Kael kept walking even though his legs were aching. The tunnel ahead was narrow again, barely enough space to move without scraping his shoulder on the cold, wet rock. The air was heavy, thick with the smell of earth and something faintly metallic. Every sound — his breathing, the drip of water, the shuffle of his boots — echoed too loudly.
He hated that silence between echoes. It felt alive, like something was waiting to breathe when he did not.
After what felt like hours, the tunnel widened. Kael stepped into an open space that made him stop for a moment. The ceiling arched high, shining faintly as if someone had scattered bits of light across the stone. In the middle of the cavern was a still pool, so still it looked like glass.
He moved closer. The water gave off a strange glow, pale blue, like the color of the ring when it had first burned his skin. He leaned over it carefully, half expecting to see his reflection, half expecting something worse.
What he saw was neither.
A shape formed in the water — not clear, but there. Towers, soldiers, a woman standing before them all. Her hair blew in the wind that he could not feel. And her eyes... they were golden, bright enough to hurt if he looked too long. That same blue light burned around her hand.
Kael's throat went dry. He whispered, "Who are you?"
The image moved, blurred, and then her voice filled the air, soft and steady, though her lips barely parted.The world forgets, Kael. But memory does not.
His heart jumped. "What does that even mean? Why are you showing me this?"
No one chooses what is left behind. But you can choose what to do with it.
Kael took a shaky step back. "I never asked for this," he said, louder now. "I never wanted your power or your memories or any of this madness."
The glow faded slowly, and the water went quiet again, showing only his face — pale, sweating, angry, and tired. The silence pressed down heavier than before.
He stayed like that for a long time, maybe minutes, maybe longer. He could not tell anymore.
When he finally turned away, the light from his hand caught something on the walls — old scratches, broken stone, marks left by someone in a hurry. The kind of signs people make when they are scared. Kael's chest tightened. Maybe he was not the first one to find this place.
He walked again, following the faint sound of running water. The noise grew stronger, more real with every step. Soon he reached a stream — narrow, but bright with that same blue light flowing through it. The glow moved with the current, alive and strange, almost beautiful.
He knelt, dipped his hand in. The cold stung him awake. The light spread across his fingers, faint but warm under the skin, then faded again.
He looked down the tunnel, where the river kept going into the dark. Something deep inside told him that was the way forward. That whatever waited ahead — truth or nightmare — was calling him.
He let out a long breath and said quietly, "Then let us see where this ends."
The ring pulsed once, slow and steady, like a heartbeat that was not his.And Kael followed the river into the dark.