The air is thick with dust and silence. No torches. No braziers. Just stone and shadow. My Emberlash flickers against the walls, casting long, uncertain shapes. The ceiling is low—barely seven feet. I feel like I’m walking into a memory that doesn’t want to be remembered.
The room is square, thirty paces across. Alcoves line the walls, filled with urns and burial relics. Two corridors branch off—one curves right, then left again. The other runs straight and deep. I’ll choose later. For now, I’m drawn to the statue.
She stands opposite the stairwell, carved in noble repose. A woman of grace and sorrow. There’s a plaque beneath her feet, but it’s been defaced—scratched, stained, made unreadable. Someone wanted her forgotten. Or perhaps misremembered.
I knelt to brush away the dust. That’s when they came.
Two skeletons, silent and swift. I barely had time to raise my blade before the first halberd struck. The pain was sharp, deep—my shoulder split open like parchment. The second blow nearly dropped me. I staggered, bleeding, desperate.
I fought back.
Steel met bone. Flame met shadow. I chipped away at them, dodging, spinning, striking. One fell. Then the other. But before I could breathe, another came—clattering down the corridor like death on borrowed time.
I met him with fire. Then steel.
He collapsed beneath my blade, knees shattered, skull silent.
I’m hurt. Badly. My strength is drained, my speed dulled. But I’m alive.
And I think… I think the statue was watching.
—E