The Door That Bleeds
The wind returned.
But this time, it did not howl.
It whispered.
Not like a dying god.
Like a grieving one.
Nael stood at the edge of a forgotten valley, where stones jutted from the earth like jagged ribs, and the cinders fell sideways, pulled by something unseen. The land here wasn't just quiet—it was hushed, as if afraid to speak. As if the soil remembered something it wasn't allowed to repeat.
He adjusted the strap of the burial tools on his back and stepped forward. The ash beneath his feet didn't crunch—it pulsed.
His fingers twitched.
He felt it again.
That pull.
A faint tug in his chest, like a thread of gold and shadow twisting between ribs, leading him forward. He had followed it for days now, across dead plains and through frozen rivers where time itself seemed broken. Always the same direction. Always toward this place.
The place where the runes had bled.
He knelt before one of the stones. Not carved by mortal hands—no chisel could make edges so clean. No mason could arrange symbols that flickered between languages when he tried to read them.
One moment, they looked like flame.
The next, they looked like prayer.
Nael placed his palm against the stone. It was cold. Unnaturally so.
"You are close."
He flinched.
Not from the voice—it had become familiar. It lived in the corners of his thoughts now, speaking in embers and memory. But this time, the voice didn't echo in his head.
It came from beneath the stone.
He pressed harder. The ground quivered.
And then the rune on the stone shifted—not fading, not glowing… changing.
From prayer to warning.
He took three steps back.
Then the earth cracked open.
It didn't explode.
It exhaled.
Ash spiraled upward in a silent storm as a circular platform rose from beneath the surface, ancient and blackened, etched with sigils he had seen only once before—in his dreams.
Nael's breath caught.
This wasn't a grave.
It was a threshold.
A door not buried to seal the divine, but to summon it.
He stepped toward it, the symbols glowing faintly beneath his boots, and the deeper he walked, the heavier the air became. It felt like water, thick with memory and power.
In the center of the platform stood a pedestal. Upon it, a stone heart—chained, cracked, and still beating.
He stared.
His voice came out hoarse.
"Whose heart is this?"
The voice answered.
"The one you buried first."
Nael's vision reeled.
He staggered back, but the platform responded. Rings of light spun around the heart, each flickering with images—temples burning, statues weeping, skies split open by wings of flame.
A face.
A woman.
Eyes of fire and sorrow.
His knees buckled.
He remembered her name.
He remembered her song.
"I loved her…"
The whisper answered.
"You still do."
The platform pulsed.
A choice was forming.
If he touched the heart, something would awaken. Not just in the world, but in himself.
He stood still, windless, breathless.
And then… a voice that was not his own escaped his lips:
"May the gods forgive me…"
His hand reached forward.
The heart opened its eye.
The heart blinked.
Not with blood. Not with muscle.
But with light.
A light ancient and sorrowful, dark and golden, familiar like a mother's warmth… and just as cruel. As if it remembered every promise broken, every oath whispered beneath a dying sky.
Nael's hand hovered above it.
Then—
A scream burst through his skull.
Not from the heart.
From himself.
He fell to his knees, clutching his temples as the pain dragged him under, ripping apart the walls of memory he'd spent years building.
He was somewhere else.
Not in the valley. Not in the ash.
He stood in a garden.
A temple without a roof.
A sky full of stars that didn't exist anymore.
Before him, a woman danced.
No… burned.
Her steps painted fire into the air.
Her laughter made the stone walls hum.
She turned.
And the world stopped.
"Nael," she said, voice like flame on silk. "You came late again."
He couldn't breathe.
She walked toward him, barefoot on cracked stone, embers blooming beneath her steps.
Her eyes met his.
Two suns.
Alive.
Divine.
His.
"Do you remember me yet?" she whispered, lifting her hand to his cheek.
His mouth opened. No words came. Only grief.
"You buried me too," she said.
And the memory shattered.
He was back in the valley, choking on ash and silence.
The heart still pulsed before him.
But now he remembered her name.
Seriah.
Goddess of Flame.
Bearer of the First Light.
The one who had once held his hand and whispered to him before all fell.
He had buried her beneath a sky of fire.
He had sealed her tomb with salt, ash, and forgetting.
And now, she called him back.
The voice returned.
Not hers. The one from before.
The one that wasn't human.
"She remembers. And now, so do you."
"The heart is awake. The flame has opened its eye."
"And you must decide…"
Nael's hands trembled.
"Decide what?" he breathed.
Silence answered.
But the heart pulsed again, and he understood.
There was a door.
Not of stone or metal.
But of soul.
And it had always been inside him.
If he touched the heart now, Seriah would return.
But not as she once was.
And not alone.
His fingers curled slowly toward it.
Torn.
He had buried her with tears and prayers and the last words of a world that didn't believe in gods anymore.
And yet… he loved her.
Even now.
Even still.
The wind began to rise again, swirling ash into rings around the platform. Runes flared in the earth, ancient and furious. Something stirred beyond the veil of the sky.
A storm that remembered its name.
Nael spoke, to no one and to everything:
"If I open the door… what will come through?"
The voice answered like thunder whispered through glass:
"Not just gods."
"Not just memories."
Everything you left behind."
The heart opened.
And in its golden eye, Nael saw something move. Not flame. Not blood.
Her.
She reached out to him with a hand of light and grief.
And he…
He did not flinch.
Nael's hand met the heart.
There was no light.
No sound.
Only truth.
It burned him—not his flesh, but deeper. Through muscle, through marrow, through soul. A searing unraveling. Like the world itself peeling back, thread by thread, until all that remained was what had been lost.
He screamed.
Not in pain.
In recognition.
Because suddenly, he remembered everything.
He remembered the war of the heavens.
The rebellion.
The fall.
The weeping skies.
He remembered Seriah kneeling before the pyres of gods, her tears feeding the last flame of the divine.
He remembered his own blade—black, runed, forged to seal divinity itself—driven into the heart of the world. Into her.
And he remembered her final words, whispered as the stars collapsed above them:
"When the ash forgets, I will remember."
Nael staggered back.
The heart floated now, unchained, bleeding light.
From the ashes around him, shapes rose—figures made of dust and memory. Eyes burning. Voices calling his name in a dozen dead tongues.
And above it all… a crack in the sky.
A thin line of gold and black, like a scar tearing open the firmament.
From it, a single feather fell.
Dark as the void. Heavy as judgment.
It landed at Nael's feet.
He didn't need to ask.
He already knew what it meant.
The gods were waking.
Not all.
But some.
And not as they were.
Twisted by time. By betrayal. By centuries of silence.
And Nael… Nael was no longer just their gravekeeper.
He was now their key.
He looked down at his hands. Ash. Blood. Light.
Seriah's voice echoed through the wind, no longer bound to memory:
"Nael… will you open the gate fully?"
He looked to the cracked heavens, to the bleeding heart, to the door within himself.
"I never meant to be the one who chose," he whispered.
"But you always were," said the voice.
From the edge of the valley, a shadow stirred. Tall. Cloaked. Watching.
Another had arrived.
Not a god. Not human.
Something between.
And Nael felt it.
For the first time in centuries… he was not alone.
But he was no longer certain if that was a blessing, or a curse.
He picked up the fallen feather.
It turned to ash in his palm.
And the storm began to roar.