The tunnel dropped steeply, the stone slick with age and covered in veins of glowing moss. The air smelled faintly of ash and something like wet metal and forgotten fire.
Eira walked near the front, the shard in her chest humming gently. The deeper they went, the more it resonated. Not in pain or fear but recognition. Like something was calling back.
"Are we under the river?" Lena asked softly, trailing her fingers along the damp wall.
"Yes," Eira answered, without needing to guess.
Thorne, ever watchful, scouted ahead in bursts. The tunnel forked and twisted, but the Path never truly disappeared, it pulsed in the ground like a heartbeat. Kaela followed behind him, knives ready. She looked less like a scout now and more like a leader.
Behind them, the villagers moved in solemn silence. Some held torches, others clutched each other's hands. A few whispered prayers. No one asked to turn back.
The children seemed to sense it best that this place wasn't meant to frighten them. It had once been sacred. They stepped lighter here.
The tunnel widened abruptly, opening into a vast, hollow chamber.
Eira stepped through and gasped.
Dozens of glowing pillars rose from the stone floor, arranged in a great spiral. Water trickled through hidden grooves in the walls, feeding a still, glassy pool at the center. And above, carved into the arching stone like the ribs of some great beast, were runes, Mageborn script and symbols even older.
The villagers filtered in, awed into silence. Some dropped to their knees. One woman wept.
"It's a sanctuary," Lena whispered.
"No," Eira said. "It was home."
Kaela turned in a slow circle, gaze sharp. "How could a place like this be lost?"
"Not lost," Thorne answered. "Buried. On purpose."
Eira stepped closer to the pool, drawn without thought. The surface was so still it reflected their faces like mirrors. When she leaned in, her reflection shimmered, then changed.
Not her face.
Her mother's.
Alive. Smiling. Singing the same song from the forest. Behind her, firelight danced, and shadowy figures moved; Mageborn, whole and unbroken.
"Eira?" Torin's voice broke the vision. Her reflection returned.
She blinked fast. "I saw her."
Lena came to her side. "Your mother?"
Eira nodded once. "She was here. They all were. This place remembers."
From the back of the chamber, a boy called out.
"Something's here!"
They rushed over, Torin and Thorne at the lead and found a sealed stone door, half collapsed but carved with the same spiral flame as the shard Eira bore.
Kaela studied it. "Looks like it opens inward."
Thorne pressed his palm to the center.
Nothing moved.
Eira stepped forward. "Let me."
She placed both hands on the stone. The shard pulsed once, then the runes lit up beneath her fingers. A hiss of pressure echoed through the air, and the door rumbled open.
Beyond it, stairs spiraled downward into dark.
—
Aboveground, Maelis moved with her cloak wrapped tightly, her face shadowed beneath the moon. Her soldiers had found no bodies, no broken trail, only the faint echo of ember magic disappearing underground.
They were slipping away again.
The tracker beside her hesitated. "Do we follow?"
Maelis didn't answer immediately. She knelt and pressed her own shard, a dull remnant of the Ember against the earth.
The stone groaned.
Then, faintly, something deep below responded.
She smiled without warmth. "No. We pull them back."
She turned to her soldiers.
"Circle the Wellspring trail. Burn the side paths. Collapse what you can. Smoke them out if needed."
A soldier asked, "And the villagers?"
"They're nothing without her."
She held up a glass vial. Inside, a sliver of crystal flickered red.
"This came from the same shard the girl carries. I don't need all of her. Just enough."
The air stirred around her as if the forest itself were listening.
"We draw her up," she said. "And when she surfaces, she'll find the Veil waiting."
—
Deep below, Eira descended the spiral staircase, her breath shallow.
The deeper they went, the warmer the air grew.
At the bottom, another door. But this one was already open.
Inside was not a room but a vast underground cavern lit by a massive, glowing forge. Its flames were cold and blue, casting no heat. Strange mechanisms lined the walls; part magic, part machinery.
Torin stepped forward, whistling low. "What is this?"
Lena stared, awestruck. "It's a forge. But not for metal."
Eira moved slowly, one hand outstretched toward the flames.
"They built something here," she whispered. "Something meant to last. To protect us."
Kaela touched one of the strange devices. "Or to stop something worse."
Behind them, the villagers gathered again. A few sank down to rest. Others studied the forge, the carved tools, the stories etched into the walls; images of fire, flight, betrayal, and unity.
"Whatever this was," Eira said softly, "we're not the first to walk this path."
Thorne stood beside her, gaze sharp.
"But we might be the last."