Chapter 8 THE WATCHER BENEATH

The earth swallowed them.

It was not a descent so much as a surrender-into roots, into rot, into something older than words. Elias led the way, his torch barely holding back the darkness as the narrow passage twisted downward beneath the iron-weeping tree. The walls closed in, slick with damp soil and the scent of long-dead things.

Behind him, Clara ducked low, hand against the rough surface. Tane came last, sword drawn, its edge catching sparks from the torchlight as they moved deeper underground.

No one spoke. Words didn't feel welcome here.

The air changed-grew colder, heavier. Like they were breathing through soaked linen. Elias felt a ringing in his ears, low at first, then louder, like a bell beneath water. It wasn't sound. It was presence.

Then the tunnel opened.

They stepped into a vast chamber beneath the earth.

It stretched wider than a cathedral, but the ceiling was low, hunched like the ribs of some massive buried beast. Roots hung like nooses. The torchlight flickered and danced along walls etched with script far older than Latin-looped spirals, jagged lines, symbols pulsing faintly as though carved into flesh rather than stone.

In the center of the cavern, atop a cracked stone platform, sat the Watcher.

Or what was left of it.

Its form was vaguely human-limbs twisted, head tilted at an unnatural angle. Skin stretched too tight, too pale, veins like dark rivers branching across its frame. Its eyes-three of them-remained open, though one was in its chest and another where its mouth should have been. They did not blink.

They only watched.

"Saints preserve us..." Tane whispered.

Elias stepped closer, the air trembling around him.

The Watcher did not move.

Clara turned slowly in place, eyes scanning the chamber. "This was a temple. A sacrificial one."

"There's no altar," said Elias.

She pointed. "There."

Beneath the Watcher's feet, carved into the stone itself, was a bowl-shaped depression-deep, blackened, stained.

Tane crouched beside it. His glove came away wet.

"Not dried blood," he said. "Fresh."

They exchanged a look.

Someone had been here.

Recently.

---

Suddenly, a sound behind them-a click.

All three turned, weapons drawn.

From the shadows, figures emerged.

They wore no uniforms, no symbols of office-only robes. Faded, stitched from different eras and cultures, but each bearing a red thread across the heart in the shape of an eye.

One stepped forward, hood down.

A face Elias recognized instantly.

"Father Maro," he said coldly.

The old priest smiled, the warmth of it at odds with the fire in his gaze.

"My son," Maro said, voice like honey poured over rust. "I'm pleased you followed the signs."

"You've been leading us," Elias said. "Since Fenshire."

"Not leading," Maro replied. "Inviting."

He stepped closer, and the Watcher behind him twitched-its head ticking once to the side.

Tane raised his sword. "Move again and I'll strike it down."

"You cannot strike what has already been given," Maro said.

Clara stepped between them. "Why, Maro? Why the children? Why the fires, the seals, the gates?"

Maro's smile faded.

"The world is broken," he said simply. "Faith is fractured. Man prays into silence and hears only his own doubts echo back. The Church is a husk. But they-" He gestured to the Watcher, to the roots above. "-they answer."

Elias's hands clenched. "What did you do to Annalise?"

Maro's eyes glinted. "She was chosen. As you were, once."

"You murdered her mother," Elias snapped. "You burned her village. You've turned faith into horror."

"I turned faith into truth," Maro whispered. "The old gods never left. They were buried. Forgotten. We merely pulled back the veil."

Clara raised her dagger.

"Then let's bury them again."

---

The robed followers began to move, slowly circling. The cavern pulsed with energy-like the walls were breathing. The Watcher stirred again, limbs twitching, head lolling like a puppet remembering its strings.

Tane moved first-sword flashing as he struck one of the robed men down. Blood splashed against the stone. The rest surged forward.

Battle erupted in the chamber.

Clara danced between blows, her knife finding ribs, throats. Tane fought like a man possessed, fury driving each swing. Elias moved toward Maro-but the priest raised a hand.

The Watcher screamed.

A mind-shattering sound that tore through thought. The world bent. Elias fell to his knees, visions flashing:

-A sea of black wings blotting out the sun.

-A choir of infants singing backward in Latin.

-An eye opening in the sky.

Maro loomed above him.

"You were meant to stand beside me," he said. "But still, you cling to the old morality. You mourn a girl already transformed."

Elias lashed out, blade slicing across Maro's arm.

The priest hissed, staggered back, blood spilling-but not red.

Black.

Thick as oil.

The Watcher howled again.

Roots dropped from the ceiling like whips, lashing across the chamber. One struck Tane, sending him crashing into the wall. Another grabbed Clara's ankle, dragging her toward the pit beneath the Watcher.

"Clara!" Elias shouted.

He ran, slicing the root clean through. She rolled free, gasping, then stabbed upward into another follower's throat.

They were surrounded.

The torchlight began to dim-not flicker. Dim. Like the darkness itself was drinking the fire.

Elias looked up.

The ceiling was gone.

Above them: nothing. A void. A sky with no stars.

Just an eye.

Opening.

Wide.

Hungry.

---

Elias made a choice.

He leapt onto the altar.

The Watcher looked at him, unblinking.

"Is this what you wanted?" Elias roared. "Then take it!"

He stabbed his palm, blood splashing onto the platform.

The stone shook.

The Watcher twitched violently, eyes flaring.

Maro screamed. "No! Not like this-he isn't the key!"

But it was too late.

The Watcher convulsed.

Its chest eye bled. Its limbs stretched impossibly wide. A crack opened beneath it-light burst forth.

But not holy light.

Fire.

Screaming.

Hands-thousands-grasping from the rift.

Clara grabbed Elias and pulled him back just as the altar collapsed, swallowing the Watcher, the platform, and half the chamber in a roar of flame and shadow.

The followers screamed as they fell into the pit, their cries cut short.

Only Maro remained.

Half-burned, crawling toward the edge.

"You... fool..." he gasped. "You... disrupted the ritual. You think you've stopped it?"

Elias stood over him, sword raised.

"You've only hastened the end."

And then-

Silence.

Elias's blade fell.

Maro's body collapsed, lifeless.

The eye above began to close.

The earth trembled, then stilled.

---

They escaped through the same tunnel, the ceiling collapsing behind them. As they reached the surface, dawn was breaking-a pale, bloodless light across the horizon.

None of them spoke for a long time.

They sat at the roots of the iron-weeping tree, catching their breath, the stench of smoke and ash still in their lungs.

Tane broke the silence.

"Did we stop it?"

Elias looked at his palm, the cut still bleeding. The blood now ran red again.

"For now," he said.

Clara turned toward him.

"But the registry-it listed seven."

He nodded. "Seven gates. We've closed one. Maybe two."

Tane exhaled. "Then we've got five left."

Elias stood slowly.

"We find them. One by one. Before they finish what they started."

"And Annalise?" Clara asked.

Elias looked to the tree, then the horizon.

"She's still out there," he said. "Changed. But not lost."

"We hope," Tane muttered.

"No," Elias replied. "We fight."

And with that, they began to walk-away from Bleakrest, away from the ashes-toward the next gate.

Toward the next nightmare.