Beneath the Breathline

The team gathered at first light. Five total: Ilia, Vex, Rien, the silver-haired operative named Tarn, and a quiet scout called Lysa who wore gloves even when she slept.

No one spoke as they approached the ruin.

The plaza was colder than before — unnaturally so. The pedestal had gone dark. But the stone beneath it had cracked further in the night. Faint lines of light shimmered like veins along the seams, and when Ilia stepped close, the fragment at her throat warmed in response.

"This is it," she said.

They pried the pedestal loose together. Beneath it: stairs. Old, spiral, slick with water and dust. The scent of scorched jasmine was gone — replaced by something older, like wet iron and candle ash.

As they descended, Rien muttered, "Feels like we're going backward through someone else's memory."

They didn't light torches. The walls glowed softly on their own — not enough to see clearly, just enough to keep them from feeling completely blind.

Ilia was first down. Vex close behind.

The stairs ended in a hexagonal chamber, its walls lined with mirrors that reflected not their faces — but other versions of them. Older. Younger. Broken. Grinning.

Rien paused in front of one that showed him with blood on his hands. "That's… not ominous at all."

"No reflections are random," Tarn muttered. "This place is structured."

"Structured by what?" Vex asked.

Ilia was silent.

She approached the center of the room, where a low stone slab sat waiting. Runes spiraled out from it like a compass, each line carved in that impossible between-color. The cube in her hand vibrated slightly.

"This is the lock," she whispered.

"And we're standing on the threshold," Vex added.

Then Lysa moved.

Too fast.

She lunged at Ilia, blade drawn — not to stab, but to cut the cube from her hand.

But Vex was faster.

He tackled Lysa mid-motion, and they both crashed against the mirrored wall — which shattered into nothing, like glass folding into steam.

Tarn swore and aimed her weapon.

"No!" Ilia shouted. "She's not alone!"

Rien was already moving — tackling Tarn just as she turned on them.

The bunker had been compromised.

Two inside. At least two more waiting above.

Ilia clutched the cube. It was burning now — not painfully, but deeply. Like something inside was waking up.

And the slab was responding.

Light surged up the runes. The floor trembled.

"Ilia," Vex shouted, "what are you doing?!"

"I'm not doing anything!" she cried. "It's calling—"

And then everything broke open.

The floor split, clean and silent. And Ilia fell.

No scream. No impact.

Just silence.

And then a voice — soft, low, familiar in a way that made her bones ache:

"At last. You've come back to me."