---
The Sanctum of Aurelion breathed with silence. Dust drifted through shafts of dying light, turning the air to gold. Beneath the domed ceiling, the relics of an age no one remembered lay shrouded in cobwebs — tablets carved in celestial script, broken glass reliquaries, tomes whose bindings pulsed faintly as though still alive.
Elaris De'Ardentis traced her gloved fingers along the nearest shelf, her touch leaving thin lines in the dust. The books here were older than kingdoms. She could hear them whisper — faint murmurs, half-formed words bleeding from the ink of forgotten gods.
"The dust remembers," she murmured to herself. "Even when heaven forgets."
Her lantern's flame shivered as if the air itself drew breath. Elaris adjusted the strap of her satchel, heavy with parchment and quills, and continued deeper. Every corridor in the Sanctum looked the same — endless, circular, steeped in the scent of time and metal. She had walked these halls for years and still felt like an intruder.
They said the Sanctum had been built over the ruins of the First Dawn, where angels bled light and demons wept shadow. Elaris had never seen an angel. But sometimes, when the air throbbed faintly around the runes, she imagined she could still hear their hearts beating beneath the marble.
A whisper rippled through the air — not of books this time, but of something else.
"Archivist…"
The voice was a soft hum, deep as water, untraceable. It slid beneath her skin like ice.
Elaris froze. "Who's there?"
Only silence answered. Yet her lamp flickered again — this time bending toward a sealed archway carved with divine sigils. The stone pulsed faintly, reacting to something unseen.
Her heart began to pound. That door hadn't stirred in centuries. Not even Lady Thalindra's spells could awaken it. But now the sigils glowed — faint gold at first, then burning into crimson light.
Elaris stepped closer. "By the archives…" she whispered.
The glow intensified. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw an image within the seal — a man's shadow, tall, bound by chains of fire. His eyes opened, bright as the morning star.
Then it vanished.
Her lantern burst, flame snuffed out. Darkness swallowed the corridor.
The silence that followed was wrong — too deep, too aware. She backed away, breathing hard, until her shoulder brushed against something soft. A hand.
"Elaris?"
She spun, nearly screaming — but it was Rowen Vale, face pale beneath his brown curls, eyes wide and sharp even in the dark.
"You nearly frightened me to death," she hissed.
"You shouldn't be down here alone," he said, lifting his own lamp. "The lower wards have been stirring all day. Lady Thalindra said—"
"I know what she said." Elaris's voice trembled. "But the seals — they just responded. The Seventh Gate—"
Rowen frowned. "That's impossible."
They both turned to the archway again. The sigils were fading now, the glow retreating as if ashamed. But Elaris's pulse refused to slow.
"It called me by name," she whispered.
Rowen looked at her, worry softening his tone. "You've been reading too many of Thalindra's grimoires."
But Elaris didn't answer. Her gaze lingered on the now-silent door — on the faint scorch of crimson still burned into the stone. Somewhere deep beyond it, she could feel a pulse. Steady. Patient. Alive.
---
By the time they reached the upper halls, night had fallen. The Sanctum's spires shimmered against a sky of bleeding gold and shadow. Magic hung heavy in the air — the kind that made candles gutter and mirrors breathe frost.
Lady Thalindra Veyra awaited them in the observatory, her white robes glimmering faintly beneath the glow of a hundred candles. Her eyes, silver and ancient, seemed to pierce straight through them.
"You opened the Seventh Gate," she said before either could speak.
Elaris stiffened. "It opened itself."
"Nothing opens itself," Thalindra replied. Her voice was calm, melodic, but carried an edge that could cut through iron. "Not in this age. Not unless something beneath it has awakened."
Rowen shifted. "Do you think it's connected to the disturbances in the lower wards?"
Thalindra ignored him. Her gaze fixed on Elaris. "Tell me, child. When the sigils burned — did you feel its mark?"
Elaris hesitated. Her heartbeat still felt strange, as though echoing to another rhythm. "I saw someone. Bound. Eyes like dawn."
Thalindra's face changed — just slightly. The flicker of fear crossed her ageless calm.
"Then the prophecy was not wrong," the witch whispered. "The Heir of Ash and Light stirs again."
---
Outside, a storm rolled across the horizon. Wind lashed through the Sanctum's broken stained glass, scattering motes of light across the marble floor.
Elaris watched the sky burn with gold and red, a strange ache blooming in her chest. Somewhere, far beyond the mortal lands, something ancient was rising — a pulse older than the stars.
And though she could not explain it, her blood thrummed in answer.
---
Far beneath the Sanctum, in the sealed catacombs where gods were buried,
a heartbeat echoed once… twice… then opened its eyes.