Silence clung to the map room like ash after flame—still, but not clean. Not calm. Not safe.

  My heart pounded, too loud in my ears. The echo of the whisper still scratched at the inside of my skull. She has seen. She remembers.

  I didn’t know who she was. But I knew—I knew—they meant me.

  Apolloh’s hand shot out, bracing himself against the table. His chest heaved once. Twice. Then he cursed under his breath. “Fuck.”

  His voice cracked like lightning on dry ground. “That wasn’t just some damn vision. That wasn’t just the map reacting.” He looked at me, eyes wild with something I hadn’t seen in him before—fear. “That was her. That was Nyxhal.”

  The lights over the map flickered once. He flinched. So did I.

  A slow, tight pressure began to wrap around my ribs like a band being drawn closer and closer. I pressed a hand to my sternum. My breath stuttered.

  Something was waking up inside me.

  It wasn’t Veyris. It wasn’t the moon. It wasn’t the storm.

  It was a memory that wasn’t mine. A voice in a language I didn’t speak. A heartbeat I didn’t recognize pulsing from deep beneath the stone floor.

  Then—

  A flash. A vision.

  Darkness. Endless. Cold.

  A chasm that breathed. Not air. Not mist. But time. Time leaking like blood.

  A child’s voice whispering—over and over again:

  “Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down—”

  But I did.

  And I saw eyes. Thousands. No shape, no skin, just watching.

  The room snapped back into place like a slingshot. I stumbled, catching myself against the edge of the table.

  Apolloh grabbed me. “Laika—what was that?”

  “I saw it.” My voice trembled. “I saw her. I saw Nyxhal.”

  The map burned faintly beneath our hands.

  From behind us, someone whispered, “This isn’t just a place.”

  Adrastea. She’d gone deathly still.

  “It’s a prison,” she said. “And it’s leaking.”

  Adrastea slowly turns to face the map again, her expression unreadable. “You asked what Nyxhal means,” she murmured.

  I nodded, still clutching the table.

  A pause. Then she said, quietly, “It means the First Scream.”

  Apolloh stiffened.

  She continued, “It’s not just a name. It’s a warning. A scar left behind when time shattered. Nyxhal is not a demon. Not a god. Not even a creature, really. It is the moment before creation screamed itself into being. What you felt—what you saw—wasn’t her full presence. It was her echo.”

  She looked at me then.

  “And you… you weren’t just born to carry a seal, Laika. You were born from it. You’re not just tied to Nyxhal—you’re made from the silence that tried to hold her back.”

  My voice was low, but it cracked as I said, “What am I?”

  Adrastea didn’t answer at first.

  The silence that followed was loud—too loud. It pressed against my ribs like something trying to crawl out. I looked to Apolloh. He was pale, lips parted, his gaze locked to the map like he was seeing something we couldn’t. His voice, when it came, was hoarse.

  “The Veil’s always broken around her,” he whispered. “Even before the storm. Even before the four. It was never stable when she was nearby. You said that was just her energy—but that’s not true, is it?”

  Adrastea closed her eyes. “It wasn’t a lie. Just… not the whole of it.”

  He turned to her sharply. “Then tell us.”

  My hand clenched tighter around the edge of the table, my body trembling with something I didn’t understand. “You said I was made from the silence that tried to hold Nyxhal back. That she’s not a creature, but an echo.” My throat burned. “What does that make me?”

  Adrastea opened her eyes and looked at me with something that felt like grief.

  “You are a threshold,” she said. “A living moment between before and after. A spark made from a scream that was never supposed to reach this world. The Sahrathei weren’t just guardians. They were… locks. Barriers born from the last breath of order.”

  She looked between us.

  “You weren’t chosen to carry it, Laika. You were born because it needed a cage.”

  The room went cold.

  Then, quietly, as if mourning the truth herself, Adrastea added, “And now the cage is cracking.”

