The corridors beneath Drellhok had no names. No light. No purpose but decay.
Thojin moved through them with shallow breath and soft steps. The mark on his arm hadn't pulsed in hours. The silence around him felt heavier for it.
He had gone lower than ever before.
Walls bent in strange angles. Roots curled out of cracked stone. There were no sounds — not even the hum of the upper towers. Just rot, dust, and the distant, distant dripping of water long poisoned.
He found the opening by accident.
A door half-buried in bone ash, its hinges melted into the frame. When he pushed it open, something hissed — not sound, but pressure. As if the air inside had been waiting.
He stepped through.
The chamber was circular. Empty. Except for the center — a stone plate, cracked and marked with lines he almost recognized. Seven lines. Curved. Sharp.
It matched the one on his arm.
He stepped forward.
The moment his boot touched the circle, the stone shifted.
No tremor. No collapse.
Just... awakening.
A click echoed behind him.
Then chains.
They fell from the ceiling like metal vines, each one etched with burning sigils. Too fast to dodge — they wrapped around his limbs, pinning him to the floor with a weight not physical, but spiritual.
His mouth opened — no sound came.
The air turned cold.
From the far wall, something peeled itself out of the stone.
It didn't walk. It descended — one limb at a time, unfolding in silence. A creature of blackened sinew and bone-fire, with hollow sockets where eyes should be, and a mouth that didn't close.
Its chains moved like serpents.
Thojin pulled, twisted, screamed silently.
The demon stepped closer.
Its presence scraped against his skin. Not just pain — violation. Like it was peeling him open to study the inside of his soul.
It raised a clawed hand.
And the chains let go.
Thojin didn't wait.
He ran.
Through the threshold. Into the tunnel. Up broken steps. Through rust and mold and wet stone.
It followed — soundless, but everywhere.
Every tunnel became a throat.
Every turn, a trap.
He moved like instinct, not thought. But the maze worked against him. A dead end to the left. A hole in the ground to the right. He vaulted over it, barely catching the ledge with one hand.
Pulled himself up. Kept going.
But the thing was behind him. Always just behind. Not running. Flowing.
His legs began to fail. Each breath cut deeper. The old wound in his ribs screamed. And his arm — the one marked — began to burn.
He stumbled into a collapsed storage vault, lungs heaving, hands shaking.
Too dark. Too tight. No exits.
He was trapped.
A clawed shadow slid through the entrance.
He turned to fight — no weapon in hand. Only his fists, his breath, and something stubborn that refused to yield.
"I won't die here," he rasped.
The demon didn't speak.
It struck.
One blow to the shoulder — a crunch.
Another to the gut — all air gone.
A third — and Thojin hit the wall. Then the floor. Then silence.
His body convulsed. His hands clawed at the stone. Blood in his mouth. His heart a war drum slowing with each beat.
He thought of Seren.
Of her hand on his shoulder, her voice in the dark.
He tried to speak her name.
But it came out as nothing.
This was it.
He felt it — not just in his body, but in the stone beneath him. Like the city itself had already decided he would die here.
He closed his eyes.
And then—
A breath.
Not his own.
The air around him shifted — not colder, but clearer. Like the ash had parted for the first time.
Then —
A voice.
Soft. Sharp. Like wind through memory. Not from above. Not from beyond.
From within.
"Thojin."
His eyes snapped open.
The demon froze. Mid-motion. As if time had caught it by the throat.
The mark on his arm pulsed — once.
Then again.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
And then — a warmth.
It bloomed from his chest, slow and golden, like the memory of a sunrise he'd never seen. A hand not his own gripped his heartbeat from the inside.
A whisper followed.
Not words this time. Just presence.
You are not alone.
The demon took a step back.
Thojin did not rise. He couldn't.
But something else had.