The castle of Lord Azael rose from the cracked earth like a malignant growth, each obsidian tower twisting skyward in shapes that seemed to writhe when you weren't looking directly at them. The structure defied natural architecture,impossible angles, walls that curved inward yet somehow still stood, spires that leaned at angles that should have sent them crashing down centuries ago. The stone itself seemed alive, pulsing with a faint, sickly luminescence that made shadows dance and multiply across its surface.
I stood at the base of the main approach, neck craned back, trying to comprehend the sheer wrongness of what loomed before us. The walls bore the scars of forgotten wars,deep gouges that looked like claw marks from creatures too large to imagine, burn marks that formed patterns almost like words in a language I couldn't read, and cracks that spiderwebbed across the surface like veins carrying corrupted blood through stone flesh. Dark, thorny vines,thick as a man's arm,coiled around the structure, their leaves a bruised purple-black that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Where they touched the stone, the rock appeared to rot, crumbling at the edges as if the castle itself was being slowly consumed.
The wind howled through broken archways and shattered windows, but it wasn't just wind. There were voices in it,whispers that almost formed words, screams that cut off just as you started to recognize them, laughter that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. And underneath it all, that smell. Sweet like funeral flowers left too long in a closed room, mixed with copper and rust and something else,something organic and wrong, like meat that had been perfumed to hide its rot.
The gates hung open.
Not invitingly,more like a predator's maw held wide, waiting with infinite patience for prey to walk willingly into its gullet. The iron was blackened with age, twisted into baroque designs that might have been beautiful once but now looked like tortured figures frozen mid-scream. No guards stood watch. No movement came from within. Just that oppressive silence, broken only by the wind's whispered threats.
We'd been standing there for seven minutes.
I knew because I'd been counting my heartbeats, trying to steady my breathing, and it had reached four hundred and twenty. Seven minutes of staring at that open mouth, knowing we had to step through it, knowing that once we did, everything would change.
"No guards," Lira said, and her voice cut through my spiraling thoughts like a lifeline. She stood at the front of our group, knife already in hand, the blade catching what little light penetrated the gray sky above. Her face had settled into that mask I'd seen her wear before battle,all emotion locked away behind walls of determination, eyes scanning every shadow with mechanical precision. But I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her free hand kept clenching and unclenching at her side. "No traps visible. It's too quiet."
Kai shifted beside her, both pistols drawn now, held low and ready. His usual cocky grin had vanished, replaced by a grim focus that made him look like a different person,older, harder, deadlier. "Doesn't mean they're not there," he said, voice low. "This is Azael's house. His castle. His domain. He's been waiting for us,probably watching us right now. He wants us to come in. Wants to see what we'll do."
"Wants to play," Amie added quietly from her position beside him. Her twin was always the more tactical one, the planner, and I could practically see her mind working as she analyzed the structure before us. Her pack sat heavy on her back, stuffed with the last of our medical supplies,bandages, disinfectant, suture kits, pain relievers. Everything we'd need if things went wrong. When things went wrong. "The scroll's in there somewhere. The lead to the First Book. We go in, we find it, we get out. We stick together,no matter what. No splitting up unless there's absolutely no other choice."
Kael stood slightly behind them, leaning more heavily on his staff than he had been a week ago. The march had been hard on him,on all of us, but especially on him with his injuries. The serum had done its work, knitting broken bone and torn flesh, but the pain still lingered. I could see it in the tightness around his eyes, the careful way he shifted his weight, trying not to put pressure on his bad leg. His newly-healed fingers flexed unconsciously in his pocket, still getting used to having them back. "And Azael?" he asked, voice rougher than usual. "What about him?"
Lira's grip tightened on her knife until her knuckles went white, the leather wrapping creaking under the pressure. "We end him," she said, and there was something in her voice that made me shiver,not quite hatred, not quite rage, but something colder. More final. "For Vesper. For my town. For my great-grandfather. For everyone he's used and broken and destroyed. We end all of it. Today."
