The guard's boots scraped against stone as he stepped into the alcove.
He carried a lantern in one hand, the light swaying across cracked walls and discarded picks. His other hand rested lazily on the hilt of a dagger at his side, unaware that four pairs of eyes were already watching him from the dark.
Mira stepped out first.
Her hands were raised, palms open, as if pleading. Her voice barely lifted above a whisper. "Please… don't tell them."
The guard blinked in surprise. His body froze for half a second too long.
That was enough.
Renn moved like a whisper of fury. He lunged from the shadows with a rusted iron pick and drove it into the back of the guard's thigh. The scream that followed wasn't loud—more a choked gurgle of shock and pain—but it still echoed in the narrow tunnel.
The man staggered, lantern falling and shattering on the stone. Fire danced for a heartbeat, then died in a hiss of smoke.
Brenn surged forward like a landslide. His shoulder hit the guard's chest, slamming him back against the wall with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. He struggled, reaching for his dagger.
Kael raised his hand. His fingers drew the glyph in the air.
☽⟁⫷⨀ — Varn's Grasp.
The spell ignited with a soft pulse. The guard's belt clinked and fell apart, his chains and gear loosening, his limbs heavy for a breath too long. The magic wasn't just physical—it tugged at willpower, confusion, and control.
Mira stepped forward. Her fingers clenched around the sharpened hook Kael had made from a bent nail and bone.
She didn't remember screaming.
She remembered the look in the guard's eyes—the moment he realized what was happening. Not just death, but betrayal. Slaves weren't supposed to fight back. Not like this.
Her hand moved. The hook plunged into his side, slipped between ribs, and carved through silence.
And just like that—
He collapsed.
A final gasp. Then nothing.
They stood still for a long time.
The four of them surrounded the body, staring. Not speaking. The silence was thicker than blood, heavier than fear.
The guard lay twisted, his arm outstretched as if he'd been reaching for something—his weapon, maybe. Or mercy.
Renn looked away first. "He would've screamed," he muttered, voice tight. "He would've brought Grath."
Kael didn't answer. He knelt beside the corpse and placed two fingers on the man's neck. The pulse was gone. The warmth was fading fast.
He wiped his hand on the stone floor, then stood.
"He's dead," he said flatly.
Brenn's eyes were fixed on Mira, who stood rooted to the spot, her hands trembling.
"I didn't mean to kill him," she whispered. "I just… I just wanted him to stop moving."
"You did what you had to," Kael said.
Mira looked up. Her eyes were glassy. "Does that matter?"
Kael didn't reply.
They buried the guard near the collapsed shaft. It took hours.
They didn't speak. Not as Brenn dug, the muscles in his arms straining, hands blistered. Not as Renn stripped the body of anything useful—keys, coin, a tiny etched dagger with a strange rune on the hilt. And not as Kael stood at the edge of the grave, eyes fixed on the spot where the earth cracked beneath them.
When the grave was ready, they lowered the body in. The silence wasn't reverent. It was tense, uneasy.
Kael drew a glyph above the soil.
🕯⧖⌘⟁ — Gravebind.
The symbol flared once, then sank into the earth like breath into lung. It sealed the grave—not just physically, but spiritually. The glyph bound the man's name, his face, his death.
"Why'd you do that?" Renn asked afterward, wiping blood and dirt from his face.
Kael looked at him. "So he doesn't haunt us."
Back in the sanctuary, the scroll burned with quiet fury.
A new line had etched itself across the bottom.
"Power without pain is hollow. Pain without purpose is rot. Choose your suffering wisely."
Kael read it aloud.
None of them spoke.
The next morning, the camp smelled like punishment.
Grath's hounds were out. The slaves were lined up, heads bowed, backs bare. Whips cracked in the rising sun. Two boys were dragged from the pens and vanished into the deeper mines. No one asked why.
The guard's absence wasn't announced. But the fear had changed shape.
Kael stood in the line, feeling the shift in the air. The Dominors had lost something—even if they didn't know what.
He caught Mira's eye across the yard. She looked pale, but steady. Her hook was gone, but her hand trembled still.
Renn met Kael's gaze next and gave a slow nod.
Brenn stood tall, unmoving.
They were still standing.
Still breathing.
That night, the chamber seemed to welcome them differently.
The glyphs on the walls had changed again—ever so slightly. Symbols twisted into new patterns. A spiral had split in two. A triangle now burned faintly violet.
Kael watched the scroll unroll further than it ever had.
Two new glyphs had appeared.
☊⟡⧫⚖ – Balance
🜏✠⟁⩫ – Memory Lock
They didn't recognize the meanings yet.
But Kael could feel what they implied: duality and cost. These weren't just new powers. These were thresholds.
The group trained with the old glyphs, trying to understand combinations.
Mira sang three verses of a song she hadn't known she remembered. When she hummed the third, the glyph Lun'Serra's Thread expanded, affecting all four of them—numbing their fear and steadying their breath.
Brenn drew Stone's Pulse into the dirt with both hands. When Kael activated Veilcut at the same time, they saw it: the tremors created a glyph-shaped shockwave through the stone. A defensive barrier.
Renn started carving glyphs into wood scraps, creating small "glyph-traps" that could be placed and triggered later—crude, unstable, but promising.
Each of them was becoming something else.
Not a warrior. Not a mage.
Something in between.
On the fifth night after the kill, Kael dreamed.
He stood in the burial shaft again.
Only this time, the body wasn't there.
A voice called from below. A voice made of stone and memory.
"You have taken life. Now give it meaning."
He looked down.
The shaft stretched into darkness.
He jumped.
He woke gasping. The others were already awake.
Mira was reading the scroll. Renn is sharpening metal. Brenn, stirring the coals.
Kael sat up, his heart pounding.
"We're not the same," he said.
"No," Renn agreed. "We're not."
"We've crossed something."
Mira nodded, eyes still on the scroll. "And the world will notice."
Kael stared at the stone beneath his feet.
The glyphs were getting louder.
The walls were remembering.
And the spark they lit with a single death…
It was catching fire.