Cassian let the group fall back into its normal formation: Lucian in front, himself following, and Shalelu bringing up the rear with her bow ready. Once they had passed into the faint torchlight of the upper chambers, Cassian released the light spell from his staff. The golden glow dimmed to nothing, leaving only the muted orange flickers ahead to guide them.

"Onward," Cassian whispered.

Lucian nodded once, steady and sure, and moved forward without hesitation. His rapier gleamed faintly as he took point, his steps measured and deliberate. He carried himself like a man who had danced with danger often enough to know its rhythm, yet still treated each step as the first in a new song.

Behind him, Cassian followed quietly, his staff now an unassuming length of wood. Each footfall against the ancient stone floor seemed to echo faintly, the sound swallowed quickly by the heavy air of the ruins. The carvings on the walls grew more elaborate as they went—spirals of fire, jagged teeth, and leering faces etched into the stone. Some bore fresh goblin scrawls, but many remained untouched, as though the goblins had feared to defile them.

Shalelu’s presence at the rear was barely perceptible, her movements silent, her gaze sharp. She was a shadow with a drawn bowstring, always watching, always ready.

As they moved deeper, the passage widened slightly, and the faint sound of trickling water reached Cassian’s ears. It was distant, barely more than a whisper, yet it carried with it a sense of unease. Then, just on the edge of hearing, came something else—a rhythmic murmur, low and steady, like the heartbeat of the stone itself.

Lucian raised a hand, signaling a halt. He tilted his head toward the passage ahead and held up two fingers.

Voices.

Cassian crept up to the corner, heart steady, ears straining for every sound. He kept his steps light, his breath even, careful not to let the soft scuff of his boots give him away. When he reached the cold edge of the stone wall, he stopped, pressed his shoulder against it, and listened intently.

The chanting was louder now—low, deliberate, and rising in rhythm. It wasn’t just a prayer. It was an invocation. Each phrase carried a pulse of power that Cassian could feel in the air, subtle but undeniable. This was no goblin war chant. This was something far older, far more dangerous.

He leaned ever so slightly, just enough to let his eyes sweep the chamber beyond.

The room was bathed in a deep crimson glow. Iron sconces along the walls burned with unnatural flames that crackled without heat. The stone was not rough-hewn but melted smooth, as though it had been shaped by fire or magic rather than by tools. The air shimmered faintly, waves of distortion rippling outward from the center of the space.

There, standing before a jagged black altar, was Nualia.

She was not the girl from the cathedral’s faded portraits. Her pale gold hair now hung in wild waves over dark crimson robes, and her eyes burned faintly with an inner light—no longer the uncertain gaze of someone lost, but the unrelenting stare of someone with purpose. Her left arm was bare and inhuman, twisted and scaled, ending in claws that flexed and gripped the air as she chanted. Her voice was steady, rising and falling in precise intervals, each syllable feeding the growing power in the room.

Two goblins knelt at either side of the altar, trembling, heads bowed. Beyond them, shadows coiled in the corners, dense and alive, as if waiting for a command.

Shalelu slid up beside Cassian, bow lowered but ready. Her voice was just above a whisper. “That’s her,” she murmured. “But something’s wrong. She’s not alone.”

A moment later, Lucian was there as well, his expression unusually grim. His rapier was drawn, held low, ready for the slightest shift in fortune.

“What’s the play, cousin?” he asked, his voice low and tight.

Cassian glanced back toward the chamber, watching as the rhythm of the chant quickened. The ritual was nearing its peak.

"Keep me from getting dead," I said, voice low but firm. "Thelenda said I could court her. I’d be disappointed to be unable to do so."

Then I stepped out into the chamber.

The thing about summoning rituals was that they required concentration. Precision. Intelligence, willpower, and a certain artistry in weaving the arcane. They demanded focus.

And it only took a well-placed handful of chaos to break them.

With a flick of my staff, I whispered the words of a spell I knew like the back of my hand. “Acidus stilla.”

A bead of sizzling green energy leapt from my fingers, cutting through the crimson light, hissing as it struck the blood-filled runes around the altar. The result was instant and unmistakable.

The acid sizzled and boiled, eating into the carefully carved grooves, sending up faint wisps of acrid smoke. The blood, meant to fuel the spell, blackened and curled away. The runes cracked, a sharp, splintering sound filling the room as one of the concentric rings split apart, its power severed.

Nualia’s chant faltered. Her voice cracked, caught, then turned into a scream—not of pain, but of raw, furious frustration.

“You dare—!”