  A tremor skated across the floor beneath our feet. Not a quake—no rumble, no sound. Just a shift in pressure, like the world had exhaled wrong.

  Apolloh stepped closer to me without thinking, instinct tugging him like a thread. His fingers brushed mine again—cheek, shoulder, hand—he didn’t seem to know where to ground either of us, but the contact steadied something inside me.

  Adrastea’s hand hovered over the map, hovering just above Nyxhal’s mark. “Do you feel that?”

  “I feel everything,” I breathed.

  The map shimmered—no, rippled. A heartbeat thumped through it, slow and ancient, like something massive moving beneath stone. My head snapped toward the center, toward the shape that marked Nyxhal. The ink looked darker now. Thicker. Wet.

  Apolloh inhaled sharply. “It’s watching.”

  Adrastea didn’t deny it.

  And that was somehow worse.

  “I thought we had more time,” she whispered.

  The map flickered again. For a split second, the land warped—twisted into something impossible—and I saw a silhouette in the center. It had no shape. No face. But it was there.

  Move. Speak. Vanish.

  But this time, it didn’t vanish.

  It lingered.

  Then something whispered back across the Veil—not words, not thoughts. Just a feeling.

  Hunger.

  I staggered, and Apolloh caught me. His voice was close to my ear, tight with panic and fury. “We need to tell the others. We need a plan. Now.”

  Adrastea didn’t move.

  And in the silence that followed, I realized something terrifying.

  Whatever was behind the Veil… wasn’t waiting anymore.

  ——

  The map still pulsed. Not visibly, not in a way someone could measure—but I felt it. Like a second heartbeat inside my chest that didn’t belong to me. Too slow. Too deep. Like it was counting down to something.

  Adrastea finally stepped back from the table, her hands folded tightly behind her back. She looked like someone who’d stared into the dark for too long and finally saw it blink back.

  “It’s not just stirring anymore,” she said. “It’s testing. Pressing against the seams. And with Laika’s seal weakening—”

  I flinched. “Don’t talk about me like I’m a crack in the wall.”

  Adrastea met my eyes. “Then tell me what you are.”

  I opened my mouth—and closed it again.

  Apolloh’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking. “If it’s testing the boundaries, what happens when it finds the weak spot?”

  “It already has,” Adrastea said.

  Silence hit like a hammer.

  My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. “Then why are we standing here? What the hell are we doing?”

  Adrastea’s gaze flicked toward the door. “Because we don’t just need to act—we need to understand what it wants. And that means we go back to where it started.”

  My stomach dropped. “You mean—”

  “The Hollow,” she said. “Nyxhal.”

  “No,” Apolloh said, voice sharp. “You’re not sending her into that pit.”

  “She’s already in it,” Adrastea said quietly. “She just doesn’t know how deep.”

  A pulse kicked through my skull—Nyxhal, like a word echoing in the hollows of my bones. I looked down at the map again, at the dark ink that wouldn’t stop breathing. That wasn’t ink anymore.

  “Tell me again what it means,” I said hoarsely. “The name. Nyxhal. Where did it come from?”

  Adrastea’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “It predates language.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the closest you’ll get to one. But if you must know…” She hesitated, and for the first time in all the months I’d known her, she looked afraid.

  “In one tongue, lost to time—it meant the place where silence eats light. In another… the cradle of unmaking.”

  Apolloh let out a low, unsteady breath. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  Adrastea didn’t repeat it. She just turned away, finally breaking eye contact like she was trying not to look too long at something that could shatter her.

  But before anyone could speak again, the door slammed open.

  Zia stood in the threshold, shoulders heaving, wild-eyed. “We have a problem.”

  Apolloh moved first, stepping toward her. “What happened?”

  Zia’s voice was tight. “The Veil thinned near the southern edge. No breach—but something touched it. Everyone felt it.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Adrastea’s breath caught. “The Hollow is reaching.”

  “No,” Zia said. “It’s calling.”

