The northern ruins rose through the mist like a half-remembered nightmare.
Snow clung to the broken arches. Frost traced the cracked murals. The wind whispered through hollow chambers that still held the echo of screams they once knew. This was the ruin where six frightened children had nearly died—where the lesser lich had cornered them, where the undead had prowled the dark, where mana had flared wild and useless in their shaking hands.
Now only two returned.
Nale stood at the threshold, his breath slow and steady, glasses fogging slightly in the cold. Lira beside him, her robes stirring with thin threads of silver mana that pulsed like a quiet heartbeat.
"It feels strange returning," she murmured.
"Tell me about it," Nale said.
They stepped inside.
---
The descent felt like walking into memory.
The entrance hall, once flooded with corrupted fog, lay quiet now. The runes on the floor—scarred by battle—were cold and lifeless. Their footsteps echoed between pillars whose inscriptions had long eroded, leaving only faint grooves like old wounds.
But the quiet didn't comfort them.
In these halls, quiet had always meant danger.
A faint metallic clang echoed from deeper within—the ruins settling, or something waking. Neither spoke.
They reached the stone stairway.
Or what was left of it—still half-collapsed from the mana surge years ago, the same place where Jhalen had nearly slipped trying to drag Miran back when fleeing the lesser Lich. The scattered debris remained frozen where it had fallen, as though the ruins themselves refused to forget.
Lira's boot brushed dust off a familiar slab.
"I remember stepping on this and thinking it would swallow me whole."
"It almost did," Nale said. "You were shaking."
"So were you."
He didn't argue.
Nale raised his hand.
Mana bent to his will, forming a gentle arc of force beneath their feet as they descended. Lira steadied the steps with floating sigils of pale light. The stairwell trembled under the pressure—as though reluctant to allow them passage again.
What once was peril became routine.
At the bottom, they reached the long corridor.
Its air was colder, heavier—like the stone itself carried the residue of old terror. Their breaths fogged the moment they exhaled. The walls, mottled with black scorch marks from panicked spells long ago, felt narrower than before.
Here, Lira remembered her mana sputtering in her palms, nothing but a dim glow that had failed to save anyone.
"Don't dwell on it," Nale said softly.
"I'm not," she whispered.
But she was.
---
The old library lay ahead.
A once-grand chamber, its shelves now skeletal, its books curled and blackened from decay. Moonlight filtered weakly from a jagged hole in the ceiling—the same hole they once stared at while huddled between fallen shelves, praying the lich would pass them by.
Nale ran a hand along a cracked pillar.
"This was where you cried," he said quietly.
"I didn't cry," Lira said too quickly.
"You did."
"And you shook."
"That was five years ago," he muttered.
"So was I."
They shared a faint smile—brief, small, a fragile moment in a graveyard of memories.
The smile faded as the air shifted.
A mana ripple drifted through the library like a cold breath, brushing their skin with the unmistakable sting of necrotic energy.
The temperature dropped.
Shadows contracted unnaturally, as though drawn toward a single point.
Runes they had never seen pulse faintly beneath the dust—reacting not to them, but to something awakening.
---
The lesser lich rose from the remains of its broken altar—taller than they remembered, its form half-regrown. A skull crowned with fractured bone, ribs wrapped in sinew of corrupted mana. Its eye sockets burned with violent purple light.
Once, its presence had paralyzed them.
Now, they only braced.
"Auhzi var," the lich screeched—air twisting into a jagged, warped note that cracked through the chamber.
Nale moved first.
A barrier surged around them, translucent and rippling like heated glass. His mana patterns—a complex sequence of interlocked lines and arcs—flickered with calm precision.
Lira inhaled. Silver light coiled around her fingers, lifting her hair in a soft halo.
The lich lunged—faster than its dead form should allow. Its talons scraped the floor, ripping deep gouges as it propelled forward. Purple fire erupted from its palms, swirling like liquid metal.
Nale reinforced the barrier.
The attack hit with a thunderous impact—shattering the outer layer and sending a burst of heated wind spiraling around them. Lira staggered back a step, boots sliding on broken parchment.
She didn't hesitate.
