Somewhere beneath the Scorched Valley, where light could not penetrate and time had long forgotten its passage, something stirred.
A heart that should not beat pulsed once.
Then again.
Each pulse sent whispers across ley lines, through fractured realms, and into the minds of those attuned those marked.
Verra Syne was already running out of time.
Her boots slammed against soaked stone as she climbed the last ridge before the Dead Glacier. Her coat was torn. The storm hadn't relented in days, and the cold gnawed at her augmented joints.
Behind her, the last survivor of her crew a red-eyed scout named Cael stumbled but kept up.
"Why the hell are we doing this again?" he yelled over the wind.
Verra didn't look back.
"Because if the Gate opened once, it'll open again," she growled. "And I'm going to be there first to seal it or kill whatever crawls through."
Cael shook his head. "You sound like one of them. The Veil cult."
She stopped and turned, her eyes flashing.
"I burn cults, boy. And I bury secrets. Especially ones that almost killed me ten years ago."
She pulled the map out of her chest pouch half-melted now, but still legible. The black ink on it glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"That glow?" she said. "That's not magic. That's remembrance."
Cael paled. "What remembers us?"
Verra smiled coldly.
"Something very old."
Meanwhile Arlen and Evelyn
They found the fracture near the Silent Glen, where the birds never sang.
It wasn't visible at first. But as they walked deeper, the air turned thick, every breath like drinking warm oil. Arlen's skin itched. Evelyn winced as her shadow began to stretch in the wrong direction.
"I think this is it," she whispered.
Arlen nodded and touched a nearby tree. It wept black sap.
He closed his eyes and listened.
Not with ears. With the name.
Inside his mind, he saw the fracture: a thin line along the seams of reality, trembling like a held breath. It wasn't fully opened.
But it hungered.
"We're not alone," Evelyn said suddenly, drawing her blade.
Figures were emerging.
Three. Hooded. Barefoot. Silent.
Each bore a scar across the back of their hand the symbol of the Hollow Veil.
One stepped forward and bowed.
"King Aeryn," the figure said in a whisper. "We've been waiting."
Arlen's heart sank.
Not because of the name.
But because, in the moment the figure said it, a small part of him wanted to answer.
The Second Gate Sleeps
Under the Dead Glacier, time folded like brittle parchment. Verra Syne and Cael descended through the crevasse, breath frosting in the still air, guided by the faint thrum of the map in Verra's hand.
Each step down was a step away from the world above.
And into something ancient.
Walls of ice became walls of stone then something else. Polished black. Carved with lines that pulsed like veins. Not magic. Not science. Memory made solid.
"Is it… alive?" Cael asked, his voice echoing wrong.
Verra didn't answer.
She was staring at the carvings now dozens of them showing faces she recognized. Evelyn. Arlen. The Hollow Veil. Even herself, younger, eyes wide, fire reflecting in them.
"I was never here," she murmured.
But the wall said otherwise.
And the map pulsed faster.
They reached a platform a massive door embedded in the stone, no hinges, no lock, just a name etched deep in a tongue older than bones.
"Aeryn Vale."
Cael touched it and screamed.
His eyes rolled white. He convulsed, then collapsed. Verra dropped beside him, only to realize he was still breathing. But murmuring something again and again:
"The name opens the dream. The dream opens the name."
She stood slowly, heart racing.
Then she heard it.
From behind the door.
A heartbeat.
Not human.
Not alive.
Just remembered.
Back at the Silent Glen, Arlen stepped forward.
The hooded figures hadn't moved. Their leader tall, voice soft as wet leaves lowered his hood.
Arlen stiffened.
He knew that face.
Or rather… remembered it from a dream that had haunted him as a child.
The man had no eyes just sockets filled with black moss. His smile was cracked glass.
"I am the Witness," the figure said, bowing. "And you are the Key."
"I'm not giving you anything," Arlen growled.
The Witness just smiled.
"You already did. When you spoke your name."
Behind him, the other cultists began to chant.