Nyx landed beside me with barely a whisper of sound, her small hand finding mine, fingers intertwining. I looked down at her,this small, fierce creature who'd become so much more than the Xenophore we'd freed from Vesper's control. Her black-rose eyes bloomed wider as she stared at the castle, petals of darkness opening and closing like living things. "I feel something," she said softly, voice carrying a tremor I wasn't used to hearing from her. "Hunger. But not mine. Not even Xenophore hunger. It's like the air itself is hungry. Like the castle wants to eat us."
The symbol under my skin tingled,that now-familiar prickle of warning that spread from the mark on my forearm up through my shoulder and into my chest, like invisible eyes opening beneath my flesh, watching something I couldn't see. I swallowed hard, throat dry despite the moisture in the air. "Let's get this over with," I said, trying to sound braver than I felt.
Xeno stood at my other side, shovel slung over his shoulder with deceptive casualness, his blindfolded face turned toward the castle as if he could see through both the cloth and the stone itself. He hadn't spoken in over an hour,not since we'd crested the hill and caught our first glimpse of Azael's fortress. His silence felt heavier than usual, weighted with something I couldn't quite name. Dread? Anticipation? Memory?
We moved forward as one.
Twenty-six days of training had forged us into something more than a group of desperate survivors. We moved together now with unconscious coordination,each person knowing their position, their role, their responsibility to keep the others alive. Twenty-six days of drills that left us bruised and exhausted but sharper, faster, stronger. Twenty-six days of sparring until we could predict each other's movements, of practicing formations until they became second nature, of pushing our bodies to breaking point and then pushing further.
Twenty-six days of building bonds in sweat and shared pain and quiet moments around campfires, sharing stories and fears and hopes.
And now here we were.
At the end.
Or maybe just the beginning of it.
The courtyard beyond the gates was vast,easily a hundred meters across, surrounded by walls that rose thirty meters high on all sides. The ground was littered with gravel and something else,white fragments that crunched under our boots with a sound that made my stomach turn. Bones. Animal or human, it was impossible to tell,they'd been scattered and broken and mixed together until they were just... fragments. Markers of things that had died here.
Dead vines covered everything, thick ropes of desiccated plant matter that cracked like brittle bones when we stepped on them, releasing clouds of dust that smelled of decay. Statues lined the walls at regular intervals,warriors in poses of triumph, their stone swords raised high; angels with wings spread wide, though most of those wings had crumbled away; figures in robes that might have been priests or scholars, their stone hands raised in gestures of blessing or warning. All of them were damaged,faces eroded by time or violence until their features were gone, leaving only blank smoothness that was somehow more disturbing than any expression could have been. Yet despite their faceless state, I couldn't shake the feeling that they were watching us. Judging us.
The air grew thicker with each step, heavier, until breathing felt like trying to pull oxygen through wet cloth. The sweet rot smell intensified, coating the back of my throat with something oily and wrong that made me want to gag. I pressed my forearm against my nose, trying to filter it, but it didn't help.
"Welcome."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere,booming from the walls, echoing from the gray sky above, rumbling up through the ground beneath our feet as if the earth itself had found speech. Deep and layered, multiple voices speaking in perfect unison, creating harmonics that vibrated in my chest and made my teeth ache.
We stopped as one, weapons snapping up, backs coming together in a defensive circle we'd practiced countless times. Lira at the front, knives ready. Kai and Amie flanking her, pistols raised. Kael behind them, staff gripped in both hands despite the pain it must have caused. Xeno and I forming the rear guard, with Nyx hovering between us, wings spread for rapid movement.
"Welcome, little mice, to my maze."
The voice laughed,a sound that slithered down my spine like cold, oily fingers trailing across bare skin. There was amusement in it, but also something darker. Anticipation. Hunger. The laugh of someone who'd already won and was just toying with the pieces before sweeping them off the board.
