Chapter 7 ASHES OF BLEAKREST

The wind had no voice in Bleakrest-only a low moan as it curled through the crumbling husks of buildings. The town had burned nearly a century ago, but the scent of ash still hung thick in the air, as though the fire had never truly gone out.

They arrived on foot, leading their horses through the charred remnants of the gate. Nothing of the original village remained except a blackened church spire that pierced the sky like a jagged finger, and the cemetery beyond it-stones crooked, some shattered, others smeared with dark red moss that looked disturbingly fresh.

Elias paused near the base of the spire. His hand hovered over his sword hilt.

"There's something wrong here," he said.

Clara crouched near the foundation of an old home, sifting ash through her fingers. It was warm. "The fire... it wasn't natural."

Sir Tane looked around. "I was taught Bleakrest fell to plague. That the fire was meant to cleanse it."

"No plague spreads like this," Elias muttered.

He turned back toward the remains of the church. The wooden doors were long gone, replaced by a yawning void framed in soot.

They stepped inside, boots crunching on cinders and broken pews. High above, a rusted bell hung silent in its tower. Stained glass had melted down the walls, like the church itself had wept color.

In the center of the nave, beneath where the altar once stood, lay a wide circular scorch mark. Blacker than the rest. Charred deep into the stone.

Elias knelt at its edge.

"There was a ritual here."

Clara nodded. "A large one. Maybe the first."

Sir Tane's voice was low. "Look."

He pointed to the wall.

Someone-something-had etched symbols into the stone. Not with chalk or charcoal, but with what looked like fingernails. Deep, jagged grooves spiraled outward from the scorch mark, each one forming part of a larger circle.

A seal.

Elias traced it with his finger.

"It's the Eye again," he whispered. "Same as the registry. But larger. More complete."

Clara moved to the broken pulpit. Beneath it, a half-burned book lay open, pages fused together by heat. She pried it loose.

"Is this-?"

She stopped.

It wasn't a registry.

It was a journal.

Elias stepped closer as she read aloud:

> The flames answer only to silence. The first voice gave it hunger, but the second-

The second gave it shape.

We named it Deliverance. We wore its mark and we were spared the ash. But it was not salvation. It was binding.

Our children... changed. Their dreams bled. Their mouths spoke backwards in sleep.

I write this now as the fire climbs my legs.

May God forgive me.

Clara closed the journal, face pale.

"This wasn't a plague," she said. "It was a purge."

Tane drew his sword. "Then who survived?"

As if in answer, the ground beneath the black circle groaned.

Then cracked.

A fissure tore through the stone.

From it came a sound.

A whisper.

---

They backed away instinctively, but Elias held his ground.

"Something's beneath us," he said.

"No," Clara corrected. "Something's been waiting."

A low rumble began to build-like breath inhaling, stone dragging against stone. The fissure widened, and for a heartbeat, Elias thought he saw light within it-pale, flickering red, like a dying lantern.

Then something emerged.

A hand.

Not skeletal. Not rotted. But new. Its skin was too smooth, too perfect, like wax. Fingers curled against the stone floor, clawing for purchase.

Tane stepped forward and drove his blade through it.

The hand shrieked.

Not audibly-but in their minds. A pitchless, primal scream that sent them reeling.

The sword ignited.

Not with fire, but with memory.

Suddenly Elias saw:

A child's mouth sewn shut.

A priest whispering secrets into a well.

A boy standing over his mother's grave, covered in ash, smiling.

An altar-dripping not with wax, but with eyes.

He staggered backward, gasping.

Tane yanked the blade free and the hand vanished into the darkness, leaving no blood. Only ash.

Clara knelt beside Elias. "What did you see?"

He couldn't speak for a moment. When he finally did, it was barely above a whisper.

"Children. Sacrificed. Bleakrest wasn't just burned-it was offered."

Tane paced in a circle. "We shouldn't be here."

"No," Elias said, pushing himself up. "We have to be here."

He pulled the registry from his pack and flipped through the red-lined pages. "The entries for Bleakrest-they're different. Look."

He showed them:

Bleakrest: Gate One.

Offered: Fifty-two.

Accepted: All.

Result: Veil Opened (partial).

Voice: Heard.

Clara stared. "Gate One?"

Elias nodded. "Bleakrest wasn't a town. It was the first seal."

She swallowed. "How many are there?"

"I don't know. But if this was the first... there are more. And someone is trying to complete them."

---

They made camp that night at the edge of the ruins, unwilling to sleep within the old village's grasp.

But sleep didn't come easily.

Elias stood guard, staring into the embers of their fire.

Clara sat beside him eventually.

"Do you believe in fate?" she asked.

"No," he said simply.

"I used to think I didn't either. But ever since we found that first registry... I feel like we were meant to."

"To what?"

"To stop this. Or die trying."

Elias didn't answer.

She looked over at him. "What did you see in the vision? When Tane struck that thing?"

He was quiet for a long time.

Then: "I saw her."

"Annalise?"

He nodded. "She was smiling. But it wasn't her smile. It was... borrowed."

Clara touched his shoulder. "We'll find her."

"We might find what's left of her," he said bitterly. "If we're lucky."

They didn't speak again until morning.

---

The next destination came from the back of the journal Clara had found-a note hastily scrawled in the margin.

"If Bleakrest fails, the second gate lies in the hollow where the black roots sleep. Seek the tree that weeps iron. The Watcher dwells beneath."

They packed at first light and headed north.

Tane led them through the forest, following a trail that twisted unnaturally, branches bent into arches that didn't grow naturally.

Hours passed.

Then the forest opened.

A wide clearing, quiet as a tomb.

At its center: a tree.

Ancient. Gnarled. Its bark black and oozing with rust-colored sap that dripped into the soil below like blood.

Iron tears.

Clara stepped forward slowly. "The tree that weeps..."

They circled it carefully. Carvings marked its trunk-runes and shapes similar to those in Bleakrest. But here they were deeper. More deliberate.

Sir Tane frowned. "Where's the Watcher?"

Elias knelt at the roots.

There was an opening.

A hollow.

And from it came a breeze-cool and sour.

He looked back at them. "We go down."

Clara drew her dagger.

Tane raised his blade.

And together, they descended into the dark.