Kael whips his head toward me, eyes narrowing behind his spectacles.In this half-light, he looks menacing, but I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.
“I’m not scared,” he says through gritted teeth.“We have no idea what this is—or what it’s capable of.But if you want to be the willing volunteer, by all means, knock yourself out.”He crosses his arms, his posture a stiff wall of defiance.
My shadows trace idle circles around the pool, tendrils of black skimming the surface.The pad of my bare feet echoes off the stone as I move to the edge, my toes dangling precariously over the lip.
From the inky depths, a glow rises—pale as moonlight.Runes bloom across the surface in concentric circles, forming a crescent and an eye.My breath catches; it’s the symbol from my drawings, the one that haunts my dreams.
Step in, daughter.A brush of a ghost-breath strokes my ear.
I sink to a kneel, my fingers brushing the surface.I expect a chill, but a welcome, lukewarm calm takes its place.My reflection stares back—not my own face, but the woman from the mirror in the abandoned cart.
Hers.
She offers a warm smile, an invitation to the deep.
My foot breaks the glass surface, sending ripples spiralling outwards.My leg sinks, not into flowing water, but something viscous—a layer of dense, unyielding gel.
“Seren, stop.”Kael says, his voice cracking.“You don’t know what it will do.”
“There’s only one way to find out.I have to do this.”
The liquid climbs my skin, winding like threads of ink.It is kin to my shadows.I submerge until the substance coats my collarbone.Every pore registers the thick tension as it presses evenly—an inescapable, intimate pressure.
There’s no bottom.I’m suspended, encased in a block of deepest amethyst, the colour of a bruise.The faint light from the room catches on the surface, illuminating a thousand tiny air bubbles trapped around me—a silent chorus, sharp as screaming glass.
My shadows climb over my face like a dark shroud.Tendrils snake into my nose and mouth until the world vanishes, and all I see is black.
Cities of black stone flash in my mind.A woman with violet-rimmed eyes, her hands weaving stars.My breath slows, heavy as silt as the dark begins to anchor in my lungs.
Forgive me for what I am about to show you, child.
My thoughts snake around an invisible thread, finding a voice at the far end:But why?—?
A deep vibration cuts me off, burying itself in my bones.
White flashes blind me.People clothed in black lie dead on the darkened stone; others flee for their lives.Screams.So many screams.Blood like midnight ink lines the walls and masks the faces of the fallen.Split throats, severed limbs, flames devouring houses, streets, and lives.
Laughter pierces my skull.This devastating destruction carves a crater in my chest, a cold vacuum where my heart should be, churning into a silent vortex.
Their sorrow—their agony—feels like sweet, bitter air to the hungry void.The real horror is how easily I breathe it in.I can’t tear my eyes away; to look away feels like a deceit.
Slender, elongated fingers reach out, moving with my thoughts—but they are not mine.The nails are too sharp, too manicured.Too dark.
Wisps of black smoke move furiously from person to person, desperate to save those worthy of saving.But it’s no use.
I look up and see my temple burning.Gold flames lick the black stone, smoke cascading toward the sky.Robes of white and gold streak past.Three gilded masks loom over me, their shadows creating a heavy curtain of darkness.
Then, a flash of white.
A scream tears through my throat.Mine.
Then, nothing.
I’m being dragged out of the gel, the pulling sensation tearing me away from the screams reverberating in my brain.
“Seren!”Muffled shouts echo around me, dissolving into silent ghosts.
The pool flares white.Light and shadow twist together, forcing my eyes to squeeze shut.I stumble into a heap on the floor, Kael’s arms reaching for me just as the glare dies.Above us, the symbols on the walls blaze brighter than before; altars, murals, three women bound by a single chain of fire.
