The trail of blood glistened like molten iron, winding deeper into Ashreign's skeleton heart.Without exchanging words, the group pressed on, breathless, each step a drumbeat against their ribs.
The corridor behind the cathedral was different from the grandeur they had seen before—no vaulted ceilings or broken stained glass. Here, the stone walls were damp, close, carved with a language older than ink.Every few meters, a heavy door punctuated the passage, each chained, sealed, or marked with crude talismans of warning.
Only one door hung ajar.
The blood led there.
Cassiel slowed his pace as they approached, locket thrumming against his skin.Mirae, ever the cautious one, reached for her blade.Bastion tightened his grip on his axe, his stance wary.Elior murmured a faint prayer to a god that did not answer anymore.
The door was wrong.
It didn't just open into darkness—it breathed it.
Cassiel touched the wood.
It was cold, but pulsing faintly, like the skin of something still alive.
"You don't have to go in," he said, voice low.
Mirae gave a thin smile. "Like hell we don't."
Bastion pushed the door wider with the flat of his weapon, muscles tense.
Together, they stepped into the darkness.
The world beyond was not simply another room.
It was a collapse of space—a great hall twisted into impossible angles, like a cathedral drawn by a hand that had forgotten reality. Statues floated in broken orbits around a central dais, on which a figure lay sprawled, blood pooling around him.
The air tasted of old regrets and burning leaves.
Cassiel strode forward first.
The man was young—perhaps no older than them—but something about him felt... ancient.Hair dark and tangled, skin pale, as if he had been bled of all warmth. His coat was torn, patched with symbols in a language Cassiel didn't recognize.A long, jagged scar ran from the man's collarbone down to his side, half-concealed beneath bandages hastily tied.
The blood... wasn't all his.
Some of it glittered like crushed starlight.
Mirae crouched down beside him, pressing two fingers to his throat.
"Alive. Barely."
"Who is he?" Bastion asked, frowning.
Elior studied the blood around the dais. "The real question is: why was he left behind?"
The man stirred.
His eyes cracked open—sharp and golden, like a wolf forced into human skin.He blinked, as if seeing them through several layers of fog.
Then, he smiled—crooked, tired, dangerous.
"You're... not them," he rasped.
Cassiel knelt, placing a hand lightly on the man's shoulder."We're not anyone," he said. "Yet."
The man laughed once—a hoarse, broken sound—and winced.
"Ilyan," he said, voice barely audible. "Name's Ilyan."
He said it like a man reciting a name he hadn't heard in centuries.
"Who did this to you?" Mirae asked.
Ilyan shook his head, gaze sliding toward the ceiling. "Doesn't matter... won't matter soon..."
The air trembled.
Behind them, the door began to close on its own, hinges screeching like wounded beasts.
Elior swore under his breath and stepped back.
"Something's wrong," Bastion growled. "This place... it's waking up."
Ilyan gripped Cassiel's wrist weakly.
"You need to run," he said.
A sound like a heartbeat thundered through the walls.The statues orbiting the room cracked open, leaking black mist.
Cassiel didn't hesitate.
He lifted Ilyan easily—too easily, the man weighed like little more than a dying flame—and turned.
"Move!" he barked.
They bolted as the darkness behind them screamed.
The door slammed shut the moment they crossed the threshold, trapping the nightmare inside—for now.
They staggered back into the crumbling streets of Ashreign, Ilyan semi-conscious in Cassiel's arms.
The city was no longer quiet.
From every shattered window, from every alley, from every broken tower, shadows began to bleed outward—some crawling, others walking like broken puppets.
Bastion cursed.
"We woke the city," he snarled.
"We didn't wake it," Elior said, eyes grim. "We just found what it was dreaming about."
Mirae ripped fabric from her cloak and began tying a makeshift bandage around Ilyan's side.
"How do we even hide him?" she muttered. "Half the things out there probably sniff blood like perfume."
Cassiel made a decision.
He didn't know who Ilyan was.
He didn't know why the city wanted him.
But he knew a hunted man when he saw one.
And he had been hunted enough times to recognize a brother in the art.
"We find shelter," he said. "Somewhere deep enough they can't sniff us out. Then we figure out what he knows."
Ilyan chuckled weakly against his shoulder.
"Good luck with that," he mumbled.
The first shadow-creature rounded the corner ahead—a mass of limbs stitched together by invisible thread, its maw gaping wider than its body.
Cassiel felt the familiar cold calm settle over him.
"Form up," he said.
The group moved as one, forming a diamond around their wounded.
The city shrieked in hunger.
The night had only just begun.