61 lines
No EOL
4.7 KiB
Markdown
61 lines
No EOL
4.7 KiB
Markdown
The final descent took them through windless silence. They wound their way down narrow scree paths and across jagged shelves, each step taken with the knowledge that something ancient watched — not with eyes, but with memory.
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By dusk, they reached the shadowed plateau before the Keep.
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It stretched like a wound across the mountain’s flesh — smooth basalt carved not by weather or chisel but an unseen force. The very snow recoiled from it, gathering only in brittle whorls along the fringes, never quite touching the black stone.
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At its heart stood the Keep itself.
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A vast wall of seamless dark stretched across the pass, as if the mountain had opened and grown teeth. The gate—if it could be called that—was an arched seam, tall and narrow, with no hinges or handle. Just a faint depression in the shape of a door. At its peak, half-scraped and hollowed, lay the ghost of a sigil: a sunburst worn smooth, its lines eaten by time or by intent.
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No entrance revealed itself. No answer stirred. They made camp before it all the same.
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A fire was coaxed to life from what little kindling they carried—scraps of dry root, oilcloth, a few shavings from Sari’s kit. It burned low and in a strange pale hue, giving more smoke than heat. No sound broke the hush around them—no birdcall, no crack of settling snow. Even the fire crackled softly, as if afraid to draw too much attention.
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They spoke little. Halven unpacked the weatherworn map from his satchel, setting it atop a flat stone to study in the firelight. He traced the markings over and over with ink-stained fingers, comparing them to the shapes of the surrounding cliffs.
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“It should be here,” he murmured. “All the signs point to this valley. The fragment matches. The vision… everything.”
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“But no path forward,” Sari said, arms folded tight against the cold.
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“The door is sealed,” Eris added, staring at the arch. “Maybe for good reason.”
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They took turns examining the gate. Halven pressed his hand to the sigil. Nothing. Sari tried speaking words in the mountain tongue, while ash from the fire curled through the air like lazy ghosts. Alisha walked the perimeter once, twice—always circling back to Ryn, saying nothing, her eyes heavy with warning.
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Night deepened. The sky was faintly lit above—but strange, distorted. As if it too bent away from the keep’s presence. Even the wind refused to whistle through the pass. It moved high above, in the ridges and the peaks, but down here, before the gate, there was only stillness.
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Telaryn sat near the dying fire, watching it hiss and gutter. Her bandaged hand itched beneath the wraps.
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Slowly, she stood.
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The others turned as she walked to the gate. She didn’t speak. Her footsteps echoed louder than they should have. When she reached the archway, she paused, then lifted her hand—no blade drawn, no wound made.
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But the blood came anyway.
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A thin line opened across her palm, deliberate and clean, as if invited. Crimson welled and spilled. The wind caught nothing. The snow did not move. But the blood fell anyway, and it struck the stone like rain on parchment. As if gravity was pulling it towards the sigil on the door, a couple of faint drops made their way.
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The effect was immediate.
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The erased sigil bloomed—not in fire or gold, but red, vivid and pulsing. Her blood sank into the rock, racing along old lines etched too deep to forget. The stone began to vibrate—not in movement, but in tone. A sound throbbed through the Keep, low and terrible, like breath rising from a long-buried throat.
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The arch parted.
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Not open—not torn—but **parted**, stone sliding into stone, revealing a passage behind. A tunnel of seamless black, wide enough for three to walk abreast, yet somehow feeling tighter, closer. As if the darkness were pressing in, even as it receded.
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The fire behind them died suddenly. No gust quelled it, but as if a strange and strangling cold seeped from within the Keep.
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Alisha moved first, rushing to Telaryn’s side, eyes wide. “Are you hurt?” she asked—but the blood was already gone. The wound had sealed.
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“I didn’t mean to,” Telaryn said softly.
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“But it meant to _take_,” Halven whispered, staring at the stone. “It recognized something in you.”
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No one replied. Even Eris had stepped back, her knuckles white against the shaft of her spear.
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Only Telaryn stood unmoving, eyes fixed on the open gate. Her shoulders lifted once—slow, a breath drawn deep—and then stilled.
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She turned to the others.
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“This is it.”
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The Keep of Ash yawned before them. Ancient. Silent. Waiting. And Ryn stepped toward it. Drawn closer by the gaping darkness beyond. Eyes fixed on the yawning abyss, her head tilted slightly as if listening to soft, moaning whispers only she could hear. |