10

They descended hard.

Anya swung cold stone with a grunt, Corven's limp body thudding down beside her. Stale, icy wind from the catacombs caressed her skin like breath from a dead deity.

She coughed, sat up, and opened her eyes through the darkness.

Ell'shivar.

City of tombs.

They'd succeeded.

Ghost lights cast a faint, ghostly glow above great arches carved of fossil bone and obsidian. The entire city below the Dominion thrummed weakly with old, forgotten sorcery—unmapped, forbidden, interred.

Corven wasn't moving.

Anya crawled to him.

"Corven—stay with me, hey." Her voice shook as she reached out to touch his chest, longing for warmth, breath, life.

Nothing.

His pulse was thready. The wounds he'd taken—slashes across his chest, down his back, deep cuts on his legs—they'd all torn open in the veilshift. He was dying.

"No," she whispered. "Not like this."

She placed her hands over the worst wound, blood seeping through her fingers.

"Don't you even die, Arkael. Not after all of this."

Her dragon churned within her. Let me have him. I can pull the fire back. I can scorch out the death.

"No," she breathed out loud. "We do not burn him."

Suddenly—there was a shift in the atmosphere.

A gentle warm wind—in this frozen mausoleum—passed over her.

And a low, womanly voice whispered softly through the room.

"Step back, little flame."

Anyu turned around, appalled.

A woman shoved from the shadows between graves. Gray as ash, robes wrapped around her, hood up, long braids of silver falling to her hips. She moved like smoke, unseen and quiet.

Her weathered, lovely face—cheekbones skeletal, lips full, eyes the same burnished bronze color as Corven's.

Anya gasped for breath. "Who is she?"

The woman said nothing.

She knelt beside Corven, fingers crossed over his wounds. The pendant on her neck—a sunstone, carved—glowed softly, pulsing in time with Corven's dwindling heart.

Golden light flowed out of her fingertips and into his chest, infiltrating his skin.

Anya could feel it—not like her fire, but more substantial, deeper. Like life rewritten.

Healing.

Actual healing.

She didn't even try to speak again. She just watched.

The light pulsed harder, and then—fizzled out.

Corven flinched.

His eyes flickered open.

The woman touched his forehead gently. "Rest. You won't recall me. Not yet."

She rose, then, and turned toward Anya.

"You will protect him. Do you understand, daughter of Nytherin?"

Anya's throat tightened. "Who are you?"

A faint smile twitched upon the woman's lips. "Do not speak of this. Not even to him."

And with that—she vanished into darkness.

And was gone.

No light. No noise. Just. gone.

Corven rolled behind her, sleepily. "Where… are we?"

Anya turned to him, dropping to her knees hastily. His chest—unharmed. The wounds had disappeared. Not even a scar.

"You're okay," she breathed. "You really are okay."

He blinked at her, confusion thick in his voice. "What was that? I thought… I thought I was going to die."

"You were," Anya said softly. "But someone saved you."

His brow furrowed. "Who?"

She hesitated. The words wouldn't come off her tongue.

But the woman's final words rang in her ears like an oath: Tell no one. Not even him.

So she pasted on a smile.

"Let's just say the grave-city has strange magic."

Corven slowly sat up, folding his arms, double-checking himself. "I feel… perfect."

"Don't get cocky," she growled, standing him up. "You still look like crap."

He grinned.

But deep in Anya's chest, the truth twisted.

Corven's mother was alive.

She had healed him—and hidden from the entire world, even her son.

And now Anya carried her secret.

One of many.

For deep in these catacombs, another secret awaited them—a Scourgeborn refugee who held knowledge of the truth of the gods, the veil, and the fire that ran through the veins of Anya.

And Anya would need every secret, every truth, and every falsehood to survive what was to come.

Ell'shivar breathed quietly around them.

Under the dead city, there was no sun, no stars—just the gentle thrum of ancient magic, pulsing through walls of obsidian and dust-dead-long hands that had hewn out tombs. Every hallway they walked seemed a memory stitched from secrets.

Anya went slowly, senses extending for something—movement, magic, breath.

But what she felt more than anything was the pendant thudding gently against the base of her throat… and the shadow of the woman who had healed Corven.

