael muttered.
But before Elara could step forward, a voice echoed through the chamber.
"You bring the flame... but not the chain."
A pale woman stepped from behind a crystal pillar. Her eyes were solid black, and veins of silver traced her skin.
"Who are you?" Elara demanded.
"I am the Warden of the Gate," the woman said calmly. "And you, Elara of the Ash Line, are incomplete."
Tarin clutched Elara's sleeve. "She knows your bloodline."
"What chain?" Raphael asked.
The Warden pointed at Elara's pendant. "There were once two. One to unlock memory. One to bind it. Without the chain, the flame consumes. You will burn before you understand."
Elara's mind reeled. She remembered the masked figure's pendant—it was the twin. The chain.
"He has it," she whispered. "That's why he's been ahead of us. He's not just hunting us—he's preparing something."
The Warden gave a slight nod. "When fire is unbound, it destroys. When it is chained, it becomes a weapon. You must find the chain before the masked one does."
The chamber trembled.
The stone door began to open slightly, reacting to the pendant.
The Warden's voice turned grave. "Go. But know this—every answer has a cost. And not all memories wish to be found."
They fled the chamber as the ceiling cracked above them.
Outside, dawn was breaking again.
But Elara knew the light was only temporary. Somewhere, someone else now knew she had the flame.
And they were coming for her.
The wind outside the keep had changed. It howled through the broken towers like a warning, carrying whispers that only Elara could hear.
Raphael caught her staggering. "You alright?"
She nodded faintly, but her vision swam. The pendant pulsed like a heartbeat in her hand, and for a moment, she thought she saw fire flickering in the corners of her eyes.
Then, a scream—sharp, inhuman—echoed from the forest behind them.
Tarin spun. "What was that?"
A shadow burst from the treeline.
No, not one—three.
Creatures of twisted bone and smoke surged toward them, their eyes glowing with violet light. They moved with unnatural speed, crawling and leaping like wolves born from nightmares.
"Run!" Elara shouted, pulling Tarin with her.
Raphael didn't need to be told. He drew his blade and slashed the nearest creature, but it barely slowed. Its form split and re-formed mid-air like smoke tethered by magic.
"They're not real," he growled, "they're bound shades."
"Sent by him," Elara breathed. "He knows we were here."
The trio fled down the ridge, ducking beneath fallen trees and broken stone. But the creatures followed relentlessly, weaving through the mist as if the forest itself bent to their will.
They reached a narrow crevice between two cliffs—the only passage to safety.
"Get through!" Raphael barked.
Elara and Tarin squeezed into the gap just as a creature lunged. Raphael turned at the last second and stabbed upward. A burst of white light exploded from his blade—runic fire—dispersing the creature in a flash of sparks.
But it wasn't over.
As they emerged on the other side, panting, Elara felt something cold clamp around her wrist.
She looked down.
A second pendant.
Its chain—black and jagged—had wrapped around her wrist of its own will. It hadn't been there moments ago. Tarin and Raphael looked on in shock as it pulsed darkly, opposite the warm flame of her original pendant.
"The chain," she whispered. "But—how?"
And then, a voice echoed inside her head.
You carry both now, flame and chain. But balance is illusion. One will always consume the other.
She doubled over as visions exploded behind her eyes—cities burning, a throne of ash, her own hand raised in power... and the world below her feet, begging for mercy.
When she came to, she was on the forest floor, sweat-soaked, eyes glowing faintly.
Raphael knelt beside her, shaking her. "Elara! Are you with us?"
Tarin was pale. "You were... you weren't breathing."
She sat up slowly, hand still wrapped in the new chain.
"I saw... the end. My end. I think this is what he's trying to cause—me, breaking the world."
She clenched her jaw, rising to her feet. "But I won't let him write my future. We'll find the tenth gate. And we'll finish this before he gets the last piece."
"But how do we even find it?" Tarin asked. "We don't even know where to look."
Elara turned, eyes scanning the dark woods as dawn faded behind them.
Then her eyes caught something glinting faintly in the sky—an eclipse, but wrong. A halo of dark fire surrounded the sun for a split second, and a single symbol appeared in the sky.
A serpent. Twisted in on itself. Devouring its tail.
She narrowed her eyes.
"We follow that. The eclipse was the first mark. The next gate lies where the serpent eats the flame."
Tarin blinked. "What does that even mean?"
Raphael sheathed his blade. "It means we don't stop running. And we don't stop fighting. Not until we know who—or what—is behind this."
Elara turned, both pendants glowing now.
"The chains are waking. And the war of memory is beginning."