---
It was not stone.
It only pretended to be.
Up close, the gate shimmered with veins of light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Each line glowed crimson for a breath, then gold, then black — as if alive, as if it could taste my fear.
The words carved into it still bled faintly:
> Vows are blood. Memory is god.
Rowen's voice trembled behind me. "Tell me we're not actually opening that thing."
Lady Thalindra turned to him, her silver eyes reflecting the sigils. "We are not opening it. She is."
He blinked. "Oh. Wonderful. That's so much better."
I tried to ignore the dread clawing at my chest. The compass had gone silent in my hand, its glow sinking into the same rhythm as the gate's. I could feel something behind it — something that knew my name before I could speak it.
"Elaris," Thalindra said softly, stepping closer. "The seal will only answer to truth bound in blood. Nothing less."
"You mean…" I swallowed. "Blood magic."
"Not the crude kind," she said. "This is older. Divine. Once used by the First Archivists to bind the fallen to their word. It was never meant for mortal hands."
"Then why me?"
Thalindra's expression gentled. "Because you were never entirely mortal, my dear."
My pulse faltered. "What?"
But before she could answer, the gate pulsed again — a shockwave rippling through the ground, scattering dust and fragments of coral. The air thickened.
Rowen stepped back. "Something's moving inside it."
Thalindra's staff glowed silver. "He's trying to reach her."
---
The sound came first — a deep, resonant heartbeat echoing beneath the stone. Then the whisper, half a voice, half a memory:
> Elaris…
Lucien's voice. Faint, but real.
"Lucien?"
The gate flared brighter. I stepped closer, heart racing.
> Don't open it… it's not ready…
"Then what am I supposed to do?" I whispered.
> Remember.
The word struck me like thunder. In my mind's eye, a flash — a memory not mine but his: a vast hall of fire, blood pooling at my feet, Lucien kneeling before me, our hands joined over a burning sigil.
A vow.
The first one.
---
I gasped and stumbled back. The world tilted. Rowen caught me before I fell.
"Elaris! Hey — what did you see?"
"I think…" I stared at my palm, trembling. A faint mark — a glowing line of gold — burned across my skin. "I think I made a vow to him once. Before any of this."
Thalindra's gaze sharpened. "Then the seal recognizes you as its other half."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to," she said, voice solemn. "You only need to act. Cut your hand. Let the gate taste your blood. If the vow is true, it will open. If not…"
Rowen's eyes widened. "If not what?"
Thalindra looked at him gravely. "Then it will consume her."
---
The sea roared louder. The sky cracked open.
I took the dagger from my belt — a ceremonial blade carved with runes of remembrance. The handle was warm, like it wanted to be used.
Rowen grabbed my wrist. "You don't have to do this."
"I do."
I pressed the blade to my palm. The cut was quick, deep. Blood welled up, crimson as the sigils on the gate.
Thalindra whispered an incantation — words so old they made the air vibrate. "By the vow unbroken, by the flame that remembers, awaken the Heir of Ash and Light."
I placed my bleeding hand on the gate.
It shuddered.
The blood sizzled, then sank into the stone — which was not stone at all, but living flesh disguised by time. The symbols flared brighter, forming a circle of fire around me.
Then pain — unbearable, divine.
It wasn't just the wound; it was every wound I'd ever ignored. My veins burned with light, threads of gold and black weaving up my arm and into my chest.
I screamed — not from fear, but from recognition.
Because in that agony, I felt him.
Lucien.
> Elaris… stop… you'll bind yourself to me forever…
> Maybe that's the point.
The gate split down the center with a sound like thunder cracking through bone.
Behind it — darkness. And within that darkness, a heartbeat answering mine.
---
Lucien's POV — The Veil Prison
He felt her blood before he saw the light.
It poured through the cracks in his cell, burning away the chains one by one.
Lucien's body arched, every vein aflame. His eyes flew open — one gold, one black — and for the first time in centuries, he felt alive.
> You shouldn't have done this.
Her voice was in his mind now, trembling, scared — but resolute.
> I had to.
> You don't know what it costs.
> Then let it cost me.
The light exploded, tearing through the darkness.
For a heartbeat, they saw each other — not as they were, but as they once had been. In the ruins of Heaven, surrounded by flame and shadow, their hands bound by blood.
Lucien smiled weakly. "You always were stubborn."
"Then come back," she whispered. "Come back to me."
---
The world fractured.
The Hollow Shore shook violently. Water turned to glass, glass to mist, mist to fire. Rowen was thrown backward, shouting her name.
Thalindra tried to raise a barrier, but it shattered like sand.
At the center of it all, I stood before the gate, the blood on my hand glowing like liquid sunlight.
Then — silence.
The gate burst open.
A torrent of light and shadow poured through, coiling like serpents around my body. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It burned through every nerve, every thought, until it felt like the stars were screaming.
Then, suddenly — stillness.
And from the darkness within the gate, a figure stepped out.
Barefoot. Broken. Beautiful.
Lucien Vaelrith.
His eyes met mine — gold and black, divine and damned.
He whispered my name like prayer. "Elaris."
And the world remembered its vow .