The tunnel yawned before them, a living shadow that smelled of wet stone and old earth. Its walls were slick, dark veins glowing faintly, like the breath of a sleeping beast. Every step Aarinen took echoed through the hollow corridor, swallowed almost immediately by the darkness ahead.
Rafi hesitated at the entrance, peering into the gloom. "Aren't we… going the wrong way? I mean… this looks like a grave."
Aarinen said nothing. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, but it was not the weapon that steadied him. It was something older, something deep in his chest, a memory he didn't fully understand yet. The memory of fire. The memory of a sunset. The memory of names whispered once in a fleeting life.
He took a step. Then another. The light from the collapsed chamber faded behind them, leaving only the faint blue glow from cracks in the walls. It pulsed like a heartbeat—or like something watching.
Rafi shuffled close. "Are you sure your mother ever—like… came here?" His voice wavered, small against the cavern. "I mean… this place, it's—"
"Alive," Aarinen said, his voice low. "Yes. And more patient than any man."
Rafi swallowed. The words chilled him. Alive. Patience in stone was not comforting. He realized this tunnel had a will of its own. It shifted subtly as they moved. Not enough to trip them, but enough to suggest they were being observed.
Aarinen paused near a jagged wall. He traced a finger along the glowing lines. They pulsed faster, faintly resonating against his touch. Something stirred beneath the stone. He closed his eyes, listening.
A whisper. Not a sound carried by the air, but inside him. A syllable, almost a sigh. "Aarinen…"
He flinched, gripping his sword tighter. "Rafi," he said, almost a whisper, "do not speak unless I tell you."
Rafi nodded immediately, sensing the gravity. The shadows themselves seemed to bend toward Aarinen. A low vibration ran through the tunnel, like stone teeth grinding in their sleep. It was not threatening—not yet—but it demanded attention.
They walked on. Hours—or maybe minutes; time had lost meaning in the underworld. The walls grew tighter, forcing them to stoop, then open again into a wider cavern. There, the air shifted. Colder. Heavier. And something else: the smell of ash.
At the center of the cavern, black stones arranged in a rough circle glimmered faintly. Symbols were carved into them, ancient and worn, the same type Aarinen had glimpsed in the book. His pulse quickened. The writing in the chamber—the First Name—the voice of the colossus—it all seemed to converge here.
Rafi's voice trembled. "Aarinen… what is this place?"
Aarinen knelt, brushing dust from the stones. He traced a symbol that made his hand shake. The shape… he knew it. He didn't want to know it. But he did. It was the same mark his mother had carried in a locket. The same mark whispered as the sun bled across the sky the day she was taken. The day he lost everything.
His throat tightened. He swallowed. Do not falter. Do not cry. Do not look back.
The air shifted again. Something moved. Something beneath the floor. Not like the colossus above, not stone and reverent—it was more subtle. Pulsing. Waiting. Watching.
Rafi whispered, "Aarinen… I feel it too. Something… beneath us."
Aarinen's hand tightened on his sword. "It knows we are here," he said. "It knows your fear, Rafi… but more—it knows mine. And it will test us."
A wind gusted through the cavern, though the tunnel had no entrance. The glow in the stones brightened. Shapes formed in the shadows—faint at first, then clearer. Faces. Hundreds of them, etched in stone, screaming silently, pressed against the walls, mouths moving in a rhythm Aarinen could almost understand.
"Speak the First Name… or perish."
Aarinen did not flinch. He knelt in the center of the circle. His eyes scanned the faces, and something stirred deep inside him—a memory he could not suppress. A memory of warmth. A memory of fire. A memory of promises.
Rafi's voice quivered beside him. "Aarinen… what now?"
Aarinen breathed in, letting the echo of his mother's words anchor him. "If you ever find the place where the sun cannot move… call yourself by the name I gave you."
The faces pressed closer. The shadows bent toward him. A chill burned his skin.
And yet he smiled, just slightly.
"I am Aarinen," he said aloud. Not whispered. Not begged. "And I will not be afraid."
The shadows froze. The faces still. The cavern shuddered once, then went silent. The blue glow dimmed, pulsing slower. Beneath the stones, the presence receded.
Rafi stared at him, wide-eyed. "You… you did it?"
Aarinen looked down at the circle, then at the passage leading deeper into the underworld. "It was only a test," he said softly. "We are far from finished. And the Root is only beginning."
Rafi swallowed. "Far from finished?"
Aarinen's gaze hardened. "Far from finished, Rafi… and everything we knew… everything we thought we lost… will be challenged."
He rose, stepping toward the next corridor, deeper and darker, where the faint pulsing of light marked the veins of the earth. The Root awaited.
And behind them, the chamber seemed to breathe, as if the very mountain exhaled, acknowledging the boy who dared speak his true name.