Silver found Elara at first light, practicing her archery behind her family's cottage. She stood with her back straight, feet planted, drawing the bowstring to her cheek with a fluid grace that spoke of years of repetition. Her red braid swung as she released, the arrow thudding into the center of a painted target fifty yards away. She was already dressed in her adventuring leathers, her green eyes sharp with focus.
"Elara," Silver called, his voice still rough from lack of sleep.
She lowered her bow, turning. The moment she saw his face, her expression shifted from concentration to concern. "Silver? What's wrong? Is it your leg?"
"We need to talk. And we need to find Kael."
Twenty minutes later, the three of them stood in the small, cluttered garden behind Kael's uncle's house. Kael's uncle, Master Fenrin, was the village's sole scholar and mage-for-hire—a gaunt, elderly man with a perpetually ink-stained robe and spectacles perched on his nose. He'd granted them privacy with a curious glance but no questions.
Silver told them everything—the spirit by the Glimmerfall, her warning, her name, the "sleeper in the deep cavern." When he finished, the morning air felt charged and cold.
Elara had gone pale, her freckles stark against her skin. "A spirit... with my name? That's..."
"Statistically improbable but not impossible," Kael finished, his analytical mind already at work. He'd listened with intense focus, his gray eyes missing nothing. "Common names repeat across generations. The more pressing issue is the alleged threat. 'Ruins east of the river bend.' That would be the old Sunken Temple complex. It's been unstable for decades. Officially off-limits by Guild decree."
"Why?" Silver asked.
"Cave-ins. Toxic fungal blooms. And rumors of 'unquiet presences,' though those were never substantiated." Kael tapped his chin. "If someone has been digging there recently—tomb raiders, treasure hunters ignoring the guild ban—they could have disturbed something."
"The spirit said it would come for the village. The children first." Silver met Elara's gaze. "We have to at least go look."
Kael nodded slowly. "Agreed. Observation and threat assessment are logical first steps. However, if we encounter a genuine supernatural entity beyond our capacity, we retreat and report to Guild Master Thorne."
Elara took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "Alright. But we go prepared. Properly."
---
An hour later, they stood at the eastern edge of Maplewood, where the river curled like a silver snake before plunging into the denser part of the forest. They'd stocked up on supplies: healing salves from Mara, a handful of Kael's uncle's basic mana-restoration crystals, extra arrows, and rations. Silver wore his new dagger openly now, the dark blade a stark contrast to his simple clothes.
The forest grew thicker and older as they followed the riverbank, the canopy closing out the sky. The air grew damp and cool, filled with the smell of wet stone and decaying leaves. After an hour of hiking, Kael held up a hand, pointing.
"There."
Through a break in the trees, they saw the ruins. It was less a temple and more a collapsed maw of dark stone. Ancient, moss-covered pillars lay broken like fallen giants. A gaping entrance, partially obscured by a recent landslide of earth and rock, yawned into the hillside. Freshly turned soil and deep gouge marks in the earth told of recent, frantic digging.
"Someone's definitely been here," Silver whispered, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
They approached cautiously. Scattered around the entrance were discarded tools—a broken pickaxe, a torn leather pack, and a single, mud-caked boot. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature crept down Silver's spine.
"I don't like this," Elara murmured, an arrow already nocked.
Kael knelt, examining the ground. "Three different boot prints. All adult-sized. The disturbances lead inside." He stood, brushing dirt from his knees. "No signs of them leaving."
The entrance tunnel was low and narrow, forcing them to crouch. Kael's staff-tip glowed with a steady white light, illuminating wet, jagged walls that dripped constantly. The air grew thick and stale, carrying a new scent beneath the earth—a sweet, cloying odor like rotting fruit and spoiled meat.
The tunnel opened into a larger chamber. Kael's light swept across the space, revealing carved stone walls depicting forgotten gods and strange, spiraling symbols. In the center of the room lay three bodies.
Silver's stomach lurched. The men—wearing the rough garb of miners—were curled in fetal positions, their faces frozen in masks of utter terror. Their skin was an unnatural gray, stretched tight over their bones, as if they had been desiccated in a matter of hours. Most unnerving were their eyes—wide open, empty sockets that looked burned out from within.
"By the seven realms," Kael breathed, his clinical composure cracking. "Their life force has been completely drained. This is necrotic magic of a high order."
Elara turned away, gagging. "What could do this?"
It feeds on fear. The spirit's words echoed in Silver's mind. He forced himself to look, to study the horror. "The spirit called it 'the sleeper.' It's here. And it's awake."
A soft, skittering sound echoed from a deeper passage on the far side of the chamber. Like many small, hard legs scraping on stone.
"We should go back now," Elara said, her voice tight.
Kael was already consulting a small, glowing crystal he'd pulled from his pouch. "Ambient magical residue is off the charts. This entity is powerful. Reporting is the prudent course."
Silver agreed. This was beyond them. But as he turned to lead the way back, the sweet, cloying odor intensified, pouring from the tunnel they'd entered through. A thick, purplish mist began to seep from the cracks in the walls, coalescing into shifting, nebulous forms that blocked their exit.
From the deeper passage, the skittering grew louder, more urgent.
"It's herding us," Kael said grimly, his staff coming up. "The mist is psychotropic—it induces fear and paralysis. We cannot go back."
"Then we go forward," Silver said, drawing his sword. "Stay close."
