Chapter 23: Echoes in the Dark

The following days were calm on the surface—but Ren could feel something shifting beneath it.

People still whispered his name. Some in reverence. Others in fear. The Council had not moved against him, but the tension in the city hung like a blade waiting to fall.

Kaede remained close. Yui was attending advanced training now, learning to control her healing abilities with more precision. Their mother smiled more often, walked farther each day.

Yet Ren found himself returning to the edge of the city, standing near the old, sealed dungeon gate. Not the one he had emerged from. Another—silent, untouched, rumored to have never been cleared.

He didn't know why it drew him. Only that it did.

That night, he dreamed again.

Not of the masked figure. Not of the heartroot.

This time, the dungeon itself spoke.

"You touched my heart."

The voice was not a whisper, but an ocean.

"Now you carry me with you. And I carry you."

Ren woke in a cold sweat, standing. He had no memory of leaving bed, but he stood again at the sealed gate.

Alone.

It pulsed faintly.

He pressed his hand to the stone.

A crack appeared.

He stepped back slowly, breathing evenly.

The dungeon hadn't let him go.

It had only been waiting.

And something else—something far worse than the heartroot—was starting to awaken.

Ren clenched his fist.

"I won't run," he said to the dark.

"I never will."