The glyph still pulsed behind them—slow and red, like a heartbeat carved into stone.
"We need to move," Tovan said. "Now."
Kael didn't argue. Neither did Elira. Whatever that sigil had awakened, it was old and it was listening.
They left the chamber behind and slipped back through the cracked hallways of the citadel's bones. Mist curled low across the floor. The air had changed—thicker, like breathing through cloth soaked in blood and time.
"This way," Elira whispered, guiding them toward a descending corridor that fed into the lower layers of the ruin.
They passed through crumbling stone gates, across collapsed bridges, down spiral stairs that bled into collapsed tunnels. Every few minutes, Kael glanced over his shoulder.
There was nothing.
But the Echoheart pulsed faster.
You are seen.
Halfway through a narrow bridge over a dry channel, Kael staggered.
The world twisted.
He saw Elira—on the far side of the bridge—waving to him, shouting. But she hadn't moved. The real Elira was behind him, hand on his shoulder.
"Kael!"
He turned—Tovan had drawn his blade, but in Kael's eyes it was wrong. Burned. Covered in bone.
Drop the relic, a voice hissed. Drop it and be free.
Kael dropped to one knee, gasping. The Echoheart burned red again.
Elira pulled him upright. "It's relic interference. Phase distortion. Keep your focus!"
She gritted her teeth. "Don't let it take you, Kael—not again."
They kept moving, breathless.
Behind them, the wind shifted.
And carried sound.
Metal grinding. Stone cracking. A hiss like steel pulled through gravel.
Tovan cursed. "It's following."
They ducked through a broken arch and into a collapsed tunnel that dipped into a forgotten storage shaft. Here, the air was damp and filled with the scent of rust and old magic.
The floor trembled beneath them.
A high-pitched sound shrieked from the distance—warped and shrill.
Kael dropped again, hands to his ears.
A relic siren.
His vision split—edges blurring, color draining. His knees buckled as pressure bloomed behind his eyes. The sound wasn't just heard—it pressed into his skull, warping balance, burning thought.
Elira shouted something, but he couldn't hear it.
The sound was inside his bones.
When Kael opened his eyes again, the hallway had changed.
The wall in front of him shimmered—half-broken, but not collapsed.
The Echoheart flared with silver light and pulsed once.
A seam appeared.
Hidden glyphs.
Kael stepped forward and placed his hand on the stone.
"What are you doing?" Tovan called.
"I see a door," Kael murmured.
"There's nothing there—"
But the Echoheart surged.
The wall cracked open—stone folding back like paper—and revealed a narrow stair spiraling downward.
Kael looked back. "This way!"
They dove into the stairwell just as the sound behind them sharpened—a flare of light illuminating the corridor above.
Elira turned and flung her hand toward the entrance, her relic blade etching a ward in the stone. Kael joined her instinctively, placing his palm on a sigil he didn't know—until the Echoheart moved his hand for him.
The entrance slammed shut.
Silence.
For a breath.
Two.
Three.
Only their gasping.
Then Kael heard it again.
Not through the air.
Through the relic.
"You opened the path. You can't close it now."