"I've been waiting for you," the voice continued, each word dripping with smug satisfaction. "The curse beare,—marked by forces she doesn't understand, carrying power that will eventually consume her. The blindfolded boy,hiding secrets behind cloth, pretending the world can't see what he really is. The fallen Xenophore,trying so desperately to be xenophore again when her true nature calls to her. The broken advisor,faith shattered, body mended but spirit still cracked. The vengeful girl,rage burning so bright it blinds her to everything else. The hopeful twins,optimism that will get them killed. Such a delightful collection of broken things. Such perfect toys to play with."
Lord Azael.
The name alone carried weight,this was the architect of so much suffering, the puppet master who'd pulled Vesper's strings, who'd set all of this in motion. And he spoke about us like we were already his. Like we'd already lost.
"What do you want?" Lira shouted, her voice steady despite the slight tremor in her hands. "Show yourself, you coward!"
"Coward?" The voice purred, somehow conveying a smile without a face. "No, no, dear girl. Not a coward. A game master. You've come for the scroll, haven't you? For the Book? For answers to your pathetic little questions about curses and Xenophores and the nature of your world? Then play my game. Win, and they're yours. Lose..." The voice paused, letting silence build tension. "And I add you to my collection. Like all the others who thought they could defeat me."
The ground trembled.
It started as a faint vibration beneath my feet, barely noticeable. Then it grew,a deep rumble that resonated in my bones, making my teeth chatter. The walls around us groaned like living things in pain, ancient mechanisms grinding to life with sounds that hadn't been heard in decades, maybe centuries. Metal screeched against stone with ear-splitting intensity. Dust and small chunks of masonry began raining down from above, forcing us to shield our eyes.
The castle was moving.
Walls shifted,massive stone blocks that must have weighed tons sliding aside with surprising smoothness, revealing dark passages that exhaled stale air. Other sections ground forward, sealing off the entrance we'd come through with a boom that shook more debris loose. The floor tilted, creating ramps that threatened to send us sliding toward shadowy openings in the walls. Sections of courtyard dropped away entirely, revealing pits below that descended into darkness so complete it seemed to swallow light.
"Scatter!" Lira shouted, but her voice was barely audible over the cacophony.
We tried to stay together,we'd trained for this, practiced maintaining formation even under pressure,but the castle had other ideas.
A massive stone slab, easily three meters thick, dropped from somewhere above with devastating speed. I had a split-second glimpse of ancient mechanism,gears and chains thick as tree trunks, all still functioning despite centuries of neglect,before it slammed down between us with a boom that felt like the world ending.
The impact drove air from my lungs. I was thrown backward, landing hard on my back with enough force to stun me. My vision went gray at the edges, ears ringing with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. Dust exploded outward in a choking cloud, filling my nose and mouth, making me cough so hard it felt like my ribs would crack.
I waved my hands frantically, trying to clear the air enough to see, to breathe, to think. My dagger had fallen from my grip,where was it? I needed it. Needed to—
"Lira!" I managed to choke out, voice raw and barely recognizable. "Kai! Amie!"
No answer.
Just the settling of dust and the distant sound of more mechanisms activating, more walls shifting, more of the castle rearranging itself like a puzzle solving and resolving into new configurations.
The dust cleared slowly, painfully, and I could finally see again.
I was in a chamber,high ceilings vaulted like a cathedral, easily fifteen meters above my head, with massive pillars supporting them. The pillars were cracked, chunks missing, but still standing through some combination of ancient engineering and sheer stubbornness. The floor beneath me was covered in mosaics that must have been magnificent once,intricate patterns rendered in thousands of tiny tiles. Most were damaged now, tiles missing or broken, but I could still make out the design. Eyes. Hundreds of eyes, all different sizes, all staring upward at something. And thorns, winding between them, creating a pattern that was almost hypnotic if you stared at it too long.
The chamber was empty except for me and—
"That could have gone better," Xeno said calmly from beside me, helping me to my feet with his free hand, shovel still gripped in the other. His blindfold hadn't shifted despite the chaos, still perfectly positioned, somehow both concealing and revealing nothing.
