The hall of sorrow

Chapter 8: The Hall of Sorrow

The path to salvation led them deeper into ruin.

The entrance to the Hall of Sorrow was hidden beneath the crumbling altar of Valmire's forsaken cathedral. Its stained glass windows, once vibrant with saints and saviors, were now jagged shards casting twisted colors across ash-covered pews. Ivy, blackened as if scorched by some infernal fire, wrapped itself tightly around the cathedral's bones, like fingers refusing to let go of the past.

No birds sang. No wind stirred. Even time seemed hesitant to tread here.

Adrian's hand hovered over the altar's surface, fingers tracing the cracked stone. With a soft grind of old mechanisms, a trapdoor creaked open, revealing a spiral staircase of rusted iron leading downward into darkness so dense it felt alive.

"She's down there," Adrian said, his voice low. Reverent. "I can feel her… or something that used to be her. It's faint, like a song turned sour."

Dorian stared into the abyss below. "Then we remind her of the music."

Lyra placed a hand on his arm. Her touch was light, but grounding. Neither of them spoke. Words, they had learned, often shattered beneath the weight of grief. They descended in silence, each footfall a heartbeat, each breath a prayer.

The stairwell plunged into cold. Not the chill of mere stone, but the kind that gnawed at the bones and whispered into the soul. The walls wept moisture, and the torches they carried flickered against grotesque carvings—faces twisted in agony, etched into the stone like memories refusing to fade.

At the bottom, the Hall awaited.

A cavernous chamber opened before them, vast and reverberating with an eerie hum, like the murmuring of ghosts. Mirrors lined the curved walls—tall, ancient, and shifting. Some were fractured into spiderwebs of pain. Others remained whole but wrong, their surfaces too fluid, too aware. Within them danced scenes from lives long lost: Evelyn, a child spinning beneath the rain. Evelyn, shackled in ritual, tears carving paths down her face. Dorian, on his knees, blood and ash in his hands. Visions from memory and nightmare alike.

And in the center, the mirror—the true one. The cursed one.

It rose taller than any of them, framed in obsidian that bled faint pulses of violet light. Its glass was darker than night, but within it moved shapes, half-formed and screaming silently. It hummed with sorrow. It pulsed with pain.

And before it stood Evelyn.

But not the Evelyn Dorian remembered.

Her form was wrapped in shadow, like fog caught in human shape. Her eyes, once bright with quiet mischief and kindness, were now glassy abysses, reflecting nothing but despair. Her lips curled into a mockery of a smile, but it never touched her gaze.

"So," she spoke, her voice sharp and sorrowful, "you came crawling to the place where it all ends."

Dorian stepped forward, but Lyra caught his wrist.

"Careful," she whispered.

Evelyn's gaze flicked over them like a blade. "Why now, Dorian? To offer apologies? Or to see what your love has made of me?"

"I came to bring you back," he said softly. "You're still in there. I know you are."

Her laughter rang through the hall—bitter, broken, more sob than mirth. "You don't know me. You never did. You loved the parts of me that smiled. The pieces that were easy. But the parts that were tired? The ones that cried alone in the dark? You walked away from those."

"I didn't walk away." His voice cracked. "I got lost."

"You left me," she hissed. "And now, when I've become the sum of all my grief, you think you can save me with words?"

Adrian took a step forward. "We're not here to pretend nothing happened. We're here because we love you, even in this. Especially in this."

Something in Evelyn's face faltered. The shadows around her twitched.

But then, her smile sharpened again. "Love?" she spat. "Then show me. Which of you will die for me?"

The ground trembled. Shadows peeled themselves from the mirror, forming hunched, faceless creatures with claws of regret and eyes made of Evelyn's own sorrow. They hissed and rushed forward.

"Stay back!" Dorian shouted, drawing his blade.

The creatures swarmed. Dorian fought like a man possessed, steel flashing through the mist. Every strike was an act of defiance. Every wound they gave whispered the same thing: You weren't enough. You let her become this. You should've died with her.

But he pressed on. The music box in his coat thudded softly against his chest with each step—his last tie to the girl he loved.

One of the shadows drove him to his knees. He screamed—not from pain, but the memory it forced into his mind. Evelyn, weeping alone as the ritual began, reaching for him—and he wasn't there.

"Evelyn!" he cried out, rising, shaking, bleeding. "You are not this darkness! You're not the curse! You're the girl who stayed up with me through every storm, who believed in love even when it hurt, who sang in abandoned halls because silence scared her more."

She hesitated. Her hands trembled.

He pulled the music box from his coat and turned the tiny key. The lullaby played—soft, delicate, imperfect. Like her.

"I kept this," he said. "Because even when I hated myself, you believed I could be more. I didn't deserve you. But I'll fight for you. I'll walk through every shadow to bring you back."

Her lip quivered. "Dorian…"

Then, the mirror cracked. A deep fracture split its surface with a sound like a soul breaking free. The scream that followed wasn't hers—it was the thing that had bound her.

The shadows shrieked and dissolved. The mirror exploded in a blaze of violet light.

Evelyn collapsed, screaming. Her form flickered between light and shadow, fighting for itself.

Adrian caught her just before she hit the ground.

"She's still fading," he gasped. "She's not whole. The curse—it's still tethered. She'll die unless someone bears it."

Dorian knelt beside him, grasping Evelyn's hand. "Let me. I gave up my memory of her… let me give more."

But Adrian shook his head, tears glistening in his eyes. "You gave up your love. You gave her hope. That's more than enough." He looked at her. "Let me give the rest."

"No—Adrian—" Dorian choked out.

But he was already chanting softly. The runes from the ritual reappeared in the air, flaring with light. A thread of violet energy pierced Adrian's chest. He convulsed—but smiled.

"I loved you," he whispered to Evelyn. "Even if I was never enough."

Then he collapsed.

The silence returned.

Evelyn's eyes fluttered open. The darkness in them was gone. She blinked, then wept.

"Adrian…?" she murmured.

Dorian held her, tears falling freely. "He saved you."

Her fingers clutched his coat as if afraid she might vanish again. "I'm so sorry."

He kissed her forehead, gently. "It's over."

But as he looked down at Adrian's still form, he knew it wasn't over for all of them.

There was a price for saving a soul.

And someone always had to pay it.