The passage wound deeper into the mountain, the crystals growing fewer but larger. Their light cast long shadows that seemed to move of their own accord, dancing along the walls like silent companions.

  As they traveled, Eli noticed something curious about Aura. The tiny winged girl flew with purpose, leading him confidently forward, but occasionally she would pause, her light dimming as she hovered in place. In these moments, her wings would flutter erratically, and waves of confusion would emanate from her like ripples in a pond.

  After one such pause, Eli reached out his hand, palm up. "Are you all right?"

  Aura settled onto his palm, her weight almost imperceptible. Up close, he could see that her form wasn't entirely solid—parts of her seemed to shift and flow, like light refracting through water. She gazed up at him, and a complex mix of emotions washed over him—confusion, frustration, determination.

  "You're trying to remember something," Eli guessed.

  She nodded, her tiny face creased with concentration. Then she rose again, leading him onward with renewed purpose.

  The passage eventually opened into a smaller chamber. Unlike the main grotto, this space felt older, more deliberate in its construction. The walls had been smoothed, and in places, they bore carvings—intricate patterns that reminded Eli of the silver markings on his arms.

  Aura flew directly to one wall and hovered there, her light illuminating a series of murals etched into the stone. They depicted tall, elegant figures that Eli recognized immediately—the Aethel, the ancient race whose magic had shaped the world before the cataclysm.

  In one mural, an Aethel figure stood with arms upraised, wielding a staff surrounded by threads of gold and violet. Around the figure's neck was a band of symbols that looked eerily similar to Eli's binding spell.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Eli froze. The Aethel figure's features, though stylized and ancient, struck him with an uncanny familiarity. The set of the eyes, the angle of the jaw—for a disorienting moment, it was like looking at a distorted reflection of himself. He blinked, and the resemblance faded, leaving him unsettled.

  His fingers traced the etching, feeling the smoothness of the stone beneath his touch. "It was theirs," he murmured. "The binding spell... it wasn't always a curse."

  As his fingers moved over the symbols, he felt a strange resonance—a warmth that seemed to flow from the mural into his hand and up his arm, reaching toward the binding spell. The spell itself stirred in response, the runes heating not painfully but purposefully, as if recognizing something long forgotten.

  For an instant, he caught a fleeting impression—a memory not his own—of overwhelming power surging through veins, tearing reality apart, followed by the desperate creation of constraints, of boundaries to contain what could not be destroyed. A voice, neither Marco's nor his own, whispered at the edge of his consciousness: The power within you birthed worlds and shattered them. The binding is not your prison—it is the world's protection. The binding spell pulsed once, almost like it was attempting to communicate directly with him, before settling back into its quiet hum.

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  Aura flew to another mural, this one showing an Aethel channeling energy through the staff, drawing dark tendrils from the air and weaving them into something new. The binding collar glowed in the depiction, but Eli now noticed something he'd missed before—the collar wasn't just directing external energy; it was containing a blinding light emanating from within the figure itself, preventing it from bursting forth unchecked.

  "It wasn't meant to protect me from corruption," Eli said, understanding dawning. "It was meant to protect the world from what's inside me."

  He felt the binding spell hum in response, a confirmation that sent chills down his spine.

  Meanwhile, Starling's core gave another pulse—that strange, hungry vibration that seemed to search for something. Eli held the staff toward the mural, and the dark gemstone trembled slightly, as if recognizing what was depicted.

  Aura hovered between Eli and the mural, her emotions shifting rapidly—hope, urgency, and beneath it all, a trace of fear. She placed her tiny hands against another section of the mural Eli hadn't examined closely—one showing the binding spell partly unraveled during what appeared to be a desperate battle, releasing a surge of power that drove back darkness while simultaneously tearing the very fabric of the world around it.

  Her eyes conveyed a silent message: Great power, great cost. A last resort.

  She darted to another passage leading away from the chamber, her light blinking rapidly, but paused when she noticed Eli's hesitation. A complex wave of emotion radiated from her—understanding tinged with determination. Her presence now made more sense—not to prevent corruption, but to help Eli control the dangerous power contained within him, a power that could only be released in the direst circumstances. Her shoulders squared with resolve as she beckoned again, more insistently.

  Eli took one last look at the murals, committing them to memory. "The binding spell wasn't meant to control corruption," he said quietly. "It was meant to control me. Or what's inside me."

  He glanced down at Starling's dark core. "And your hunger for corruption isn't an accident, is it? It's preparation." The implication hung in the air—preparation for a time when the binding might need to be temporarily loosened, when the power within him might need to be partially released.

  The core pulsed once, a vibration that traveled up his arm and seemed to connect, for just an instant, with the binding spell. The silver threads in the spell brightened momentarily, and Eli felt a fleeting sense of ancient purpose, of a safeguard designed both to protect and, when necessary, to unleash.

  Aura's light flashed impatiently from the passage entrance. Her emotions were clear—they needed to move on, to go deeper into the grotto. There was more to discover, more to understand.

  Eli nodded, his mind racing with implications. Without Marco's guiding voice, without Starling's familiar light, he was navigating unknown territory. But for the first time since entering the dungeon, he felt a sense of genuine hope.

  He followed Aura into the passage, the dark core of Starling pulsing softly in his hand like a second heartbeat. The binding spell hummed at his neck, no longer just a chain but perhaps a key—to what, he couldn't yet say.

  Behind them, the mural caught the last rays of Aura's light, the ancient Aethel figures seeming to watch their departure with timeless, knowing eyes.