The staircase spiraled down in ways that hurt to look at too long.
Azerath's boots hit stone that didn't feel like stone—not cold, not warm, just there in a way that made his skin prickle. The walls glowed with faint blue lines that moved like water, symbols he couldn't read but somehow knew better than to touch.
Sin-Tongue. The language of things that shouldn't speak.
His second pupils tracked the glow without him meaning to, like his eyes were learning something his brain hadn't caught up to yet.
Every fifth step, the world shifted.
Gravity hiccupped. Sound stretched like taffy. His sense of up and down tilted sideways for a heartbeat before snapping back.
This place wasn't built. It was more like someone had dreamed it into being and forgotten to wake up.
Azerath pressed his palm against the wall. The stone trembled under his touch, and for a second he felt it—memory, soaked into the architecture itself. The Depth didn't just store things. It was things. Sins, secrets, everything people tried to bury.
He kept going.
The air thickened as he descended, not choking him but pressing in like the weight of deep water. Time felt wrong here—slower, deliberate, like it was deciding whether to let him pass.
Then he heard footsteps.
Not an echo. Not his imagination.
Real.
Azerath spun, hand already reaching for his dagger.
A man emerged from the shadows—tall, long coat dusty and worn, a Border Warden's uniform barely visible beneath the grime. He carried a lantern that swung with each careful step, eyes sharp and wary.
He stopped dead when he saw Azerath.
"…You," the man breathed. "You're the boy they branded a heretic."
Azerath said nothing.
The Warden swallowed hard, his hand tightening on the lantern handle.
"You shouldn't be here. Humans can't enter the Bridge. Only those marked by the Depth—" His gaze caught on Azerath's eyes. The silver pupils. He went pale. "…What are you?"
Azerath took a step forward.
The Warden jerked the lantern up like a shield.
"Stay back."
"If I wanted you dead," Azerath said, voice flat and cold, "you already would be."
The man flinched but held his ground, driven by something stronger than fear. Duty, maybe. Or desperation.
"I'm following a disturbance," he admitted, words tumbling out. "Something tore open beneath the city. I felt it—a pull. Like a voice without words." He looked down into the spiral. "It's coming from below."
Azerath's eyes narrowed.
"You heard it too."
"…Yes."
So the Depth wasn't just calling to him.
Others were hearing it. Feeling it.
That meant things were worse than he thought.
Corruption always started with whispers. By the time people were screaming, it was already too late.
The stairs opened into a chamber so vast it swallowed the lantern's light whole.
Azerath stepped forward, the Warden trailing behind him like a nervous shadow.
Pillars rose into darkness that had no ceiling, covered in runes that flowed like living things, shifting whenever he looked away. The air hummed—not with sound, but with presence, like the room itself was breathing.
Azerath exhaled slowly, trying to make sense of what he was feeling.
"Time distortion," he muttered. "Gravity manipulation. Memory imprints…" He paused. "And something was here. Recently."
"What do you mean, something—"
The runes behind them dimmed.
A low hum filled the chamber, vibrating in Azerath's chest.
Not hostile. Not welcoming either.
Just… aware.
His hand found his dagger.
The Warden's voice cracked: "What is that?"
"The Depth," Azerath said quietly, "saying hello."
Something stepped out of the dark.
Tall. Elegant. Humanoid, but wrong in ways that made Azerath's instincts scream. Not monstrous—nothing about it was twisted or decayed—but it was built by rules humans weren't meant to understand. Its body shimmered like heat rising off stone, more idea than flesh.
A Depth Sentinel.
A keeper of the threshold.
A judge.
It bowed—slightly, gracefully—toward Azerath.
Not toward the Warden.
Its voice slid through the air like silk dragged over broken glass:
"Welcome, bearer of the First Sin."
The Warden's knees buckled. He caught himself on a pillar, gasping.
Azerath didn't blink.
"I haven't claimed anything."
"Not claimed," the Sentinel corrected, voice soft as a knife between ribs. "Inherited."
Azerath's jaw tightened.
The Sentinel extended one hand—long fingers, too many joints—toward him. The runes in the hall blazed brighter, revealing a sigil carved into the floor: seven circles linked by a twisting bridge.
Azerath stepped closer, his silver eyes reflecting the glow.
"What do you want from me?"
The Sentinel's featureless face tilted, considering.
"To lead you to the Gate of Wrath."
The Warden made a strangled sound.
"That place is forbidden—no human should ever—"
Azerath raised a hand. The man went silent.
He turned back to the Sentinel.
"Why me?"
For the first time, the creature hesitated.
Then it whispered, almost gentle:
"Because your existence is a mistake… and the Depth has been waiting to correct it."
Azerath didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't let the words land the way they were meant to.
He just said, voice steady:
"Lead the way."
The Sentinel turned, gliding into the dark.
Azerath followed.
Behind him, the Warden stood frozen, watching the boy walk toward the Gate that would either make him something more than human—or destroy what was left of him entirely.