They walked in silence for a long time after leaving the Sealed Archives.

  The corridors of the Bastion felt narrower somehow, even though nothing had changed. The air was still cool. The stone still glowed faintly with the magic woven through Silvermoon’s foundation. But after what they had seen, what they had read—everything felt different. Heavier.

  Matrim gripped the Vigil blade tightly in his right hand, its weight unfamiliar but strangely balanced. It wasn’t his sword. But it fit. As if the steel recognized him. Or remembered him.

  Beside him, Narianna was quiet, her expression unreadable. Her crimson eyes flicked to every corner, every shadow, scanning for movement even within the Bastion’s sanctum.

  They didn’t speak until they reached one of the eastern balconies overlooking the city. The sky above was smudged with the gray-blue tones of late twilight, stars struggling to pierce the thin veil of leyline haze curling through the skyline.

  It was quiet up here—just wind, stone, and the murmur of distant bells.

  “Do you believe it?” Matrim asked, finally breaking the silence. “What we read?”

  Narianna stood still for a moment. Then she answered, voice calm and measured. “I believe it’s been hidden for a reason.”

  He exhaled, jaw clenched. “They tried to erase it. The Vigil. The Court. Even the Council.”

  “They were afraid,” she said.

  He turned toward her. “Of Erythos?”

  She met his gaze. “Of you.”

  Matrim flinched. “I’m not—whatever that thing is, whatever it wants—I’m not its weapon.”

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  “I didn’t say you were,” Narianna replied, stepping beside him. “But you’re tied to it. It knows you. And whether you want it or not… it’s going to keep pulling.”

  Matrim looked down at the city. Silvermoon gleamed faintly below them, unaware of the danger coiling beneath its foundations. “The Court believes they can use me to open the gate.”

  “They might be right,” Narianna said.

  He turned sharply. “Then maybe I should just leave.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “You already know that wouldn’t work.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Because she was right.

  The pull wasn’t something he could outrun. It wasn’t physical—it was woven into him. Into the leylines. Into the city itself.

  “They’re going to come for me,” he said.

  “They already are,” Narianna replied. “And now that they know where you are, they’ll move faster. Strike harder.”

  Matrim’s grip on the hilt tightened. “So what’s the plan?”

  Narianna’s eyes turned toward the distant horizon. “We need to find the rest of the Vigil. Or what’s left of them. Someone out there has to know how to seal the gate again—or how to destroy what’s beneath it.”

  “And if no one does?”

  Her answer came cold and clear. “Then we go down there. And we stop it ourselves.”

  A long silence stretched between them.

  Finally, Matrim nodded. “Then we start with Calthira. She has to know where the Vigil scattered.”

  Narianna hesitated, then shook her head. “Not yet. She’s moving pieces on her own—activating old wards, working around the council. If we bring her everything now, she might try to contain you.”

  “You think she’d turn on me?”

  “I think,” Narianna said carefully, “she’d do what she thought was necessary for Silvermoon. Even if that means sacrificing someone.”

  Matrim looked at her again, brows furrowed. “And you?”

  Her answer came without hesitation. “I’m not ready to lose another good man to a cause no one understands.”

  That silence between them shifted again—less distant now. Less defensive. Something closer to a quiet alliance.

  They turned back to the city, wind tugging gently at their cloaks.

  Beneath them, leyline pulses trembled faintly, like drumbeats in the deep.

  “Then we go dark,” Matrim said. “No more Bastion. No council. Just you and me.”

  She nodded once. “And we find the truth before the Court does.”

  Behind them, unseen in the gathering dusk, a presence lingered in the shadows near the archway—a figure with a smirk and tired eyes who had seen enough to know this wasn’t going to end quietly.

  He slipped away before they could notice.

  And the hunt began.