  I felt the pull even here, deep and low in my chest, like a thread tightening. My seal—the part of me I barely understood—responded.

  My voice came out smaller than I meant. “Who is it calling to?”

  Zia’s gaze met mine.

  “You.”

  Zia’s voice was calm, but there was tension underneath—wound tight, barely contained. “It wasn’t a warning,” she said again, her gaze locked on the map. “It was a call.”

  The parchment glowed softly, Nyxhal’s name pulsing like a heartbeat buried in the ink. That glow didn’t fade. It breathed.

  I stepped closer, heart sinking low in my chest.

  “A call for what?” I asked.

  Zia didn’t answer right away. Her jaw flexed. The air between us and the map felt charged, like the moment right before lightning strikes.

  Adrastea, standing just inside the door now, finally spoke. “Not what. Who.”

  That ache in my chest flared. I pressed a hand there without thinking.

  Zia’s voice was quieter now. “It remembers something. Or someone. Something it wasn’t supposed to.”

  Apolloh stiffened beside me, his eyes scanning the room like there had to be a hidden answer—some trapdoor, some riddle to solve.

  “Why now?” he asked, anger restrained behind clenched teeth. “Why her? It’s been locked for centuries.”

  Zia exhaled. “Because she’s changed.”

  I didn’t breathe.

  Not because it shocked me—but because I knew.

  I had changed. I was still changing.

  The seal wasn’t dormant anymore. It hummed like a second heartbeat. Like it had turned toward something it remembered.

  “What are you saying?” I asked softly.

  Zia’s eyes met mine. “You weren’t just made to hold it back. You’re what it’s been waiting for.”

  Behind us, the hallway creaked—but no one entered.

  And yet, it felt like something had.

  The map pulsed again.

  And this time, Nyxhal’s ink bled.

  Just a little.

  But it bled.

  ——

  The room had quieted, but the air hadn’t. It still thrummed with something unseen, like the silence before a scream.

  I stood with my hand still brushing the edge of the map, and it pulsed again—faint, but there. Almost like it was breathing.

  Adrastea hadn’t moved, but her gaze had narrowed. “We need to begin.”

  That word—begin—carried more than just weight. It felt like a door creaking open.

  “Begin what?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant. But it wasn’t fear. It was awareness. Like I already knew, deep down.

  Zia stepped forward first. “The descent. The one we all prayed would never happen.”

  Apolloh’s jaw clenched. “To Nyxhal.”

  Adrastea gave a slow nod. “It has awakened something. Something that remembers the world before us. We can’t wait for it to rise on its own.”

  Caelen’s voice finally came from the hall, sharp and certain. “Then we descend first.”

  That silence again.

  A choice hanging over the room like a blade.

  And in my chest, something stirred.

  Not my wolf. Not Veyris. But the thing beneath her bones, older than my skin.

  And it was ready.

  ——

  The moment shattered like glass under a whisper.

  Adrastea turned away from the map and spoke to no one in particular—yet somehow to all of us. “We gather at dusk. Those who are going need to know what they walk into. Those who stay behind must be prepared for what might follow.”

  She didn’t wait for argument.

  Zia exchanged a look with Apolloh—something wordless, a language only betas and old battle-wolves understood—before following behind.

  I lingered, hand still on the map. I hadn’t noticed it before, but faint lines were now visible in the ink—ones that hadn’t been there when we entered. They pulsed. Barely. Like veins in parchment.

  Apolloh stepped closer, his voice low. “It’s changing.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  He brushed his fingers across mine. “You alright?”

  No. Yes. No.

  I didn’t say anything. Just turned from the table.

  The walk back to the central corridor felt heavier. Like something in the stone was watching. Listening. And waiting for us to say the wrong thing.

  By the time we reached the inner chamber, Zia and Caelen were already issuing orders to those gathered. Warriors. Trackers. Messengers. Eyes flicked toward me, then away. Respectful. Curious. Afraid.