Your secret is no longer yours, the wyrm hissed. The threads are being pulled. The gods will feel it.

Together with her, Corven moved as a ghost—silent, precise, but not quite sure-footed. He had not disputed her version. Not yet. But Anya felt the way he would stare at her, as if in him something felt something was out of place.

They turned the corner into a hall that was deeper than the rest. The walls here were charred black, adorned with murals scraped off, brutally vandalized. Names had been cut out. Symbols obliterated. Even the ceiling had been set alight.

"What the hell did they do here?" Corven breathed.

Anya came to a halt in front of a shattered mural, the sole one to remain intact.

There was a white fire woman standing tall with a knife held to the throat of a kneeling god. There were mortals around her rising to their feet—not bowing, rising to their feet.

Anya drew over the picture. "They tried to erase her."

"And didn't succeed," said a voice behind them.

They both turned.

At the far end of the hall, a woman clad in a robe of tattered silk stood. The color of twilight after fire was the color of her cloth. Her eyes were silver—no whiteness, no pupils. Light alone. Her hair, braided and flowing like the tail of a comet, reflected threads of starlight.

Her voice was like memory: layered, gentle, ageless.

"I reminded them once," she continued, moving forward, "that blind obedience and truth are not the same thing. That faith born of fear will always wither."

She knew her before even the woman had declared her name.

"You're the exile."

"I was once Silaneth," the woman said. "Now I am merely what is left."

Corven approached hesitantly. "You're a Scourgeborn."

"I was born under the Veil, tempered by its shadow, yes." She shifted her gaze to Anya. "But I adopted doubt. And that made me a threat."

Anya asked, "Why did you disappear?"

Silaneth's lips curved. "Because I discovered the gods do not watch in silence. They feed on it."

The atmosphere between them became thick.

Anya frowned. "What do you mean?"

"They starve themselves so that your fear is a feast," Silaneth said. "Your worship fills the silence they created. Every whispered prayer, every desperate kneel—fuel."

Corven's fists clenched. "So they're not hiding anymore. They're… draining us."

Silaneth nodded. "When the veil was shattered, it was not a mistake. It was going to happen. They foresaw that magic would be unstable. They wagered on it—so they could say it was a curse and silence those who used it."

Anya came closer to him. "But why? Why let chaos happen if they rule this world?"

"Because the veil was a prison not just for mortals—but for them," Silaneth panted. "The gods did not withdraw out of compassion. They were bound. Trapped in an agreement they created and lost. Now they use you to break it. All oaths unbroken. All secrets hidden. All forbidden magic thrown." Her gaze turned cold. "All dragons that breathe."

Anya's heart pounded.

"They want you to burn," Silaneth answered. "So they can be reborn from the fire you create."

A nauseating understanding settled into the bones of Anya.

I am their tool.

Corven stepped forward. "So what do we do?"

Silaneth looked at him. "You ground her. She burns. You bind. You are more than her shield—you are the key to keeping in check the First Flame."

Anya's eyes sparkled. "Why him?"

"Because your souls are bound in blood and promise." Silaneth's eyes darted to his palm. "And because his blood used to flow from them."

Corven winced. "What?"

"You are god-marked," Silaneth whispered. "Not merely by birth—but by choice."

Anya spun around. "You never explained to me—"

"I didn't know," Corven barked. "My father never—

"Does he not know?" Silaneth's voice cut through the shadows. "Arkael has always worked for greater powers. That is how they rose. Not by merit—but by sacrifice."

Silence fell like ash.

Silaneth leaned in beside Anya and held out a fragment of crystal—red fire running through it and set in iron.

This is a memory," she told him. "Not mine. Yours. Before the veil knew you. Shatter it only when you're ready to see the face of your mother."

Anya took it, her hands trembling.

"And the gods?" she asked.

Silaneth's light faltered.

"They know you're alive now. The vowshroud shines with your name still inscribed. They won't wait for you to find them. They're coming.".

Anya looked down at the memory shard.

“I’ll be ready.”

Silaneth smiled.

“I hope so. Because the gods do not weep. They only consume.”