The roar of collapsing stone was a living beast, hungry and deafening. A massive block of granite slammed down where the Catalyst had been, pulverizing the dais into dust. The air, once thick with malevolent energy, was now choked with powdered rock and the smell of impending burial.
"Move!" Anal shouted, his voice raw, grabbing Neel's arm and hauling him to his feet. There was no time to process their victory or the unmoving form of Agneya. Survival was the only thought.
They scrambled towards the tunnel they had entered from, but with a groan of protesting stone, the entrance sealed itself shut, a solid wall of rubble now blocking their escape.
"Other side!" Neel yelled, pointing to a smaller archway on the opposite side of the chamber they had missed in their initial focus on the Catalyst. It was their only hope.
The floor buckled under their feet. Anal stumbled, but Neel was there, his hand snapping out to steady him, their brief exchange of support a mirror of their elemental dance. They ran, dodging falling debris, their world reduced to the next step, the next breath.
They burst through the archway just as the main chamber ceiling gave way in a thunderous crash, the impact throwing them forward into another dark passage. This one was narrower, sloping upwards. Hope, fragile and desperate, sparked in Anal's chest. An exit.
"The temple is rejecting us," Neel gasped as they ran, his water instinctively forming a shimmering shield above their heads, deflecting smaller rocks and dust. "It was tied to the Crystal. Destroying it... we've killed its heart."
"Then let's make sure it doesn't take us with it," Anal gritted out, summoning a flame to his hand. The white-hot intensity was gone, replaced by his familiar, controlled fire, but it was enough to light their way.
The passage twisted and turned, a serpent's intestine convulsing in its death throes. The rumbling was a constant companion, a promise of the mountain's intent to consume them. They could hear the structure groaning all around them, the sound of stone grinding against stone a nightmare symphony.
Suddenly, the path ahead split into two.
"Which way?" Anal asked, the flickering firelight revealing two identical, crumbling tunnels.
Neel closed his eyes for a second, placing a hand on the damp wall. "Left," he said with certainty. "I can feel a draft. Faint, but it's there. Stagnant air doesn't flow."
Trust was no longer a question. Anal plunged into the left-hand tunnel, Neel right behind him. The draft grew stronger, carrying with it the sweet, unfamiliar scent of night air and freedom. The roaring behind them grew louder, closer. The temple was dying, and it was chasing them.
Ahead, a pinprick of light. Not the malevolent red of the Catalyst, but the soft, silver glow of moonlight.
"The exit!" Neel cried.
They pushed their exhausted bodies harder, their lungs burning. The pinprick grew into a slit, then into a ragged opening in the mountainside, veiled by hanging vines. They were going to make it.
They burst out of the mountainside into the cool, open night, stumbling onto a narrow ledge. They fell to their knees, gasping in great lungfuls of clean, untainted air. Behind them, with a final, earth-shaking roar, the entrance to the Serpent's Temple collapsed in on itself, sealing the darkness and the Conclave's machinations within a tomb of solid rock.
For a long moment, they just sat there, side-by-side, listening to the settling dust and the sound of their own ragged breaths. The silence of the forest was a balm. They had done it. They had survived.
Anal looked at Neel, truly looked at him. His friend's robes were torn and covered in grime, his face smudged with dirt and exhaustion. But his eyes, when they met Anal's, were clear and steady.
"That chant..." Anal began, his voice quiet. "What was it?"
Neel looked down at his hands. "An ancient mantra. A water-blessing for calming turbulent spirits. It was one of the first things Guru Vrish taught me after... after the vow. He said I might need it one day." He gave a tired, wry smile. "I never imagined I'd be using it to stop the Fire Prince from spontaneously combusting."
A short, surprised laugh escaped Anal's lips. It felt strange and foreign. "Well. I suppose it worked."
"It did," Neel said softly. The weight of everything that had happened—the revelations, the battle, the near-death experience—hung between them, but the tension was gone, replaced by a profound, earned camaraderie.
They had faced the darkness and walked away, together.
But as their breathing calmed and the adrenaline faded, a new sound reached them, carried on the very draft that had saved them. It was not the sound of collapsing stone. It was the distinct, metallic clink of armor and the murmur of voices, growing steadily closer from the forest path below their ledge.
Anal and Neel exchanged a single, wary glance. They crept to the edge of the ledge and peered down.
A column of soldiers was marching up the path, their torches cutting bright swathes through the darkness. They wore not the colours of the Conclave, but the familiar livery of a royal house. At their head rode a man with a stern, authoritative posture.
Neel's breath hitched. "That's my father's personal guard," he whispered, his voice tight with a new kind of dread. "And the man leading them... it's my uncle. The one who never wanted me to take this vow."
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