For Caelan, the world did not return with a bang, but with the steady, agonizing drip of melting ice.
He was dreaming of a forge, the heat of it was a physical weight on his chest, a golden hammer striking the anvil of his ribs over and over. But the forge was wrong. The iron wasn't glowing red; it was glowing violet, and every time the hammer fell, he felt as though his very essence was being flattened into a thin, brittle sheet.
Then, the heat vanished, replaced by a cold so sudden and absolute that his heart stuttered in his chest. It was the cold of the grave he had nearly inhabited.
Caelan's eyes snapped open.
He didn't see the sky. He saw a canopy of jagged, rust-colored iron-stone, dripping with moisture that tasted of mineral salt. The air was thick and heavy, smelling of damp earth and old metal. For a long, terrifying minute, he couldn't move. His body felt like a suit of armor that had been rusted shut by years of neglect. He tried to draw a breath, bracing his mind for the sharp, stabbing agony of shattered ribs and the wet, gurgling whistle of a punctured lung. He remembered the creature, the impact, and the feeling of the black rot turning his blood into sludge.
But the pain didn't come.
His chest was clear. His breathing was deep, effortless, and terrifyingly silent. He felt... new.
"Don't try to sit up too fast," a voice rumbled from the shadows. "The girl's gift is a heavy thing to carry. It takes time for the spirit to catch up to the flesh."
Caelan turned his head slowly. Arveth sat by a small, guttering fire made of dried scrub and bone. The old man looked as if he had aged a decade in a single night; his face was a map of deep-set lines, and his hands trembled as he held a cup of steaming liquid. Across from him, Mira was checking the tension on her silver cord. Her face was a mask of professional focus, though the tight set of her jaw betrayed her exhaustion.
"Arveth?" Caelan's voice was a dry croak. It sounded like it belonged to an old man. "Where... where are we?"
"In the Old Veins," Arveth said, leaning forward to stir the coals with a piece of scrap metal. "A mile from the breach. We are tucked into a pocket of dead stone. The mountain is currently hunting Severin, which means it has forgotten we exist for the moment."
Caelan's memories began to rush back in a violent flood, the bridge, the collapsing obsidian floor, the violet light erupting from the canyon like a volcanic vent. He remembered the feeling of the black rot climbing his throat, the sensation of his soul being chewed away by the mountain's corruption. And then, the touch. Aelindra's hands. The sensation of being pulled back through a needle's eye.
"Aelindra," Caelan gasped, finally forcing himself to sit up. His head spun, the world tilting dangerously. He felt a strange, phantom heat in his palms. "Severin. Did they make it?"
"They're on the Spire," Mira said, her voice sharp and clipped. She didn't look up from her cord. "Or what's left of it. The Sentinel carried the entire central pillar upward. They're miles above us now, Caelan. Beyond the reach of any path I know."
Caelan looked at his hands. They were clean, not just of soot, but of the scars he had carried since his first tour on the border. Even the old notch on his thumb from a training accident was gone. His skin looked unblemished, almost translucent.
"She healed me," he whispered, a wave of guilt washing over him. "She spent herself for me. I was dead. I felt the dark, Arveth."
"You were close enough to smell the soil," Arveth agreed. "She anchored you. But that kind of mending... it's personal. She didn't just close your wounds; she tied your life back to the world using her own resonance. You might feel a bit... tethered to her for a while."
Caelan pressed a hand to his chest. He felt a faint, rhythmic thrumming, not his own heartbeat, but a secondary pulse, a golden vibration that felt like a distant bell ringing in the fog. It wasn't a map or a clear signal, but a direction. A sense of north that pointed toward her.
"Where is Marienne?" Caelan asked, his voice hardening as he looked around the small, cramped space.
The silence that followed was heavier than the stone above them. Mira finally looked up, her expression guarded. She looked at Caelan with a mix of pity and frustration. "She's gone, Caelan. She didn't make the jump."
"No," Caelan said, the word a flat denial. He and Marienne had survived a lot together, the flight through the woods, and a dozen skirmishes. She wasn't the type to just 'not make a jump.' "She's a scout. She's faster than any of us. You didn't see her fall."
"I saw the floor vanish," Mira countered, though her voice lacked its usual bite. "I searched the rim once the dust settled. There was nothing. No body in the abyss, but no sign of her on the ledge either."
