Chapter
Author's POV
For a moment, no one moved.
The golden figure stood as if carved from the light itself, unmoving, unblinking. The Keeper's molten eyes flickered between the shifting entity and Lyra, the bone mask dimming to a muted glow. Even the shadow in the river seemed to pull back not in retreat, but in wariness.
But Lyra… she couldn't look away.
Those eyes, the color of an eclipsed moon, seemed to peel her apart from the inside. They didn't just see her they knew her. Every memory, every fear, every moment she'd hidden from the world unfurled under that gaze.
"Who are you?" she whispered, though her voice felt too small to matter in the cavern.
The thing's form rippled, stretching tall, then folding into something smaller, more human, before it broke shape again. "Names are chains, little flame. Would you bind me so soon after meeting?"
The words were gentle, almost coaxing, but Lyra felt them wrap around her like invisible cords. Keal shifted closer, his dagger angled toward the thing, his stance low, ready.
"She's not yours," Keal said, his voice steady in a way that cost him.
The eclipsed gaze slid to him, slow and deliberate. "And yet she comes to me. Even here. Even now."
"I didn't" Lyra started, but the thing tilted its head in a way that silenced her.
"She carries it," the entity said, almost to itself. "The fracture. The spark. And none of you even understand what burns in your hands."
The Keeper stepped forward, the golden figure's light playing along the molten edges of its gaze. "You shouldn't be here."
"I have been here longer than you've had a name," the thing replied. "I walked these waters before the river learned to run."
The shadow in the river shifted, its voice a low hum. "Then why stir now?"
The eclipsed eyes never left Lyra. "Because the flame woke."
The heartbeat returned faster now, almost frantic and with it came a pressure in the air that made Lyra's skin prickle. She tried to step back, but Keal's hand was suddenly at her arm, steadying her.
"Stay behind me," he murmured.
The golden figure moved at last, stepping between Lyra and the entity. "She is not yours to claim."
"And yet she is claimed," the entity said, its form tightening into something almost solid. "By the river. By the flame. By death itself. Tell me, gold-bearer, which will you choose for her?"
The Keeper's molten eyes narrowed. "We'll choose for ourselves."
The air shuddered. The cavern's breathing grew louder, deeper, as if something beneath the stone was straining to break through.
Lyra's chest ached. She didn't know whether it was the heartbeat's pull or the way the eclipsed gaze seemed to drain the air from her lungs. And somewhere deep in that gaze, she saw something flicker recognition.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked before she could stop herself.
The thing's voice softened, almost fond. "Because I remember the last time you burned the world."
The words slammed into her. She didn't remember burning anything. But the way it said it made her stomach twist, made something deep inside her whisper that it wasn't a lie.
The Keeper stepped forward sharply, breaking whatever spell had started to weave around her. "Enough."
But the entity only smiled or seemed to. "Not yet. She hasn't chosen."
The golden figure's voice was sharp as a blade. "She will not choose you."
The eclipsed eyes gleamed. "She already has."
The river surged suddenly, black water curling upward, pulling frost across the cavern floor. The heartbeat roared, the walls flexing inward until the stone seemed ready to split. And in that chaos, Lyra felt it something inside her responding. Not fear. Not resistance. But an answering call.
Keal saw it too. His grip on her arm tightened. "Lyra"
The golden figure turned to her, voice urgent for the first time. "Whatever you do, don't"
Too late. The eclipsed eyes flared, and the cavern disappeared.
The cold, the water, the light gone.
She stood somewhere else entirely.
And she was alone.
The world she stood in now had no edges.
It was not darkness not the absence of light but a pale, dim place where the air felt thick and still, as if the whole sky had been wrapped in frost. The ground beneath her was smooth, like glass dulled by centuries of cold wind.
Her breath came out in clouds. The sound was too loud.
"Keal?" she called. Her voice was swallowed whole, vanishing almost as soon as it left her lips.
No answer.
She turned in a slow circle. The cavern was gone. The golden figure, the Keeper, the river shadow gone. Even the eclipsed-eyed thing was nowhere in sight. Only the silence and the strange horizon that seemed to shift whenever she tried to focus on it.
Then, faint at first, came the sound.
A slow, deliberate footstep.
She spun toward it and froze.
It was her.
Not a reflection. Not an illusion. Her. Standing only a few paces away, watching with eyes that glowed faintly gold. This other Lyra's hair hung loose, tangled with strands of ash, her skin marked with faint black veins that pulsed like ink in water.
The other Lyra tilted her head. "You still don't remember, do you?"
Lyra's throat was tight. "What are you?"
A faint smile touched the other's lips. "What you will become."
The air thickened. The glass-like ground cracked faintly beneath their feet, though neither moved.
"You burned the world once," the other Lyra said softly. "And you will again. Only this time, you'll decide which world it is."
Lyra shook her head. "I no. I'm not"
"You are," the other interrupted, stepping closer. "Every heartbeat you've felt in the dark? Every pull toward the wrong doors? That's not fate pulling you. That's me. The part of you that never died."
Something inside Lyra lurched, as if her bones recognized the words even if her mind rejected them.
"Why show me this?" she whispered.
The other Lyra's smile deepened sad, almost. "Because the choice is coming sooner than you think."
The pale air around them began to shimmer. Fissures opened in the glass ground, spilling faint light upward. In the cracks, Lyra glimpsed something terrible fire, churning and alive, like it wanted to devour the sky.
"When the eclipsed one calls again," the other Lyra said, "you won't run."
The fissures widened. The ground trembled.
And in an instant, the other Lyra was gone swallowed by the light.
The world tilted, and Lyra fell
straight back into the cavern.
Keal caught her before she hit the stone. His hands were iron around her shoulders, his eyes wide not with relief, but with alarm.
"You were gone," he said, voice low but urgent. "For seconds or minutes I don't know. You weren't breathing."
Lyra struggled to sit, her head spinning. "I… saw her. Me. But not."
The golden figure stood nearby, its light dimmer now. The eclipsed-eyed entity was gone, but the shadow in the river lingered, its gaze unreadable.
The Keeper's molten eyes flicked toward Lyra. "What did she say?"
Lyra hesitated. The words felt dangerous in her mouth, like speaking them might make them true.
"Nothing," she lied.
The Keeper's gaze narrowed, but it said nothing.
Keal pulled her to her feet. "We're leaving. Now."
But the golden figure stepped into his path. "You can't leave. Not yet. The breach has begun."
From deep in the cavern, the breathing walls exhaled long, slow, and full of something that made the stone groan. The sound rose into a low rumble that sent dust raining from the ceiling.
"What breach?" Keal demanded.
The golden figure's hood tilted toward Lyra. "The one she opened."
Lyra's blood went cold. "I didn't"
"You did," the golden figure said. "Even without knowing. That is why the eclipsed one came. That is why it will come again."
The Keeper's molten eyes darkened. "And next time, Alpha, you won't have the choice to keep her."
A tremor ripped through the cavern, strong enough to stagger them all. The river frothed black, and in its depths, the shadow's many eyes opened at once.
"It's already here," the shadow said.
Keal drew his dagger. "Then we fight."
"No," the golden figure murmured. "You choose."
The rumble deepened into a roar. From the far wall, a seam of light split wide, and through it poured the eclipsed-eyed entity its form solid now, its voice a whisper that drowned out all other sound.
"Little flame," it said, "decide."
The cavern went dark.