  Whispers stirred like leaves in a breeze.

  “She’s going with them—”

  “Did you hear what they said? Beneath the Veil—”

  “—Nyxhal… it’s suicide—”

  I didn’t flinch. I didn’t have the luxury anymore.

  Apolloh broke through the murmurs with his voice, commanding and firm. “There is no room for fear. We move with purpose. Every detail matters—supplies, wards, formation.”

  Zia nodded. “We need those skilled in old sigils. Defensive ones. Anything connected to blood or bone.”

  Caelen added, “And we take only who we trust. If there’s even a shred of doubt—leave them.”

  Adrastea hadn’t returned yet, but her presence lingered in every movement. Her weight was still in the air.

  And beneath all of it…

  That pressure in my chest hadn’t left.

  Like the moment before a thunderclap.

  Like the world was holding its breath.

  ——

  The atmosphere in the inner chamber was thick, like the air before a storm. Every warrior, every tracker—each one seemed to breathe in sync, though they kept their voices low, their eyes sharp. No one spoke more than necessary. Everyone was preparing for what felt like an impossible journey.

  And then, the weight of it all hit me—this wasn’t just a mission. This wasn’t just about survival. This was about something ancient, something far older than any of us, and it felt like the world was shifting beneath us.

  “We’ll leave at dusk, no later,” Apolloh’s voice rang out again, bringing me back to the present.

  Zia stood by him, her arms folded as she assessed the room, meeting the eyes of each person in turn. It was clear she was making judgments—figuring out who would be a liability and who would stand beside us when things got ugly.

  “Move out before nightfall,” Zia repeated. “We’ll be heading straight for Nyxhal, and when we do, we’ll move like shadows. Silent, swift.”

  I felt Apolloh’s gaze on me. He didn’t speak, but his eyes were asking questions—questions I wasn’t ready to answer. I knew what he was thinking: could I handle it? Could any of us handle what was waiting for us in Nyxhal?

  I wanted to lie, to say yes. But the truth… the truth was that even I didn’t know.

  Caelen had already moved on, barking orders. Some of the warriors shuffled off to prepare, while others remained, waiting for more details. But something about the air felt different—charged, as if the very stone of the castle was reacting to the impending journey.

  As Zia and Apolloh began to coordinate final plans, I noticed that no one was really looking at the map anymore. The lines on it were still faintly pulsing—still shifting like something was alive within it—but it was as though the map itself was no longer the focus. Something else was.

  Something worse.

  It felt like a door had opened—and not the kind that led to something safe. It felt like the door to the deepest, most ancient horror had cracked open just a little, and the darkness from beyond it was crawling into our world, inch by inch.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts, but they clung to me, persistent.

  Zia caught my eye as I stood there, frozen. She gave a nod—subtle but telling—and then she motioned for me to follow her.

  “I need to speak with you,” she said, her tone low but urgent.

  I glanced over at Apolloh, who was still giving instructions, then followed Zia as she led me out of the room. Her expression was unreadable, but her steps were quick, deliberate. She wasn’t wasting any time.

  “What’s going on, Zia?” I asked, keeping my voice low as we walked through the corridors.

  She paused, glancing around before speaking again. “The Veil isn’t just calling you, Laika. It’s pulling at all of us. The closer we get to Nyxhal, the stronger it’ll get.”

  “Why me?” I asked, voice thick with frustration. “Why is it pulling at me?”

  “Because you’re the key,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper. “And if you’re the key… then what happens when the door fully opens?”

  I stopped, letting her words sink in. The key. The one thing that had been the most cryptic part of everything so far. It was what the faceless figure in my dream had called me. But why?

  Why now?

  Zia was watching me carefully, her eyes sharp but full of something I couldn’t quite place. “You need to be ready, Laika. Whatever happens next, it’s going to change everything.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was ready for any of it. But I knew one thing: I had no choice. The storm had already started. And the only way out of it… was through.

