They didn't plan to come this way
The trail had been solid until it wasn't, until the edge gave out under Thalin's boots and nearly sent him plummeting into a gulch that hadn't existed ten minutes earlier
He didn't fall. Because Lyra had caught him. Which, frankly, annoyed her more than if he had.
Now they were navigating an old valley that looked like it had been carved by something far less interested in convenience. The walls on either side rose in jagged spires, and the wind carried a hum low enough to feel in their teeth.
Lyra hated it.
Not just the place, but how her mark kept burning and itching, slow and rhythmic like it was matching the pulse of the land.
Kaal noticed.
He always did.
"Still hurting?" he asked under his breath.
"Just the usual cursed energy reacting to my cursed skin," she muttered. "You?"
He didn't answer. Which meant yes.
Thalin, for once, was quiet.
Too quiet.
They emerged onto a flattened basin at the heart of the valley, where black stone pillars jutted out of the earth like broken ribs. The architecture was weird, angled, spiraled, inscribed with runes that glowed only when they weren't looking.
Lyra frowned. "You recognize this?"
Thalin crouched beside one of the stones, fingers brushing the surface. "Only in theory. These are ward-spines."
"Sounds friendly."
"They were used in the early veil era to mark entrances. Or seal them."
Kaal exhaled slowly. "You think this was a gate?"
Thalin's face darkened. "I think it still is."
They made camp at the far edge of the ruin, where the stone was less jagged and the ground didn't vibrate with quite as much judgment.
Lyra paced while the others rested.
The mark on her side pulsed, sharper now. Almost eager.
She didn't like what that suggested.
Kaal was watching the ruins again. He wasn't saying anything. But his hands twitched, just like they had before his last dream.
"Don't," she said, sitting beside him.
"Don't what?"
"Whatever weird magic thing you're about to do."
"I'm not doing anything."
"Then stop looking like you're about to."
He gave her a faint smile. "You're bossy when you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
She was terrified.
Thalin stirred the fire. "The runes are active now."
Both of them turned.
He didn't sound surprised. Not exactly. But not afraid either.
"Define active," Lyra said.
"They're humming. Not just passive memory, either. This is responsive magic."
"What triggered it?"
"I don't know." A pause. Then, "Maybe us."
Another pause.
Or maybe you, Lyra thought, pressing her palm against her side.
The hum in the ground deepened.
Far away, stone groaned.
Not from wind.
Not from pressure.
From awakening.
They didn't sleep that night.
And just before dawn, the ground split.
Not open, not violently.
But with purpose.
Like the earth was making room for something.
And from beneath the spiral runes, the ward began to rise.
One piece at a time.
And every step it took forward, the mark on Lyra's side pulsed in response.
The ground shook.
Stone groaned like lungs filling after a thousand-year sleep. The pillars that surrounded the ruins lit one by one, blue fire crawling through cracks that had once been veins.
Lyra stepped back slowly, hand on her blade.
"Kaal," she said, voice low.
He was already standing. Pale, glowing faintly, eyes locked on the center of the stone basin.
Where something was rising.
A shape. Humanoid, but only barely. Its limbs were sculpted from fractured obsidian, sinew woven from chain and root. A helm, half broken, half fused, hid its face. Its chest pulsed with a light.
A voice rolled out of its chest, not a sound so much as a weight.
'Eternity must not pass.'
Lyra froze.
"What in the...?"
Thalin inhaled sharply beside her. "It spoke the binding phrase."
"Translation, scholar?"
He didn't answer.
The ward took a step forward. The ground cracked. Not toward Kaal.
Toward her.
Kaal moved instinctively, arm out. "It's going for Lyra."
Lyra pulled her blade.
"You..." the ward said, voice split and hollow. "You walk with the memory of She-Who-Opened-The-Gate."
Kaal fired a pulse of magic, a reflex. It cracked across the construct's shoulder. The ward staggered, slightly, but kept moving.
"Lyra...move!" Kaal shouted.
She didn't need the warning. She ran, blade scraping stone as she passed behind the pillars. The construct turned, slow but certain.
It was hunting.
They split instinctively, Kaal drawing the ward's attention with a burst of raw light, Lyra circling wide, Thalin backing toward the outer ring of stones, scribbling something even now.
"This is a trap ward," he called. "A cage-sentry! It's not designed to repel. It's designed to hold something in."
"Fantastic," Lyra growled. "What exactly is it trying to hold?"
Thalin hesitated. "I don't think it's trying to anymore."
"Great, it's trying to destroy."
The ward moved faster than it should've. One long limb lashed out, Kaal barely dodged. The blow cracked a stone behind him in half like brittle glass.
Lyra lunged in from the side, blade striking across its lower leg. Sparks flew. The construct hissed and twisted toward her.
Then it stopped.
Its head cocked.
The runes on its chest reoriented. Not toward her blade. Toward her mark, towards her.
"She is waking," it said. "She should not wake."
The words were in a language none of them knew.
Except Thalin.
He translated automatically, aloud, brows furrowed in concentration. "She is waking. She should not wake."
Lyra froze.
Her mark flared.
The ward reached for her.
Kaal stepped between them and screamed.
Not in sound.
A burst.
A radiant shockwave of raw magic exploded from him, wild, uncontrolled. It flung the ward backward into one of the pillars, which cracked straight through.
Kaal crumpled to one knee, gasping.
"Idiot!" Lyra shouted, dragging him away.
"I'm...fine..." he wheezed.
"You're glowing again!"
"Then we match."
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Until the ground pulsed again.
The ward rose from the rubble, slow but undeterred.
It wasn't trying to win.
It was trying to hold.
And now the ruins around them began to shift, stones rising, rearranging, not in chaos, but in pattern. A make-shift cell.
Thalin yelled, "It's rebuilding the prison!"
"For what?!" Lyra shouted.
The ward turned its face toward her.
"For the one that should not walk."