Caelan's heart hammered against his newly mended ribs. He looked toward the entrance of the cave, where the sky was a bruised, unnatural purple. He had known Marienne longer than anyone else in this group. They had a shorthand, a shared history of narrow escapes. "We have to find her. We can't just leave her."
"We can't find what doesn't want to be found," Arveth said softly. "But Mira found something on the edge of the breach. Show him, Mira."
Mira reached into her pack and pulled out a leather strap. It was the harness for Marienne's spear, the one she had tightened every morning with a ritualistic precision. It wasn't charred. It wasn't torn by falling rock.
The buckle had been undone. Cleanly. Purposely.
Caelan took the leather in his hands, his thumb tracing the smooth edge of the strap. His blood ran cold. "This didn't break. She took it off. She wouldn't just drop her weapon."
"Exactly," Mira said, her eyes narrowing. "There were footprints, Caelan. Heading away from the breach, into the lower tunnels. They were light, scout's prints. If she was taken, she didn't fight. Or she walked away on her own."
Caelan gripped the strap so hard the leather groaned. The idea of Marienne abandoning them was impossible, but the evidence was chilling. "If she's alive, she's in trouble. Or she's leading someone to us."
"We can't worry about the past," Arveth said, struggling to his feet. "We have two of our best fighters back on their feet. Caelan, your strength is returned. Mira, your cord is ready. We have a choice: we go down into the tunnels to find a trail that might be cold, or we follow Severin and Aelindra."
Caelan looked at Mira. He knew she was a formidable fighter; he'd seen the way she trained quite meticulously back at the Sanctuary; you could just tell that she had experience. Together, they could make it out of any fight.
"I can feel her," Caelan whispered, looking toward the heights of the Spire. The golden resonance in his chest was tugging at him, a faint but persistent pull. It wasn't just magic; it was the bond of the life she had given back to him. "Aelindra is in trouble. Not the kind of trouble a sword can fix. Something is happening to her mind."
Arveth's expression went grim. "The Anchor's toll. If she's pushed too hard without a reprieve, she'll begin to hollow out. If she loses too much of herself while linked to the Prince's fire, the results will be catastrophic for everything on this mountain."
"Then we move," Mira said, slinging her pack over her shoulder. She looked at Caelan, a silent understanding passing between them. They were the muscle and the navigation now. "The Old Veins are treacherous, but they're the only way to bypass the Sentinel's main reach."
Caelan reached for his sword, which Mira had recovered from the dust of the plateau. As his fingers closed around the hilt, he felt a sudden, sharp jolt of static. For a split second, he didn't see the iron-stone walls of the cave. He saw a blinding white plain of snow. He saw Aelindra's face, pale and haunted, looking at a shard of dark glass.
And he heard a name, a name that felt like a curse.
Valerius.
Caelan gasped, stumbling back against the damp wall.
"Caelan?" Mira was at his side in an instant, her hand on his shoulder. "What did you see?"
"A name," Caelan panted, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. "And a whistle. Arveth, she's bargaining. She's trying to buy back what she lost, but she's paying with things she doesn't own."
Arveth's eyes widened. "She's found a Keeper. In the High Pass." He cursed under his breath, a rare show of emotion from the old man. "We have to move. Now. If she strikes a bargain in the House of the Hollowed, there won't be enough of her left to anchor a candle flame, let alone a Prince."
They moved out of the overhang and into the biting cold of the Old Veins. The tunnels were narrow, choked with the smell of iron and the dampness of a thousand years. Caelan led the way, his sword drawn, the faint golden thrum in his chest acting as a tether.
Beside him, Mira moved like a shadow, her cord ready. She didn't talk about Marienne, but Caelan saw the way she checked the side tunnels, her eyes searching for any sign of a spear or a familiar footprint.
Caelan felt the weight of his "new" life. It was a strange, vibrating thing, full of Aelindra's warmth and the mountain's cold. He was a dead man who had been given a second chance, and he knew that every step he took toward the Spire was a step toward a debt he might never be able to pay.
"Keep your eyes open," Arveth whispered, her voice barely audible over the dripping water. "The Old Veins aren't empty. Things live down here that the Sentinel doesn't bother with."
Caelan nodded, his grip tightening on his sword. He didn't care about the things in the dark. He only cared about the girl who had reached into the abyss to pull him out.
"I'm coming, Aelindra," he murmured into the dark. "Just hold on."
The golden resonance flared once, a warm pulse against his heart, and then settled into a steady, determined beat.