Kaelen’s sword remained raised after he killed the knight.
The body slid down the wall and landed in the shallow water of the cistern.
For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Then the red mark beneath Kaelen’s shirt pulsed.
His arm locked.
The sword slipped from his fingers.
I caught him before he fell.
"Do not touch me," he said through clenched teeth.
"I’m holding you up."
"I noticed."
His knees gave way again.
Lyra moved to help, but Seris stopped her with one hand.
"Let him stand on his own."
Kaelen’s face tightened. He pushed against my arm until his boots found the stone floor. The red glow under his skin faded, leaving only the scar running from his ribs to his collarbone.
He breathed slowly.
The cistern was a wide underground chamber built beneath the eastern district of Blackmere. Water covered most of the floor, black and still beneath the ruined arches. Old pipes ran along the walls, carrying rainwater from the upper city.
The church had turned the place into a checkpoint.
Bodies floated near the broken gate.
Beyond them, a stone stairway led higher into the city.
Voices echoed from above.
"They will find us soon," Lyra said.
Kaelen picked up his sword.
His hand shook once before he closed it around the grip.
"I can still fight."
"I know," I said.
He looked at me.
The first command still sat between us, even though he did not know its full meaning.
"Do not use that tone."
"What tone?"
"The one you use when you have already decided something for everyone."
I glanced toward the stairs.
"Then stop giving me reasons to decide."
His expression hardened.
Seris stepped between us before the conversation became useless.
"The cistern has another exit."
She walked through the water toward the far wall. Her boots disappeared beneath the surface, but she kept moving until she reached a large iron wheel fixed beside the stones.
The metal had rusted around the edges.
She wiped away a layer of dirt.
A Draven crest appeared beneath it.
"The water gate," she said.
Lyra joined her. "Can it open?"
"It was built to."
"That was not what I asked."
Seris looked at the wheel.
"It can open. Whether the tunnel behind it still exists is another matter."
She placed both hands on the wheel and pulled.
Nothing happened.
Kaelen went to help her.
The red mark on his chest flashed.
He stopped.
His breath caught.
I saw his fingers curl around the sword.
"Leave it," I said.
"I can turn a wheel."
"You can also collapse in the water."
"I am not helpless."
He pushed past me and gripped the wheel.
Seris moved aside.
Kaelen pulled.
The rusted mechanism groaned, then began to turn. Water rushed through the lower channels. The pressure shook the entire gate.
A crack opened along the wall.
Seris looked at me.
"Move."
We crossed the cistern as the iron gate tore away from its hinges.
A wave of black water crashed through the opening.
Kaelen was caught first.
The current slammed him against the wall and dragged him toward the tunnel.
Lyra grabbed his arm.
I seized the back of his coat.
Seris drove a blood thread into a stone pillar and wrapped the other end around Lyra’s waist.
For a moment, all four of us were pulled toward the opening.
Then the water level dropped.
Kaelen collapsed on the other side of the gate.
Lyra fell beside him.
I climbed over the broken iron frame and looked into the tunnel.
The passage beyond was dry.
That was the first good thing to happen.
The second was that it led away from the church soldiers.
The tunnel narrowed quickly, forcing us to move in single file. The ceiling was low enough that Kaelen had to keep his head lowered. Water dripped from the stones, and the air smelled of metal and old smoke.
The walls carried more of the red channels.
They were not damaged like the ones beneath the cathedral. Someone had maintained them.
Seris brushed her fingers across one line.
"The church has been using this road for years."
"To move the Heart?" Lyra asked.
"To move everything connected to it."
I stopped beside a wall where the red lines joined a set of iron brackets.
There were marks in the dust.
Crates had been dragged through recently.
The lines continued toward a sealed door at the end of the tunnel.
A bronze plate had been fixed into the center.
House Draven’s crest had been scratched away and replaced with the church’s sunburst.
Kaelen read the inscription below it.
"Storage vault. Authorized clergy only."
"Very subtle," I said.
He gave me a look.
I pushed the door.
It did not move.
Seris stepped forward.
"Stand back."
