The gates of the Pendragon estate part before dawn. Not with ceremony, but with purpose.
Lyra and I move in silence, cloaks drawn, our steps steady against the stone. The world beyond the estate walls is shrouded in the pale hush of morning. The path winds downward through mist-laced ridges and quiet pine. A hush has settled across the hills, not just of sound, but of presence. As though the land itself holds its breath.
Azmere Pass lies to the south, carved through mountains worn smooth by time and trade. It is nearly sixty leagues from the Pendragon estate. The route winds through river-cut valleys, dense cedar forests, and wide, wind-hollowed plains where the sky presses low.
We ride horses bred within the Pendragon stables. Each is a pale-gray destrier outfitted with light armor and low-grade pseudo echoes embedded in their tack. Nothing extravagant, just enough to ease strain, enhance speed, and lessen fatigue. Their hooves strike the ground in sure rhythm, bolstered by the subtle pulse of echo-born endurance. The sync is quiet, natural. Even animals, it seems, are not untouched by resonance.
The Pendragon sigil rides high on our gear. Not as a boast. As a responsibility.
A shadow team travels half a ridge behind us, their presence more suggestion than shape. No sound. No light. Only the faint impression of movement, like watching ghosts out of the corner of your eye. Four of them. Middle-aged. Weathered but sharp. Two men and two women. Leather armor worn thin by use, bearing no crest but the faint shimmer of sanctioned Conqueror's licenses. One carries a relic-steel glaive. Another walks with a staff that pulses faintly blue. They are not young. But they are not careless. These are the kind of people you send when you expect something to go wrong.
They hail from the Ashveil line, trained by war and fire and years of marching in shadow. Technically, that makes them Lyra's adopted uncles and aunts. She made the joke first, years ago, and they've never corrected her. I don't think they ever will.
We are the tip of the blade. They are the hilt, ready if the strike fails.
Hours pass. The forest thins. Trees give way to shale and sun-bleached rock. Azmere is near.
And we feel it.
The air shifts. Not in temperature, but in tone. Like stepping into a memory not your own. Each footstep lands differently, as if the ground waits to respond. The sky clouds at the edges. The wind falls away. The silence deepens.
It is Lyra who speaks first.
"It's sorrow."
I nod. The land confirms it. The air hums with a kind of low ache. The distant rocks bow inward. The hills pull close like a wound trying to close in on itself.
Sorrow-type dungeons are rare. The echo that shapes them does not burn or rage. It mourns. It twists space with grief so thick it roots into stone. Once formed, these dungeons become traps of memory. Of weight. Of echoes that cling.
She kneels beside a patch of brittle flowers, long wilted. Her hand hovers over them.
"The soil's been leeched," she says softly. "Not just drained. Emptied. As if nothing wanted to grow here anymore."
"The fold line runs along the northern edge," I say. "Steep slope. If the terrain slips any further, the pass may collapse."
"It already has," she murmurs.
I look at her.
She doesn't mean the earth. And I know it.
A moment of stillness stretches between us. Not silence. Just something... suspended.
She rises.
"We should move before it deepens," she says.
But I don't follow right away. My eyes trace the line of her profile, the calm set of her mouth, the sharpness of her gaze.
Last night at the council, she had refined my theory. Built upon it. Not out of pride, but clarity. And she had been right.
And still, something in me claws at the fact that I had not been.
I know better. I should.
But envy wears the same face as shame, and it settles under the ribs with equal weight.
I straighten my shoulders. Let the quiet settle. Let the wind pass over me like it does the cliffs. I am a Pendragon. Composure is not a choice. It is bred into the marrow.
I step forward.
Halfway down the incline, our horses slow. The ground beneath shifts subtly, like walking over a deep breath held in the chest of the world. The echo is close.
Lyra breaks the silence. "You were quiet back there."
"I was thinking."
"Dangerous habit."
I glance at her. "I like to stay sharp."
"Mm. You looked more like you were unraveling by degree."
"Well, lucky for you, I unravel neatly."
"Like a properly folded map," she teases. "All sharp corners and pre-drawn lines."
I allow a faint smile. "And what about you? Confident as ever."
"Confidence is just doubt in fancier shoes."
"And you're wearing boots."
She grins. "Exactly."
Something is grounding in our rhythm. Familiar. In the space between banter, something steadier builds. Like preparing to step into storm wind.
The ridge opens into a low valley. There, the dungeon waits.
It has not sealed. Not fully. Not yet.
The entrance lies ahead, half-buried beneath a slope of collapsed stone and twisted root. The opening pulses faintly, not with light, but with presence. Like something watching without eyes.
We mark it. Lyra sketches three quick sigils into the dirt. I plant a beacon just beneath the ridge, tethered to the fallback team. No signal is sent.
Not yet.
Lyra stands beside me.
"Once we enter, time may shift. Memory may twist. We'll anchor to each other. If one of us strays..."
"We pull the other back."
She meets my eyes.
"You ready?"
I pause. Just long enough to let the weight of everything settle again.
I think of the blade at my side, quiet and strange.
Of the name I carry. Of the name she has made.
"With you? Always."
She gives a faint nod. No smile. Just certainty.
We step forward together. Into the unknown.
And the dungeon breathes.