The temple didn't stop shaking after the crack sealed.
It breathed.
Slow, heavy pulses under the stone… like something inside was testing the walls of its cage.
Manraj tried to stand, but his legs refused. His flame was flickering—erratic, frightened, unstable.
Zoya stayed beside him, one hand planted on the courtyard floor, the other on his shoulder. Her Silence still hissed faintly from her fingertips, like an exhausted animal refusing to die yet.
Azhar paced the shattered threshold, every shadow trembling around him like nervous wolves.
"We don't have time," he snapped.
His voice wasn't angry.
It was afraid.
Azhar's fear was worse than the crack itself.
Zoya wiped blood from her lip and stood.
"We go now."
Manraj swallowed, forcing his breath to steady.
"…Where, exactly?"
Zoya turned toward the broken hillside beyond the temple—toward a path that didn't exist on any map.
"To the river," she said quietly. "Or what's under it."
Azhar stopped pacing.
"No," he said sharply. "Not those ruins. Not now."
Zoya faced him fully.
"You know we don't have a choice."
Azhar's jaw clenched, but he didn't argue.
Manraj pushed himself up on shaking knees.
"What's under the river?" he asked. "What are we walking into?"
Azhar looked away.
Zoya answered instead—calm, controlled, but her voice carried an undercurrent of dread:
"The first place your flame ever woke."
Manraj blinked.
"I thought the temple was—"
"That was the ritual," she cut in. "The river ruins were something older."
Azhar added, "Older than Surtr. Older than the companions."
Manraj stared between them.
"…Older than the gods?"
Neither of them answered.
Which was the answer.
---
The Descent
They left the temple behind, the silver scar glowing faintly in the dark like an eye pretending to be asleep.
Zoya led.
Azhar followed, silent and brittle.
Manraj walked between them, the heat in his chest pulsing in uneven stutters—like something inside him was trying to sync to a rhythm older than his heartbeat.
The city changed as they moved closer to the river.
Streetlights flickered. Walls warped. Shadows felt heavier, thicker, listening.
Normal people would never notice.
But Manraj wasn't normal tonight.
His senses were too sharp, too wired.
He could feel the world bending around them—rerouting itself like it didn't want them approaching the riverbank.
"What is this place?" he asked.
"A fold," Zoya murmured.
Azhar clarified, "A wound."
Then, softer, as if the night itself might overhear:
"A memory of something the world tried to forget."
Manraj shivered.
Not from cold.
From recognition.
---
The Tunnel
At the dry edge of the riverbed, Zoya stopped.
A cracked drainage tunnel yawned open beneath the bridge—rusted bars bent outward as if something had forced its way through long ago.
Manraj frowned.
"This? This is where the big revelation is waiting?"
Zoya shook her head.
"This is just the door."
Azhar snapped his fingers.
Shadows slithered over the ground, curling into the tunnel like scouts.
They recoiled instantly.
Azhar stiffened.
"They don't want to go in."
Zoya exhaled.
"Good."
Manraj stared.
"Good??"
"If the shadows refuse," she said, stepping forward, "it means the place still remembers him."
Manraj felt heat punch his ribs from the inside.
"Remembers me?"
Zoya didn't turn around.
"Both of you," she said softly.
---
Inside the Ruins
The tunnel widened after ten meters, stone eating metal, ancient walls swallowing the modern structure like a python digesting prey.
Zoya's phone light flickered.
Azhar's shadows hissed.
Manraj's flame throbbed.
And then—
The tunnel opened into a vast cavern of broken pillars and submerged platforms, all carved with symbols Manraj's brain both recognized and rejected.
Zoya whispered, "…This is worse than the pictures."
Azhar tensed.
"You saw pictures?"
Zoya ignored him.
Manraj took one slow step forward.
Everything shook.
The cavern reacted to him.
A gust of heat spiraled upward from beneath the water.
Carvings lit up—pale white, not fire-orange.
Zoya grabbed his arm.
"Manraj—stop—"
Too late.
The water at the center of the cavern rippled.
Then churned.
Then—
Something rose.
Not a creature.
Not a memory.
A shape of glowing white light, outlining a humanoid form, with too many wings, too many eyes, and no face.
Azhar whispered, voice barely a breath:
"No… it can't be awake—"
Zoya stepped backward.
Manraj couldn't move.
The being turned its faceless head toward him.
And every carved symbol in the cavern whispered at once:
"He returns."
Manraj staggered.
The flame inside
him surged so violently he nearly fell.
Zoya grabbed his wrist.
Azhar summoned the shadows.
The white being drifted forward—
—and its voice shattered the cavern:
"You were never meant for fire… child of silence."