Nyx hovered nearby, wings beating frantically to clear the remaining dust, her small face twisted in anger and concern. "Yona! Are you hurt? Speak!"
"I'm—" I coughed again, spat out dust that tasted like centuries-old stone. "I'm okay. Lira? The others?"
Silence answered me. The walls here were solid stone, no gaps, no cracks large enough to call through. We were separated. Cut off.
Exactly as Azael wanted.
I bent and retrieved my dagger from where it had fallen, checking the blade automatically,still sharp, no damage. Good. I'd need it.
"They can handle themselves," Xeno said, and there was confidence in his voice that I wanted to believe. "We trained for this. They're alive, and they're fighting. We need to do the same."
He was right. We couldn't afford to panic, couldn't afford to freeze. That's what Azael wanted,for us to be consumed by fear and worry, to make mistakes.
I took a breath,deep, slow, centering. Remembered Kael's meditation lessons, the breathing exercises. Fear was natural. Fear kept you alive. But panic killed.
The dust finally settled enough to reveal the full chamber.
And we weren't alone.
A figure stepped from the shadows at the far end of the room,tall, elegant, wrapped in a cloak of black so deep it seemed to absorb light. For a moment, my heart seized,was this Azael? Finally showing himself?
But no. The build was wrong,too slim, too small. The movements too light, almost playful, like a dancer rather than a lord.
The figure reached up with delicate hands and pushed back the hood.
A girl.
Thirteen, maybe fourteen at most, though something about her suggested she might be older,or younger,than she appeared. She had dark hair pulled back in two neat braids that fell past her shoulders, each strand perfectly in place as if arranged by someone obsessively careful. Her face had that sharp quality that marked the transition from child to teenager,bones becoming more pronounced, baby fat fading, features crystallizing into their adult form. She wore a simple dress of dark fabric that should have been dirty in this place of dust and decay, but it was spotless, as if dirt itself refused to mar it.
But her eyes.
Her eyes were voids.
Not dark brown or black,actual voids, like someone had carved out her eye sockets and filled them with pieces of the night sky, with all the stars removed. They reflected nothing, swallowed everything. Looking into them felt like staring into an abyss that stared back with infinite hunger.
She smiled,wide, bright, delighted, teeth perfect and white and somehow wrong in their uniformity.
"OMG!" she squealed, and her voice was young, enthusiastic, the voice of an excited teenage girl, which made everything about her even more disturbing. "Xeno! Oh my god, it's been so long! How are you? You look good! Well, same as always, but that's good, right?"
Xeno went rigid.
I'd never seen him react like this,not to Xenophores, not to danger, not to anything. But his entire body locked up as if turned to stone, muscles tensing so hard I could see them trembling. The shovel in his hand started shaking.
"Do you remember me?" The girl bounced on her toes, hands clasped together in front of her like she was asking about a party invitation rather than standing in a nightmare castle. "It's me! Your bestest friend in the whole entire world! Your first friend ever! We had such good times together!"
Xeno said nothing. Didn't move. The only sign he was still conscious was the rapid rise and fall of his chest,breathing too fast, too shallow. Panic breathing.
The girl's smile faltered, lower lip pushing out in an exaggerated pout that looked practiced, theatrical. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me. Don't tell me you've already replaced me with new friends." Her void eyes flicked to me and Nyx, expression souring. "I mean, I guess they're okay. The marked girl and the traitor Xenophore. But they're not me. We had something special, Xeno. We had forever."
Nyx hissed,a sound I'd never heard her make, something primal and threatening, her small body tensing for attack. "Who are you? How do you know him? What did you do to him?"
The girl ignored her completely, as if Nyx was beneath notice, not even worth acknowledging. Her attention remained fixed on Xeno with an intensity that was almost physical, her void eyes boring into his blindfold as if she could see through it. See through him.
She moved forward,not walking, almost gliding, feet barely seeming to touch the ground. Each step was soundless, graceful, wrong. When she reached Xeno, she launched herself at him with the unselfconscious enthusiasm of a child greeting a parent after a long absence.
