He didn't sleep that night.
Elias sat on the hotel floor, back against the wall, staring at the ceiling like it might peel back and reveal the stars of the wrong world—the world he bled for. The world he survived.
But there were no stars here.
Just plaster. Cracks. A flickering ceiling fan buzzing like a dying insect.
Ren was in the other room. She hadn't asked questions. Smart girl. She probably knew better than to pry into whatever was burning inside his chest.
Because Elias couldn't stop seeing it.
The house.
His sister's shoes still by the door.
The bloodied edge of a baseball bat—his dad's favorite.
A photo frame, half-burned. His face. His mom's smile. The kind that felt like home.
And then the rift.
Ripping through their lives like a joke from some cosmic bastard god.
He curled his fist. Lightning flickered between his knuckles.
He could still feel it—the other world. Elyndros. Every scar on his body hummed with its magic. He still dreamed in its language. Still remembered the names of every demon he fed to the pyres. Still remembered what it cost to come back.
The curse of returning with all your power, and no one left to protect.
---
The Second Circle
At dawn, Arden sent coordinates.
Another site.
This time, an abandoned prison buried deep in the woods. Long off-grid. Forgotten by everyone except whatever cult was using it as a ritual site.
Ren drove. Elias sat silently beside her, eyes on the trees.
"They always hit places like this," she said, breaking the silence. "Lonely. Cut off. Old bones."
"Because the veil's thinner there," Elias replied. "Places full of pain are good for cutting reality open."
Ren gave him a sidelong glance. "How many people did you watch die over there?"
Elias didn't answer.
She nodded like that was the answer.
---
The prison reeked of mold and metal and old suffering.
Cells lined like empty coffins. Rusted doors. Silence that screamed.
The first sign of trouble was the blood.
Not fresh—but not old enough to be safe.
They followed it. Hallway after hallway, into the heart of the prison.
Symbols carved on the walls. Crude. Sloppy. Imitations of Elyndrosian sigils.
Elias shook his head. "Amateurs."
Then they heard it.
Laughing.
Childlike. Echoing.
Ren raised her rifle. "The fuck is that?"
"A mimic," Elias said. "Or worse."
They turned the corner—
And found a girl.
Or something wearing the skin of a girl.
She was sitting in the middle of a drawn circle, white dress soaked in blood, eyes pitch black.
"Elias," she whispered.
He froze.
"How the hell—?"
She tilted her head. "They scream your name on the other side. The ones you burned. The ones you left behind."
Ren stepped forward. "We kill it or talk to it?"
Elias raised a hand. "We listen."
The mimic grinned, mouth splitting wider than human.
"Second Circle has begun," it crooned. "He's almost awake. You brought the key with you."
"The key?" Elias asked.
The mimic looked past him—at Ren.
Elias turned slowly.
Ren's face was unreadable.
"What the hell is it talking about?" he asked her.
She didn't answer.
The mimic laughed. "She doesn't know yet. But she will. You'll make her know. Just like you made them all die."
Elias stepped into the circle and ran his blade straight through the thing's chest.
It screamed. Not in pain—but in delight.
The blood splattered the sigils on the wall.
The entire prison shook.
And the wall behind the mimic—crumbled.
Beyond it, carved into the stone, were words in glowing script:
Circle Two: Revelation.
Beneath it—an emblem.
One Elias knew too well.
The mark of the Veilborn Order. The cult that once ruled half of Elyndros. The ones who started the war that made him a killer.
"They're not just summoning Him," Elias said, voice ice cold.
"They're building the fucking throne."
---