A rumble shakes the mountains, and Enna pauses, fingers curled tight around the cliffside. Wind tears at her cloak, its frayed edges snapping like a predator's jaws. She waits, breath steaming in the frigid air, but the ground stills beneath her feet. Nothing but another rockslide, distant and disinterested. It doesn't matter. She has to keep going. The hidden ruins have invaded her dreams, each night a little clearer, a little louder. They won't let her rest until she finds them. She pulls herself up the path, fighting against sliding scree and her own pounding pulse, driven by the terrible need to know why.
The narrow trail offers no mercy. Loose stones shift beneath her boots, her steps clumsy, precarious. Above, the sky bleeds into dusk, fingers of grey cloud curling over distant peaks. Her cloak flaps against her legs, an unwelcome tether, as icy wind slices through her clothes and bites at her skin. She feels exposed, watched by unseen eyes. A shiver runs down her spine that has nothing to do with the cold.
She glances back the way she came. Forests choke the mountain slopes below, black and dense and alive with shadows. For a moment, she imagines she sees movement there—a flicker of something dark and swift—but she turns away before it resolves into certainty. Better not to know. Better to focus on the ruins and the way they call to her like a half-remembered song.
Or a curse.
The pull is undeniable. It thrums beneath her skin like a fever, the same insistent force that's driven her from village to village since the night she awoke screaming. That night, and every one since, she's seen them: the ancient walls, the broken towers, the words written in blood-red light. She should run from them, from the danger they promise. Instead, here she is, chasing phantoms up a cliff. Running from herself is harder.
She grits her teeth and keeps moving, ignoring the sting of blisters, the cut of wind, the grinding fatigue in her legs. Above, the path narrows to a ragged line against the sheer rock face. Vertigo tugs at her as she navigates the edge, one slip away from a plunge into mist-filled nothingness. Her fingers brush the mountain's surface, seeking balance. Finding none.
For one breathless moment, she's sure she'll fall, a vision of her body dashed against stone flashing vivid and unwanted in her mind. The pull drags her back. She catches herself, gasping, and leans into the rock.
A jagged outcrop looms ahead, silhouetted against the darkening sky. The path widens as it leads upward to the crumbling plateau, but only slightly. Enough that she can stop, catch her breath, stare out over the valley below. Mist coils through ancient forests, tendrils wrapping the landscape in pale shrouds. Her vision swims, the cold leeching clarity from her thoughts.
And there, where the valley walls close into an embrace of shadow, she finally sees it. A ruined spire juts skyward like a splinter of bone, marking the hidden place she's sought for so long. Relief and dread coil tight in her chest. She's close now, closer than she's ever been.
The wind shrieks, urging her to finish what she's started. She presses forward, knees stiff, feet numb, the jagged rock a blur beneath her. Her heart beats a frantic rhythm against her ribs, matching the desperate pace of her steps. One wrong move and she'll plunge. One wrong move and she'll break. But the pull is stronger than her fear.
When she reaches the bottom, her breath comes ragged and sharp. She stumbles through the final stretch, across a narrow ledge and into the ruins' embrace. Ancient stone columns rise from the earth, weathered sentinels guarding the entrance to a long-forgotten tomb. She hesitates, one foot across the threshold, and a shiver of recognition lances through her.
They are exactly as she saw them in her dreams.
Symbols cover the crumbling walls, etched deep into the surface, glowing with faint blue light. Their familiar curves and loops resolve into words, the old healer language of her childhood, and an unexpected sense of belonging tugs at her insides. She touches one, her fingers hovering a breath from its surface, and it flares like kindling. She jerks her hand back, heart lurching.
A low hum fills the air. The symbols thrum in time with the pulse in her veins, reacting to her presence, to her blood. Enna swallows, unease coiling like a serpent. Part of her wants to turn and run, to leave this cursed place to its secrets. But the pull is stronger, and the need to know won't release her. She takes a breath and steps deeper into the ruins.
Time seems to warp around her. Stone corridors twist and double back, passages narrow and lengthen. She follows the symbols, their light brightening as she moves deeper into the complex.
When she hesitates, they flicker, urging her forward, always forward. Dust chokes the air, settling in her throat like ash. The temperature drops with every step. Her boots echo against the floor in hollow, uneven beats. She tries not to think about how alone she is, or how far she's strayed from any place of safety.
The ruins seem to shift with her movements, structures twisting in response to her passage. She reaches a dead end, only to watch an opening yawn wide in the wall, leading her into unknown chambers. Her unease gnaws at her, keeping pace with the freezing wind that pushes her deeper, always deeper.
At times, her curiosity wins out over her fear. She pauses to study the carvings, the dust-laden walls, the intricate architecture of a world long lost. Then she remembers why she's here—what she's searching for—and the strange urgency surges anew. Her fingers brush against her cloak's inner pocket, where a simple knife rests beneath folds of fabric. She clings to its presence like a lifeline.
This place feels ancient and alive. Aware. It knows her and wants her here.