The goblins flanking the altar froze for a fraction of a second, then scrambled. One lunged forward with a rusted blade raised high, only to meet Lucian’s rapier. The other shrieked, turned to run, and fell as Shalelu’s arrow struck true.

Nualia turned sharply back to the altar, her clawed hand thrust toward the fractured runes. Her voice rose again, desperate, trying to salvage what had already begun to unravel. The sconces guttered, their flames shuddering, casting jagged shadows that seemed to writhe on the walls.

The air shifted. The pressure in the room changed. I felt it in my chest—like a knot in the Weave tightening, pulling at itself, then snapping free.

Whatever Nualia had been trying to summon, whatever she sought to awaken, had lost its anchor.

The chamber trembled once. A single heartbeat of motion. And then… stillness.

Nualia stood panting, her clawed hand still raised, her golden eyes locked on me. Fury burned behind them, but so did something else—something I couldn’t quite name.

Her voice was cold, steady, and shaking with wrath.

“You should not have come here, Valerius.”

Her claw flexed.

“You could have lived.”

“Nualia!” I shouted—not in anger, but with force enough to cut through her wrath. “Stop this madness.”

I stepped forward, just enough to place myself within her focus, the altar looming at my side. My staff was raised, not in threat, but as a barrier between us.

“You have let yourself be manipulated,” I said, my voice steady. “And a spirit of rage has consumed you. Don’t let it use you for its own ends and then destroy you utterly. Your soul is worth more than that. You are worth more than that.”

The words rang in the still air, hanging like a faint echo.

Nualia flinched—not from any spell or blade, but at the sound of her name spoken without hatred or fear. Not as an accusation, but as a plea.

Her clawed hand trembled slightly. The flames at the altar wavered, their heat less certain.

She stared at me, her eyes glowing with the faint embers of what had once been a firestorm. Her chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, the remnants of fury still gripping her frame. Her expression was a storm—rage, confusion, disbelief—all battling beneath a face that, under it all, was still painfully young.

“Manipulated?” she said at last. Her voice cut through the chamber, sharp and brittle as glass under pressure. “No. No. I see now. I see better than I ever did.”

But her words faltered. A crack appeared in her tone—a hesitation, a note of doubt she couldn’t hide.

“I was left behind,” she hissed. “Left to rot in pain. Forgotten by gods and men alike. They praised me, then pitied me, then—then mourned me before I was even dead.” Her clawed hand moved to her chest, curling over her heart, as if to clutch at the remains of something broken.

“The wrath found me,” she said, softer now. “And it gave me purpose. It gave me focus.”

Behind me, I knew Lucian had not moved. His blade was at the ready, but he held his ground. Shalelu watched silently, her bow half-drawn, waiting.

The broken runes on the floor still steamed faintly, the acid that had carved them out leaving scars in the stone. The echoes of my words lingered, quiet as an unanswered prayer.

Nualia’s gaze shifted—first to the altar, then back to me. Her clawed hand hovered, shaking, over the ruined sigils.

“You don’t know what it is,” she whispered.

“I do,” I said, the words firm. “And I know it’s using you.”

A stillness fell over the chamber, heavier than before. Time stretched and thinned, until there was only breath—mine, hers—and the quiet pull of the magic we both could feel.

Her hand dropped.

The claws fell slack, brushing against the scorched and broken sigils at her feet. She lowered her head, her voice barely audible.

“I can’t be saved,” she said. The fire was gone from her words now, leaving behind a faint ember of something almost like sorrow. “Not after what I’ve done.”

I didn’t move.

But I could feel it, deep in the marrow of the room—the wrath that still coiled behind her, still feeding. The bond that held it to her had not broken… but it was strained.

I dropped my staff, the hollow clack of wood on stone barely registering in the charged silence. Then I stepped forward—without a weapon, without a focus, without anything but my voice.

“Salvation isn’t a destination, Nualia,” I whispered. Each word fell into the space between us like a stone dropped into still water. “It is a road to be traveled. And the first step on that road is a choice. A choice of forgiveness.”

Her glowing eyes flickered, narrowing slightly, but she didn’t move.

“You were wronged,” I continued, my voice steady but soft. “There are no excuses for that. I’m sorry. I wish I could undo what happened. Let me be the first step down that road for you. Nualia…”

I met her eyes fully, no spell, no shield between us.

“I forgive you. Let the hatred and the rage die here.”

For a moment, the air itself seemed to hold its breath. The crimson light that painted the chamber dimmed slightly, flickering against the stone. Nualia’s clawed hand twitched, but her posture wavered. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but no words came.

