The deeper they went, the stranger things became.
Time started to lose its meaning. Lee would walk for what felt like hours, only to check the position of the amber lights in the buildings and realize that no time had passed at all. Or he would take a single step and feel years crawl across his skin, watching his friends age and de age in the span of a heartbeat.
"This place is messing with my head," Taro muttered.
"Your head was already messed with," Kira said. "Now it's just... messier."
They passed through districts that defied explanation. A neighborhood where every building was made of frozen music solidified sound, shaped into walls and windows and doors. A plaza where statues of long dead heroes came to life when no one was looking, striking poses and whispering secrets to each other. A library where the books screamed when you opened them, and the librarians were shadows with too many teeth.
The Pilgrim navigated it all with a certainty that bordered on supernatural. He never hesitated. Never second guessed. He walked through the impossible city like he'd lived here his whole life.
"How do you know the way?" Lee asked.
"I died here," the Pilgrim said simply. "Once. A long time ago. Or maybe a short time from now. It's hard to tell, in this place. Time doesn't flow straight in the Sunken City. It loops. It tangles. It braids itself into knots." He touched his chest, over his heart. "I died, and something else brought me back. Something that needed a guide. Something that needed eyes and ears and hands in the world above."
"The thing at the city's heart," Lee said. "The thing that's waking up."
The Pilgrim nodded. "It's called many names. The Sleeper. The Devourer. The End of All Things. But its true name... its true name is lost. Even it doesn't remember anymore. It's been asleep so long that it's forgotten what it is. All it remembers is hunger. And loneliness."
"Loneliness?" Kira asked, surprised. "A world ending monster gets lonely?"
"Imagine," the Pilgrim said softly, "being the only thing of your kind in existence. Imagine waking up to find that everyone you ever knew is gone. That your home is gone. That the universe has moved on without you. Wouldn't you be lonely too?"
Kira didn't answer. None of them did.
They walked in silence for a while, passing through a district where the buildings were made of bone human bone, arranged in intricate patterns that looked almost beautiful if you didn't think too hard about what you were seeing.
Then Elara stopped.
"The bird knows something," she said, holding up her cage. The raven skeleton was moving frantically, its beak opening and closing, its jet eyes glowing with an inner fire. "It says... it says we're being followed."
Everyone froze.
"By what?" the Pilgrim asked.
Elara listened to the bird. Her face went pale. "By everything. By everyone who's ever died in this city. By all the souls that got trapped here when the Shattering happened. By..." She stopped. Her eyes went wide. "By him."
"Him who?" Lee demanded.
But he already knew. He could feel it a presence at the edge of his perception, familiar and wrong. The same presence he'd felt in the gateway. The same reflection that had called him brother.
A figure stepped out of the bone buildings.
He was young maybe Lee's age, maybe older, it was hard to tell. His hair was white, stark against his dark skin. His eyes were red, burning like embers, and his smile... his smile was the most terrible thing Lee had ever seen. Not because it was evil. Because it was sad.
"Hello, Lee," the figure said. "I've been waiting for you."
Lee's hand went to Onyx Tempest. "Who are you?"
The figure's smile widened. "Don't you recognize me? Look closer. Look at your mark. Then look at mine."
The figure opened his shirt. On his chest, over his heart, was a spiral black and white, just like Lee's. But reversed. Where Lee's spiral turned inward, this one turned outward. Where Lee's was balanced, this one was tilted toward darkness.
"We're brothers," the figure said. "Twins. Separated at birth. One given to the light. One given to the shadow." He laughed, and the sound was broken glass. "They called me Inyocha Han. The Forgotten Son. The Abandoned Prince. The one who was thrown away so you could shine."
Lee stared. His mind was reeling. He'd never had a family never known his parents, never known where he came from. The orphanage in the Rust Sea had found him in a basket, wrapped in black silk, with nothing but the mark on his chest and a note that said three words: He is the one.
"I don't..." Lee started.
"Of course you don't," Inyocha said. "They didn't want you to know. They wanted you to be pure. Unburdened. Free to become what they needed you to become." His eyes burned brighter. "But I know. I've always known. I was there when the world broke. I was there when the sun shattered. I was there when they chose."
"Chose what?" the Pilgrim asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Inyocha looked at him. At all of them. At Lee most of all.
"Chose who would save the world," he said. "And who would be sacrificed to make it possible."
The bone buildings began to tremble. The ground beneath their feet cracked and groaned. And somewhere in the depths of the Sunken City, the Sleeper opened its second eye.
It was still hungry.
But now, it was also curious.