The corridor still hummed faintly with residual energy, but the oppressive weight of the Trial had lifted. The air was cooler—still underground, still stone—but not charged with fire or pressure anymore. Just quiet. Too quiet.
Kade and Ash stood a few paces apart, their beasts behind them—Specter hovering in eerie silence, and Vex crouched with wings flared slightly, still radiating residual heat.
Ash nodded to the glyph sketch Kade had etched into his wrist bracer. "Show me."
Kade stepped forward and turned the bracer. The thin lines were clean but dense, intersecting in odd, aggressive angles. The central glyph—an eye with eight outer lashes, slashed diagonally through the center—gave Ash pause.
"That wasn't part of your trial?"
"Wasn't there when I entered. But when we finished… it was burned into the stone behind the anvil." Kade hesitated. "And it felt wrong. Not a Trial wrong. Something else."
Ash studied it again, then slowly looked past Kade toward the stairwell behind him. The corridor that had opened wasn't the same entrance they'd come through.
"It shifted," Ash murmured.
Kade frowned. "The path?"
Ash nodded. "Specter and I came from that way—" He pointed behind him, toward a crystal-laced ramp that looked recently collapsed. "But that sealed up as soon as we stepped through. There's only forward now."
Both turned toward the remaining passage—darker than the rest, rough-cut stone, no trial symbols or polished obsidian. Just a narrow corridor of jagged walls and faint, musty air that smelled of… roots? No. Rotting roots.
Specter's glow dimmed to a pale glimmer. Its shadow tendrils extended forward, hesitant.
Vex let out a low warble, wings twitching once before folding.
Ash glanced at Kade. "This isn't part of the Trial."
"Not unless they started throwing in haunted forest basements as a new test," Kade muttered, already stepping ahead. "We're not going back empty-handed, especially not after this."
Ash sighed, then followed.
The corridor narrowed before widening again into an oval chamber. It looked old. Older than anything else they'd seen beneath Ironhold. No molten forges or crystalline growths here. The walls were smooth, worked stone—clearly carved, but cracked and worn with time. Some had fallen inward. The ceiling above was webbed with black root-veins, like petrified branches stretched in agony.
At the far end of the chamber was a pedestal. Upon it sat a small cube of black metal—no larger than a fist, etched with lines in the same angular style as the glyph Kade had sketched.
Ash's breath caught. "Wait. That pattern… I've seen this in Vigil archives."
Kade raised a brow. "Since when do you read Vigil glyphs?"
"I don't," Ash said. "But they do. And they're terrified of anything marked like that."
Vex paced low to the ground. The air had turned sour.
Specter hovered beside Ash, its body tightening into a protective form, shadow tendrils reaching toward the cube but stopping short—as if waiting.
Kade took a cautious step closer. "You think it's dangerous?"
"I know it is," Ash said. "And it's not meant to be down here."
The moment he said that, the cube pulsed. A slow, heartbeat thump—once, twice. Then the runes along its edges lit in sequence.
A voice followed—not spoken, not heard, but felt. A whisper of static in the bone.
"What was sealed... begins to stir."
Specter snapped back, hissing. Vex's plates flushed red, heat shimmering off its body.
The floor beneath the pedestal cracked. Ash grabbed Kade's shoulder and yanked him back just as a plume of black steam burst upward—and the cube fell inward, as if devoured by the stone.
A silence followed, long and heavy.
Then—an echo.
Not a beast. Not a voice.
A cry.
It came from beneath them. Deep beneath. The kind of sound that made your instincts recoil and your lungs forget how to breathe.
Ash whispered, "We need to report this."
Kade nodded slowly. "And we need to leave. Now."
The path behind them flickered—and didn't seal, but shifted again. This time revealing a smoother corridor, lined in the usual obsidian-brickwork of the city's trial halls.
Specter floated beside Ash. "…It's letting us go."
"Or showing us the door," Kade muttered.
Ash didn't argue. They turned as one and began the ascent, beasts at their side.
No guards waited. No Overseer. No patrol.
Just silence.