They moved toward the only open path, the one from which the skittering came. The corridor descended sharply, the walls becoming less carved and more like the raw guts of the earth. The sweet smell was overpowering here, making their eyes water and heads swim.
The tunnel opened into a vast, natural cavern. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like stone teeth. In the center of the cavern floor lay a massive, pulsating lump of translucent flesh—a grotesque heart the size of a wagon. Veins of dark purple energy throbbed across its surface, and at its core, visible through the membranous tissue, was a shard of jagged black crystal that emitted a light that seemed to swallow the glow from Kael's staff.
This was the Sleeper.
But it was not unguarded. All around it, moving in a ceaseless, clicking patrol, were creatures born of nightmare. They had the general shape of giant centipedes, but their segmented bodies were formed from solidified shadow and fragments of bone. Their countless legs ended in needle-sharp points, and their eyeless heads held only a circular maw lined with rotating, crystal teeth. Shadow-Scuttlers.
One of them detected the light. Its body rotated toward them with a sickening series of clicks. Then another. And another. A dozen of them broke from their patrol, skittering across the stone floor with alarming speed.
"Defensive formation!" Kael shouted, his voice cutting through the dread. He planted his staff, and a shimmering dome of force erupted around them just as the first Scuttler lunged. It slammed against the barrier with a sound like shattering glass, causing Kael to grunt with strain.
Elara's arrows flew, striking the creatures with solid thwacks. But the arrows only seemed to anger them, sinking into their shadow-flesh without slowing them down.
Silver's mind raced. Shatter it with light. The crystal. The black crystal in the Sleeper's heart. But the Scuttlers were between them and it, and Kael's barrier wouldn't hold forever. He could see the strain on his friend's face, veins standing out on his temples.
"I need to get to that crystal!" Silver yelled over the screeching of the creatures.
"You'll be torn apart!" Elara cried, firing another arrow.
"I have an idea!" Kael gasped. "On my mark, I'll drop the barrier and cast a flash of pure photonic energy. It should disorient them for five, maybe six seconds. You'll have to reach the heart in that time!"
It was a desperate plan. Silver met Elara's terrified eyes, then nodded. "Do it!"
"Ready... NOW!"
Kael roared a word of power. The dome vanished. In the same instant, his staff erupted in a blinding, silent flash of white light that filled the cavern.
The Shadow-Scuttlers recoiled, shrieking, their shadowy forms boiling and writhing under the onslaught.
Silver was already moving. He poured every ounce of speed into his legs, sprinting across the cavern floor. The Sleeper's heart pulsed, sensing the threat. The black crystal at its core glowed malevolently.
Four seconds.
He leaped over a twitching Scuttler, his boots sliding on the wet stone.
Five seconds.
He was at the heart. The smell was unbearable this close—the scent of graves and forgotten fears. He raised his sword, aiming for the crystal.
A Scuttler recovered faster than the others. With a hiss, it launched itself from his blind side, its needle-legs aimed at his throat.
Time seemed to stretch. Silver saw the attack coming but couldn't move his sword to block it. The fear he'd been holding back—for his friends, for his village, for himself—surged up, hot and undeniable.
And with it came the other heat.
The familiar pressure built behind his left temple. The world sharpened into contrasts of heat and cold. The skittering creatures became bright, hot signatures against the cold stone. And in his left eye, the world washed into monochrome, pierced by a vertical slit of glowing gold.
Demonic Base Form.
Strength, raw and furious, flooded his limbs. He moved without thinking. His left hand shot out and caught the lunging Scuttler by what passed for its head. Shadow-flesh sizzled against his skin. With a roar that didn't sound entirely human, he slammed the creature into the cavern floor with enough force to crack the stone.
He turned back to the heart, his black-and-gold eye locking onto the dark crystal. He didn't use his sword.
He raised his mother's dagger—the dark, rune-etched blade that drank the light.
As the other Scuttlers shrieked and surged toward him, and as Kael's spent magic left him defenseless, Silver plunged the dagger into the Sleeper's heart, directly toward the crystal.
The blade met the black shard.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, a sound like a thousand mirrors breaking filled the cavern. Pure, white light—not from Kael's magic, but from the dagger itself—erupted from the point of impact. The light raced through the veins of the Sleeper, burning away the purple corruption. The black crystal shattered with a final, psychic scream that shook dust from the ceiling.
The light exploded outward in a wave.
The Shadow-Scuttlers dissolved into wisps of smoke, vanishing.
The wave hit Silver, Elara, and Kael. It was not hot, but cleansing, like a cool bath after a long fever. The cloying smell vanished, replaced by the simple scent of damp earth.
Then, silence.
Silver blinked, the black receding from his eye, the gold slit fading. He stood panting, the dagger still in his hand, now glowing faintly before the light dimmed back to its normal dark metal. The pulsating heart was gone, leaving only a dark stain on the cavern floor.
Elara helped a shaking Kael to his feet. They both stared at Silver, their faces a mix of awe, relief, and a dawning, profound apprehension.
The dagger had reacted to the crystal. It had channeled light. His mother's blade, from his father's realm.
Silver sheathed the dagger, the weight of its secret now joined by the weight of what he had just done, and what he had just become in front of his friends. The path was no longer just ahead of him. It was unfolding beneath his feet with every step, leading deeper into a world far stranger and more dangerous than any dungeon.
And he had only unlocked the first door.