Pyrehold, Day Twenty
Toy didn't sleep much anymore.
Not because of nightmares — though he had plenty.
Not even because of Lara — though her presence demanded constant attention.
It was because, for the first time in his life, he didn't want to miss anything.
Every glance she gave him.
Every half-finished sentence.
Every breath she took in silence.
It all mattered now.
That night, she slept.
For hours, unmoving. Breathing slow, eyes fluttering beneath her pale lids. Toy sat a short distance away, sharpening his blade more from habit than need. Kaelith's presence — always faint — was coiled nearby, invisible but watchful.
Then it happened.
A sound.
Not chains shifting. Not torches flickering.
A word.
Soft.
Ancient.
Whispered between breaths:
"Velh'karan..."
Toy froze.
His hand slipped on the whetstone. The blade clinked against the floor.
Lara didn't wake.
She spoke the word again.
"Velh'karan... sa'tiel..."
The air changed.
The torchlight bent slightly inward, as if the shadows themselves leaned closer to listen.
And then—the runes on the cell wall flickered.
Toy stood slowly, scanning the edges of the room. The meteoritum etchings — once dull and dormant — glowed faintly. The color was wrong. Not the usual soft blue of binding. This was crimson-gold, pulsing like veins.
"Kaelith," Toy whispered, "what is she saying?"
The spirit stirred again — stronger this time. It slithered behind Lara, forming a semi-visible coil of frost and light. Its horned head loomed protectively above her.
The serpent was tense.
Toy approached cautiously. He knelt beside her, brushing his cursed hand against her wrist.
"Lara," he whispered. "Wake up."
Her eyes snapped open.
The glow in the runes vanished.
The air returned to stillness.
She sat up slowly, blinking at him — then at Kaelith, still present, still hovering protectively behind her.
"What did I say?" she asked.
"Velh'karan sa'tiel." Toy repeated.
Lara stiffened.
"That's… a name."
"Who's name?"
She hesitated.
"Velh'karan," she whispered, "was a true name of one of the Lost Ones."
Toy frowned. "Another Catastrophe?"
"No," Lara said slowly. "One of the Primordials."
She looked at the walls, noting the scorch marks left in the runes. "To speak that name is to wake it. Even in sleep. Even in memory."
"But why now?" Toy asked.
"I don't know."
She looked down at her hands.
"But it remembers me."
Toy sat beside her, rubbing the cursed palm that still tingled from the magic surge.
"Does this mean your power is returning?" he asked.
Lara exhaled. "The collar holds my will in check. But not my soul. It was Kaelith who kept the deep magic buried."
She looked up at the spirit guardian, now slowly fading from sight again.
"And if I'm dreaming about Velh'karan… it means the primordial plane is starting to turn its eye back toward me."
"What happens if they come?" Toy asked.
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she whispered, "Then we burn."
Toy didn't flinch.
Instead, he reached into his coat, pulling out a strip of old cloth — tattered, faded with time.
"What is that?" she asked.
"My family's crest," he said. "Before the wars. Before I lost them."
He handed it to her.
"You don't have to carry your power alone."
Lara stared at the cloth.
Then at him.
"Even if it kills you?"
Toy smiled faintly.
"Especially if it does."