The thought sends a chill through her, and she wraps her arms around herself, fighting against the sudden weight of solitude and secrets and everything she doesn't understand. She is too far in to turn back now. The ruins have swallowed her whole, and the path she took to get here is lost to her.
There is only forward.
The pulse of the symbols draws her on, an iron current in her blood. She moves with a strange determination, knowing she has to see this through to the end. She has to know why the ruins haunt her, why they pulled her across leagues of wilderness and fear to stand in their midst. Her footfalls sound distant, echoing against the walls like the memories of another life.
Finally, she reaches a vast, arched doorway. It's cut directly into the stone, the blue glow so bright it burns. She hesitates on the threshold, the weight of history and prophecy and inevitability pressing against her. Her pulse matches the rhythm of the symbols, thrumming faster, faster.
A breath.
A heartbeat.
And then she steps through.
The stone is colder here. It presses in on her, wraps her in silence and frost. The stairway twists deeper, always deeper, until she forgets which way is up and which is escape. She should be afraid. Maybe she is. Maybe that's what drives her. Her hand traces the walls as she descends, following the curve of ancient rock and echoes. She pulls herself down the spiral, feeling the air thicken, feeling the weight of power and past crush the breath from her lungs.
Her steps falter, hesitation in every movement, but she pushes on. The ruins won't let her stop now. She knows it in the marrow of her bones, in the thrum of her pulse, in the coil of fear that tightens with each step. The descent pulls her faster than gravity, her heart sinking deeper than her feet.
Cold seeps through her cloak, her skin, numbing everything it touches. Her fingers stiffen, clutching the wall with desperate, bloodless insistence. She breathes the frigid air, sharp and brittle as glass. It slices through her insides, leaving frost in her lungs and resolve in her veins.
Down. Always down.
Shadows stalk the staircase, overlapping in tangled layers of dark. They cling to her, heavy as chains, refusing to let go. She feels their weight in her thoughts, pressing out reason, replacing it with the dangerous urge to know. A reckless, ruinous knowledge that lures her down the last steps and into—
The chamber yawns wide around her, its vastness swallowing everything she thought she was. Stone pillars stretch toward the ceiling, their surfaces slick with moss and condensation. They stand like an audience of the dead, cold eyes watching her every move.
The air feels impossibly heavy here, thick with ancient breath and old power. Enna shivers, the temperature and tension sinking deep into her bones. She's a trespasser, an interloper, a wayward heir to a forgotten curse.
The thought should paralyze her. It does, for a moment. But curiosity spurs her into motion. Her breath fogs in the frozen air as she steps forward, half-fearing, half-hoping something will stop her.
Nothing does.
Her footfalls echo through the chamber, each one a promise and a threat. The sarcophagus waits at the center, a dark blot against the lighter stone, black as the sky at new moon. Silver symbols snake across its surface, coiling like serpents, glowing like fireflies. She doesn't have to read them to know they're meant for her.
They all are.
A raised dais elevates the sarcophagus, giving it the prominence of a king on his throne. Her stomach knots at the thought, at the proximity to the visions she's tried to forget. She reaches the platform and stops, uncertainty catching up to her desire.
But not quite winning.
The carvings draw her in, holding her gaze with the insistence of nightmares. They stretch across the floor and up the dais, surrounding the sarcophagus in scenes that seem to writhe and move and live.
She steps closer, knees almost buckling as the air tightens around her. The detailed engravings depict a story she's heard only in whispers. She sees it in the sweep of lines and the stark simplicity of war: vampires and healers, locked in an eternal struggle. Blood magic and betrayal. An end and a beginning.
It hurts to look at them, but she can't turn away.
The carvings resonate with her, as though the stone itself remembers. She stares at the images, the battle, the broken bodies. Her pulse pounds in her ears, drowning out the echo of her footfalls. She is too far from safety, too close to the past.
But still she moves.
Her hands skim the carvings, hesitating before each touch. She feels them hum beneath her fingertips, each vibration a shock to her senses. They should feel cold. They don't.
Closer.
The next scene shows a healer—young, unbroken, defiant—standing over a wounded vampire. The figure's defiance is familiar, even in the crude lines of the etching. The cloak, the hair, the shape of her eyes. A jolt of recognition spikes through Enna, raw and jagged as the memories it awakens.
It's her. Or someone who will be.
She recoils, shaking, the sudden movement catching her hand against the edge of the carving. Pain lances through her, unexpected and real, and she stumbles back.
Her blood drips onto the sarcophagus, bright red against the stone.
The effect is instant and terrible.
Magic ignites beneath her, within her, all around her. The symbols on the sarcophagus flare to life, casting an eerie blue light across the chamber. It illuminates the carvings, the pillars, the echoes of the dead.
And her.
Her shadow sprawls long and distorted on the wall, a giant stretched thin by the impossible power she's unleashed. The air hums with it, alive with urgency and a thousand voices she doesn't want to hear.
