Ch. 13: The Door Beneath the Bones

They followed the hum east until the forest ran out of names.

The trees here grew so tall their tops blurred into fog, their roots tangled around half-buried ruins. Every stone carried carvings—wolves running in spirals, eyes weeping flame. Kaelira traced one as they passed. The mark on her wrist answered with a faint pulse.

“It feels like they’re watching,” she said.

“They are,” Zevran replied. “The witches bound their dead to the wards. They don’t rot; they remember.”

“Comforting.”

“You asked for truth.”

The humor between them flickered thin. The bond felt heavier today, weighted with everything they hadn’t said since the night of the experiment. Each step forward braided tension and silence tighter.

Ahead, the ground dipped into a ravine where wind moaned through hollow stones. Taren stumbled beside Zevran’s horse, still pale but stronger. He frowned at the sound. “It’s singing.”

Zevran halted. “No. It’s calling.”

Kaelira crouched, touching the nearest stone. Frost rimed its surface though the air was mild. Under her palm, something throbbed—a heartbeat that wasn’t hers. “The heart’s path.”

“Not yet,” Zevran said, scanning the ridge. “We need to—”

The earth shuddered.

The song deepened to a roar, and the ground cracked open down the ravine’s center. Heat rushed upward, laced with the smell of old salt and metal. Kaelira threw an arm over Taren as light flared. When the dust cleared, a staircase spiraled down into crimson glow.

Zevran swore softly. “A descent gate. The witches built them to reach the under-forges.”

“Which means Serane lied,” Kaelira said.

“She always lies,” he answered. “The trick is guessing which lie serves truth.”

Kaelira stared into the fissure. The air pulsed, matching her heartbeat. “We go.”

Zevran caught her shoulder. “Not until we know what’s below.”

“I already do.” Her eyes burned gold in the half-light. “It’s what’s been whispering since the Hollow.”

He studied her face for a long moment, the way one might study a flame to see if it will leap or die. Then he nodded once. “Together.”

Taren opened his mouth to protest, but Kaelira pressed a finger to his lips. “Stay here. If we don’t come back—run west.”

The boy hesitated, then nodded, wide-eyed.

⸻

The stairs wound downward forever.

The deeper they went, the less air there was. The walls sweated light: faint red veins that pulsed like blood behind skin. Kaelira felt it tug at her chest, each beat syncing her pulse to the rhythm in the stone. By the hundredth step, she wasn’t sure which heart belonged to her anymore.

Zevran noticed. His hand brushed her elbow, steadying. “Keep your focus above your ribs,” he murmured. “If it takes your rhythm, it takes your will.”

She laughed under her breath. “You make that sound like experience.”

“I’ve walked too close before.”

“What happened?”

“I forgot why I came down.”

She glanced sideways. “And now?”

“Now I remember.”

The words lodged somewhere under her sternum, bright and unwanted.

⸻

The staircase opened into a chamber vast enough to hold a mountain. Columns of crystal stretched from floor to ceiling, each filled with slow-moving light. In the center, suspended in an orb of liquid fire, floated a sphere of obsidian the size of a heart.

Kaelira’s breath hitched. “The core.”

Zevran’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. “It’s smaller than legend.”

“Then legend never stood this close.”

She stepped toward it. The orb’s surface rippled, and shapes formed inside—faces, hands, pieces of the past. Her mother. Serane. Draven. Herself. Each image flickered, mouth opening in silent words.

“What’s it doing?” Zevran asked.

“Remembering.”

“Don’t touch—”

Too late.

Her fingertips brushed the liquid fire.

The world vanished.

⸻

She was falling through memory—hers and not hers. Cities burning under silver rain. Wolves kneeling before witches. A young king lifting a blade shaped like a crescent moon. His face was Zevran’s, but younger, unscarred, eyes bright with awe instead of guilt. Behind him, Serane whispered: You will be her tether. You will keep her flame from consuming the world.

Kaelira hit stone and gasped. Zevran knelt beside her, pale, sweat beading at his temple.

“You were there,” she said.

He didn’t deny it. “Another life. Another name.”

“You knew me before.”

“I knew what you’d become.” He looked away. “The tether isn’t a curse. It’s a promise. I made it.”

Kaelira stared. “You bound us.”

“I thought I was saving you.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m not sure which of us needs saving.”

The bond pulsed, painful, beautiful. The orb behind them throbbed in rhythm, light spilling across the floor in gold and silver waves. The air grew hot enough to sting.

Zevran grabbed her wrist. “We have to go.”

The chamber shook; cracks webbed through the crystal pillars. From the fissures, shapes began to crawl—forms of light and ash, half-bodies whispering in a hundred voices.

Kaelira’s wolf rose, snarling inside her skull. Protect.

She flung out her hand. Fire leapt, gold streaked with black. The shades recoiled but did not burn.

“They feed on power!” Zevran shouted. “Stop!”

“I can’t!”

The tether yanked tight, pulling him toward her. He slammed his palm against her back, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You can. Listen. Breathe above the ribs. Remember why you came down.”

Taren’s face. The Hollow. The promise not to burn unless she chose to.

Kaelira dragged air into her lungs. The flame faltered, folded inward. The shades screamed once, fading into smoke.

When the echo died, only the heart remained—now beating slow, satisfied.

She turned to Zevran. “It woke.”

“Not fully,” he said. “It’s watching.”

“What happens if it wakes completely?”

He didn’t answer.

The silence said enough.

⸻

They climbed back in near-darkness. The fissure sealed behind them with a hiss, leaving only the stink of ozone and the taste of blood at the back of Kaelira’s throat. Taren was waiting at the rim, clutching a stone knife too big for his hand.

“You were gone forever,” he whispered.

“Felt longer,” Kaelira said.

Zevran scanned the horizon. The fog to the west glowed faintly orange. “Fires.”

“Dominion?” she asked.

“Not only.” He crouched, dipped fingers into the ash-dust clinging to the grass. When he lifted them, streaks of black light crawled up his skin. “Witchfire.”

Kaelira’s stomach tightened. “Serane.”

Zevran nodded once. “She opened another gate.”

“Then she’s ahead of us.”

He looked toward the smoke. “She’s calling the heart home.”

Kaelira squared her shoulders. “Then we follow.”

Zevran met her eyes, the bond between them a steady throb of shared pain and something deeper. “You realize we may not come back.”

“Then let’s make the descent worth it.”

⸻

They started west, three shadows against the dying light, the fissure sealing behind them with the quiet finality of a door closing on mercy.

Far below, in the dark they’d left behind, the heart beat once—

and the world above answered.