The Sentinel moved without sound, its feet touching the ground but not really—like it was walking through a photograph instead of a place. Azerath and the Warden followed, neither of them speaking.
The deeper they went, the less sense anything made.
Pillars bent in directions that shouldn't exist—not leaning, just wrong, like someone had drawn them on paper and folded the page. Blue symbols crawled across the walls, not changing but shifting, rearranging themselves to a rhythm Azerath couldn't hear but could feel in his teeth.
He watched it all.
Every flicker. Every pattern. Every impossible angle.
Not with fear.
With focus.
This place had rules. They just weren't his.
The Warden, though—he was barely holding it together.
"Your eyes," he whispered, voice shaking. "They're… different here. Like they're learning something."
Azerath didn't respond.
He'd already noticed.
The Depth was reacting to him. Not pushing him out. Recognizing him.
But recognition didn't mean safety. It didn't mean he belonged.
Sometimes recognition just meant the thing hunting you had finally found your scent.
They entered a long corridor carved from black stone so smooth it looked wet. The floor reflected shapes that didn't match the people walking across it—too tall, limbs too long, movements too fluid.
Shadows that didn't belong to anyone here.
The Warden edged closer to Azerath.
"Stay near me," Azerath said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because I know what human shadows are supposed to look like."
Azerath didn't answer, but the thought settled cold in his chest:
This place remembers everyone who ever walked through it.
And some of those memories were still watching.
At the end of the corridor stood a door.
Massive. Ancient. The top disappeared into darkness so deep it felt like looking into a well with no bottom. Its surface was carved with seven circular hollows—one glowing faintly, the other six dark and dormant.
Azerath's heartbeat kicked up despite himself.
One of the marks on the door pulsed with the same silver-blue light as his eyes.
The Sentinel stopped and turned.
"This is the Gate of Wrath."
The Warden took three steps back like he'd been shoved.
"You said this place was forbidden to humans."
The Sentinel's voice was soft, almost gentle.
"It is."
The Warden stared at Azerath, waiting for him to react—to hesitate, to turn back, to do something normal.
Azerath just looked at the door.
No explanations waiting for him. No prophecy carved in stone. No voice from the heavens telling him this was destiny.
Just the door.
Just the weight of something massive on the other side, silent and patient.
Waiting.
He stepped forward, and pressure rolled over him like a wave—not hostile, just there, heavy as deep water.
The Warden's voice cracked behind him:
"Boy… Azerath… if you touch that, you'll change. You won't be the same person."
Azerath didn't turn around.
"I'm already not the same."
The Warden went quiet.
Azerath pressed his palm against the glowing hollow.
A whisper slid through the air, felt more than heard:
"A test."
The symbols on the walls flickered and died. The staircase behind them vanished into blackness. The Sentinel stepped back, graceful and deliberate.
The door didn't open.
Instead—
It breathed.
A deep, slow exhale shook the floor beneath Azerath's feet. His knees buckled for half a second before he locked them, jaw tight.
A voice bloomed in his mind, not words but weight:
"Show me the weight of your wrath."
Azerath's eyes narrowed.
Behind him, the Warden swore under his breath and stumbled backward.
"What's it asking you?"
Azerath didn't answer.
He understood.
Not because anyone explained it. Because something inside him—something he'd swallowed, something that wasn't entirely his—knew.
Wrath wasn't screaming. Wasn't breaking things. Wasn't fire and blood and blind rage.
Wrath was grief that had grown teeth.
Azerath closed his eyes and let himself remember.
His father's voice, steady and calm.His mother's laugh, bright as summer.His sister's sketchbook, pages scattered across cold marble.
The silence after.
The message carved into the wall:Azerath… run.
No.
He wouldn't.
Not anymore.
The room shifted.
Pieces of stone lifted off the floor, hovering in the air like the world had forgotten how gravity worked. The symbols on the walls blazed and flickered wildly.
The Sentinel watched, expressionless.
The Warden was frozen, barely breathing.
Azerath opened his eyes.
For a moment, both pupils—the human and the other—aligned perfectly.
Silver light flared.
His voice came out cold, steady, final:
"My wrath isn't anger."
The Gate shuddered.
"It's remembrance."
A wave of blue light exploded from the door and crashed over him. Pressure slammed into his chest, his lungs, his bones—like being crushed under the weight of an ocean.
But he didn't break.
"My wrath doesn't scream," he whispered.
"But it never forgets."
The pressure collapsed all at once.
Silence.
Then—
A soft, almost respectful click.
Just one.
The Gate didn't open.
But something inside it had heard him.
A glowing line traced itself across one of the dark hollows—thin, faint, but undeniable.
The first step. Not the finish line.
The Sentinel bowed slightly.
"The Gate has accepted your presence. But it will not open. Not today."
The Warden stared, dumbfounded.
"That was acceptance?"
The Sentinel's head tilted.
"No one has passed the Gate in a thousand years. Earning acknowledgment is… exceptional."
Azerath lowered his hand. His palm trembled—just barely, just for a second—but he clenched his fist and the shaking stopped.
"What happens next?" he asked.
The Sentinel turned and began walking into the darkness.
"Next… you learn to survive the First Realm."
Azerath followed.
The Warden hesitated, glanced back at the Gate, then hurried after them.
As they disappeared into the dark, the Gate pulsed once—slow, deliberate, like a heartbeat.
Azerath didn't look back.
But he felt it.
He'd woken something up.
Not all the way. Not yet.
But enough.
Enough for the Depth to whisper, soft as breath:
"He will return."