Not surface dawn—there was no sunlight in the Undercity—but a different kind of morning, marked by the soft pulse of newly awakened ley lines and the subtle breath of shifting magic. The city itself had changed since Embereth's awakening. Stone groaned in its sleep. Walls breathed. And wherever the Spark pooled, flowers bloomed in places where nothing had ever grown.
Veil led them from the southern breach beneath the fractured remains of Obelisk Zero, down through an access corridor sealed for nearly two centuries. The air smelled of dust, oil, and something older—memory, perhaps, made tangible.
The Pathfinders numbered thirty-five.
At their heart stood Lyra, her Spark-touched cloak whispering behind her, and Niko, whose silent presence had only deepened since the battle in Sector Nine. His skin bore etched runes now—glowing faintly, pulsing to rhythms only he could hear.
No one spoke much.
They all felt it.
The pull.
1. A City Beneath Silence
By the third day of travel, the Undercity had become something else entirely.
Gone were the makeshift bridges and broken tunnels. These ruins were pre-Divide. Wide stone avenues, fallen spires, skeletal trams encased in crystalized dust. On the walls, ancient murals depicted long-dead gods and Spark-bound titans, surrounded by crowds offering flame and blood.
"This was once a city," Lyra whispered. "Before the Skyborne even existed."
"Before the fall," Veil said, not turning. "Before memory was stolen."
They passed a great archway where ten statues stood watch, heads bowed and blindfolded. Glyphs on the pillars beneath their feet glowed faintly as the group crossed them.
Tyren, walking rear guard, muttered, "This place isn't just old. It's alive."
Veil said nothing, but he had begun to feel it too. The deeper they went, the more the Spark around him seemed to watch. Not actively—but attentively, like a forest listening for footfalls.
By the sixth day, the tunnel walls had become smoother. The glyphs brighter. And in the air… a heartbeat.
Steady.
Calling.
2. The Door That Waits
They found the first gate on the seventh day.
It was buried halfway beneath a collapsed transit tower, its circular shape carved from obsidian laced with veins of fireglass. The center of the gate shimmered like oil on water—not solid, not liquid. A dream caught between waking and sleep.
Veil stepped forward alone.
The runes along the rim pulsed to match his steps. He placed one hand on the surface and closed his eyes.
His mind was not flooded with images, but pulled.
Pulled backward.
He saw the world before it broke: towers of glass reaching into clouds; dragons made of crystal swimming through ley-choked air; Spark-born channelers walking between worlds like bridges of thought.
And then—blackness.
A wound in reality.
A gate.
"You carry the key," a voice whispered. Not Embereth. This voice was deeper, hollow, worn.
Veil opened his eyes and pulled his hand back.
"I know where it is."
Lyra stepped forward. "The Sundered Gate?"
He nodded. "And it's closer than we thought."
3. Of Echoes and Teeth
They made camp beside the gate for rest, setting perimeter wards drawn from both Spark sigils and Embereth's newer flame-chants. That night, as most of the group drifted into exhausted sleep, Veil and Lyra sat watch by a torchless fire—one made of Sparklight instead of wood.
"Do you trust her?" Lyra asked suddenly. "Embereth?"
Veil looked into the shifting light. "I trust that she remembers."
"But not that she knows what we need?"
"She is a mirror," he said. "But mirrors don't show us the future. Only what we already carry."
Lyra nodded slowly. "And what about the Gate?"
"I'm starting to believe Embereth feared it. That's why she never spoke of it. Whatever it guards… it wasn't meant to be remembered."
They sat in silence.
Then Niko appeared—quiet as shadow—and pointed into the dark.
A moment later, they heard it.
Breathing.
Not mechanical.
Not human.
Massive.
Veil rose. "Everyone up."
Too late.
From the shadows beyond the gate, a shape emerged.
It had no eyes, no mouth—only rows of shifting teeth along a vertical seam down the center of its elongated body. Its body rippled like stone and cloth fused together, and its limbs were made of chains.
The Spark shimmered around it.
"A gatebound warden," Veil muttered. "One of the old ones. Bound to guard what must not be found."
The creature screamed—a sound that shattered two of their protection glyphs.
The camp erupted into motion.
4. Spark and Shadow
The battle was chaos.
The warden moved like unraveling thread—too fast, too jagged. Its chain-limbs lashed out and shattered Spark-formed barriers. The Pathfinders, trained but untested, scattered.
Lyra stood her ground.
She raised both hands and focused her Spark—not into fire, but into memory. She didn't attack. She called.
She remembered the warmth of the Core. The weight of Veil's voice in the dark. The look in a child's eyes when magic returned.
And from her hands, that memory became shape.
Golden tendrils wove through the air, slowing the creature's movements. Its chain-limbs froze, confused by the emotion they couldn't interpret.
Veil seized the opening.
He blurred forward and drove his claws into the warden's torso. Not to kill—but to reach what lay beneath.
The core.
A single glyph—cracked, ancient, humming.
Veil touched it.
"Rest," he said.
And the creature vanished.
Not in death.
In release.
5. The Door Opens
When silence returned, half the camp was in shock.
Two were dead. Four wounded.
But the gate—now fully awake—stood open.
Veil turned to the others.
"You don't have to follow."
No one moved.
Even the wounded stood.
Niko stepped forward, pointed toward the arch, and said something no one had heard him speak before:
"It's not a place. It's a choice."
Then he walked through.
Lyra followed.
So did Veil.
And one by one, the others entered the Sundered Gate.
Not through space.
But through what had been forgotten.