Lyra's POV
The heartbeat inside me didn't fade when I moved. It adjusted matching my steps, syncing with my breath, as if it were learning me.
Keal's grip was firm, his knuckles white, but his gaze kept drifting toward the river. The water wasn't still anymore it rose and fell in slow, unnatural pulses, as though it were breathing with us.
The Keeper stood at the edge, its golden light dim and flickering like a dying lantern.
"Why is it darker?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Keal's jaw flexed. "It's not the light that's fading."
The Keeper's voice rolled through the cavern like a low tide. "The walls are thinning."
The breath caught in my throat. "What does that mean?"
The Keeper didn't answer. It only turned its head toward the far side of the cavern.
That was when I saw it an archway where moments ago there had been only smooth stone. The edges were wrong, glistening wet and shifting as if they were made from something alive. Every so often, the arch shuddered like something was pressing from the other side.
And then I heard it.
At first it was faint, like the echo of rain on glass. But it grew clearer with every thud of that foreign heartbeat in my chest. The melody bent in ways no human voice should, sliding between notes like water slipping through fingers.
I didn't know the language, but I knew exactly what it was saying.
It was calling my name.
The Keeper's mask flared a brief, painful gold. "It has found her."
Keal stepped forward, his blade already raised. "What has?"
The singing stopped.
The breathing walls fell silent.
And then it stepped through.
It wasn't darkness this time. It was… reflection. Its body was made of shifting mirror-shards, each one showing a scene that wasn't here burning seas, towers swallowed by shadow, faces screaming in silence. Its head was too narrow, its eyes set wide apart, each a whirl of silver mist.
When it spoke, the sound was both a whisper and a thunderclap.
"Little Flame. You carry the pulse of the Drowned King."
Keal's dagger flashed, but the thing didn't spare him a glance. Its eyes if they were eyes were locked on me.
"You've crossed his waters," it continued, "and now you owe the tide."
My voice was rough. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Its mirrors shifted, forming the faint curve of a smile. "You will."
Without warning, the stone beneath Keal's feet split. Black water surged upward, wrapping around his legs like living chains. He grunted, slashing with his dagger, but the blade sliced through nothing but cold mist.
I moved toward him, but the creature was suddenly in front of me. Its jagged hand gripped my wrist, cold as winter glass.
The heartbeat in my chest thundered.
The mirrored creature froze.
Its eyes spun faster, the scenes inside them melting into pure light. "Ah," it breathed, almost reverent. "He wakes."
And then it let me go.
It stepped backward into the archway, and the breathing walls folded over it, sealing shut.
Keal fell to his knees as the black water melted back into the ground, gasping for breath. "Lyra," he said between coughs, "what in the hells was that?"
I didn't answer.
Because I knew it wasn't talking to me when it said He wakes.
It was talking to the thing inside my chest.
And now, the heartbeat was no longer patient.
It was counting down.
Author pov
By the time they reached the surface, the night air felt too thin, too brittle to hold them. The forest stood silent, branches motionless in the windless dark. Keal's hand never left the small of her back as if afraid she might slip away.
They didn't speak for a long time. The cavern's echoes still clung to them, and between them walked a truth neither dared touch.
When they finally stopped, it was by the half-broken walls of an abandoned watchtower. Moonlight spilled through the cracks, pooling silver on the mossy stone.
Lyra leaned against the wall, closing her eyes, breathing in the cooler air. Her pulse no, its pulse kept whispering through her veins, and with it came the memory of the cracked, eclipsed-eyed version of herself.
Keal stood across from her, watching like he could see something she was hiding.
"You're not telling me everything," he said quietly.
Her gaze slid to the ground. "You wouldn't believe me."
He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the faint warmth radiating from him. "Try me."
She should have pushed him away, kept the space safe between them. But the night, the silence, the way his voice lowered when he was serious it made her want to lean in instead.
Her heart, the other heartbeat thudded once, hard, as if warning her.
And yet, when Keal reached up and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, she didn't move. His fingers lingered for just a breath too long, his eyes searching hers.
"Whatever's coming," he murmured, "I'm not letting it take you."
The words wrapped around her like a promise and a lie all at once. Because deep down, Lyra knew when the thing inside her finally woke, Keal might be the first thing it took.
Far above them, unseen in the black sky, something vast and silver moved between the stars, turning its gaze toward the forest below.
And the countdown went on.?