The cavern did not calm after the Hunt vanished.
It listened.
Every rune across the shattered chamber buzzed faintly, like insects whispering warnings in a dead language. The air tasted metallic—too sharp, too thin—like the atmosphere itself was preparing for something worse.
Zoya held Manraj against her, his head resting against her shoulder.
He was breathing.
Barely.
Uneven.
But alive.
The new silver-amber light under his skin dimmed to a faint pulse, like a star's dying echo.
Azhar wiped blood from under his nose, shadows curling weakly around him. They flickered like tired animals.
"He's burning out," Azhar murmured. "Every time he uses that… whatever that is… it drains him more."
Zoya snapped, voice cracking, "Then we keep him from using it."
Azhar gave her a tired, humorless look.
"I'd love that.
But everything down here wants him.
And everything above knows he's awake."
Zoya's breath hitched.
She looked down at Manraj's face—peaceful only because unconsciousness shielded him from the pain.
"We should leave," she whispered. "Immediately."
Azhar nodded.
But the cavern did not agree.
A tremor rippled under their feet.
A soft one at first.
Then another.
Then a deeper one—like something enormous shifting beneath layers of stone.
Zoya's hand tightened around Manraj's wrist.
"…Please tell me that's just the vault collapsing."
Azhar didn't answer.
He was staring at the glowing marks across the stone floor—the circular symbols Manraj had activated during the battle.
One by one…
they were lighting up again.
But not white.
Not fire-orange.
A color Zoya had never seen.
A color Azhar had only seen once, in a memory he wished he could forget.
"…No," he breathed. "No, no, no—this isn't the vault."
"Azhar," Zoya snapped. "What is it?"
His shadows recoiled like frightened birds.
"The ground," he whispered.
Zoya blinked.
"The ground?"
Azhar stepped back.
"The ground is remembering him."
Zoya looked at the symbols again.
They formed spirals…
then wings…
then an outline of a face…
then a sigil shaped like a broken circle with three intersecting strokes—
the same sigil that had flared on Manraj's chest earlier.
The entire chamber shook violently.
Stone split.
Water from the river above rained down in thin sprays through new cracks in the ceiling.
Zoya clutched Manraj tighter.
"What's happening?!"
Azhar swallowed hard.
"Eryth's return doesn't just wake the Hunt."
He pointed upward as dust rained down.
"It wakes—everything that remembers him."
A deafening crack split the chamber.
The central platform shattered—stone chunks falling into the abyss of the lower vault.
From the darkness below…
a sound rose.
Not a howl.
Not a roar.
A voice.
A voice made of layered echoes—like a choir singing backward:
"ERYTH—
YOU WALK AGAIN."
Zoya's skin crawled.
Azhar dragged her back.
"That's not the Hunt," he said. "That's older."
Zoya's pulse slammed into her ears.
"Older than the Hunt…
older than Eirys…
older than the companions…"
Azhar finished, voice hoarse:
"Older than the gods."
The cracks widened.
Something in the dark below shifted upward—
huge
slow
inevitable—
like a mountain remembering how to move.
Zoya's grip tightened on Manraj until her knuckles went white.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
Azhar swallowed.
His shadows steadied behind him despite their trembling.
"We run."
Zoya nodded. For once, she didn't argue.
She hoisted Manraj up, slinging his limp arm over her shoulder.
Azhar pulled them toward the tunnel leading back to the staircase.
As they fled, the voice rose again—
"CHILD OF SILENCE—
RETURN WHAT WAS DIVIDED."
The cavern shook so hard Zoya nearly fell.
Azhar grabbed her.
"Don't stop. Don't look back."
Zoya's heart pounded.
"What is that thing?!"
Azhar didn't answer.
He only ran faster.
But Manraj—
even unconscious—
heard the voice.
His fingers twitched.
His brow furrowed.
And
from somewhere deep inside him, a whisper escaped his lips—
soft
pained
old:
"…I remember you."
The cavern roared like the world collapsing.
And the thing below began to rise.
To be continued…