The tremor beneath Aryan's feet came like a pulse.....deep, resonant, wrong.
He froze, every sense spiking. Around him, the dim corridor of veined obsidian walls shivered subtly, like a held breath. The flame-lit air, once heavy with smoke, now smelled of iron and damp earth. Not fire. Not life. Something was changing.
His hand instinctively tightened around his pendant. It glowed faintly....then pulsed, once, twice.
Then silence.
"Aelanora..." he whispered, the name fragile on his tongue.
He hadn't heard from her in what felt like hours, though time no longer obeyed rules here. The mountain bent it, broke it, reformed it. He had followed her down this cursed path, chosen to face his half of the trial alone. But now...
Something was wrong.
A low hum thrummed through the floor, climbing into his bones.
And then it cracked.
Not the earth,,,,,,no, something more profound. Inside him. Around him. Through him.
The shadows in the corridor stirred.
He staggered backward as the stone beneath his feet rippled like water, the sigils along the walls flaring to life in a burst of violet. Wind howled from nowhere. Whispers rode it.
"She has chosen."
Aryan gasped. "Who's there?!"
But the voice was already gone, like a dream turned to ash.
His vision blurred. Images flashed before his eyes...Elanora kneeling in flame, the child of fire reaching for her, the blaze consuming them both. The seal....the third seal.....shattering in light.
And then... silence.
"No," he breathed. "No, not yet..."
But he felt it. The moment it broke. Not just in the mountain....but inside him.
The tether that had bound him tightly to the waking world began to fray.
And the shadows welcomed him.
He stumbled down the corridor, the path ahead shifting with each blink. The light faded. The warmth. Even the memory of fire. Gone.
The pendant no longer glowed. Instead, it hung cold against his chest, heavy as guilt.
And then he saw it...an archway of twisting black stone that hadn't been there before. Carved into it were ancient runes he didn't recognize, but his blood did. They burned into his mind as if whispering his name backwards.
He stepped through.
And the world vanished.
He landed hard, knees scraping against shattered glass. Or ice. Or obsidian.....he couldn't tell. The floor beneath him reflected things that weren't there.......faces, places, fragments of memories that didn't belong to him.
The air was freezing. The silence, absolute.
But something pulsed beneath it.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
His breaths fogged the air. "Where... is this?"
"Welcome to the place you buried," a voice answered.
Aryan turned, heart hammering.
A figure stepped out from the dark....a man cloaked in shadow, his eyes pools of midnight. The shadows clung to him like breath, curling into horns, claws, wings. Not a demon. Not a man. Something in-between.
Aryan's hand went to his blade, but the pendant stopped him.
The shadow-man tilted his head. "Still clutching symbols of light, even here. How quaint."
"Who are you?"
"I am the part of you that remembers," the figure said. "The promise you made. The life you broke. The truth you ran from."
"You're a lie."
"I'm your lie."
Aryan backed away. "This is another trial. Another trick of the mountain."
The shadow stepped forward, its feet making no sound on the glassy floor. "No, Aryan. This is you. The part you locked away. The part that felt everything you were too afraid to face."
Memories surged.....screams in the rain, a child's laughter cut short, fire spreading through a once-sacred temple. Blood on his hands.
"No... I didn't......."
"You did. And you chose not to remember. But the seal is broken now. You can't run."
Aryan dropped to his knees, the weight of it hitting him like a blade between the ribs.
"Elanora," he gasped. "She... she's alive?"
"She made her choice," the figure said. "She embraced her fire. Now you must embrace your shadow. Or be consumed by it."
The floor fractured.
Black mist erupted, swirling around Aryan. It didn't burn. It froze.
He choked, coughing violently as visions overtook him......Elanora burning, the child screaming, the world collapsing. He was always too late. Always too weak.
"Make it stop!" he cried.
The figure crouched before him. "Then remember."
"Remember what?!"
"Who you were. What you were meant to become."
Aryan's eyes widened.
He saw a tower on a cliff, storm-torn and ancient. He stood at the top, cloaked in twilight, Elanora at his side......her eyes not golden, but blue with sorrow. A promise passed between them.
"If I fall first," he'd said, "you must carry the flame."
"And if I forget?" she had whispered.
"I will remember for us both."
The vision shattered.
And Aryan screamed.
The mist withdrew.
He lay panting on the ground, sweat and tears freezing on his face.
The figure was gone.
But something remained.
A seal. Carved into the floor in pale silver. Cracked. Bleeding shadow.
His pendant pulsed again. Warm now. Barely.
"Three seals," Aryan murmured. "One left..."
He stood slowly, legs shaking.
And from the silence came a voice...Elanora's.
"I never stopped looking."
His throat tightened.
"I'm coming," he whispered. "Just—hold on."
But the world didn't wait.
The chamber began to collapse, stone groaning and splintering under some unseen force. Runes flared red. A pulse of raw power burst through the walls, followed by a deafening crack.
From above, light shone down.....a single beam, flickering like a dying star.
Within it, a silhouette.
Aryan blinked.
A woman.
Hair like night. Eyes like his own.
Mother.
"No," he whispered. "You're dead. You died that night...."
She stepped forward, feet not touching the ground. "And still I watch."
"I couldn't save you."
"No," she said, voice soft, sad. "But you can save her."
The light around her dimmed.
"The fourth seal is not just yours," she warned. "It is ours. Blood remembers."
He reached for her, but his hand passed through smoke.
"I love you," he said.
"And I, you. But love is not enough. Remember."
The vision vanished.
He stood in silence, heart a storm.
Then.......steps. Distant. Real.
Aryan turned, and for the first time, he was not alone