She freezes, her heart a trapped bird in a collapsing cage. The fear is worse than any she's known, more profound than even her darkest visions. She tries to back away, to undo her mistake, but the magic surges.
The chamber begins to tremble.
Dust falls like ash from the ceiling. Enna stands motionless on the shaking ground, too stunned to run. The fear spikes into panic, and still she doesn't move. Can't move. The ruins, the dreams, the pull of blood and prophecy—this is how it ends.
Symbols dance like firelight, rearranging themselves across the sarcophagus. She watches them shift and realign, each new pattern an echo of the last. The light pulses brighter, sharper, more insistent, and she feels it like a brand on her skin.
She stares at the magic she's set in motion, her body frozen, her mind caught in the storm of her own making. It's too late to stop. Too late to escape.
She tries to scream, but the sound dies before it reaches her lips.
The bond.
The blood.
The terrible consequences of waking an ancient king.
And still the symbols burn, bright blue in the dark.
Enna doesn't move.
Her blood freezes, hot and sharp and scalding, but she doesn't move. Can't move. Magic wraps her in invisible chains, burning bright as it sears away her reason and leaves only terror. The sarcophagus shifts beneath her, cracking like the surface of a frozen lake. Light spills from within, so bright it blinds. She feels it more than sees it, feels the terrible weight of power and prophecy and past pressing in, closer and closer, until there's no space left for anything but fear.
Panic flares red-hot in her veins, but her body won't obey. The magic has her in its grip, fingers tight as a stranglehold, paralyzing everything but her awareness of the ruin she's awakened. The entire chamber trembles, the floor vibrating under her feet with an intensity that feels alive. Sentient. Vengeful.
Her muscles lock against the force, trying and failing to retreat.
The world narrows to the sound of her own frantic heartbeat and the thunderous crack of stone giving way. Light floods the room, drowning it in a brilliance so complete it becomes shadow. She is helpless beneath the onslaught, every inch of her burning, every nerve screaming for release.
But there is none. Only the magic, and the searing, relentless flood of—
Malren.
The name cuts through her thoughts like a blade, and a new terror blooms in the wake of recognition. She's heard it before. Seen it written in visions and nightmares and ancient, cursed history. It fills the chamber, fills her, fills the air with power and desperation and a deep, echoing inevitability. She was a fool to think she could escape.
She fights against the bonds, her mind a tangle of fear and disbelief and one singular, desperate thought: Run.
The magic holds her firm. She is its prisoner, its instrument, its sacrifice. She has no chance. No choice.
The sarcophagus shudders open inch by terrible inch.
Her pulse thrums in time with the chaos, blood rushing loud and fast, mixing with the magic until she can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Her vision swims. Light explodes and implodes, expanding outward and collapsing inward until she doesn't know which way is up or which way is out.
Then—
Visions.
They come faster than thought, faster than breath, burning themselves into her mind with violent insistence. She sees a crowned vampire, ancient and impossibly regal, sitting on a throne of bones. His eyes pierce through centuries of sleep, straight into her heart. He waits for her.
No, not her. The healer with her exact face.
The realization slams into her with the force of a physical blow, ripping the air from her lungs and replacing it with dread. The visions come harder, faster. The healer performs a ritual, blood on her hands, desperation in her eyes. Her cloak billows like wings around her as she moves, and Enna recognizes every line, every detail.
Then—
The words. The prophecy. Written in blood on stone walls. Words she never wanted to know. Words she doesn't understand but feels with a terrible certainty that they are hers.
The visions overlap, rapid and urgent and blinding, leaving no room for anything but fear. She stares into the chaos, her own wide eyes reflected in the magic she's unleashed, watching her panic grow and double and devour itself.
The sarcophagus cracks wider, the sound sharp as the end of hope. Light pours from the opening, hot and fierce, wrapping her in its terrible brilliance. She drowns in it, swamped by its inevitability, her struggle to escape diminishing with each shattering second.
The chamber trembles harder, more violently, the very air vibrating with raw power. Dust and small stones rain down, ghostly specters against the blinding glow.
The visions blur together, a tide of images and emotion too intense to bear. Betrayal. Lies. Death. She is the healer. She is the vampire. She is the curse and the consequence and the sacrifice.
Her breath comes fast and shallow, panic winding tight as a noose around her mind. The symbols on the sarcophagus shift and reform, faster and faster, burning like blue fire through the chaos. They pulse in time with the magic, in time with her blood. In time with the last, unbreakable tether between her and the terrible fate she thought she could outrun.
A sound tears from her throat. A scream. A plea. A name.
Then—
Nothing.
A silence as complete as the light.
The sarcophagus opens fully, and the world holds its breath. The chamber stills, the air sharp with anticipation and the lingering tang of magic.
And then, a final horror:
A pale, elegant hand reaches up from the open sarcophagus, fingers flexing as if testing the air after centuries of confinement.
Enna watches, trapped in fear and destiny, as the past comes to claim her.