The frost-laced breach was a mouth swallowing the sanctuary.
Shadowborn poured through in disciplined lines—no screams, no battle cries, just the relentless press of a tide that didn't care what it drowned.
Aerin's axe came up in a silver arc, the edge slicing clean through the first warrior that crossed the threshold. It collapsed without a sound, dissolving into drifting black smoke.
Jayden didn't have time to watch the rest. The survivors were already fleeing through the narrow side passage, their faces pale with the same fear in his own chest.
The masked figure stepped through the breach without disturbing a single curl of frost. The shattered wardlight still glimmered faintly on their cloak, but their mask was unchanged—smooth, dark, unreadable.
Every step they took made Jayden's silver flame thrash inside him like it was trying to get free.
If you open the door, I will fight them.
The voice in his head was steady now. Close. It felt like standing next to himself in the dark, but the shape there wasn't human.
A door to what?
To me.
Aerin shoved him into the side corridor. "Move, Jayden!"
The hallway beyond was low-ceilinged, stone walls slick with the same condensation that clung to the vault level. Behind them, the guards were still buying seconds with their lives.
The sound of it—the quiet of it—was worse than screaming. Steel meeting steel, then a dull thump as something hit the floor and stayed there.
Jayden ran. His boots slid on the damp stone, but the green-bound sword stayed firm in his hand.
The voice followed him.
You can feel how close they are. You know you can't outrun them.
A blast of cold hit the corridor, frosting the walls in an instant. The survivors stumbled, gasping at the sudden burn in their lungs.
Jayden looked back.
The masked figure had stepped into the hall.
They didn't run. They didn't need to.
The frost raced ahead of them like water seeking low ground, creeping over the floor toward Jayden's boots.
Aerin cursed and flung her torch forward. It burst into brilliant silver light, forcing the frost back a few steps.
"You're not touching him," she said, voice ragged but steady.
The masked figure tilted their head. "You think you're his shield. You're his cage."
The voice inside him surged.
She will die here. They all will. Let me out and I can stop this.
Jayden's breath came fast. His flame burned higher—and the black threads inside it coiled tighter, wrapping like vines around his ribs.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The part they're hunting. The part you've always felt but never named.
Shadowborn.
The survivors reached a turning, vanishing into the lower vault stairs. Aerin held her ground in the corridor, backing toward the bend, forcing the masked figure to keep their distance.
Jayden stayed with her—he couldn't make himself leave.
The masked figure stopped just outside the torchlight.
"Second Heart," they said softly, "you cannot burn forever without me."
The ice at their feet cracked once—then surged forward like a living thing. It hit the torchlight, sizzled, and pushed again.
Jayden could feel the wards overhead failing in quick, sharp bursts. The sound wasn't distant anymore—it was inside the keep walls.
Choose now, the voice inside him pressed. If I fight, they will not pass this hall. If you refuse, we both fall here.
Jayden's fingers tightened on the sword hilt. The hum in the steel was deafening now, like it was waiting for the answer too.
He looked at Aerin—at the defiance in her eyes, the exhaustion at the edges of it. At the way her stance dipped just slightly from the cold.
He looked at the masked figure, patient, confident, certain he would open that door.
The ice hit Aerin's boots, creeping up her shins.
Jayden's choice came out in a single breath.
"Fine."
The green-bound sword flared white—and then black—at the same time. The hum became a roar.
Somewhere deep inside, a lock turned.
The corridor split in two.
Not physically—the walls stayed solid—but the air itself seemed to shear apart. On one side stood Jayden and the masked figure. On the other, something else stepped into him, or maybe out of him.
It wore his shape, but its silver flame was black at the edges, and its eyes burned the same white fire as the Shadowborn warriors.
It smiled at the masked figure.
"Let's see," it said, "which one of us deserves the Heart."