I stepped toward the darkness, and Nyelle’s hand tightened around mine.
"Veyric."
"I know."
"You don’t know what you’re walking into."
"Neither do you."
"That isn’t comforting."
"It wasn’t supposed to be."
We started down the staircase.
It was narrower than it had looked from above, forcing us sideways in places while I kept one hand against the wall for balance. I kept hold of Nyelle with the other, partly because the steps were uneven and partly because I wasn’t interested in giving whatever lived down here another chance to separate us.
The deeper we went, the colder the air became. The silver glow behind us gradually disappeared, replaced by a faint blue light rising from somewhere below.
A heavy impact shook the stone above us.
Nyelle looked back.
"They’re coming."
"I know."
"Can we go faster?"
"My ribs disagree."
She glanced at me.
"You’re joking?"
"Mostly."
Another impact sent dust drifting from the ceiling.
That ended the conversation.
We hurried down the remaining steps, and by the time we reached the bottom, my ribs were burning badly enough that I stopped caring whether the creatures heard us.
The stranger was waiting.
He stood several feet ahead with his back to us, dressed in a dark coat that reached almost to his knees. From behind, he looked completely human.
Then he turned.
He was younger than I’d expected, perhaps around thirty, with damp black hair, a lean face, and a thin line of blood running from his mouth to his jaw. One hand was pressed against his side, where dark blood had soaked through his coat.
He looked at Nyelle first.
Then at me.
"You made it."
I raised the pipe.
"You knew we would."
His gaze dropped to the weapon.
"You’ve been carrying that since the first creature."
"You’ve been watching us?"
"Not directly."
"That isn’t an answer."
"It is the closest one I have."
His eyes shifted toward the staircase.
"They’re almost here."
Nyelle didn’t move.
"How do we know you’re not another one of them?"
He stopped.
"You don’t."
The answer caught me off guard.
"But if I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have spent the last hour keeping those things away from this entrance."
"You sent the messages."
"Yes."
"You told me not to come."
"Yes."
"And then you told me to trust you."
"Yes."
I tightened my grip around the pipe.
"That seems contradictory."
"It is."
He faced me fully.
"I warned you because coming here was dangerous. I asked you to trust me because staying on the surface was becoming more dangerous."
His gaze moved toward Nyelle.
"And because I knew they were looking for her."
"How did you know about her?"
Instead of answering, he looked directly at Nyelle.
"When did you first see the symbols?"
She went still.
"So you didn’t tell him."
"Don’t."
He studied her before giving a small nod.
"I won’t."
I looked between them.
"You two know each other?"
"No," Nyelle said immediately.
"Not personally," the stranger added.
"That clears up absolutely nothing."
"The symbols appeared before the blackout."
Nyelle looked away.
I turned toward her.
"Before?"
She didn’t answer.
"How long?"
"Three weeks."
My stomach tightened.
"Three weeks?"
"I didn’t know what they meant."
"You could have told me."
"I know."
"Then why didn’t you?"
Her fingers tightened around mine.
"Because I was scared you’d think I was losing my mind."
That stopped me.
Nyelle swallowed.
"At first, they were only marks. I’d see them on walls, on glass, sometimes in reflections. Then I started dreaming about them."
"How long?"
She hesitated.
"Since I was eleven."
The answer landed harder than the others.
"You’ve been dreaming about this since you were eleven?"
"Not every night."
"What did you see?"
"A door."
Her voice became quieter.
"Always the same door. Stone, covered in that symbol. There was blue light underneath it, and something on the other side that I could never see clearly."
She looked down at our joined hands.
"And sometimes you were there."
My grip tightened.
"Me?"
She nodded.
"I could never reach you. Every time I got close, something would wake me."
"What did it say?"
"I don’t remember all of it."
"You remember something."
Her eyes lifted to mine.
"It kept saying your name."
The corridor suddenly seemed colder.
I looked toward the stranger.
"How could you know about that?"
"I didn’t," he said immediately.
I looked back at Nyelle.
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
"Because what was I supposed to say?" Her voice cracked. "That when I was eleven, I kept dreaming about you standing beside a door that didn’t exist, and then three weeks ago the same symbol started appearing around me?"