Lira thrust her hands forward, unleashing a concentrated beam of silver mana. The light hit the lich square in the chest, pushing it back several paces. Bone cracked. A chunk of its shoulder disintegrated.
Five years ago, that spell wouldn't have flickered.
The lich screeched, whipping corrupted tendrils outward. They lashed like whips, slicing through falling debris and charring the air with violet sparks.
One tendril clipped Nale's barrier—sending fractures skittering across its surface like spiderwebs.
"Don't let it stabilize!" he called.
Lira was already moving.
Her steps traced sigils—silver circles flaring beneath her feet as she danced through the ruins with practiced precision. She flipped over a fallen shelf, landed lightly, and slammed her palms together—summoning a wave of radiant force.
The blast hit the lich squarely.
Bone cracked. The old altar split beneath it. Purple light sputtered, flickering erratically.
The lich retaliated with a shriek that shook dust from the ceiling. It hurled a compressed orb of corruption—a pulsing core of unstable violet mana.
Nale's eyes sharpened.
He carved a glyph in the air—sharp, exact. It expanded into a rotating sigil and detonated the orb midair. Violet flames rained down like sparks from a broken star.
"Lira—left!"
She pivoted.
The lich lunged again, claws swiping.
Silver energy surged from her palm, deflecting the blow.
They moved together—instinctive, practiced, like two parts of a single spell mechanism.
And the lich faltered.
Its form flickered, destabilizing under the relentless barrage.
"Now!" Nale shouted.
Their mana synchronized—his steady, precise lines; her powerful, radiant force.
A lattice of glowing sigils snapped into place around the lich, binding it like chains of light. Lira thrust her hands toward the center.
A beam of silver mana erupted.
The lich shrieked—bones cracking, fragmenting, dissolving into drifting ash that scattered across the ruined library.
The light dimmed.
Lira exhaled, shoulders trembling.
Nale lowered his barrier, breathing hard.
It was over.
And for the first time since they were children, the ruins felt empty instead of haunted.
But the triumph lasted only moments.
Beyond the blackened altar lay bodies—three of them—dressed in Sun Church uniforms. Their silver masks shattered, their faces twisted. Their deaths looked recent. One clutched a satchel.
Nale opened it.
Inside were journals, pages torn, ink smeared.
"'Infusion tests… violet mana stones exhibit abnormal volatility… tissue collapse… spontaneous corruption…'"
Lira swallowed hard.
"So Elder Rhyden was right."
Another page described "phase experiments," "sun-forged catalysts," and a warning about exposure to living subjects.
The last entry ended abruptly.
"'The stone reacted to—'"
Then nothing.
"Should we tell the others?" Lira asked.
"Yes," Nale said. "But we return first."
They turned toward the exit.
---
A figure waited at the stairwell.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Weathered by travel.
Ironwill.
His beard was rough, cloak tattered, boots worn from ceaseless wandering. His presence filled the hall like an anchor—steady, unyielding.
"You two," he said with relief. "I've been searching for any sign of the six."
"You've been gone a year," Lira said softly.
"I was investigating." His eyes moved to the journals in Nale's hand. "And what I found… ties to exactly that."
He skimmed one of the entries—jaw tightening.
"I suspected the corruption outbreaks were linked to their experiments," he muttered. "But this…"
He snapped the journal shut.
"Where are the others?"
"Arden and Miran are handling a bandit case," Lira said.
"Cerys and Jhalen are south," Nale added. "Swamplands."
Ironwill froze.
"There are rumors of a Sun Church high priest operating there," he said slowly. "If these experiments trace back to their clergy…"
His expression hardened into urgency.
"You're finished here? Good. Then we head south."
"Now?" Lira asked.
"What's this? Why the long faces?" Ironwill said.
"It's just… something happened before we left the castle. Im not sure if you know."
"Hm. I sensed it. Who was it?"
"Thaleus," Lira murmured.
A flicker of emotion—grief, perhaps—crossed Ironwill's face, but only for an instant. He cleared his throat and straightened.
"We leave now. Before any harm reaches Cerys and Jhalen."
And the three of them left the ruins behind—
the place that once nearly killed them,
the place they had finally conquered—
moving swiftly toward a danger far greater than any of them had realized.