Chapter 2 – Echoes of the Citadel

The Citadel loomed like a scar across the land, jagged and wrong—its towers twisted and spiraling as though constructed by hands unfamiliar with gravity. Its walls were a mosaic of ancient stone and black bone, its gates fused shut with a sealing rune that flickered like a dying star. In the air, there was no wind—only the heavy hush of forgotten things waiting to be remembered.

Mary, Lela, and Loosie stood just beyond the dead treeline, staring across a field of blackened soil that separated them from the citadel's base. The field pulsed with a strange rhythm, as if alive. Distant whispers coiled through the air, but their source remained unseen.

"This place doesn't obey the laws of the living," Lela said, adjusting her sword hilt. "The air... it's dense. Like it remembers pain."

Mary nodded. "That's because it does. The Expanse was where the Ancients bound the Riftborn during the Severance. They say the screams of that war were so loud, they still echo here."

Loosie grunted, clearly unimpressed. "Well, if ghosts want to scream, let 'em. I just want to get the Codex piece and get out. This place gives me worse chills than the witch crypts in Edros."

Mary reached into her satchel and withdrew the second Codex fragment. Its glow pulsed, brighter now. A trail of faint light extended from its edge, twisting through the air like a thread made of memory—leading directly toward the citadel.

"This is it," Mary murmured. "The Codex is drawing us in. The last piece is inside."

Lela frowned. "Or something pretending to be the last piece. Remember what the Archivist said: 'When the Codex is nearly whole, it may begin to lie.'"

Mary turned the fragment over in her hand. She could feel the pressure now—not just magic, but a subtle weight, as though carrying it meant bearing the consequences of forgotten gods. The pull of fate. The burden of blood.

They crossed the field slowly, each step stirring the charred soil. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. Only the faint sounds of their breathing and the increasingly loud thrum of the Codex.

At the gate, Mary reached out, her fingers brushing the seal.

The rune flared, burning violet, and a voice thundered in her skull:"By order of the Triumvirate, no soul may pass who bears sin."

The three staggered back, clutching their heads. The voice wasn't a sound—it was a command imprinted into the air, like the echo of divine law.

"Well," Loosie muttered, "we're screwed."

Mary straightened, her hand still trembling. "It's a test."

"A test of what?" Lela asked.

"Of our guilt." Mary looked between them. "The Codex is a key, yes—but the doors it opens don't care about your intentions. They only care about what's in your heart."

She pressed her palm to the seal again. "Let me in."

The rune flared again, but this time... it dimmed.

The gates shuddered. Stone groaned. Then, with the reluctant grind of time-worn hinges, the Citadel of Ashes opened before them.

They stepped inside.

The interior was impossibly vast. What had looked like a fortress from the outside was more like a collapsed cathedral within—walls slanted inward, stairways led upward into nothingness, and archways bent into impossible angles. Candles floated midair, their flames burning with cold blue light.

As they moved through the corridors, statues watched them—monuments of long-dead kings and forgotten gods, each one crumbling, their faces erased as if time itself had turned its back on them.

Then came the chamber.

They entered it cautiously. At its center was an altar of obsidian surrounded by thirteen stone pillars. Floating above the altar, suspended in midair, was a shimmering shard of metal and crystal—the final piece of the Codex.

Mary stepped forward, and the room darkened. A whisper slithered through the air:"She comes. The daughter of fangs and fire."

Loosie drew her blade. "We've got company."

The shadows in the corners moved. Coalesced.

Figures stepped out—robed, but wrong. Their eyes glowed white, but there were no irises. No pupils. Only the blank stare of something wearing human shape.

Lela's sword gleamed in her hand. "Wraithborn."

Mary clenched her fists, the Codex fragment pulsing in her satchel. "They're not guarding it. They're waiting for me."

The wraiths circled. One stepped forward. Its voice echoed not from its mouth, but from the air itself.

"The Codex must be whole. You will give us the fragments, vessel."

Mary's hand hovered near her satchel. "You don't want me to put it together. You want to release him. The Broken One."

The wraith's head tilted, and a flicker of amusement passed through its blank face.

"He is not broken. He is awakening."

Loosie didn't wait. She threw a dagger that sliced through the closest wraith—and was met with a hiss of black smoke as the creature reformed instantly.

"Great," she said. "No stabbing."

Lela moved like lightning, slashing through another figure and parrying its retaliatory swipe. "We can't kill them like this!"

Mary's eyes darted to the shard. The Codex piece was humming in sync with the one in her satchel. Resonating. She realized the truth.

"We don't need to fight!" she shouted. "Just cover me!"

She rushed the altar.

The wraiths screamed. Magic coiled from their hands, spears of darkness and starlight hurled toward her. But Lela was there, intercepting a blast with her shield as Loosie leapt across two others, drawing fire away from the center.

Mary reached the shard and lifted it.

As her fingers closed around the final piece, the Citadel shook.

Reality buckled.

A column of light exploded upward, piercing the ceiling and shattering the sky above them.

All at once, the two pieces fused—and the Codex became whole.

Mary screamed as knowledge—not words, but symbols, equations, emotions—invaded her mind.

She saw a throne in the void.She saw a man chained in stars, his face obscured by a crown of serpents.She saw herself—standing before him, blade in hand—and choosing.

Then, silence.

The wraiths collapsed into ash. The room stilled.

Mary opened her eyes. In her hands was the Codex, glowing, whole. The silence was too complete. Even Lela and Loosie looked stunned.

Then the Codex spoke.

"You are the bearer. And he knows your name."