The City Beneath the Ash
The path from the Hollow Veil led them into the Shadelands—an expanse of broken earth and skeletal trees, where ash drifted like perpetual snowfall. The sky hung low and gray, casting everything in a dim twilight that never changed. There was no sun here, only an endless dusk.
It was Bram who felt the pull first. As they trudged through the ashen wastes, he paused abruptly, hand pressed to his chest. "There's something… beneath us. Alive. Watching."
They stopped.
Mira narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to him, noticing how the ground underfoot trembled ever so slightly. The orb pulsed with deep amber light—a signal not of danger, but of awakening.
Then the earth cracked.
Not violently, not loud. But a steady, deliberate shift—like a door opening in slow motion. Ash slid aside to reveal a long-forgotten stairway spiraling downward into blackness.
Elric unsheathed his sword. "Whatever lives down there, it's ancient."
Mira nodded, stepping to the edge of the opening. "We need to go down. I think this is one of the forgotten stories."
They descended cautiously, torches ignited and the orb casting light ahead. The spiral staircase twisted for what felt like miles, the air growing colder with each step. Strange symbols were etched into the stone walls—glyphs none of them recognized, yet Mira felt them resonate in her bones.
Finally, the stairwell opened into a massive underground chamber.
It took their breath away.
They stood at the edge of a colossal subterranean city, preserved beneath the earth as if time had simply stopped. Stone towers stretched into the darkness, their surfaces marked with the same glowing runes. Bridges of silvered stone arched between buildings, and crystalline plants shimmered with soft, internal light.
But everything was still.
Frozen.
As they stepped into the city, Lena knelt beside a statue near the entrance—except it wasn't a statue. It was a person, frozen mid-motion, their eyes wide in silent terror.
"Elmsfire," she whispered. "They weren't killed… they were sealed."
Bram walked slowly among them. "This isn't death. This is stasis. Someone—or something—froze this entire city."
The orb's light pulsed again, brighter this time. Mira followed the glow until it led her to the center of the city, where a great tower rose. The doors were sealed by runes that flared to life at her touch, sliding open with a breath of cold air.
Inside, the tower was a library.
Books floated in the air, pages turning by unseen hands. A single figure sat in the center—hooded, unmoving, surrounded by tomes bound in obsidian leather.
As Mira approached, the figure stirred.
"I've waited," it rasped, voice dry and cracked like breaking bark. "For someone who could unbind the last thread."
The hood fell away, revealing a face neither alive nor dead—a Keeper, mummified and preserved by magic, his eyes glowing faintly blue.
"I am Archivist Morven," he said. "Keeper of the Last Memory. Do you seek the Song of Reversal?"
Mira stepped forward. "We seek to heal the Pattern. To weave a new story."
Morven regarded her for a long moment. "Then you must understand what broke it. This city was the first to fall—not to war, but to forgetting."
He gestured, and the library shifted around them. Images formed in the air: the city once teeming with life, artisans and scholars, weavers of powerful magic. But pride grew. Secrets were hoarded. A terrible rift opened beneath the city—a wound in the Pattern born not from evil, but from silence.
"We forgot how to speak truth," Morven said. "We chose comfort over courage. And so, the Song died."
He handed Mira a small, silver harp, no larger than a hand. "This instrument contains the first notes of the Pattern. To finish the new weave, you must restore the Song."
Elric frowned. "How?"
Morven's body began to crack, dust falling from his robes. "By awakening the last three Guardians… and facing the Keeper Who Chose to Forget."
With a final sigh, the Archivist faded into ash.
The harp pulsed with light. Mira held it close, and for a moment, heard a note—pure, bright, and fragile.
Behind them, the frozen city stirred.
Eyes blinked.
Breaths returned.
The people of Elmsfire were waking.
*********************************
What Came Before
Bianca didn't plan on speaking.
She'd come to Lucien's apartment that night the same way she had the last few times: on edge, quiet, watching his every movement as though it might shift and turn against her. But he didn't ask questions. He never did, unless she invited them. And that was the only reason she stayed.
She wandered barefoot across the polished floors, glass of wine in hand, the city twinkling beyond the tall windows. Lucien had stepped into the kitchen, giving her space without words. Bianca watched her reflection in the glass. Her own face sometimes startled her now—so much of it no longer belonged to the girl she once was.
When Lucien returned, he placed a soft plate of cheeses and fruit between them on the low table.
She glanced at it, then back at him. "You always feed me."
"You always look like you haven't eaten."
"That's not true."
"Not physically," he said gently. "But there's hunger somewhere."
She didn't reply. Not for a long time.
And then, very quietly, "I used to want to be a painter."
Lucien blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah." She sat down, running a finger along the rim of her glass. "I loved colors. Light on skin. How pain could spill onto canvas and turn into something someone else might find beautiful."
"What changed?"
Bianca's smile was bitter. "Life. My father."
Lucien didn't press.
She kept going.
"He used to drink. A lot. He wasn't always violent. Sometimes he was just… gone. Other times he came home angry and I'd hide in the closet with a blanket over my head, counting the seconds between footsteps." Her voice faltered. "My mom stayed with him for too long. Thought he'd get better. Thought it was just a rough patch. By the time she left, she'd already disappeared inside herself."
Lucien's hand rested on the couch beside her—not touching her, just there, solid.
"I was sixteen when she died," Bianca whispered. "Car crash. I didn't cry. I didn't know how to. The system swallowed me after that. Foster homes. Some better than others. Some…" She shook her head. "There was one place where the man liked watching us sleep. Just watching, he said. But I stopped sleeping."
Lucien swallowed hard.
"I aged out at eighteen," she said. "No family. No diploma. Nothing but a city that didn't give a damn whether I ate or starved." She took a deep breath. "I cleaned rooms for a while. Slept on couches. Met a girl who knew how to 'make real money.' She taught me how to dress, how to flirt, how to pretend I liked being touched by strangers."
Her voice dropped lower.
"I told myself it was temporary. That I'd get out. Find something better. But years passed. And suddenly this life… it was just what I did. Who I was."
Lucien didn't interrupt. His expression was unreadable—but his stillness said everything. He wasn't running. He wasn't flinching. He was listening.
Bianca stared down at the table. "I haven't told anyone that in a long time."
"Why now?" he asked softly.
She looked up, her eyes sharp and tired. "Because I wanted to see if you'd still look at me the same."
Lucien leaned forward then, not touching her body, but reaching for her hand. His fingers closed around hers, warm and strong.
"I don't look at you the same," he said. "I look at you with more understanding. More respect. You lived through fire and didn't turn to ash."
She felt tears prick her eyes, but blinked them back. "Don't say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because I'll believe them," she said hoarsely. "And that's dangerous."
Lucien brought her knuckles to his lips. "Then let me be dangerous."
She laughed through the burn in her chest, unable to stop the small smile. "You don't give up, do you?"
"Not on the right things."
They sat in silence a while longer. The city pulsed around them, far away, like an echo of another world. But in that quiet apartment, Bianca felt something shift inside her. Not healing—not yet. But a loosening of the iron cage she'd built around her heart.
She didn't love Lucien.
Not yet.
But she trusted him. A little.
And for a woman like her, that was already more than she ever expected to give.