She shook her head.
"You would have laughed."
"I wouldn’t have."
"I wanted to believe it was nothing."
That was the part I understood. Not the symbols or the impossible door, but the fear of telling someone something that sounded insane and watching them look at you differently afterward.
I lowered the pipe.
"You should have told me."
"I know."
She squeezed my hand.
"I was going to."
"When?"
"When I understood what was happening."
A scream from above answered for us.
The stranger turned toward the wall and placed his palm against it.
Silver light immediately spread beneath his hand, forming the same incomplete symbol I’d seen in Nyelle’s apartment.
My right hand warmed.
"So it really is responding to you."
"You knew it would?"
"I suspected."
The System appeared.
[ANOMALOUS ENERGY RESPONSE DETECTED.]
The stranger’s expression changed.
"You can see it."
"What?"
"The interface."
"You can see the System?"
"No."
"Then how did you know?"
"Because I’ve seen what happens around people who carry abnormal paths."
"What does that mean?"
He removed his hand.
"It means the System isn’t the first thing of its kind I’ve encountered."
"What exactly are you?"
His silver eyes met mine.
"Someone who has been trying to understand what happened three weeks ago."
"For how long?"
"Long enough."
The creatures struck the staircase again.
Stone cracked above us.
"I’ve spent three weeks following the symbols, watching the energy spread, and trying to keep those creatures away from places like this."
"Why?"
"Because every time the symbols appear, something underneath them wakes up."
His gaze settled on my right hand.
"And today, whatever is happening responded to you."
That explained one thing.
He hadn’t been waiting for me.
He had been following the phenomenon.
"Then why did you contact me?"
"Because when I saw what happened around your sister, I realized you were already involved."
Nyelle looked at him.
"And me?"
"You’ve been involved longer than either of you realized."
Nyelle flinched.
Before I could ask what he meant, another scream echoed through the stone.
The stranger pressed his palm against the symbol again.
The wall folded inward, revealing a narrow passage.
"Inside."
I didn’t move.
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn’t."
That answer made me pause.
"You should watch what I do and decide for yourself."
He stepped through.
I followed, with Nyelle close beside me.
The stone wall folded shut behind us just as something slammed against the other side.
"So you’re a cultivator," I said.
He glanced over his shoulder.
"I don’t call it that."
"Everyone seems to know what it is except me."
"You’ve had less than a day."
That stopped me.
"How long have you known?"
"Long enough."
"That isn’t an answer."
A faint smile touched his mouth.
"No. It isn’t."
I kept walking.
"You said you’ve spent three weeks following the symbols. What were you expecting to find?"
"A door."
"And what happens when you find it?"
"I make sure it stays closed."
The corridor opened into a vast underground chamber.
Silver markings covered the walls and floor, spreading outward like a network connecting different parts of the structure. At the center stood a circular stone platform.
And on that platform was another door.
Except this one wasn’t ancient.
It was modern.
Metal, smooth enough to reflect the blue light around it, with a narrow electronic panel beside the frame and a small red indicator blinking above the handle.
The stranger stopped.
His expression changed.
"That wasn’t here yesterday."
"You’re sure?"
"Yes."
"Then who built it?"
"I don’t know."
For the first time, he sounded like a man who genuinely had no answer.
My phone vibrated.
I pulled it out.
One new message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
I opened it.
YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND.
Another appeared.
DO NOT LET THE MAN WITH YOU OPEN THE DOOR.
I slowly raised my eyes.
The stranger was already standing beside the metal door.
Nyelle looked at my phone.
Her face changed.
"Veyric..."
The stranger turned.
"What happened?"
I didn’t answer.
A third message appeared.
HE IS THE REASON THEY WERE AFRAID OF YOUR BIRTH.
My eyes moved from the screen to the stranger.
His silver eyes met mine.
He didn’t ask what the message said.
He already knew.
And for the first time since we’d met, the man who had spent three weeks hunting the truth looked less like someone who had found an answer and more like someone who had just realized that the answer had finally found him.