The path twisted behind them, but neither turned to look.
There was no point.
The stone had erased itself the moment they chose the left-hand corridor—leaving only forward, only narrow walls that pulsed slightly beneath their touch. As if the maze had veins. As if it were breathing.
Caelen's footfalls were quiet now. Controlled. Each step calculated not just to avoid noise, but to feel the floor shift beneath him. Because sometimes, it did.
Sometimes, the stone felt like flesh.
"You hear that?" he whispered.
Lira didn't stop walking. "What?"
"That… hum."
She glanced at him. "I hear your breathing. And the stone. Nothing else."
Caelen listened again.
It was faint. Just beneath the edge of silence.
A whisper, not in his ears, but somewhere inside them. Like memory. Like a forgotten voice pressed just close enough to stir the hair at the back of his neck.
You brought it with you…
He blinked, hard.
Gone.
They walked in silence for another twenty minutes—though time meant little here.
The corridor widened, but the ceiling sank lower. Vines hung in dry strands across their path—grey, dead, whispering like paper when brushed.
The walls had changed too.
No longer carved or natural—they'd begun to resemble bone, fused in long ridged columns like ribs half-melted into place. A faint heat radiated from them. Not enough to burn, but enough to sweat into.
Caelen wiped his brow with the inside of his sleeve.
"We've gone deeper," Lira said quietly. "It's starting to notice."
He didn't ask what she meant.
Because he agreed.
The chamber opened without warning.
One moment, they walked through a narrow throat of stone, ducking under sharp-angled ridges. The next, the passage yawned open into a circular room, maybe twenty meters across. The floor was black glass, veined with glowing crimson glyphs, arranged in chaotic spirals—like blood trying to remember its shape.
There were no doors.
No exits.
Only silence.
Caelen stepped in first, knife drawn.
Lira followed, her eyes scanning the ceiling.
They both stopped at the same time.
Because the thing was already there.
It stood near the far edge of the chamber, partially obscured by hanging ash-vines and the curve of the wall.
Tall. Emaciated. Four-legged.
Its form vaguely resembled a stag—long limbs ending in bone-cracked hooves, skin drawn tight against ribs like leather stretched over a ruined drum. Its head was antlered, but the antlers twisted sideways and inward—like branches deliberately warped by fire.
Where its face should've been, there was only a hollow void—a gaping absence shaped like a jaw that had been ripped out, leaving nothing behind but smoke and whispers.
Its chest rose slowly. Then fell.
The glyphs on its shoulders burned white for a heartbeat.
And it screamed.
There was no sound.
Not at first.
But Caelen felt it—in his teeth, in his stomach, in the blood behind his eyes.
The chamber rippled as the Hollow Stag's soundless wail flooded through the glyphs on the floor, causing them to burn brighter—then flash out entirely.
Caelen dropped to one knee, gasping. Lira clutched her head, stumbling back into the wall.
The creature moved.
Its hooves didn't strike the ground like stone.
They pulsed—each step sending concussive shudders through the floor as it charged, body loose and too fast, angles all wrong.
Lira dove aside.
Caelen rolled low, coming up with his dagger raised—but the thing was already past them.
It didn't chase.
It circled.
Like it was herding.
"Don't let it scream again," Lira said, breath sharp. "You feel that?"
Caelen nodded. "Like my skull's splitting."
"It's not just sound. It's a glyph-pulse. Messes with the blood."
Caelen didn't know how she knew that.
He didn't care.
Because the creature turned again—eyes still hollow, jaw smoking—and prepared to charge once more.
Caelen lunged—wild, desperate.
The Hollow Stag turned.
Its antlers struck him across the ribs, sending him crashing to the ground. He hit hard, bones rattling, dagger skidding away. His chest screamed with every breath.
Across the chamber, Lira was limping—blood soaking down her thigh from where an antler had slashed her earlier. She still held her blade, but her footing faltered. The beast turned to her, hooves striking sparks off the stone.
She wouldn't make it.
Caelen pushed himself upright. Pain lanced through his side. He moved anyway.
The Hollow Stag charged.
Caelen threw himself forward, sliding across the floor.
