Lyra's pov
It pressed against my skin, poured into my lungs, and wrapped around my heart until I thought it might crush me. There was no sound, no Keal, no Keeper, no shadowed river only the echo of my own breathing. But even that felt wrong, too shallow, too fast.
Somewhere in that suffocating black, the heartbeat returned.
Not mine. Not the one I'd felt in the cavern. This was slower, deeper, and it came from inside the dark itself. Every thud rippled through me, tugging at something buried in my bones. I wanted to step toward it needed to but my legs wouldn't move.
A voice like a memory brushed my ear.
"Decide."
The sound didn't come from ahead or behind, but from everywhere, curling around my thoughts like smoke. I opened my mouth to speak, to say I didn't understand, but the words never formed. Instead, the darkness shivered.
A single thread of light appeared.
It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold. It was… alive. It pulsed, and the pulse matched the heartbeat. I realized then it wasn't just calling to me. It was waiting for me to answer.
I took a step.
The ground beneath me if it was ground gave way like water, but I didn't sink. I drifted forward, toward the thread. And as I moved, shapes began to stir in the dark.
Eyes.
Dozens. Hundreds. Small as a cat's, wide as moons, some glowing faint gold, others a pale, sickly white. They watched in perfect stillness, like predators too patient to pounce.
I forced my voice to work. "Where's Keal?"
Silence.
I hated how small my voice sounded, how afraid I was that no one would answer. Then, from somewhere to my right, a flicker of motion a figure peeling itself from the black.
It was me again.
Not the one from the glass world. This one was worse. Her skin was cracked like burned earth, light seeping through the fractures as if she were a vessel holding back a star. Her eyes weren't gold. They were eclipsed.
"You'll lose him," she said simply.
I swallowed. "Keal?"
"You can't keep him if you stay weak."
My fists clenched. "I'm not weak."
"Then prove it," she said, and the space between us folded in on itself. She was right in front of me, her gaze stripping away the lie I wanted to believe. "Choose the power. Choose me. Or when they come for him, you'll watch him die."
The heartbeat slammed through me again, harder now, making my knees buckle. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. Her voice sank under my skin, threading into places I didn't know existed.
"Every time you've survived, it's because of me," she whispered. "Every time you've stood when you should have fallen it was my fire in your bones."
The black around us began to churn, and I realized it wasn't darkness at all. It was water. Thick, endless, swallowing light the instant it touched. And it was rising.
The eclipsed-eyed version of me didn't move. "Decide, little flame."
The words weren't hers alone. They came from the water, from the hidden eyes watching, from the heartbeat that was no longer just in the air,it was in me.
The water surged to my chest. My breath turned sharp. Somewhere far away, I thought I heard Keal's voice shouting my name, muffled as though through stone.
And in that moment, I saw two paths.
One was blinding, edged with gold, filled with warmth that wasn't gentle it was consuming. Power thrummed in it, promising I would never be helpless again.
The other was cold, shadowed, the heartbeat louder there, steady and unyielding. It whispered of strength too dangerous to name, of debts that could never be unmade.
Neither was safe.
I could feel them pulling at me both of them like tides fighting over the same shore. And somewhere deep inside, the part of me that remembered the fire and the ruin wanted both.
The cracked version of me reached out, her palm open. "You already know."
I hesitated only a breath before taking her hand.
The water exploded upward, swallowing us whole.
And then light.
I was back in the cavern, coughing, gasping like I'd been drowning for hours. Keal was kneeling over me, his face pale, his dagger still in his other hand. His relief was sharp, but so was his fear.
"Lyra," he said, gripping my shoulders. "You stopped breathing again."
I looked past him. The Keeper stood at the river's edge, its golden light flickering, dimmer than I'd ever seen it. The shadow in the water was closer now, its many eyes fixed on me like it had been waiting for what I'd done.
The eclipsed-eyed entity was gone. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was inside me now, like the other version had promised.
My hands shook. Keal saw it. "What happened?"
I opened my mouth, but the truth sat like a stone in my throat. If I told him, I'd see the way he looked at me change. I couldn't risk that. Not yet.
So I lied. "I… just blacked out."
The Keeper's voice cut through the space between us. "No. You chose."
Keal's grip tightened. "Chose what?"
The Keeper's molten gaze never left mine. "We'll see."
The river roared suddenly, black water spilling over the edge of the stone like something was pushing it from below. The ground trembled, the breathing walls exhaling with a sound that made my bones ache.
"Whatever's coming," Keal said, pulling me to my feet, "we're facing it together."
I wished I could believe that.
Because deep in my chest, where the heartbeat had been, there was now another rhythm steady, patient, and entirely not mine.
And it was waiting.