The Doors to the Past

The air was thick and still as Ophelia stepped deeper into the tunnels beneath the palace.

The flickering glow of her lantern stretched long shadows across the damp stone walls, the flame's unsteady light revealing crumbling pillars, half-buried archways, and the remnants of a place far older than Seraphis itself.

She could hear the slow drip of water somewhere in the distance, the sound echoing endlessly in the dark.

Behind her, Zoriel moved without a sound.

She had expected his presence to feel heavy, suffocating even—but instead, it was quiet, steady. Like he belonged here.

Like the darkness knew him.

The tunnel sloped downward, the scent of wet stone and something ancient filling the air. The walls bore traces of old carvings, their edges worn smooth with time. Symbols she did not recognize—fragments of a language erased from history.

She paused, running her fingers over one of the markings.

"This was a city once," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "Before Seraphis was built… before the palace stood above it."

"A kingdom beneath a kingdom," Zoriel said, his voice low.

Ophelia swallowed. "Buried. Forgotten."

A strange feeling settled in her chest.

She had read of ruins before, of lost civilizations swallowed by war, by time. But this—this place did not feel abandoned.

It felt watched.

A gust of cold air slipped through the passage, curling around her ankles like unseen fingers.

Zoriel's gaze flicked upward.

"Something is breathing here," he murmured.

Ophelia shivered. He was right.

The ruins were not empty.

Something—**or someone—**was waiting.

⸻

The First Threshold

They reached a massive stone doorway, its surface covered in deep etched runes, their edges glowing faintly in the dark.

The lantern's flame flickered wildly, as if resisting the air beyond the threshold.

Ophelia hesitated.

The space beyond the doorway was vast, yawning, unknowable. The tunnel sloped downward into a black abyss, the walls widening, opening into something far greater than a simple ruin.

It was a chamber.

A city.

Hidden beneath the world above.

She turned to Zoriel, but he was already staring at the doorway—his golden gaze unreadable, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

"Do you remember this place?" she asked.

A long pause.

Then, softly—"Not yet."

The way he said it sent a chill through her.

Not yet.

Like the memory was waiting for him to find it.

Ophelia exhaled and stepped through.

The moment her foot crossed the threshold—

The lantern died.

Darkness rushed in like a flood, swallowing the world in an instant.

The temperature plunged.

The walls groaned, shifting, breathing.

And then—

A whisper.

Not the Forgotten. Not the voices she had heard before.

This was different.

This was older.

"Who seeks the past?"

⸻

The Veil of the Forgotten

The whisper seeped through the stone, curling around them like a living thing.

Ophelia's breath hitched.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered.

Zoriel did not answer.

She turned, trying to find his face in the suffocating dark, but then—

A light.

Faint. Flickering.

It did not come from her lantern.

It came from the carvings in the walls.

Slowly, impossibly, the etched runes began to glow, their golden light spreading in thin, delicate veins across the stone.

Like the ruins themselves were waking up.

Zoriel inhaled sharply.

Ophelia turned—and saw something change in his face.

His golden eyes reflected the light, something deep within them flickering—recognition.

She opened her mouth to speak, to ask—

But before she could, the floor shifted beneath them.

A slow, deep rumbling.

Dust rained from the ceiling. The walls trembled.

And then—

The doors ahead of them began to open.

⸻

The Forgotten Throne

The passage beyond was massive.

Stone columns stretched toward a vaulted ceiling shrouded in shadows. The air was thick with centuries of silence.

At the center of the chamber, half-buried beneath broken stone, stood a throne.

Not gold, not marble.

Black stone.

Ophelia felt it before she even stepped closer.

A presence.

Something woven into the very fabric of the ruins, ancient and waiting.

Zoriel stopped beside her, his gaze fixed on the throne.

His fingers curled slightly at his sides.

Ophelia hesitated. "Zoriel—?"

He took a slow step forward.

She barely heard him whisper—"I know this place."

Her pulse spiked.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

Zoriel didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he reached out, brushing the dust from the throne's surface.

And beneath the layers of time, beneath the cracks and ruin—

Was a symbol.

A crest.

Familiar.

Half-buried in her memory.

And then—she understood.

The same crest she had seen in the forbidden books.

The same crest that had been erased from every record of history.

The crest of Vordane.

Her throat tightened.

"This was your throne."

Silence.

Zoriel stared at the symbol, his expression unreadable.

Then, slowly, he turned to face her.

And what she saw there—in his golden eyes, burning brighter than ever—

Was the truth.

The truth she had been chasing. The truth that had nearly been erased.

The truth that the Forgotten had tried to bury.

Zoriel was not just a prince.

He was the last king of Vordane.