He got between them just as the antlers came down.
They caught him—raked across his back and shoulder, spinning him to the ground again.
But it was enough.
It had stopped.
Blood slicked his hand. His thumb brushed the edge of his dagger—sharp, familiar.
Then came the pulse—a flash of heat behind his eyes.
A symbol.
A glyph.
Unfamiliar, but his.
Bite. Draw. Carve.
No thought. Just instinct.
He bit into his thumb and dragged the blood into lines across the floor.
A spiral. Hooked. Burning.
The moment he finished, the glyph flared—deep red, humming with pressure.
The floor pulsed.
The Hollow Stag stumbled.
And then the glyph detonated outward in a shockwave, sending the beast reeling. Chains of red light snapped upward from the glyph and locked its limbs, burning bright and binding.
It screamed—louder than before, smoke pouring from its hollow face.
Caelen stood, blade in hand.
And finished it.
The creature collapsed.
Still. Smoking. Silent.
The glyph faded. The hum stopped.
Caelen stood over the body, panting, covered in sweat and blood.
Across the chamber, Lira hadn't moved.
She leaned against the wall, one hand pressed to her thigh wound, eyes wide. Not from pain.
From him.
"You…" she breathed. "That was… you?"
He said nothing. Just stared at the glyph's ashes on the floor.
The blood on his hand still pulsed faintly with heat.
Lira's voice dropped lower. Not weak. Not frightened. Just quiet.
"That wasn't luck."
She looked at him differently now—like someone trying to solve a riddle they hadn't realized existed.
He finally met her eyes.
She didn't look away.
A hint of color rose in her cheeks.
Then she blinked and shook her head, as if waking from something.
"We should keep moving," she said.
But she didn't walk right away.
They didn't speak for a while.
Lira limped along beside him, one hand pressed to her leg, blood thick between her fingers. Caelen said nothing, but he stayed close—close enough to catch her if she stumbled, even though she never did.
The corridor narrowed again, sloping downward until the stone changed. It became less clean, less symmetrical—fractured, like something had clawed through it long ago and left it to crumble. Roots split through the ceiling, curling across the floor like veins. Glyphs flickered only faintly now, as if whatever lived down here didn't need them anymore.
They found the shrine by accident.
A half-shattered arch opened into a sunken chamber, walls scorched with old fire. Stone pews were broken and blackened, and at the far end stood a pedestal—cracked clean in two. Glyphs etched into the floor glowed faintly, but not with guidance.
With memory.
There were bodies.
Three of them, slumped near the back wall. Not fresh. Not ancient. Their uniforms marked them as former initiates. Caelen crouched beside one—looked into the glazed eyes, still open.
Fear.
That was what remained.
Lira sat slowly beside one of the broken pews. Her blade clattered to the floor.
She looked down at her hands.
At the dried blood.
Then at Caelen.
"You shouldn't have been able to do that," she said.
Caelen didn't look at her.
"I didn't know I could."
"That's not the same thing."
He wiped the blood off his dagger and returned it to its sheath. The cut on his thumb still oozed faintly, but the warmth beneath his collarbone had dimmed. Not gone. Just… resting.
He walked toward the far wall, eyes scanning the scorch marks.
He found it near the base of a fallen pillar.
A message.
Carved in dried blood.
They don't want survivors. They want monsters who crawl out smiling.
He stared at it a long time.
Then said, "How long do you think we've been down here?"
Lira exhaled slowly. "Long enough that I'm not sure what I sound like when I'm not bleeding."
She smiled faintly at that. Not mocking. Just tired.
Then she looked at him again.
Really looked.
"You're not like the others."
He glanced over his shoulder. "You're just figuring that out?"
"No," she said. "I'm figuring out that you're not like them… and you're not like me, either."
There was something behind her voice now.
Not fear.
Not suspicion.
Wonder.
They didn't sleep.
They just sat—backs to stone, weapons near, breath low—and waited for the maze to shift again.
The shrine felt colder now.
Not just quiet—hollow.
