The chamber beyond the breach pulsed like a living heart, vast and circular, walls scorched with the black fingerprints of forgotten rites. It was too quiet — not empty, but expectant. As if something had sensed them coming.
Selene's boots scraped lightly on the stone, her breathing measured, her eyes darting between pillars wrapped in runes that flickered in and out of view like illusions half-remembered. She whispered, "There was a name once etched here. A name even the Archivists refused to keep."
Cael's gaze settled on the altar at the center — a jagged monolith that bled mist from invisible cracks. Around it, chains hung in midair, suspended in place by no anchor, rusted and trembling with an unseen force. They groaned faintly, like they remembered being broken.
"I feel it," Cael said, voice hoarse. "It's watching."
Selene nodded slowly. "This place was sealed before the First Collapse. Whatever broke it… didn't leave."
Suddenly, the torchlight dimmed. The mist thickened into form — tall, indistinct, vaguely humanoid. It had no face, only a shifting mass of shadow where a head should be. Its presence didn't radiate heat or cold, but memory — grief, rage, silence.
Cael staggered back as his mind filled with images not his own. Ruined cities. Sundered skies. The cries of people who no longer existed.
Selene grabbed his shoulder, grounding him. "Don't look directly at it," she said sharply. "It'll show you everything it's taken."
The figure moved — not walking, but gliding, chains slithering after it like serpents drawn to blood. It stopped before the monolith and slowly turned toward them.
Then it spoke.
A voice without breath. Without form. Older than the breach. Older than language.
"You wear the echoes of the bound. Yet you walk free. Why?"
Cael's mouth was dry. "We came to stop what's spreading."
"You seek to bind the wound. But the wound was the cure."
And just like that, the figure dissipated — not fading, but unraveling into smoke. The monolith pulsed once, violently, and the ground beneath their feet shifted. Something had been awakened. And it had spoken back.
Selene's hand didn't leave her blade. "We need to leave. Now."
Cael stared at the place where the voice had stood. "No," he murmured. "We need to understand. Before it finds its name again."