Chapter 57 – The Gate of Bleeding Stone
The doors of the temple stood open like a wound, bleeding whispers into the dead air. The eight heirs paused at the threshold of Shav'Alin's heart, a cold wind curling around their boots like fingers trying to drag them back. The sky above had faded to a sickly grey-green, and the mist at the edges of the Hollow Vale moved as if it breathed.
Tom stepped forward first. The stone beneath his boots was damp and blackened, as if it had once burned and never cooled. He looked back at the others. "No turning back."
The air inside the temple was heavier than the world outside. Not in temperature, but in presence. Each step forward was like walking into a memory that didn't belong to them. The walls pulsed faintly with glyphs they didn't recognize—etched in bloodstone, carved by hands that hadn't existed for centuries. They slithered, ever so slightly, as though watching.
Peter placed a hand on one glyph. He flinched. "These aren't glyphs. They're alive."
"Or pretending to be," Marcus muttered, shield at the ready.
The corridor widened into a vast chamber. The floor dipped slightly, like a crater, and at the center stood a monolithic gate—twenty feet high, shaped like jagged wings folded inward. It was carved from the same black stone, but slick as though wet with some unseen ichor. The walls around it were layered in thick roots and chains, both pulsing with a slow heartbeat.
Frank narrowed his eyes. "Obruhn is behind that. I can feel it."
Kitty took a step closer, her wings twitching uneasily. "So why is it still sealed?"
Zane pointed at the center of the gate. A large glyph—unlike any they'd seen—throbbed with a faint purple light. Around it, eight smaller glyph slots were carved, each one empty.
"It needs a key," Peter said.
"It needs us," Lucy corrected. "Our glyphs."
The moment she said it, each of their arms glowed. Their personal glyphs shone brighter than ever before. One by one, they approached the gate. As each heir held their palm to a slot, their glyph flowed from their skin into the stone, locking in like a puzzle piece. The more glyphs entered, the more the gate pulsed.
But as Frank approached, something twisted.
The moment his glyph touched the final slot, the chamber screamed.
A sound exploded through the stone—not loud, but violent. The chains on the gate snapped upward like they were alive. The ground shook. The walls flickered between stone and visions: cities burning, skies bleeding, monstrous shapes devouring light.
"It was waiting for us," Tom growled, drawing his blade.
From behind the gate, something roared.
The center split. Slowly. Stone grinding against stone as the gate peeled back. But instead of opening outward, it seemed to open inward—into a place that didn't follow the rules of the world. They saw a hall that curved downward into a spiral, endless and starless. And above it all, the outline of something massive stirred in the shadows.
Obruhn had not just slept.
He had dreamed.
Peter stumbled back. "We shouldn't be here. We really shouldn't be here."
"But we are," Kitty said, eyes fixed forward. "And we have to finish it."
Frank stared into the darkness, heart thundering. He felt it—the ancient fire within him, reacting violently. Obruhn was not just some corrupted relic. He was a mind. A presence. A will that refused to die. And he was awake.
Zane moved first, descending into the spiral.
The others followed in silence.
With every step downward, the air changed. Reality blurred. Their bodies felt heavier, as if gravity itself was being pulled toward something deeper. The spiral was carved from obsidian, but veins of pulsing energy ran through it like molten nerves.
And along the walls, visions.
Each of them saw something different. Peter saw his village collapsing under shadow, his younger self screaming through smoke. Lucy saw her mother reaching for her before being consumed by light. Marcus saw the moment he was nearly crushed under rubble during their first battle. Kitty saw herself alone, wings torn, bleeding into an endless sky.
None of them spoke.
Obruhn was testing them. Digging. Twisting their minds.
When they finally reached the base, the spiral opened into a colossal chamber, empty but for a circular altar, and behind it—a coffin. Floating. Bound in twelve chains of light and darkness, spinning slowly like a suspended sun.
Frank whispered, "That's not a tomb. That's a prison."
Tom stepped forward, blades ready. "Then why do I feel like it's already open?"
As they formed a circle around the altar, a voice filled the chamber. Not sound. A thought.
"Eight heirs. Eight sparks. So many lights to snuff."
The chains began to unravel.