The sound came again that night—closer.
Not loud enough to wake the entire camp, but sharp enough to slice through sleep like a knife through silk. Elara sat up instantly, her heart already racing before her mind caught up. Thorne was beside her in the same heartbeat, sword half-drawn, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the firelight.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
The rest of the party stirred slowly—sleep-heavy, confused—until the sound came a third time. A low metallic rattle. Chains. Not the sharp clank of ordinary metal, but something older, colder, as if the iron itself remembered pain.
Mira was on her feet first, staff already glowing faintly. "It's not coming from the gate."
Kael landed silently beside them, wings tucked tight. It's coming from inside the crater. Below us.
Nyx's smoke thickened. Something woke when we crossed. The veil remembers.
Elara stood, drum already in her hands. The firelight caught the runes on the bone—soft crimson glow answering the tension in her chest.
"We go down," she said.
No one argued.
They left two guards with the camp and moved as a unit toward the crater's rim. The descent was treacherous—loose shale, sudden drops, the strange light from the gate casting long, shifting shadows that made every rock look like a threat.
Halfway down, the rattle came again. This time accompanied by a voice.
Low. Human. Tired.
"...finally."
Elara froze.
The voice was female. Old. And achingly familiar in a way she couldn't place.
They reached the bottom.
The gate still stood, stable, its light steady. But now another arch had formed beside it—smaller, rougher, as if carved by desperate hands instead of ancient will. The runes on this one were wrong—jagged, bleeding black.
And standing in front of it was a woman.
She was tall, thin, dressed in robes that might once have been white but were now gray with age and ash. Her hair was long and silver, braided with what looked like fragments of old chains. Her face was lined, eyes pale as winter sky.
But the shape of her jaw, the slight tilt of her head when she looked at Elara...
It was like looking at a mirror that had aged forty years.
Elara's breath caught.
The woman smiled—small, sad, knowing.
"Hello, daughter."
The crater went deathly still.
Thorne's sword was out in an instant, tip leveled at the stranger's throat. "Who are you?"
The woman didn't flinch. "My name was Liora. Once. Before the suppression took it from me."
Elara felt the ground tilt under her feet.
Liora.
Her mother's name.
The name no one had spoken aloud in the palace since she was a child.
"You're dead," Elara whispered.
"I was allowed to appear dead," Liora said quietly. "It was safer that way. For both of us."
Mira stepped forward slowly. "You're a memory. A projection from the veil."
Liora shook her head. "I'm what's left. The part of me that refused to fade when the seal was placed. The part that waited."
Thorne lowered his sword fractionally. "Waited for what?"
"For her." Liora's eyes never left Elara's face. "For the one who could break the silence without destroying everything."
Elara's hands shook around the drum. "You suppressed me. You made me think I was broken."
Liora's expression crumpled—just for a second. Then she straightened.
"I did. And I would do it again. Because the alternative was worse."
She lifted her sleeve.
On her forearm was a scar in the shape of a perfect musical note—gold, faded, but unmistakable.
"They marked me when I was young. Told me my rhythm was dangerous. That if I ever let it out, the dragons would wake and burn the world. I believed them. Until the day I held you and felt it—your heartbeat wasn't just a pulse. It was a drum. Stronger than mine ever was."
She looked at Elara with something close to awe.
"I couldn't let them take you. So I sealed you instead. Made you silent. Made you safe."
Elara's voice cracked. "You could have told me."
"I tried. In letters I never sent. In dreams I never shared. I thought if you hated me, you'd never look for what I hid."
Thorne's grip on his sword tightened. "And now?"
Liora looked past them—toward the new, jagged gate.
"Now the seal is breaking. Not because of you. Because of them."
She gestured.
Through the rough arch, shapes moved.
Not beings of light like the Keepers.
Something darker. Hungrier. Made of shadow and broken harmony.
"They waited longer than I did," Liora said softly. "They waited centuries. And they're tired of waiting."
The shadows stirred.
A low growl rolled out—not from any throat, but from the air itself.
Elara felt the drum in her hands grow warm—almost hot.
Liora stepped closer. "The source is wounded. They know it. They want to finish what the First Purge started—consume the wound, consume everything."
She looked at Elara—really looked.
"You're the only one who can stop them. Because you carry both. Silence and song. Rhythm and melody."
Elara's throat closed. "I don't know how."
"You will," Liora said. "But first... you have to forgive me."
The shadows in the gate grew taller.
The growl became words—layered, discordant, ancient.
She kept you small. We will make you vast.
Elara felt the pull—like gravity shifting, like the world tilting toward the gate.
Thorne stepped in front of her. "Not today."
Liora reached out—hand trembling—and touched Elara's cheek.
"Forgive me," she whispered. "So you can forgive yourself."
Tears fell before Elara could stop them.
"I forgive you," she said.
The words came out small.
But they were enough.
Liora's form flickered—became light—then flowed into the drum.
The runes flared bright crimson and gold.
The shadows in the gate recoiled.
The growl turned into a scream.
Liora was gone.
But her voice lingered—one last time—in Elara's heart.
Now go. Before they remember how to cross.
The jagged gate shuddered.
Cracks spread across its surface.
Something massive moved behind it—larger than any dragon, larger than the Keepers.
Elara turned to her party.
"We have to leave. Now."
They ran.
Up the crater wall, boots slipping on shale, hearts pounding.
Behind them, the gate screamed—metal tearing, dissonance rising like a tidal wave.
They reached the rim just as the first tendril of shadow broke through.
It lashed out—fast, black, and hungry.
Kael dove, wings shielding the party.
The tendril struck his side—burned through scale.
He roared in pain.
Nyx lunged, smoke forming a barrier.
The shadow recoiled—but only for a moment.
Elara beat the drum—Liora's power surging through it.
Crimson-gold light exploded outward.
The tendril burned away.
The gate cracked wider.
The thing beyond roared—a sound that shook the stars.
They fled into the night.
Behind them, the gate screamed once more.
Then silence.
But it wasn't the silence of peace.
It was the silence of something gathering strength.
Elara clutched the drum to her chest as they ran.
Liora's last gift burned against her skin.
And somewhere, far away, the sound of chains began again.
Closer this time.
Much closer.
Elara looked back once—just once.
The crater was empty.
The gate was gone.
But in its place, something new stood.
A single black chain.
Staked into the earth.
Waiting.