The speaker gave no further instructions, only a gesture toward a narrow stair carved into the side of the bridge. The hooded stranger didn't follow.
The steps wound downward into a cavern where the green veins glowed brighter, casting light across a shallow pool at the base. The water's surface was still, dark as obsidian.
I caught my reflection there.
Hollow eyes stared back—darker than I remembered. My hair, once sunlit gold, had dulled to tarnished bronze, uneven where I'd cut it with a dull blade. Scar tissue traced my jawline, pale against the shadow of a beard that had grown without care. My mouth was a straight line, carved by the weight of too many choices I couldn't undo.
The boy who'd laughed in sunlit courtyards was gone. This face belonged to someone colder, sharper—a man who moved only with purpose, because to waste a step was to waste blood.
The water rippled. My reflection twisted, features stretching into something wrong—teeth where eyes should be, eyes where my mouth had been. The Nameless God's whisper rippled through my mind.
I like you better this way.
I stood, ignoring the distorted image as it returned to stillness.
The stair led onward, into a tunnel where the veins thickened and the air grew heavy with the smell of wet earth. The sound of my own footsteps became muffled, as though the stone itself was swallowing them.
Soon, I found the first sign of life—or what passed for it.
A wall of roots blocked the passage, thick and slick with moisture, pulsing faintly in time with some unseen heartbeat. As I approached, the smaller roots recoiled slightly, as though sensing me. The larger ones didn't move.
"It breathes," the Nameless God murmured. And it hungers.
I pressed forward, pushing between two of the thicker cords. A sticky warmth coated my hands.
Beyond the roots, the tunnel opened into a vast hollow chamber. The walls were webbed with green-lit veins, and in the center stood a mound of something between stone and flesh. It rose and fell with slow breaths, each exhalation releasing a faint hiss into the air.
That's when I saw them.
Bodies.
Half-buried in the mound, their skin pale and stretched, their mouths open in silent screams. Their eyes moved—darting toward me—but their heads couldn't turn.
The Nameless God spoke again, but its voice was quieter now. The Speaker sent you to kill this. The city fears it because it will not serve.
As if sensing our attention, the mound stirred. A slit tore open along its side, revealing a vertical maw lined with translucent teeth, each the length of my forearm. Inside, something shifted—the shadow of a limb, twitching in anticipation.
I reached for my blade.
The ground lurched. Roots erupted from the floor, wrapping around my legs before I could move. The nearest body's eyes widened further, as though trying to warn me.
From deep inside the mound, a sound began—low at first, then rising into a deafening roar. The roots tightened, pulling me closer.
The Nameless God didn't laugh this time. It whispered only one word: Run.