  ——

  Footsteps echoed down the hall—uncoordinated, uneven. A shuffle followed by a muttered curse.

  Jaxe stumbled into the chamber, hair tousled, shirt half-buttoned, eyes still squinting against the torchlight. “Who the hell dragged me out of bed—Zia?” He blinked once. Twice. Then caught sight of me, Apolloh, and Caelen.

  And stopped dead.

  The mood hit him like a wall.

  His brows furrowed. The sleep fell away.

  “What the fuck did I miss?”

  Caelen didn’t answer. He just jerked his chin toward the table where the map had been.

  Zia, not breaking stride, shoved a bundle of leather straps and a scroll case into Jaxe’s arms. “Congratulations brother. You’re going to hell with us.”

  “What the fuck—?” he muttered again, looking between all of us. But he didn’t argue. Just adjusted the gear and fell into line.

  The room held its breath a little longer.

  Then the clock resumed ticking.

  I barely looked at Jaxe, even as Zia’s sarcasm hung like smoke in the air. My focus was forward—on the corridor branching beyond the inner chamber, where the armory, the sigil vaults, and the old preparation halls waited like open veins beneath the castle.

  My feet moved before I thought. Apolloh stayed close beside me.

  Every step whispered of what was coming.

  I passed warriors sharpening blades—some old enough to remember the last time the Veil stirred. Others still too young to know what true horror felt like.

  But they were going.

  They’d chosen to follow us.

  Apolloh spoke quietly, only for me. “They’re not doing this just because they have to.”

  I glanced at him.

  He met my eyes. “They’re doing it because of you.”

  I wanted to believe that.

  But the pressure in my chest twisted.

  Because beneath the loyalty… I could still taste the fear.

  We reached the vault doors. Old stone, etched with symbols that shimmered faintly in the torchlight. I placed my palm on one—just to feel the coolness.

  The sigils pulsed.

  And then… something deeper stirred.

  A beat.

  Like a distant drum behind bone.

  I inhaled slowly. “It’s calling again.”

  Apolloh didn’t question what it was. He didn’t have to.

  The weight in the air thickened.

  Behind us, more footsteps. Zia, Caelen, Jaxe, and a few handpicked warriors approached—silent, grim-faced, ready.

  No one spoke. The unspoken had taken hold now.

  And Nyxhal waited like a heartbeat beneath the world.

  The vault groaned as the sigils flared and turned, stone grinding against stone. Dust spilled from the seams, ancient air breathing out like something exhaled from deep time. It wasn’t just a door—it was a mouth opening.

  Inside, it was dark. Silent. Still.

  And then the light shifted.

  A line of torches along the curved wall flared to life, blue and white and unnervingly cold.

  Weapons lined the inner ring—blades etched with runes, spears inlaid with bone and obsidian, staffs wrapped in dried sinew. Most were kept in glass cases sealed with sigils. A few hovered in midair, bound by magic older than the stone.

  At the far end was a pedestal. Upon it rested a small, black box.

  Zia’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t there before.”

  Caelen stepped forward, fingers twitching near his belt. “Don’t touch it.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” she muttered—but she didn’t take her eyes off it.

  Jaxe, still rubbing sleep from his face, muttered, “Okay, what the fuck kind of morning did I wake up to?”

  “Don’t ask,” Zia replied, her tone flat. “Just follow and try not to get possessed.”

  But I wasn’t focused on them.

  The box was whispering.

  Not with words. With pressure. With weight. With a hum that made the back of my neck prickle.

  My feet moved.

  Apolloh’s hand caught my wrist gently. “Laika—”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m not going to open it.”

  I lied.

  I stepped forward.

  The room dropped into silence.

  The closer I got, the more the hum sank into my bones. My fingertips tingled, and my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t touch the box. I just… leaned closer.

  And then the voice returned.

  Sahrathei. Unlocker. Binder. Child of ruin and memory.