As they emerged from the trial corridor back into the main access halls, the cold citystone underfoot felt almost warm by contrast. Torch crystals flickered along the walls, and distant echoes of ordinary life returned—shouts, forge-hammers, bootsteps.
It felt normal.
But the echo still pulsed in Ash's ears. Far below. Waiting.
He and Kade didn't speak again until they reached the checkpoint arch.
Kade exhaled. "Whatever that was…"
"…It wasn't finished," Ash said quietly.
They emerged into the open plaza beneath Ironhold's lower tiers—no guards, no Overseer, no eyes watching. Just the heavy stone still warm from the inner forges and the buzz of distant machinery rumbling through the veins of the city.
But Ash didn't relax.
Neither did Kade.
They walked in silence past a row of steaming vents and staggered down a side ramp, away from the more traveled routes. The sound of people returned—brief flashes of hammering, metal-on-metal, calls from lift operators—but it all felt thin, muffled by the echo they'd left behind.
Kade finally broke the silence. "So. What do we do?"
Ash's jaw was tight. "We can't tell the Overseers. That mark—it wasn't part of the Trial. Someone's using the caverns for something else."
"Yeah, I figured that much when the cube started whispering threats into my bones." Kade rubbed his arms. "But who do we go to, then?"
Ash didn't answer at first. His eyes narrowed, tracking a pair of cloaked figures disappearing through a grated tunnel ahead—barely a glimpse, but familiar. He knew that cut of cloth. That gray-dyed weave, layered and light for motion.
Ashvein operatives.
"We go down two tiers," he said. "To the Emberline district."
Kade blinked. "The Syndicate?"
Ash nodded, voice low. "They deal in things the city pretends don't exist. Forbidden glyphwork. Rogue bondcraft. Lost-forged relics. If anyone knows what that mark was—or what the hell that cube was feeding off—it'll be them."
Kade hesitated. "You sure they'll even see us?"
"They will."
"And if they don't?"
Ash turned, eyes cold. "Then we make them."
Specter stirred beside him, its tendrils sharp and coiled, as if it, too, had unfinished business below the stone.
Without another word, the two descended the spiral lifts toward the Emberline, where heat met shadow and the Ashvein Syndicate ruled from beneath the skin of the city.
They emerged into the open plaza beneath Ironhold's lower tiers—no guards, no Overseer, no eyes watching. Just the heavy stone still warm from the inner forges and the buzz of distant machinery rumbling through the veins of the city.
But Ash didn't relax.
Neither did Kade.
They walked in silence past a row of steaming vents and staggered down a side ramp, away from the more traveled routes. The sound of people returned—brief flashes of hammering, metal-on-metal, calls from lift operators—but it all felt thin, muffled by the echo they'd left behind.
Kade finally broke the silence. "So. What do we do?"
Ash's jaw was tight. "We can't tell the Overseers. That mark—it wasn't part of the Trial. Someone's using the caverns for something else."
"Yeah, I figured that much when the cube started whispering threats into my bones." Kade rubbed his arms. "But who do we go to, then?"
Ash didn't answer at first. His eyes narrowed, tracking a pair of cloaked figures disappearing through a grated tunnel ahead—barely a glimpse, but familiar. He knew that cut of cloth. That gray-dyed weave, layered and light for motion.
Ashvein operatives.
"We go down two tiers," he said. "To the Emberline district."
Kade blinked. "The Syndicate?"
Ash nodded, voice low. "They deal in things the city pretends don't exist. Forbidden glyphwork. Rogue bondcraft. Lost-forged relics. If anyone knows what that mark was—or what the hell that cube was feeding off—it'll be them."
Kade hesitated. "You sure they'll even see us?"
"They will."
"And if they don't?"
Ash turned, eyes cold. "Then we make them."
Specter stirred beside him, its tendrils sharp and coiled, as if it, too, had unfinished business below the stone.
Without another word, the two descended the spiral lifts toward the Emberline, where heat met shadow and the Ashvein Syndicate ruled from beneath the skin of the city.