Then her hand dropped to her side. Her shoulders sagged, just enough to show that her defiance had cracked. That the fortress of fury she had built around herself was crumbling at the edges.

“No one’s ever said that before,” she whispered at last, her voice unsteady, brittle. “No one’s ever… forgiven me.”

Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor beside the altar. Her monstrous arm dragged heavily against the stone as silent tears began to streak down her face. They were not the cries of grief or anguish. Just quiet, endless tears that had been waiting years to fall.

I didn’t move. I simply let the silence hold her.

Behind me, I heard Lucian’s boots shift slightly. He stepped forward, his sword still lowered, his expression unreadable. Disbelief, perhaps. Or something close to awe.

Shalelu remained still, her gaze steady and unwavering, as though watching something sacred.

The air in the chamber shifted. Thistletop exhaled. The oppressive weight of rage that had pressed upon us began to lift. The wrath was still there, buried deep beneath the stone. But its grip on the surface—on her—was weakening.

I walked around the altar to where Nualia had crumpled, then lowered myself beside her and gently gathered her into my arms. Her tears soaked into my shoulder as she cried quietly, without restraint. She wasn’t the furious, raging figure from moments before. She was just a person now—raw, human, and vulnerable.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said, my voice low but steady. “I will stand with you through it though.”

She whispered something against me, her voice cracking. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she said. “But I want to find out.”

“I’ll help you,” I promised.

I looked up at Lucian and Shalelu. They both had their weapons ready, their eyes scanning the room. “Look around,” I told them. “The thing that possessed her is here somewhere below. See if there’s a way down. Do it quickly though. We want to be out of here before the goblins return. I don’t want to have to deal with them if we can help it.”

Lucian nodded, silent but resolute. He moved to the far side of the chamber, examining the walls and floors for anything out of place.

Shalelu let out a slow, measured breath. “I’ll check the far wall,” she said, her voice as steady as her aim. She slipped into the deeper shadows, scanning the room’s edges and the intricate carvings on the walls.

Nualia didn’t say anything more. She just held on, letting herself be small for the first time in what must have been years. Her breathing began to steady, the weight of her rage and sorrow seeming to lift, if only a little. I held her close and waited.

Shalelu’s voice broke the quiet.

“Found something,” she said, her words calm but carrying an edge of tension.

I looked up as she waved us over. She stood near the rear of the chamber, pointing down at a warped iron grate half-buried beneath broken stone and discarded relics. Below it was a narrow shaft that led downward. The stairs were steep and slick, the air around them damp and cloying. From within the darkness below came a faint glow, pulsing and wrong—like the echo of a presence that didn’t belong in this world.

Lucian knelt beside the opening, his rapier resting lightly in his hand. He glanced back at me, his expression grim.

“Whatever that thing is,” he said, “it’s down there.”

I brushed the silver hair from Nualia’s face, speaking gently. “I need you to go with Shalelu and my cousin, Lucian. You need to get away from this place.”

Her luminous eyes searched mine, wide and trembling. She opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head, my voice firm but calm.

“I’m going to go down those stairs,” I said, my tone steady. “And I’m going to stuff whatever came for you back into its box. You need to be free.”

I glanced over at Lucian and Shalelu, who stood ready. “Get her out of here and to safety,” I told them. “I’m going to end this.”

Nualia’s lips parted again, her voice a whisper, breaking at the edges. “You’re going to die,” she said. “You’re going to walk into something that feeds on pain and wants to be found.”

I gave her a faint smile. “So do I.”

Lucian stepped forward, his mouth open to argue, but I caught his eye, silencing him. He stared for a moment, his jaw tightening, his knuckles going white on the hilt of his sword. At last, he gave a stiff nod.

“I’ll get her out,” he said, his voice low and taut. “And then I’ll be right behind you, cousin. Don’t go doing anything heroic before I get there.”

Shalelu moved to Nualia’s side, her hand light on the young woman’s shoulder. “Come with me,” she said, her voice quiet but certain. “You’ve walked through fire. Let someone else carry the torch now.”

I straightened, the pulsing glow from below casting long shadows around me. The shaft ahead yawned open, stone stairs descending into a blackness that defied the torchlight. The faint, sickly light at its bottom flickered like a dying heartbeat.

Behind me, the soft footsteps of my companions retreated, growing fainter by the moment.

Before me, there was only silence.

Down. Why did the bad things always have to live down?

