The night air felt thick, humming with a strange electricity as the crimson moon hung low over the ancient ruins of Ardoria. The temple stones, worn smooth by time, shimmered under the red light, their surfaces etched with runes that pulsed faintly—like the heartbeat of something long asleep. Something waiting.
Lyra stepped cautiously onto the cracked courtyard, her boots scraping against ancient tiles as if disturbing centuries of silence. A cold wind curled around her, tugging at her cloak and whispering secrets she couldn't quite catch.
"I don't like this," Kael muttered behind her, his voice low and strained. "This place… it's wrong."
"It's familiar," Lyra whispered, surprising herself. Her fingers grazed one of the glowing runes, and the world shifted—just slightly. A scent of burning sage. A flicker of laughter in the wind. The phantom echo of a voice—her voice—chanting words in a language she didn't recognize, yet knew by heart.
Kael reached for her arm. "You're trembling."
"I've been here before," she said softly, her eyes distant. "Not in this life, but… somewhere, sometime. This was a sanctuary once."
The words came unbidden, flowing from her mouth like the recitation of an old lullaby.
Kael looked at her sharply, as if seeing her differently for the first time. "You're remembering more."
"Not memories. Impressions. Like footprints in the fog."
They continued into the temple, the main hall lit only by the eerie glow of the moon above and the faint blue shimmer of spiritflies clinging to the stone pillars. Symbols carved into the walls shifted as they passed—rearranging, reacting. Lyra noticed them out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to look, they stilled.
"What is this place really?" Kael asked, running his fingers over a symbol that looked like a half-sun being devoured by darkness.
"I think…" Lyra hesitated. "I think it was once a crossing point."
"A portal?"
"No," she said. "Something older. Something more dangerous."
From deeper within the temple, a sound echoed—a voice chanting softly, rhythmic and ancient, rising and falling like waves. It wasn't threatening, but neither was it comforting. It was… inviting.
They pressed on.
Eventually, they reached a chamber where the ceiling had collapsed in part, revealing a perfect circle of red moonlight above. At the center of the room stood a dais with seven steps leading to an altar. Upon it rested a single object: a crystal sphere, black as obsidian but with veins of molten light running through it like lightning frozen in glass.
Lyra's breath caught. Her fingers tingled. "That's it. That's what's calling to me."
"Don't," Kael said immediately, stepping in front of her. "We don't know what it is."
She looked at him. "You think I don't feel the danger? I do. But I also know it's part of the answer. My answer."
The sphere pulsed, reacting to her presence. Shadows stirred in the corners of the room, subtle at first, then rising like smoke from cracks in the floor. Kael drew his blade.
"Something's coming."
Lyra stepped past him before he could stop her and approached the altar. Her mind swam with fragments—faces she didn't know, languages she'd never heard, wars that hadn't yet happened. She placed her hand gently atop the sphere.
It burned cold.
A scream pierced her mind, but it wasn't her own. It was familiar yet distant. The scream of the girl in her dreams.
Suddenly, her vision was wrenched from her body. She stood—not in the ruined temple—but in a hall of mirrors. Infinite reflections stretched in every direction. In each, a different version of herself.
One bore white hair and eyes like storm clouds. Another was cloaked in flame. Another held a staff of bone. And another—eyes completely black—stood with her arms soaked in blood.
Each version turned to look at her.
A voice—her voice, yet not—spoke.
"Choose your truth, and bear its cost."
A mirror shattered. Then another. And another. Until she was falling—plummeting through a void of memory and prophecy and fate.
And then she was back.
Kael was shouting her name. He was battling shadows that had taken form—humanoid, eyeless, mouthless, shifting like ink.
"Lyra! Snap out of it!"
She stood slowly, her eyes now glowing faint gold. She raised her hand—and without knowing how, summoned a pulse of energy that blasted the shadows back like leaves before a storm. The entire chamber trembled.
Kael turned to her, breathless. "What did you do?"
"I remembered," she said. "A fragment, at least."
The shadows hissed and reformed, advancing again.
"We can't fight all of them," Kael growled. "Not here."
"I can hold them," Lyra said. "But not for long."
Kael grabbed her hand. "Then we run. Now."
They sprinted from the chamber as the shadows screamed behind them. The temple groaned with ancient fury, the walls cracking, the runes bleeding light. As they reached the outer courtyard, a figure emerged from the trees.
Tall. Robed in silver. Face hidden behind a mask carved like a wolf's skull.
"Who the hell—?" Kael raised his blade.
The figure didn't move. Instead, he spoke in a clear, commanding voice. "The girl must come with me."
"Over my dead—"
"Kael," Lyra said, stepping forward. "Wait."
Something in her soul trembled.
She knew that voice.
From a dream.
From a life before.
"You're… him," she whispered.
The figure inclined his head. "You're beginning to understand."
"What do you want from her?" Kael demanded.
"I don't want," the figure said calmly. "I protect."
He turned and began walking toward the forest, stopping only once.
"If you value her life—and your own—follow me. The Order has found your scent. They will not stop until she is erased."
And then he vanished into the shadows.
Kael looked at Lyra, torn between disbelief and fury. "You're not seriously thinking of following that skull-faced lunatic, are you?"
"We don't have a choice," she said. "He's right. Something's coming. And we need answers."
She turned and ran after the stranger, the sphere's echo still humming in her bones.
Kael hesitated only a moment before cursing under his breath and following her.
Above them, the crimson moon dimmed ever so slightly—its hunger momentarily sated.
But not for long.