The city waited for them.
Massive ribs of stone and bone arched overhead like the remnants of a buried titan. Every step Eira took into the valley made her stomach coil. The deeper they went, the quieter the world became—like sound itself was held hostage by something watching from the shadows.
They followed a crumbling path cut through time. Faded banners, long shredded by wind and age, clung to rusted poles. Symbols Eira didn't recognize—neither human nor vampire—decorated half-collapsed archways and shattered statues.
Kairen shifted uncomfortably behind her. "I know we've seen some weird stuff… but this? This place feels wrong."
"It is," Lucien said, his voice tight. "The energy here is layered—twisted by time and sacrifice. You're walking on burial grounds for things that never should have lived in the first place."
"You're full of comfort," Kairen muttered.
"I'm full of facts."
Eira wasn't listening to them. The crystal around her neck pulsed harder now, like a heartbeat trying to sync with hers. It tugged her forward—not with brute force, but with urgency. As if it knew the way. As if it feared what lay behind them more than what waited ahead.
She passed under a massive archway—half bone, half obsidian—and the air changed. It grew heavy, almost wet, like she'd walked beneath the surface of a still lake. Her breath caught.
A whisper echoed in her ears. Soft. Male. Familiar.
Come to me, little flame.
She spun around.
Nothing.
Lucien was beside her in a blink. "What did you hear?"
Eira looked up into his eyes. "His voice."
Lucien's jaw clenched. "Valtherion?"
She nodded.
"He's stirring."
The group continued, their steps cautious.
Buildings rose around them—many still intact, carved into bone and stone alike. Stained glass windows, coated in dust and cobwebs, shimmered faintly. A broken fountain sat at the center of what had once been a plaza. Statues lined the square—hooded figures, faceless and tall, holding swords downturned.
Ravien circled the base of one. "These aren't kings."
"No," Lyselle said, brushing moss from another. "Executioners. These were erected after the Sundering… but they're facing inward, not outward."
Eira frowned. "To keep something inside?"
Lyselle looked at her. "Or to warn people not to enter."
Too late for that.
They passed a broken gate and descended a narrow staircase into the lower city, where the bone structures melded more directly with ancient metal and obsidian. The ground beneath their boots changed—no longer stone, but fossilized flesh. Hardened. Pale. Cracked.
It wasn't a city built on bones.
It was bones.
Eira's steps slowed as they came to a long, domed hallway, lined with flickering torchlight that should've burned out centuries ago. The flames glowed blue. Cold.
Lucien narrowed his eyes. "This wasn't here before."
"It's responding to her," Lyselle said softly. "To the blood she carries."
"The blood he cursed," Ravien added.
They moved in silence down the hall, the echoes of their steps stretching too far, like they were being swallowed by the city itself.
At the end of the corridor stood a door. Not broken. Not worn.
Perfectly preserved.
It pulsed faintly in time with Eira's necklace.
Without speaking, she stepped forward.
Her hand hovered over the door.
Lucien grabbed her wrist. "You don't know what's on the other side."
"I do," she said, her voice distant. "Or… part of me does."
He didn't stop her.
Eira touched the door.
It didn't open.
It dissolved—slowly, silently—into strands of smoke and shadow, revealing a circular chamber beyond.
The walls were lined with mirrors.
But they weren't reflections of her.
Each one showed a different version of her—different lives. Different deaths.
A queen standing alone on a battlefield, her hands drenched in blood.
A bride weeping beneath a blood moon.
A girl wrapped in flame, burning away as she screamed.
A child with violet eyes, watching as a silver-haired man vanished into the dark.
Eira stepped forward, stunned. "What is this?"
"Your echoes," said a voice behind her. "What was, what could have been, what almost was."
They turned.
No one was there.
But in the mirror straight ahead—one larger than the rest—stood a figure.
Tall. Beautiful. Pale as moonlight, with long white hair and dark, endless eyes.
Valtherion.
He wasn't looking at her.
He was watching another her—a memory of Vaelaria laughing in his arms, her smile radiant, her crown tilted as he kissed her temple.
The vision shattered like glass.
Eira gasped, stumbling back.
Lucien caught her. "Enough. This place is trying to tear your mind apart."
"No," Eira whispered. "It's trying to rebuild it."
They left the chamber behind.
The path led deeper—winding downward into the earth's heart. The light from above faded. The only glow came from her crystal and the faint, ghostly torches lit by ancient magic.
They emerged into a large atrium where the roof had collapsed, revealing a portion of the night sky. Starlight filtered down, illuminating the centerpiece of the room:
A black stone coffin, sealed by silver chains.
It pulsed with power.
"Is that…" Kairen began.
"No," Eira said, eyes fixed on it. "That's not him. That's something older."
Lucien moved protectively closer. "We don't touch it."
Lyselle nodded in agreement. "We go around it and keep moving. The true cathedral—the throne—lies beneath the heart of the city."
"And that's where Valtherion is," Eira murmured.
Ravien sighed. "Great. Straight into the mouth of the monster."
But Eira's eyes never left the coffin.
A faint whisper bled from it.
"Your blood… opens the gate…"
She backed away slowly.
Later, at camp in the ruins of what once was a garden of black roses, Eira sat alone, the crystal glowing faintly as she stared into the fire.
Lucien joined her, handing her a piece of dried fruit. "You haven't eaten."
"I'm not hungry."
"You need to stay strong."
She met his gaze. "He's pulling me toward him."
Lucien didn't answer at first.
Then, softly, "Do you want to go?"
She didn't know.
Part of her feared him.
Part of her missed him.
The worst part? She didn't know which parts were truly hers—and which were Vaelaria's.
But she said nothing.
Instead, she leaned her head against Lucien's shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her, his warmth steady.
They sat in silence, while the stars above the City Beneath the Bones began to blink out, one by one.