Author's POV
Down in the black chamber where the river had abandoned her, Lyra could hear the absence of sound not silence, but the waiting kind. Every breath she took echoed faintly against the wet stone, as though the cavern itself was taking note.
The many-eyed creature crouched nearby, its gaze a map of silver pinpoints. But its attention shifted suddenly, every headless tilt of its form sharpening toward the far end of the chamber.
It wasn't alone anymore.
From the shadows beyond the water's edge, something else moved.
At first, it was only a suggestion a darker shape against the dark, fluid and slow. Then came the sound, low and resonant, like thunder rumbling deep beneath the earth. It rolled through the stone and into Lyra's bones until her skin prickled and her heart stuttered.
The many-eyed creature straightened, its voice lower now, wary. "You shouldn't be here."
The newcomer ignored it.
It stepped into the faint silver glow, and Lyra's breath caught. The being was tall taller than Keal, broader at the shoulders, its body wrapped in a shifting mantle of shadow that clung like smoke and peeled away like mist. Where its face should have been was a mask of bone, white and polished smooth, with cracks spiderwebbing from the hollow eye sockets.
And inside those sockets burned a steady, molten gold light.
The many-eyed one moved subtly between Lyra and the newcomer, limbs unfolding like a defensive web. "Keeper of the Below," it said, and Lyra heard respect and irritation mixed in its tone. "She is not yours."
The masked being's voice was unlike any Lyra had ever heard not one voice, but many, layered together, whispering and roaring at the same time.
"All that falls is mine."
Lyra swallowed, her throat dry despite the damp air. The gold eyes fixed on her, and for an instant she felt herself stripped bare not just her skin, but the marrow of her bones, the thoughts she hadn't spoken, the memories she didn't dare revisit.
The Keeper stepped closer. The stone seemed to darken under its feet. "Moonblood," it said, and the word was heavy, ancient, as though it had been spoken by countless mouths before. "You have crossed into my depth. You will answer for it."
The many-eyed creature hissed. "She was chosen by the river."
"The river chooses," the Keeper agreed, tilting its bone mask slightly, "but it does not command me."
Above them, far beyond the stone and black water, Keal stood at the edge of the ravine, the taste of blood in his mouth and the sound of the river calling to him like a curse. He didn't know what waited below.
But he knew Lyra was down there.
And he would jump.
Keal stood at the edge of the ravine, the wind clawing at his coat, the roar of the river below like a thousand voices urging him to turn back. His wolves paced in the treeline behind him, uneasy. Not afraid wolves don't fear much but they could feel the shift in the air. The scent. The warning.
Lyra was down there.
The thought beat against his ribs harder than his pulse. Every instinct screamed for caution, for strategy, for waiting until the odds were his. But instinct lost when it came to her.
He jumped.
The drop was longer than it should have been, and colder. The river caught him like a living thing, dragging him down into its gut. His lungs burned. Shapes moved in the dark water too fast, too smooth to be fish. Something brushed against his leg, and a cold like winter's teeth sank into his skin.
Then the river spat him out into the cavern.
He landed hard on slick stone, coughing, blinking the water from his eyes. The first thing he saw was Lyra pale in the silver gloom, eyes wide and between them, the creature of many eyes, its gaze darting like watchfires in the dark.
And then… the other.
Keal's breath slowed, then stopped entirely.
The thing with the bone mask stood as though it had been waiting centuries for him to arrive. Its molten eyes pinned him in place. In them, Keal saw things he couldn't name his mother's voice calling him home, the first kill he ever made, the night he had been marked under the blood moon.
He knew this was no spirit, no common beast. This was a Keeper. One of the old ones. The kind even his ancestors had spoken of in half-voices by dying fires.
The Keeper tilted its head. "Alpha." The word was spoken like an accusation. "Your line has wandered far from its oath."
Keal took a step forward, teeth bared despite the weight in his chest. "And yours has crawled too far from its hole."
The cavern trembled. Not from his voice from the Keeper's laughter. It was like hearing ice break on a lake in winter, beautiful and fatal all at once.
"You came for her," the Keeper said. "Good. Now you will both stay."
The many-eyed creature bristled. "She is mine to guard."
The Keeper's gold eyes turned briefly toward it. "Not anymore."
Keal's muscles coiled, ready to lunge not just for Lyra, but for the thing that thought it could take her.
That was when the river behind him began to rise.
Not the water the shadow in it.
Something older than the Keeper was coming up through the dark.