---
Lira sat near the cold hearth, fingers wound tightly around a half-woven cloth. The night outside stretched long and quiet, too quiet. She stared at the door like it might burst open any moment with news—good or bad.
They should've been back by now.
Her heart thudded dully in her chest, a steady rhythm of dread. Her brothers had left at dawn to track the pulse of relic energy deeper into the ruins. But Lira hadn't known they were headed toward the old well—not until days had passed. She hadn't slept well since.
She didn't pray. Didn't pace. Just waited.
"I swear," she muttered under her breath, voice shaking. "If they come back dragging blood and ghosts again—"
But her anger couldn't mask the fear. She hadn't forgotten the last time her brother Marcel returned broken. Not in body—but in eyes. Haunted. Confused. Scared.
She swallowed hard.
"Always treating me like a child," she whispered. "Always keeping me in the dark."
A gust of wind rattled the boards.
---
Below ground, within the stone maw of the well, Marcel stood with Tarin beside the ancient dais. His breath came shallow. Cold sweat beaded his neck.
The vision had returned.
The stone walls twisted—no longer ruins, but whole. Polished marble, veined with gold. Candles flickered along once-dead sconces. A hall of memory, pulled from a time before time.
And there—across the room—stood a woman cloaked in chains of glowing script. Her face was hidden behind a blindfold of runes. She raised a hand toward him, not in welcome. In warning.
"You are too late," she said, her voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere. "They shattered me. Not for what I did—but for what I knew."
Flames rose around her.
Nine silhouettes stood atop a burning dais. Faceless. Watching.
"Even broken, I remember," she whispered. "I remember the truth the Nine buried in blood."
The chamber cracked. The vision shattered.
Marcel gasped, knees buckling slightly as reality returned—stone, ruin, dust.
Tarin steadied him. "What did you see?" he asked, concerned.
Marcel didn't answer right away. His gaze drifted to the symbol pulsing faintly on his palm. The shard. Still warm.
"That's the second time," he muttered, half to himself.
"What?"
Marcel's jaw clenched. "It's the second time one of them has reached out. Same voices. Same feeling—like being watched from behind your own eyes."
Tarin frowned. He didn't understand
"An ancient being," muttered marcel
Tarin's frown deepened "I didn't see anything. Just you… frozen."
"You wouldn't," Marcel said. "You can't see the system. Not like I do." Marcel thought.
Tarin tilted his head. "But I can feel it sometimes. Like the shard moves on its own when you're in danger."
Marcel nodded slowly. "Maybe because we're connected. Blood. Family. Maybe that's why it protects you… but it won't last. It's not meant for you."
A flicker of guilt passed through him. Tarin had risked so much without understanding the weight of what surrounded them. Marcel had to get stronger—not just to survive, but to protect.
And maybe… maybe without the system's voice in his head.
"I don't want to become something it controls," he said aloud.
Tarin blinked. "Then don't."
Marcel turned back toward the mural. The faceless Nine etched into stone. The truth buried beneath fire and blood.
"I'll find another way," he said. "There has to be a path to power that doesn't cost me… me."
From above, dust shifted. The ruin stirred, as if the well itself listened.
And in Lira's bones, far away in their home, fear spiked like lightning.
Perhaps a sister's instinct or maybe something more....