They drove in silence.
The road stretched on through mist-laced woods, swallowed whole by the cold morning. Elias didn't look at Ren. Not after what the mimic said. Not after that name was spoken in that fucked-up voice.
He couldn't stop thinking about it.
She doesn't know yet. But she will. You'll make her know.
She didn't even flinch.
"Ren," he finally said.
She didn't look over. "Yeah?"
"You hiding something from me?"
She blinked slowly. "You mean, other than the fact I used to rob cultists and run black-market veil artifacts through the city before I met you?"
"I mean the key."
She didn't answer. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. Knuckles pale.
"That mimic," he continued. "It didn't just throw random bullshit. It knew my name. Knew what I did over there. And it looked right at you when it talked about the key."
"I don't know what the hell it meant," Ren muttered. "But whatever it was... it wasn't human."
"No shit."
Another long silence.
Then, quietly, she said, "But there's something. I've never told anyone."
Elias turned toward her. For once, she didn't look like the smartass rogue he met in a drug den two months ago. She looked scared. Really scared.
"I've seen the other side," she whispered. "Not like you, not... transported. But when I was a kid, I dreamed of it. Always the same place. A black tower. Sky red like it was bleeding. And something—someone—chained at the top, screaming like they'd forgotten how to stop."
Elias went rigid.
She looked over. "You know that place?"
His voice was gravel. "Yeah. That was the Bastion of Grief. One of the seven Sealed Pillars. Each one held a shard of the God-Eater. They were supposed to be hidden even from me."
Ren's breath hitched. "Then how the fuck did I see it in my sleep?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
---
They arrived at a worn-down chapel buried in the woods. The building leaned to one side, roof half-collapsed, vines crawling up its skeleton like veins on a corpse.
The address had been written in blood.
Arden's doing.
Inside, it smelled of rust, candle wax, and something long dead.
The pews were overturned. Stained-glass shattered. Symbols littered the floor—ones Elias recognized. Real ones this time. Ancient veilglyphs used by the Veilborn Order during their mass-blood rituals.
But at the center of it all was the body.
Hung upside down over the altar. Naked. Flayed.
Still bleeding.
A note pinned into the ribcage.
Elias ripped it free.
"Circle Three begins. Your sins follow, Elias. The girl is your curse."
He crushed the paper in his fist.
"They're baiting you," Ren said, looking at the corpse with barely-hidden disgust. "Trying to crack your head open."
Elias stared at the blood pooling on the altar. "They don't need to crack it open. It's already broken."
Ren touched his arm. "You're not who they say you are."
"Yes I am," Elias whispered. "That's the problem."
---
That night, Elias walked alone.
He needed air. Needed to hear something other than the screaming in his skull. The things he'd done in Elyndros weren't stories—they were sins. He wore them like a cloak now, dragging behind him, heavy with the names of the dead.
He stood at the edge of the city, watching headlights flicker in the distance.
This world felt like a lie.
Like he was wearing a mask too tight on a face that didn't fit anymore.
He remembered the first time he killed.
Not a beast. Not a demon. A person.
She was twelve. A spy for the enemy. Poisoned his mentor's camp and smiled while doing it.
She begged when he caught her.
He still killed her.
That was the moment he stopped being "Elias."
That was when the world made him into something else.
---
Back in the motel, Ren slept restlessly.
Sweating. Twitching.
Dreaming.
She saw the tower again.
Only this time, something looked back.
A figure made of bone and flame.
It whispered her name like it owned it.
"Rena…"
Her real name.
One she hadn't told Elias.
She woke up gasping, clawing at the sheets.
And in her palm—burned into the skin—was a mark.
A circle with seven lines radiating outward.
The same mark carved above the altar in the chapel.
---
Far across the city, deep underground, something shifted.
The Veilborn Order had awoken another gate.
And on the other side of it, in a world buried under ash and silence, something smiled.
"The Third Circle is complete."
"Bring me the girl."
---