  I flinched. My vision flashed white. For a moment I saw something beneath the box, beneath the stone—something curled and vast and hungry.

  Then it was gone.

  I stumbled back. Apolloh caught me.

  “What did you see?” he asked, his voice rough.

  I looked up at him.

  “It’s not just Nyxhal,” I whispered. “It’s what’s inside it.”

  Caelen’s expression sharpened. “You saw something?”

  I nodded slowly.

  Zia muttered, “And we’re walking toward that thing?”

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” Apolloh answered for me.

  The vault seemed to pulse again.

  Whatever waited in Nyxhal… was watching us back.

  I turned back toward the pedestal.

  The box was small—no bigger than my hands. Obsidian-black with jagged edges, no latch, no seam. Like it had been carved from a single shard of night. The hum pulsed louder now, in my teeth, in my bones, behind my eyes.

  I reached out.

  Zia swore under her breath. “Laika—”

  “Let her,” Adrastea’s voice cut through the vault like a blade.

  We hadn’t even heard her enter.

  Everyone went still.

  Adrastea stood just beyond the threshold, her gaze heavy, ancient.

  “She’s the only one it will open for.”

  My fingers brushed the surface.

  Heat flared—cold heat, if that made any sense. Not fire, not frost, but something between. Something deeper.

  The box clicked.

  A sound like breaking glass echoed through the vault.

  And then it unfolded.

  Not with hinges. Not with mechanics. It unraveled—its edges bending like paper and shadow and liquid all at once, peeling back reality.

  Inside…

  Inside was a stone.

  Dark violet. Smooth and pulsing with slow, deep light. It hovered just above the base of the box, rotating lazily, as if in thought.

  Zia let out a breath that sounded like a curse.

  Caelen stepped forward, breath tight. “Is that—”

  “It’s a soulstone,” Adrastea said, voice low.

  Apolloh stiffened beside me. “A what?”

  Jaxe, still catching up, blinked. “Okay, that doesn’t sound like something we should be carrying into a literal pit of ancient horror.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Adrastea said. “Unless you’re the one it belongs to.”

  The stone flared.

  And it looked at me.

  Not physically. Not with eyes. But I felt it turn. Felt it know me.

  Felt it remember me.

  And I remembered it.

  Or something inside me did.

  My knees buckled. I didn’t fall. Apolloh steadied me again.

  The stone pulsed once. A sound—not a sound—rippled out through the vault.

  And in that moment…

  …I saw Nyxhal.

  The scream that created it.

  The scream beneath it.

  And the thing that had never stopped screaming.

  The scream wasn’t sound.

  It was sensation.

  It was weight, pressure, absence. It poured into my head, raw and formless, dragging behind it echoes that didn’t belong in any living world.

  Flashes—not images, not memories, but truths so old they had no shape:

  A chasm yawning open where no ground had existed.

  A sky that bled ink and stars that went out one by one.

  A creature, titanic and formless, not born but shed—as if something older had discarded it.

  Its face was wrong. Too many pieces. None of them human. None of them whole. All of them screaming.

  The soulstone called it by name, not in words but in memory burned straight into my marrow.

  Nyxaroth.

  It had no language. No motive. Only purpose: to unmake.

  Not destroy. Not devour. Not conquer.

  Unmake.

  To undo the fabric. To pull apart the story. To end things—before they could even be.

  And in the stone, in the scream, I felt the tether.

  Felt myself tethered.

  Like a thread in its pattern. Like a lock that knew the shape of the thing it held back.

  My hand trembled.

  The vision cracked, withdrew, collapsed in on itself like a folding star.

  When I opened my eyes again, the soulstone was still glowing. Quiet. Waiting.

  Zia spoke, voice soft now. “You saw it.”

  I nodded.

  Apolloh’s jaw tightened. “What did you see?”

  I looked at him. At all of them.

  “…We’re not going to stop it,” I said. “We’re going to wake it up.”