She cut her palm and smeared blood across the lock. The metal reacted immediately. Red light spread through the door, followed by a sharp crack.
The lock opened.
The room beyond was larger than the tunnel.
It had once been a treasury.
Empty shelves filled the walls. Dust covered the floor, except for a clean path leading toward the far end. Wooden crates stood beneath a torn canvas. Several had been opened and abandoned.
The air inside still carried the smell of blood essence.
Kaelen entered first.
His body stopped near the center of the room.
A red pulse moved beneath his scar.
He placed his hand against his chest.
"It is stronger here."
Seris nodded. "The Heart was stored here."
"Was?" Lyra asked.
Seris ignored the question and moved toward the crates.
I followed her.
The first crate contained glass tubes filled with dark red fluid. The second held iron restraints. The third was empty except for a layer of black ash.
At the back of the room stood a stone platform.
A circular hollow had been carved into its surface.
Something had rested there.
Seris crouched beside it.
"The container."
I looked at the hollow.
The stone around it was burned, but the center remained smooth. Four metal clamps had been fixed around the circle. Each one carried a different seal.
"Can you tell how long ago it was removed?" I asked.
She touched the ash.
"Not from this."
"Then what can you tell?"
"The room was opened from inside the vault, not from the corridor. Whoever moved it had the proper authority."
Lyra walked along the shelves.
"Would that be the Red Abbot?"
"No," Seris said. "He had access, but not to this level."
Kaelen looked at the church sunburst on the door.
"Then who moved it?"
Seris reached beneath the stone platform and pulled out a thin metal plate.
The plate was covered in writing.
Most of the letters had been scratched away. One line remained.
She read it silently.
I took the plate from her.
The old ink was faded, but the date was clear.
Twenty-three years ago.
The rest of the sentence had survived beneath a layer of soot.
**Container transferred under royal seal. Destination: Red Monastery.**
Lyra read it over my shoulder.
"The church sent it out of Blackmere?"
"Not the church," Seris said. "The crown."
Kaelen stared at the empty platform.
"Then why is the church using it now?"
"Because the crown gave it back," I said.
Seris shook her head.
"No. Look at the second line."
She pointed to a smaller mark beneath the destination.
I wiped away the dust.
A black symbol appeared.
It was not a royal seal.
It was the same three-winged raven carved into the ring I had taken from the old chamber.
"The transfer was not completed," Seris said. "The Heart was sent to the monastery and never returned."
Kaelen looked between us.
"Then the church has been looking for something it already had?"
"They were not looking for the Heart," Seris said. "They were trying to extract more power from the piece they kept here."
I looked at the empty shelves.
The church had not needed the whole Heart to create red-channel armor. They had been using residue from the container, blood essence, and the fragment inside Kaelen.
That explained the soldiers.
It also explained why the Red Abbot had panicked when I broke the vessel.
He had lost the supply line.
"What is the Red Monastery?" Lyra asked.
Seris folded the metal plate and slipped it into her coat.
"An old fortress beyond the northern hills."
"How far?"
"Four days by road. Two if we cross the dead valley."
Kaelen looked at her.
"What is in the valley?"
"Things that do not like horses."
"That does not narrow it down."
"It is not meant to."
A loud crash came from the tunnel.
The church soldiers had reached the cistern.
Their voices carried through the water gate.
"They entered the old vault!"
"Seal the passage!"
Metal began grinding against stone.
Seris turned toward the room’s far wall.
"There is another exit."
I looked at the empty platform.
"You knew?"
"I guessed."
"Based on what?"
"The dust."
She pointed toward the floor behind the platform. A narrow trail cut through the dirt and led to a section of wall covered in old stonework.
We moved the platform together.
Kaelen took the left side. Lyra and I pushed from the right.
His movements were still strong, but every few seconds his breathing changed. The red mark under his skin responded to the Heart residue in the room.
The wall shifted.
A passage opened behind it.
Cold air rushed into the vault.
Beyond the opening, we could see daylight.
Not the gray light of Blackmere.
Real sunlight.
The passage emerged on a hillside overlooking the city.