Evelyn stepped closer to Arlen. "We can fight them. We've fought worse."
But Arlen shook his head slowly.
"It's not about them. They're just the echo. The Gate listens through them."
The shadows behind the cultists bent and coiled. Not people. Not beasts.
Shapes without form began pouring through.
The Glen withered.
Trees cracked.
And the sky above forgot to be blue.
Elsewhere Mira and Torren
In the ruined remnants of the Stone Circle, Mira's arms trembled as she held the last barrier intact. Torren stood behind her, blood on his lips, trying to draw new glyphs with shaking hands.
"It's breaking," Mira hissed.
"I know," Torren whispered. "But not yet. Just hold."
He finished the glyph.
It sparked then flared lighting the ruins like dawn.
For a moment… the Gate above them paused. Shadows screamed. And Mira could feel it
Arlen was trying to trap it.
And failing.
She fell to her knees.
"It's too much. He can't do it alone."
Under the Glacier, the door opened.
Just a sliver.
A thousand voices sighed out soft, longing, hungry.
Verra didn't run.
She took one step forward.
And whispered, "Then come and tell me your story."
What Sleeps Beneath
Verra stepped through the breach in the glacial vault, her breath catching not from the cold but from the pressure.
This place was remembering her.
The corridor beyond was not carved but grown its walls pulsed faintly, like the inside of a vein. The air smelled of frost and ancient grief.
Cael still muttered behind her, fevered and delirious. She carried him on her back, feeling the chill seep through her coat.
At the end of the corridor, the path opened into a chamber made of silence.
A domed vault, black stone ribbed like a cathedral, no source of light yet everything was visible. Floating above a dais was a shape.
Human. And not.
Clad in veils of nothing. Skin like fractured obsidian. Hair that flowed upward like smoke.
Eyes closed.
Hands outstretched.
Sleeping.
Around the dais were hundreds thousands of symbols carved into the ground. Some were ancient runes. Some were names. Many were crossed out.
And one newly etched was glowing.
"Aeryn Vale."
Verra's knees gave out.
It's not a being, she realized.
It's a memory of what once was… dreaming of becoming real again.
And the dream was waking.
At the Silent Glen, Evelyn stood back-to-back with Arlen, blades drawn. The cultists were no longer speaking. They were convulsing offering their bodies to the shadow that spilled from the Gate.
The Witness raised his hand.
The Gate pulsed.
And a second name echoed through the forest like a thunderclap.
"Evelyn Stormwake."
Her blade dropped.
Arlen turned sharply. "How do they know?"
She stared ahead, pale. "I never told anyone. Not even you."
The Witness smiled. "Names are threads. You pulled one when you spoke his. Now we pull yours."
And from the shadows, a shape emerged.
A girl.
No older than seven.
Wearing the red scarf Evelyn had buried beside her years ago.
"...No," Evelyn whispered. "No. She's gone."
The child tilted her head. "You left me behind."
Evelyn shook, the blade in her hand trembling.
Arlen stepped in front of her.
"She's not real."
"She is," the Witness whispered. "Because you made her so."
Then Evelyn screamed not from fear but rage.
She drove her blade through the illusion's heart.
The child shattered into ash.
The Gate flinched.
And Arlen understood memories weren't just weaknesses here. They were weapons.
In the ruins, Mira watched as the sigils flickered. Torren had collapsed beside her. His body was cold, but still breathing.
She looked up at the stars.
Except there were no stars anymore.
Only an eye vast, black, lidless watching from where the sky had been.
And it was beginning to blink.
Mira stood slowly.
"You want a name?" she shouted to the sky.
"Then take mine."
The Gate paused.
The eye looked directly at her.
And for a moment, the storm stilled.
Torren groaned. "What… what did you do?"
Mira smiled bitterly. "Bought us a minute."
Then her body collapsed.
And her name began to burn its way into the circle.
Beneath the Glacier, the sleeping shape opened its eyes.
And whispered Verra's true name.