Lira sat against the broken pew, her blood-soaked thigh wrapped in a strip of cloth torn from her cloak. Her breath came slow. Shallow. She didn't complain, but every few minutes her jaw clenched hard enough to make her temple twitch.
Caelen moved quietly between the dead.
Three initiates.
Their bodies hadn't rotted, but they were wrong. Dried out. Colorless.
Like something had pulled the life from them but left the shape behind.
He searched the one slumped against the far wall—a boy no older than he was, with broken fingernails and a short-bladed spear snapped in two beside him.
In the boy's fist, closed tight, Caelen found a cracked bone-stopper vial.
Inside: a thick, blackish-red fluid.
It clung to the glass like oil and shimmered faintly with dormant glyph traces.
He crouched beside Lira and held it out.
"What's that?" she asked, not moving.
"Ash-Root tonic," he said. "Or something like it. Glyph-bonded."
She eyed it. "That stuff burns worse than the wound."
"It also closes it."
She hesitated. Then took it.
Pulled the stopper with her teeth.
She drank in one motion.
The reaction was immediate.
She hissed—full-body, eyes wide, hand trembling.
Then slumped back against the stone, gasping.
Her thigh twitched violently under the cloth.
"I hate you," she breathed.
"You'll be fine."
He turned away and stared at the floor again.
The place where he'd drawn the glyph.
Where he'd bled.
The ash had mostly settled. But something lingered. A faint outline. Not in soot or scorch, but light—soft, deep crimson, visible only when he tilted his head just so.
It pulsed. Once.
His chest responded. A flicker beneath the skin, just under the collarbone—where the real glyph lay.
Not burning.
Not waking.
Just… watching.
He didn't speak of it.
Not yet.
But something had shifted.
And it wasn't finished.
Caelen didn't know how long they stayed there.
The blood on his shirt had begun to dry. Lira dozed lightly against the stone, her breaths shallow but even. The Ash-Root tonic had worked. Her bleeding slowed. The trembling in her leg stopped.
He remained alert.
Watching the glyph's faint outline. Feeling it echo beneath his skin.
It started with a whisper.
Not words.
A vibration—like wind sighing through hollow wood.
Then the glyphs around the shrine walls dimmed.
One by one.
Caelen stood fast.
"Lira."
Her eyes snapped open.
The floor beneath them shivered.
Then cracked.
"Move!" he shouted.
They scrambled away from the broken pew just as a jagged seam split the stone where they had rested. The wall behind them breathed in, then exhaled violently, sending a wave of dust and bone-shard debris across the chamber.
The corpses twitched.
Caelen didn't stop to look.
He grabbed Lira's arm, and together they dashed toward the arched doorway they'd entered through.
Except it wasn't there anymore.
Just solid wall.
"Back!" Lira shouted.
They turned, spotting a breach where the wall had half-collapsed.
A path—new, unlit, narrow.
"Run," Caelen said.
They plunged into it.
Behind them, the shrine collapsed fully, stone crashing down like a snapped ribcage, sealing off whatever had lived in that place with dust and forgotten words.
They ran in silence.
Not because they had nothing to say.
But because something else had started moving again.
And it was louder than fear.
The tunnel narrowed.
Walls pressed close, sweating with heat and strange condensation. Long strands of root—or sinew—hung from the ceiling, slick and pulsing faintly. The air grew humid, rank with iron and something sour, like breath from a thing that had never tasted sunlight.
Caelen moved first, blade in hand.
Lira followed, slower now, though her limp had eased. The tonic had dulled the pain, but not the memory of it.
Their boots splashed through shallow filth.
No light.
Just the glow of residual glyphs from Caelen's passage—the ones that sparked dimly only when his feet touched certain stones.
Only for him.
He froze.
A sound ahead. Faint.
Not movement.
A voice.
"Caelen…"
He turned sharply.
The voice was Alaeth's.
Whispered. Soft. The kind of voice she used when waking him before dawn to train.
He looked at Lira.
She heard it too.
"Caelen…" it said again.
Then again—closer.
Then from behind.
Then from above.
Lira stepped back.
"Trap," she said.
Caelen nodded.
They turned.
A shape dropped from the ceiling.
