The torches were low. The ground still smoldered where fire met blood and sweat.
Lucien sat with his back against a cracked pillar, breath slow, hands bruised and wrapped in dark linen. Kaela stood nearby, arms crossed, gaze distant as she watched the hollow flicker.
"You've changed," she said.
Lucien didn't look up.
"You told me to."
"I didn't think you'd survive."
He let out a dry laugh.
"Neither did I."
Silence.
What now?" he demanded.
Kaela was quiet for an eternity. Then—
"Now… you become something else."
Lucien turned to her at last. "A soldier?"
"No. That'd be mercy."
She moved towards him, eyes unclenching
just barely.
"You're a key to something darker than either of us can understand. The Vault… it's stirring up because of you. And if it selects you she hesitated, "you won't be able to choose back.".
Lucien's lips parted, but no words came.
"You think you're learning magic," Kaela said. "But really… the magic's learning you."
Heavy boots echoed through the Hollow.
Lucien looked up as Veyr stepped out from the smokecloak dragging, mask half-raised, a jagged black staff in hand.
He stopped, staring at Lucien in silence.
"Three months," Veyr said slowly, "and already he moves like someone preparing to break."
Lucien stood, unsteady but unflinching.
What do you see in him?" Kaela asked.
Veyr's eyes flared behind the mask. "A mistake… or a miracle."
Then softer, with a bite of sorrow:
"But the world doesn't forgive either."
He walked away, robe billowing behind.
Shadows crept between shattered pillars. Three hooded men moved with inhuman ease barefoot, silent, masked in pale bone.
One of them knelt by the sigil barrier that lined the Vault wall.
"The wards are failing," one whispered.
Another touched a hand to the stone, her contact spreading dark veins.
"He's inside. The Mark is pulsing once more."
There was silence.
"And the girl who guards him… she's gone weak."
Their leader drew up a small black orb, scored with red veins.
"Then we attack before the Vault is fully awake."
The orb hummed a low, foreboding sound like something breathing under the earth.
"We kill the boy. Or we set him free.".
Lucien stepped into the shadows, arms crossed, breathing controlled. Veyr had not wandered far. Kaela stood between them.
"You didn't answer me," Lucien said. "What if the Vault chooses me?"
Veyr tilted his head slightly. "Then you are its echo."
Kaela cut in. "Or its prisoner."
Lucien clenched his fists. "I don't want to be either."
"You don't get to choose," Veyr said. "The moment you entered the Spire, that decision was made for you. The only choice you have now is to survive what's coming next."
Lucien stepped forward, face determined. "Then teach me how to survive it."
Kaela opened her mouth to respondthen froze.
Her gaze darted toward the entrance tunnel.
Veyr's hand tightened on his staff. ".Do you feel that?"
Lucien blinked. "What"
BOOM.
A low, hollow tremor rocked the Hollow floor. Dust streamed from the ceiling. The torches flared wildly—then went out.
"They're inside," Kaela whispered.
"How many?" Veyr growled.
Kaela drew her curved sword slowly. "Too many."
Over fifty intruders streamed into the Hollow—faces masked in bon*, robes stitched with living runes, and weapons.
The Vault groaned like it was alive, reacting to their approach. Walls pulsed with sigils some burning out, others relighting in corrupted glow.
They didn't speak.
They just charged.
Kaela led the way.
She leapt, sword spinning, slicing through three in a maelstrom of speed and fury.
Veyr's staff slammed into the ground, releasing a shockwave of dark energy that tore through the front line—shattering bone, rending earth.
Lucien was frozen for a moment. He could feel them.
The Mark on his chest burned beneath the bandages. His veins were aflame.
"Lucien!" Kaela shouted. "Move!"
One of the attackers lunged at him with a jagged dagger.
Instinct took over.
Lucien dodged to the side just barely and grabbed the attacker's wrist. Shadows crawled up his arm.
The man screamed as black flame burst from Lucien's touch**, engulfing the arm within seconds.
Lucien recoiled, horrified at what he'd just done**.
Veyr saw it and hesitated for the first time.
"He's reacting to the power of the Vault," Veyr snarled.
Kaela slew another, panting. "We can't give him to them!"
Still more kept coming. For every cultist they killed, two more emerged from the smoke.
A cultist stepped forward, his face uncovered eyes empty, mouth sewn shut. He pointed at Lucien with a red-glowing tattooed hand.
"The Vessel… He's stirring…"
And then he exploded into a wave of shrieking black energy, blasting Lucien backward across the Hollow, crashing into a stone wall.
Lucien spat up blood, his body aching. But the Mark ached. Faster. Louder. It was screaming inside him.
He looked up at the chaos Kaela under attack, Veyr forced to draw deeper from the darkness of the Vault than he wanted.
Lucien's hands began to shake.
And a voicehis own voice, and not whispered in his head:
"Let me in."
"I can protect you."
"Say it again."
Lucien's mouth opened
The ground rent apart.
Dark light spilled out.
And the Vault… opened its eyes.
The air dropped ten degrees in an instant.
From the shattered ground where Lucien lay, a pulse of black heat radiated outward. It was not fire. It was not lightning.
It was presence.
Velthuron.
The name was not merely spoken.
It was heard by every living mind in the Vault.
Several cultists immediately shrieked eyes rolling back, blood pouring from their noses then dropped.
Those that were still standing stepped back from Lucien. Some even bowed.
The Vault's walls began to rearrange, its runes moving like puzzle pieces coming together into a giant black sigil behind Lucien.
Veyr's expression transformed from harsh focus to genuine horror.
"He's not channeling magic," he whispered. "The Vault is channeling through him."
Kaela, breathless, killed the last cultist near her and rushed toward Lucien.
"Lucien! Stop! You don't know what it's doing to you!"
But Lucien did not listen.
He slowly stood, eyes blazing between violet and dark obsidian. Dark sigils shone in his veins, throbbing like veins of liquid ore.
The cultists charged forward again eager to reach him.
Lucien raised one hand.
The shadows at their feet stretched unnaturally… then grasped them.
The Vault was filled with shrieks as tendrils of darkness impaled, crushed, or dragged the cultists into the ground. Some were torn in half. Others imploded, their bodies rejecting the pressure of whatever power Lucien had called upon.
It wasn't magic.
It was will.
And it followed him.
Veyr stepped in front of Kaela, shielding her as dust and arcane energy whipped through the air.
"He's drawing from something older than the Vault. This power predates us. The gods, even."
Kaela shook her head. "We have to stop him before it consumes him!"
"You can't stop what's already begun."
As the last cultist shrieked and was sucked into the earth, the silence that followed was suffocating.
Lucien stood alone in the center of a crater—chest heaving, eyes dimming.
The Mark on his body faded… by a fraction.
He looked at his hands—ash and shadow covered. Blood on his lip. Sweat-soaked hair.
"What… am I?" he whispered.
Kaela got to him. "You're still Lucien."
But Lucien shook his head. "No. I felt it. I wasn't… just me."
He collapsed into her arms.
And deep within the walls of the Vault… something old laughed.