Chapter 3: The Bone Garden
Kael hadn't meant to disobey.
Really, they hadn't.
But after hours of sitting on cracked stone in the ruin where Riven had left them, surrounded by silence and whispering winds, Kael felt the restless ache of questions in their bones. There was only so long a person could stare at cursed skies and crumbling walls before the need to do something overpowered every warning they'd been given.
"Keep to the inner walls," Riven had said, his voice like rough steel. "Don't wander."
Naturally, Kael wandered.
The morning light in Elaris wasn't like Earth's. It bled slowly over the ruins in thick, crimson layers, pooling in corners like spilled wine. The wind carried the scent of charred roses and cold metal. As Kael moved beyond the outer arch, down a staircase nearly hidden by moss and broken pillars, that scent sharpened sweeter, darker, like decay wrapped in perfume.
The stairs curved tightly, spiraling downward into the bones of the land. Each step echoed with a hollow, melodic thrum beneath their boots. The air grew warmer, but not comforting it pressed close like breath on the back of their neck.
Finally, the spiral opened.
Kael stepped into a garden.
And immediately wished they hadn't.
It wasn't a garden in the traditional sense. There were no stone paths, no benches, no signs of cultivation. It looked like something that had grown from the madness of the land itself as if the soil had wept and from its sorrow, this place had bloomed.
Thick vines sprawled in impossible shapes, curling around shattered statues and bones. And roses. Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of them. All pitch-black, velvety, still. Their thorns shimmered faintly like polished obsidian. Their petals were too perfect. Too symmetrical. They didn't sway. They didn't blink.
Kael took a slow step forward.
A statue stood in the center of the space, half-swallowed by ivy and thorn. The figure depicted was androgynous, veiled, one hand outstretched as if to cradle something that was no longer there. At its feet, dozens of roses bloomed in a perfect ring.
Kael crouched near one of them, the scent curling up into their nose. It was intoxicating. Familiar, almost. Like something from a half-remembered dream.
They reached out.
A single finger grazed the stem and the thorn bit deep.
"Ahh…shit," they hissed, pulling back.
A bead of blood welled at their fingertip, glistening red against the eerie light. It dripped onto the nearest rose.
The moment it landed, everything changed.
The vines moved.
Not in a breeze there was no wind. They shifted deliberately, coiling and tightening like the flex of some great slumbering beast. The roses bent toward Kael in eerie unison. One petal peeled back slowly, almost hungrily.
And then, the whisper came.
"Veinborn."
Kael staggered back, heart pounding. "What ?"
The ground quivered.
More petals opened. More vines quaked. The voice came again, not from one flower, but from all of them, layered and distorted like the echo of a forgotten cathedral.
"Veinborn... Veinborn... Veinborn..."
Kael looked around, breath quickening. The sound wasn't angry. But it wasn't kind, either. It sounded like worship twisted into warning. Like recognition from something ancient.
"You have the wrong person," Kael whispered. "I don't even know what that means."
The ground shifted again, violently this time. A crack split beneath Kael's feet. They jumped back, but too late the stone crumbled, giving way beneath them.
They fell.
Not down through.
Through earth and root, past veins of glowing ore and the skeletons of buried titans. The world around them blurred, twisted. Gravity felt uncertain. Reality bent.
Then came the light.
A soft, bioluminescent glow flickered below. And water.
No not water. Liquid, yes, but not of any kind Kael had seen. It moved like mercury and mist, shimmering in slow waves. Within it drifted shapes faces, half-formed. Eyes. Memories.
Kael plunged in.
They didn't hit the surface. They merged with it. The substance wrapped around them like thought, like grief made liquid. It tasted like sorrow. It remembered.
The current pulled them deeper. Shapes swirled past a child laughing, a woman screaming, an army kneeling, a sky burning. The faces pressed close, murmuring in forgotten tongues.
One of them stared directly at Kael.
And smiled.
"You have returned."
Kael tried to scream. No sound came.
The current twisted. Around them, thousands of soul-lights blinked open. The river wasn't a place. It was a memory. A library of the dead.
"Veinborn... Veinborn... the cursed child of sky and blood..."
Hands brushed against Kael's skin. Not violent. Not kind. Curious.
"You are the crack in the mirror... the one who chooses..."
They reached out, trying to grab anything, anchor themselves to something real but the river offered no purchase. Their own body began to glow faintly, veins lighting up like constellations beneath the skin.
Something inside them woke.
A flash. A wordless pulse. The current recoiled, screeching like a violin string drawn across bone. Kael screamed.
A blinding light burst from their chest.
The river broke.
The liquid split away from them, forming a glowing tunnel, and at the far end stood a door made of shimmering glass, framed by silver roots and white flame.
Kael was pulled toward it.
Through the tunnel. Through light. Through terror.
The river roared behind them, furious, screaming names Kael didn't recognize.
They crossed the threshold.
And landed, coughing, on cold stone.
Their clothes were soaked in silver. Their breath came in sharp bursts.
Across from them stood a figure.
Not Riven.
Not human.
Tall. Luminous. Their skin shimmered like a galaxy turned inward. Eyes like mirrors reflecting too many truths. Their voice came not from their mouth, but from the air itself.
"You were not meant to awaken yet."
Kael tried to speak.
"Now the gods will know you've returned."
The world went white.