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Carved into the cliffside, half-hidden by the glow of the Fracture, a structure emerged from the rock itself. Dark against the light, its edges sharp and deliberate, its surface etched with faint, unfamiliar markings that caught and bent the violet glow.
A doorway stood at its centre. Open.
Julen followed her gaze, his expression tightening. “So this is where they’ve been hiding him.”
She didn’t answer right away. She held out a hand, palm open, testing it the way she’d tested a fragment before she trusted it. Testing for wardlines, pressure - any sign. Something did feel different, as if whatever waited inside had been deliberately placed there. She also felt something faint. Comforting but frightening. Familiar. Maybe it was him.
Maia’s chest tightened. “I think he’s here.”
Julen exhaled slowly. “You think he’s waiting—”
“Yes. He’s got to be.” She paused. “I hope he’s waiting. I hope he’s—”
“But what if he doesn’t want to be found? What if he changed his mind and is sticking with his original plan—”
“There’s only one way to find that out,” Maia said. She didn’t wait for him to argue. She walked toward the door and didn’t let herself imagine what she’d do if she were wrong.
45
The Reunion
As they approached, the doorway did not welcome them. It had not been made to welcome humans. Whatever had been placed over it - a spell, ward, intention - pressed against them. They were unwelcome.
Up close, the structure felt wrong in a way the mountain had not. The side of the cliff had been fractured, twisted, reshaped but this had been made. Deliberately. Clean edges cut into stone that should not have allowed it, surfaces etched with markings that shimmered faintly under the violet light. A twisted sanctuary, or an ethereal prison.
Maia slowed, her breath shallow, her whole body on edge as she could hear the humming still faintly from the path behind them.
She shook her head once. “The humming. From the fragments. It’s much stronger here than it ever was in Eryssan. It must mean something. Julen… stay alert.”
The air inside the threshold was noticeably colder and stiller. The wind dropped away the moment they crossed into it, as though the world outside had been shut out entirely.
And the sound. The humming in here was louder, but it was quieter at the same time. Rather than sounding out, it was as if it pressed; ringing through her skull, as if something inside her hearing had been bent out of place. Her heart was beating quickly, as if she suddenly knew where she was going.
Julen exhaled slowly. “Gods, I don’t like this.” He rubbed at his arms, though the cold didn’t seem to be the kind that could be warmed away. “I feel like we’re not really here. Do you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
He glanced at the walls. The corridor beyond was narrow and unnaturally smooth, the walls curving inward as though the space had been hollowed rather than built. Faint light bled from the stone itself, pale and cold. “The light isn’t right either, is it? It’s not coming from anywhere, it’s just here. Like the stone forgot it wasn’t supposed to glow.”
Maia nodded, though her mind was more focused on looking for something else, rather than where the light was coming from.
“They’re not even trying to stop us,” Julen murmured.
“They don’t need to,” Maia said. “They know we have no hope. Our fate for them has already been decided.”
Pressure met them with every step. This place hadn’t been made to keep humans out, she realised. It had been built to keep something in.
They moved deeper. Maia slowed, her eyes tracking the walls instinctively. There were patterns etched into them: intentional and in some kind of structure.
Julen noticed her hesitation. “You seeing something?”
“The etchings,” she said, pausing. “Stop a moment.”
“Maia—”
“Just a moment.”
She put her hand near the wall without touching it. The markings ran in tight repeating lines denser here than at the entrance, layered over each other where the corridor narrowed. She’d been reading them without meaning to for a hundred paces.
