The mark on Kael's palm pulsed like a second heartbeat—hot, insistent, ancient. It wasn't pain, exactly. It was memory, trying to force its way in. And Kael understood, in that moment, that this was no ordinary glyph.
It was a Key.
"The Cradle was never the end," Merek said, his gaze locked on the spiral of light still glowing faintly across the chamber walls. "It's the threshold."
"To what?" Thorn asked, still recovering from the raw awe of watching Kael fell a Warden with a single strike.
Kael stood, brushing dust from his cloak. "The Root. The place beneath names. Where the first silence was born."
Lyra tensed. "The Root is a myth."
"No," Karel murmured, voice tight with revelation. "It's where the Order began. Where the first names were carved and the first erasures performed."
The group descended deeper into the Cradle's winding interior. The glyphs faded the further they went—until even their footsteps seemed muffled, swallowed by a void that grew with every step. The walls no longer pulsed. The city had shown them the way. Now it watched.
The stairs ended in a circular well of black stone, veined with cracks that bled golden light. In the center stood a pedestal, shaped like a tree's roots, twisting upward.
Kael approached.
The glyph in his palm flared, and the pedestal responded—shifting, unraveling, forming a doorway in the air itself. Beyond it: darkness. And something breathing within.
Karel gripped his shoulder. "This is where I leave you."
"What?" Kael turned, startled.
"My path ends at memory. Yours continues into truth. If I go further… I fear what I might become." His eyes shimmered, distant. "I was part of their beginning. I need to know who I was before I follow who I might be."
Kael nodded, and for the second time in as many days, he embraced his father.
"Come back to us," he said.
"I will. With answers."
Karel turned and vanished up the stairs. The others gathered beside Kael.
"We go together," Lyra said.
"To the Root," Merek added, sharpening his blade.
Thorn hesitated. "I always said I'd never die for anyone but myself."
He stepped into the darkness with a grin. "Guess I'm full of it."
Kael stepped through last.
The doorway closed behind them.
—
They descended a corridor with no walls, no sky—only threads of color suspended in infinite black. The air crackled with static. Whispers scratched at their ears. Not voices… names. Countless names.
Lyra flinched. "They're screaming."
"No," Kael whispered. "They're waiting."
At the end of the path stood a vast door of bone-white marble, sealed with seven symbols—the oldest known to any living tongue. As Kael lifted his marked hand, the first seal burned away.
And from behind the door, something stirred.
The Root was waking.
To be continue...