Her body wrapped around his chest, small arms encircling him, legs wrapping around his waist. She clung to him like a monkey, like a parasite, face pressed against his neck. Then she shifted, hands coming up to cup his cheeks through the blindfold, forcing his head down so their faces were mere centimeters apart. Her nose almost touched his, breath warm against his skin.
"Show me," she whispered, and all the playfulness drained from her voice, replaced by something hungry and desperate. "Show me the truth, Xeno. Take it off. Let me see what's under there. Please? For old times' sake? You used to show me everything."
Xeno's breathing had gone ragged, harsh, each inhalation a struggle. His hands shook so badly the shovel nearly fell from his grip. Terror radiated from him in waves,real, raw, absolute terror of a kind I'd never associated with the boy who faced down Xenophores without hesitation.
"No," he managed, voice breaking. "No. Please. Don't—"
"Shh," she soothed, one hand trailing down to rest against his throat. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I never hurt you, did I? I was always nice. Always kind. I just want to see. Just one little peek. Don't you trust me anymore?"
I moved without thinking, dagger raised, closing the distance between us. "Get away from him."
The girl's head snapped toward me with unsettling speed, neck moving at an angle that should have been painful. Her void eyes fixed on me, and I felt the full force of whatever she was,not human, not Xenophore, something else entirely.
She smiled again, but this time there was nothing delighted about it. Just hunger. "The marked girl wants to play hero. How sweet. How utterly pointless."
She released Xeno, dropping to the ground with cat-like grace, and suddenly she was between me and him, moving faster than I could track. One moment there, the next here, as if she'd skipped the space between.
"You can't protect him," she said softly, tilting her head at an angle no human neck should bend. "No one can. But don't worry,I'm not here to hurt anyone. Not yet. I'm just here to say hello. To remind Xeno of what he owes. Of what we shared."
Her gaze shifted to Nyx, and her expression hardened. "Oh," she said flatly. "And you. I almost forgot."
She turned away from me dismissively, raising her voice to address the empty air,or the walls, or something listening that I couldn't see. "Hey, Lord Azael! Quick FYI,this Xenophore here? She's the one that was supposed to be terminated. The one from Vesper's collection. She's a loose end. Might want to tie that up."
A laugh echoed through the chamber—that same layered voice from before, amused and arrogant. "Indeed. Thank you for the reminder. The game will handle it. Everything will be handled."
The girl clapped her hands together, smile returning to full brightness as if nothing had happened. "Perfect! Okay, well, I should go. Lots to do, people to see, games to run. But before I leave..."
She turned back to Xeno, took three skipping steps toward him, and reached up to pat his cheek through the blindfold. The gesture was almost affectionate, but there was possession in it. Ownership.
"Bye for now, bestie," she said cheerfully. "Have fun playing! Try not to die too quickly,that would be boring. And Xeno? Think about what I said. About showing me. You know you want to. You know you miss it."
She waved,fingers wiggling in an enthusiastic goodbye,then turned and walked into the shadows at the edge of the room.
And vanished.
Not into a doorway or passage,she simply ceased to be, as if the darkness swallowed her whole, as if she'd never existed at all.
The ground rumbled again,not as violently as before, but enough to make dust rain from the ceiling. The walls around us groaned, mechanisms grinding. The chamber was changing, reshaping, the castle playing its game.
And then we were moving,walls sliding past, floor tilting, the entire room rotating like a piece of a massive puzzle being repositioned. I stumbled, caught myself against a pillar, watched as new passages opened while others sealed themselves shut.
When the movement stopped, we were somewhere else entirely.
And I realized, with growing horror, that we'd been separated further.
Xeno still stood beside me, but his silence had taken on a different quality. Heavier. More broken.
Nyx hovered close, but her wings moved erratically, fear and anger warring on her small face.
The three of us, alone in a castle that wanted us dead.
Surrounded by games we didn't understand.
Hunted by puppets of the past and horrors of the present.
But we were alive.
For now.
And that would have to be enough.