I tapped my staff against the stone and muttered the Light spell again. The soft glow spread out in a gentle rush, pushing shadows into the cracks and corners. The idea of facing ancient wrath in the dark was foolish. Of course, facing ancient wrath at all was foolish, whether illuminated or not. But sometimes, all you had were fool’s choices.

The air cooled as I descended. Each step carried me deeper into a silence that wasn’t natural. It wasn’t empty either. It felt like the stone itself was holding its breath. Dampness clung to the walls, beads of moisture collecting in long-forgotten grooves, but no dust coated the stairs. No cobwebs hung in the corners.

The stairs ended at an archway carved from the living rock. Beyond it was a chamber—a vast, circular expanse covered in seared runes that burned into the stone, lines so sharp they seemed to buzz faintly in the corner of my vision. Interlocking seven-pointed stars formed a pattern like a cage. Their purpose was clear: something had been bound here. Something old. Something meant to stay buried.

I stepped inside.

At the chamber’s center lay the binding circle. The sigils that once held it were cracked, spiderweb fractures racing through the floor. Whatever force had held the seal together was broken. I could feel it—like a missing tooth, a hollow in the air.

Nothing sat in the center.

No statue. No relic. No body.

Just absence.

The air shimmered faintly, like light bending the wrong way. It drew the eye and then pushed it away, as if the mind couldn’t hold its shape while looking at it for too long.

Something had left.

Or something had been freed.

The silence was not a void. It was a presence, pressing down and waiting.

Watching.

I held my staff high, the light from it spilling out and pushing back the shadows. The faint golden glow carved sharp relief into the ancient carvings, the fractured sigils. The geometry of the chamber pulled at the edges of my vision, like the stone itself remembered being twisted and bent by whatever power had passed through it.

I stepped fully into the circle.

The silence shuddered.

“You can stop sitting there waiting,” I said, my voice steady even though my heart wasn’t. “As if I don’t know you’re there… whatever you are.”

The air in the room seemed to thicken. Heat rose—not from the floor, not from any flame, but from something far more oppressive. I took another step forward, my eyes fixed on the marred runes. They were fractured, spider-webbed with cracks. I studied them, trying to piece together what they had once been, if there was any chance of repairing them.

“You manipulated and used Nualia badly,” I continued, my voice filling the chamber. “You’re obviously very powerful, but I’m not a broken, abused, and confused young woman. So, come out and speak with me.”

I paused, letting the words hang for a moment.

“Unless you’re the frightened one.”

The silence wavered—shuddered—then shattered. But not with sound.

A presence pushed against my mind. It wasn’t above or below. It didn’t come from behind or from the shadows. It came from the void at the center of the room—the place where nothing sat.

And then, finally, there were words.

Not spoken.

Imposed.

“You are not hers.”

The voice struck my thoughts like a hammer against stone. It had no breath, no tone, no weight in the air. Yet it was resonant. Wrong. It vibrated against my bones.

“You are not broken. You are not hollow. You are not fit.”

I watched as the empty space before me twisted. The light of my staff bent, dimming, casting shadows in directions that should have been impossible. The shape came slowly at first—a ripple, then a distortion. Then form.

A figure began to take shape—vaguely humanoid, though that word hardly fit. Its edges frayed and reformed constantly, as though the world itself couldn’t agree where it ended. Shadows churned where its face should have been, and at the center of the shifting void was a spiral of burning red. It didn’t glow; it seared, pressing into my mind like a brand.

“You offer what?” it continued, the words still pulsing inside me rather than reaching my ears. “Pity? Penance?”

The figure stepped forward—across the broken runes.

The circle did not hold it.

It stood before me now, its shifting form casting jagged, unnatural shadows.

“Will you offer yourself in her place?”

It didn’t ask with curiosity.

It asked with hunger.

“Perhaps,” I said, holding my ground. “Who are you? What is your purpose?”

I kept my tone even, my posture steady, though I didn’t take another step forward. “What is it that you want? If we are to bargain… negotiate… we must establish what each of us wants from this. You already seem to be free. What do you want with Nualia or me?”

The thing tilted its burning spiral of a face, as though contemplating my words from a vantage I couldn’t see. The air grew colder along the edges of the room, even as the space around it pulsed with a heat that had no source.

When it spoke, the voice was slower, more deliberate. Not kinder, not gentler—just coiled, like a serpent waiting to strike.

“I am what remains of wrath. Of fury caged too long. Once, I was bound by those who feared what purpose could become when unmoored from mercy.”

It stepped closer. No sound. No footfall. Just presence—heavier, nearer, pressing down.

“I was given names by those who tried to contain me. I have forgotten most of them. But the stones called me… Malithar.”