It was tall. Too tall.
Its limbs were human-shaped but jointed wrong—arms bent in three places, legs stretched too long. Its skin was pale, like candle wax, stretched too thin over visible bones. Long black talons curled from its fingers—hooks, not claws.
Its head was the worst part.
It wore a face—not its own. Sewn on like a mask. Sloppily. Uneven.
And it spoke again. With Alaeth's voice.
"Come here, little knife."
Caelen's heart hammered.
The creature's glyphs—black and burned—spiraled across its collar and down its chest. Not glowing. Carved in pain.
Lira hissed, "Skintalon."
The creature lunged.
Faster than the Hollow Stag. More direct. No hesitation.
Caelen dodged left. Lira dodged right.
Its talons scraped the stone.
Caelen rolled behind it, slashing across its leg. The blade bit deep—but the Skintalon didn't react. No scream. No blood.
Just a turn. Too fast.
Its face twisted—shifting. The mouth became Lira's. The voice changed.
"Please help me…"
Caelen hesitated.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
The creature slammed him back, talons raking across his shoulder. Cloth tore. Skin followed.
Caelen cried out.
Lira tackled the thing from the side—drove her blade into its ribs and pulled back fast, leaving a wide, gaping gash.
Still no blood.
But it faltered.
Caelen rose, dizzy.
The glyph on his chest pulsed once—but didn't activate.
This time, he was on his own.
The Skintalon turned toward Lira again.
And Caelen moved.
He didn't wait for the glyph.
He ducked under the swipe and jammed his dagger into the creature's thigh, twisted, and when it buckled, he drove his shoulder into its chest and slammed it into the wall.
Lira didn't hesitate.
She buried her blade deep into the creature's exposed throat.
This time—it screamed.
Not with a voice.
With dozens.
All at once.
Every voice it had stolen.
They pulled back together, blades still wet.
And the Skintalon collapsed in a tangle of limbs and false faces.
Caelen leaned against the wall, panting. His shoulder throbbed. Lira wiped her blade clean, eyes still locked on the creature.
"That was worse than the Stag," she said.
He nodded.
"I think it was watching us."
Lira turned to him.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Not watching us," she said. "It was watching you."
They found the others after nearly an hour of silence.
The corridor split into three paths—two collapsed, one open. The open path led into a shallow dome chamber with a shattered ceiling and walls cracked from prior tremors. Glyphs littered the stone like broken teeth—glowing faintly, dimming in places.
And inside, three figures huddled around a half-burned torch wedged into the floor.
They turned fast when Caelen and Lira entered.
One raised a rusted sword.
Another held a broken staff, glyphs along the base barely flickering.
The third—older, early twenties maybe—had a shallow gash along one cheek and a hand on a curved axe.
No one spoke at first.
Then the axe-bearer said, "You came through the fire?"
Caelen didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
One of the others—the staff holder—stepped forward. Pale, tall, eyes wide.
"I saw it," he said. "Back in the eastern fork. The glyph. That blood-ring. That wasn't from the trial."
He looked at Caelen.
"That was you."
Lira stepped slightly in front of him.
"You followed the glow, didn't you?"
The man flinched. Didn't deny it.
"I watched it happen," he said. "The Stag didn't even make a sound. It just… stopped. You bound it. Like it obeyed you."
Caelen's jaw tightened. "It didn't obey me."
"You drew power from it."
A long silence followed.
Then the axe-bearer stepped forward. "What are you?"
Caelen stared at him.
"Alive," he said.
The man's grip tightened.
"That's not what I asked."
Lira's hand drifted toward her blade.
"We're all bleeding. We're all dying. Ask another stupid question and we'll test how much you want to stay in one piece."
The tension stretched.
Then eased.
The axe-bearer backed off, muttering something Caelen couldn't hear.
But the look the staff-user gave him lingered.
Not fear exactly.
But something close.
They stayed for a short while.
Enough to drink.
To breathe.
But not long enough for the silence to turn ugly again.
As they prepared to move, Caelen felt it.
A tug in his chest.
Like something below the skin was pulling toward the next chamber.
Toward something old.
And waiting.