Blackmere spread below us in layers of stone and smoke. The cathedral’s split tower dominated the center, its upper half still burning. The noble district stood behind tall walls, while the lower city crowded around the river in a maze of red roofs and narrow streets.
Beyond the walls, the land opened into fields.
Farther north, mountains rose behind a line of dark forest.
That was the first time I had seen the world outside the city since waking in Veyr’s body.
It was larger than I remembered from the novel.
The book had described kingdoms, borders, and battlefields in a few paragraphs. Standing above Blackmere, those names stopped being words on a page.
The northern road ran through farmland toward the mountains.
Beyond the mountains was the Red Monastery.
And somewhere past it waited a world that had not been shaped around Veyr’s death yet.
A horn sounded from the city.
Then another.
The royal army had begun searching House Ordan.
Lyra stepped beside me.
"Your city is burning."
"It is not mine."
"You were born there."
"That does not make it mine."
She looked at me, then back at the streets.
"You say that too quickly."
I did not answer.
Kaelen came through the opening behind us.
He stopped when he saw the city.
Despite the blood on his coat and the red scar across his chest, he looked like the hero people expected him to be. A wounded figure above a burning city. The image would have made a good Chapter illustration.
I almost laughed at the thought.
He noticed the direction of my eyes.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Seris stepped onto the hillside and checked the northern road.
"We have a problem."
"Only one?" I asked.
She pointed toward the road.
A column of riders was leaving the city through the northern gate.
Royal soldiers.
At the center rode a man beneath a red-and-black banner.
Prince Alric.
He had arrived in Blackmere earlier than expected.
Kaelen recognized him.
"The prince is taking the road north."
"He knows about the monastery," Seris said.
"Or he is going after us," Lyra replied.
The answer did not matter.
The riders were already moving.
Seris looked at the valley beyond the city.
"If we take the road, they will catch us by nightfall."
"And the dead valley?" Kaelen asked.
"Has no patrols."
"It also has monsters."
"Then we should move before they wake."
Kaelen turned toward me.
"You want to go through it?"
"I want to reach the monastery before Alric."
"That is not the same thing."
"No. It is worse."
He looked toward the city again.
Smoke covered the cathedral.
His expression tightened when he saw the banners hanging from the walls.
The church had already begun replacing the royal flags with its own.
"They will blame House Ordan for this," he said.
"They already have."
"And Maera?"
"Still inside."
Kaelen took a step toward the city.
I caught his arm.
His body reacted before he did. Red energy flashed beneath his skin.
He looked down at my hand.
I released him.
"You cannot go back," I said.
"She helped us."
"And she chose to stay."
"That does not mean we abandon her."
"It means she bought us time."
He stared at me.
"You are willing to leave her behind."
"I am willing to keep her sacrifice useful."
The words came out colder than I intended.
Lyra looked away.
Seris said nothing.
Kaelen’s jaw tightened, but he did not return to the road.
A horn sounded from the northern gate.
The royal riders had begun climbing the hillside.
I turned toward the dead valley.
"Move."
We left the vault through the mountain path.
The city disappeared behind the first line of trees.
Blackmere became smoke between the branches.
Kaelen walked ahead with Lyra, keeping enough distance from me to make his point clear.
Seris stayed at my side.
"You lied to him," she said.
"I left out something."
"You tied his life to yours."
"He would not have agreed."
"He might have."
"No."
She watched me for a moment.
The red scar on Kaelen’s chest pulsed again.
This time, I felt it through the link.
His pain moved into my body a second later.
I stopped.
Seris noticed.
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Good."
I looked at her.
She continued walking.
"Now you know what you did."
Ahead, the trees opened.
The dead valley began beyond them, stretching between two walls of black stone. Mist covered the ground, and pale shapes moved far inside it.
At the other end waited the northern road.
Beyond that road stood the Red Monastery.
The Heart had been moved there twenty-three years ago.
The church had built its soldiers with the residue it left behind.
And Prince Alric was coming after us with an army.
I looked at the mist.
Then at Kaelen’s back.
"Keep moving," I said.
The valley answered with a distant roar.