The spiral of flame pulsed once—red, then a deeper, darker red.

“I did not seek Nualia. She found me. Her pain fed me. Her anger gave me shape. She became useful. A vessel of clarity. Of destruction made holy.”

It paused, the glow dimming slightly.

“But she faltered.”

Then it focused on me. Not just the burning spiral, but the full weight of its presence. It felt like standing under the weight of a thousand judgmental eyes.

“You, Cassian Valerius… you carry will. You came not from pain… but from choice.”

“I want to be felt. I want to be worshipped. I want to be known.”

The pause was deliberate, and the next words carried a heavy inevitability.

“Take her place. Spread my fire. Walk the world and become my tongue. And I will burn your name into the bones of history.”

A second spiral began to form beneath Malithar’s shape—etched in ash and flame. A new circle. A new pact.

“Or walk away. And watch the next find me. They always do.”

Its presence bore down on me, the weight nearly physical.

“What do you want?”

Lying to the being seemed unwise. Being completely honest seemed equally unwise. Perhaps the truth, but not the whole truth.

“I want it to be so that nobody else succumbs to your will,” I said, my voice steady. “I want Nualia and all those who in the future are represented by her to be free. Answer me this: if I take her place, do I retain my free will? Or do I become just a puppet of yours? Becoming the sock puppet of wrath doesn’t appeal to me a great deal.”

The spiral of flame flared—once, then again—like a slow pulse from some great, slumbering heart. The silence that followed was not hesitation, but acknowledgment. The kind a predator gives to another predator when it recognizes cunning in the dance.

“You are wise to ask.”

The voice shifted—less imposing now, more intimate, as if it crept behind my thoughts instead of pressing down upon them.

“Nualia gave herself in grief. In fury. In need. She surrendered. I shaped her because she begged to be shaped.”

“But you…” the spiral turned again, slow and serpentine, “you are willful. Anchored. I would not hollow you. I would ride you.”

There was no deception in the words. No malice, either. Just clarity.

“You would retain your will… and mine would coil around it. You would see the world as it truly is. You would burn for a reason. Not because you are broken… but because you choose to be fire.”

The circle of flame at Malithar’s feet widened. The stone beneath it blackened, veins of red light threading outward like cracks in skin about to break.

“Your free will would remain. For a time. Perhaps always. You are stronger than most.”

The voice curled close now—closer than breath.

“But you would be changed. No one walks beside me and remains as they were.”

And then:

“Will you choose to be my vessel, Cassian Valerius? Or will you seal me again, and hope that none ever comes here again to listen?”

The runes glowed brighter.

I considered the proposition, turning it over in my mind as the flickering light played across the jagged runes and shadows stretched along the walls. When I spoke, my voice was steady, my words deliberate.

“Here is my offered pact. I will allow our bonding with these constraints. You will feel what I feel. I will feel what you feel. You will not impose your will upon me to take from me my agency as a free-willed individual. I will not attempt to find a way to pass you off to another. You will not leave me for another. I will not attempt your destruction. You will not attempt mine. We are stuck with each other until my own demise. At the moment of my death, you return to this cage. If another finds you at that point, so be it.”

I met its gaze—or what served as one. “Have we an accord?”

The spiral paused.

The air itself seemed to still. No sound, no breath, only the quiet weight of a moment balanced on a knife’s edge.

Then the spiral began to fold inward, collapsing in slow, deliberate motion. The lines shifted, the colors darkened, the runes beneath it flaring not with fire but with an ancient, molten gold. The light was steady. It was not consuming. It was binding.

A pulse rolled outward—a deep, resonant wave that passed over me like a breath of hot wind. It left no pain, no scorch marks, but it left something nonetheless. A mark.

“Agreed,” Malithar’s voice whispered, curling around my thoughts like smoke.

The flames dimmed. The spiral grew still.

“A binding of symmetry. Of mirrored flame. I shall not seek to master you. And you shall not seek to escape me.”

It paused, the weight of its words settling like ash after a fire.

“We are ash and spark, woven.”

“Until your end.”

I felt it then—not a presence, not a voice. A sensation at the edge of every thought. A heat beneath my skin, faint and smoldering, like a single ember placed in the core of my soul. Not consuming. Not yet.

But alive.

This was not a prison.

It was a pact.

Malithar’s form began to fade—burning away like smoke rising into sunlight. The spiral remained etched into the floor, but the pulsing power was gone.

The chamber fell quiet.

The wrath had been sealed—not by chains, not by spellcraft.

But by choice.