The obsidian stairway seemed endless.
Each step downwards erased the warmth of the world above light, sound, even time itself. The silence was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic echo of Lucien and Hana's boots against the stone.
Hana paused. "How deep does this go?"
Lucien scanned the walls, fingers brushing against the ancient engravings. "Far enough to hide gods."
The stairs finally ended at a massive sealed door twelve feet high, shaped like a crescent moon. It pulsed faintly, as though alive. Etched across its surface were symbols neither of them could read, but Hana's skin reacted instantly her mark glowing, her breath catching in her throat.
Lucien stepped back. "It's resonating with you."
She reached out, compelled, and the moment her fingertips touched the door
FLASH.
The world warped.
She was no longer in the tomb.
Now, she stood in a courtyard of fire-lit lanterns, dressed in crimson silk. A man stood across from her tall, regal, wearing a mask carved of bone. He knelt slowly, offering a sealed scroll.
"You must not forget me," he said, voice like thunder softened by sorrow. "Even if the world turns to ash."
And then...
Darkness.
Hana collapsed to the ground, gasping. Lucien caught her just in time.
"I saw him again," she whispered.
Lucien's voice tightened. "The masked man?"
She nodded. "He gave me something. A scroll."
Lucien glanced at the door. The symbols had rearranged.
It now read:
THE DOOR OF NAMES.
Suddenly, stone grinded beneath them. The crescent cracked open down the center, revealing a vast inner hall filled with relics, preserved armor, and statues kneeling in reverence.
At the center was a sarcophagus glass, reinforced with metal rings glowing with dormant energy.
And inside…
Was her.
The woman from Hana's vision.
Unaged. Serene.
Lucien inhaled sharply. "That's not just a tomb. That's a stasis pod."
Hana stepped closer, awed. "She looks just like…"
"You," Lucien finished. "Or who you were. In another life."
At the base of the sarcophagus was a name etched in silver.
Princess No-eul.
Hana whispered it like a prayer. "So that's who I was…"
Suddenly, the air shifted.
Behind them, a cold gust swept through the hall.
And the voice they both feared returned.
"You weren't supposed to find this yet."
Shin Dae-hyun stepped from the shadows, a dozen black-robed guards at his side.
Lucien aimed his gun before they could blink. "How did you get here?"
Shin smiled thinly. "You opened the door for me."
He turned to Hana. "It's not just about who you were. It's about what you still carry."
From beneath his robes, he pulled a silver dagger with three embedded stones the very weapon Hana had seen in her visions.
"This belonged to Princess No-eul," he said. "Forged in prophecy. Sealed in betrayal."
He tossed it onto the floor between them.
Hana stared at it.
The moment she touched the hilt, another memory surged through her.
Flames. Screams.
A kingdom burning.
A child ripped from her arms.
And the masked man fighting alone on the palace steps, bleeding into the snow.
"I failed them," she whispered.
Lucien touched her shoulder. "No. You were silenced."
Shin stepped closer. "And now, you must speak again."
He raised his hand.
One of the black-robed guards stepped forward, removing his mask.
It was Minjun.
Lucien's former ally. The man who had betrayed him years ago in Sicily.
Lucien's jaw clenched. "You."
Minjun smirked. "Hello, old friend."
"What the hell are you doing with them?"
Minjun gestured to Shin. "He found me before you did. Promised me answers. Power. Legacy."
Lucien stepped in front of Hana, gun unwavering. "You're not taking her."
Shin's tone hardened. "We don't need to take her. We just need her to remember."
Suddenly, the statues lining the walls began to move stone arms twitching, eyes lighting up with eerie golden light.
Hana grabbed the dagger. Its blade hummed in her grip, ancient energy coursing through her blood.
Lucien fired the first shot straight at Minjun.
But Minjun moved faster than humanly possible, vanishing and reappearing behind Lucien, kicking the weapon out of his hand.
Hana lunged.
The dagger pierced one of the approaching guards, and as it did, a strange pulse erupted from the blade, freezing time within a two-meter radius.
Everyone halted mid-motion except Hana and Lucien.
Lucien gasped. "It's a time-lock."
"Move!" Hana pulled him toward the sarcophagus. The symbols on the base had changed again.
It now read:Only the true blood may awaken the vessel.
She glanced at Lucien. "Help me open it."
Together, they touched the base.
The rings unlatched.
The glass slid open.
Princess No-eul's eyes fluttered open, for the first time in a thousand years.
But she did not scream.
She did not speak.
She only looked at Hana… and smiled.
"You came back," she whispered.
And then...
BANG!!!!!
A single bullet shattered the glass.
No-eul's body jerked violently, blood blooming across her chest.
Hana screamed. Lucien spun
Shin stood calmly with a smoking gun.
"She wasn't the Oracle," he said coldly.
"You are."
The time-lock shattered.
Chaos resumed.
The statues began to attack.
Lucien pulled Hana behind cover. "We can't win here!"
"But we can't leave her..."
"She's already gone!"
Lucien threw a charge onto the ceiling. "This whole place is coming down. Move!"
They ran Hana clutching the bloodstained dagger, the memory of No-eul's voice still echoing in her mind.
"You came back."
They barely made it out before the tomb collapsed behind them in a storm of dust and shattered past.
Later that night
In a hidden bunker far from the ruins, Hana sat by herself, dagger in hand, watching the blood on its edge vanish, absorbed into the blade itself.
Lucien approached, silent.
"She wasn't just a memory," Hana said. "She was… alive. And I failed her again."
Lucien crouched beside her. "No. You fulfilled her prophecy. She woke… just long enough to pass something to you."
Hana looked up. "What if I don't want to carry it?"
Lucien hesitated, then reached into his coat.
He pulled out a folded scroll sealed with crimson wax.
"She left this for you."
Hana broke the seal with trembling hands.
Inside was a single line of old script:
"The end will always remember the beginning."
And beneath it a name neither of them recognized.
But Hana felt it.
In her bones.
In her soul.
"Seonwu."
She whispered it like she had spoken it before.
Lucien met her gaze. "Do you know who that is?"
"No," she said. "But I think he's the one we need to find next."
Far away, in a monastery lit by moonlight, a man stirred from deep meditation.
His eyes opened slowly.
And for the first time in decades… he remembered her face.
"Hana."