The deeper Elric descended, the more the air changed.
At first, it was the stillness—thick and unmoving, like something watching in the dark. Then came the scent. Not decay, not mold. It smelled like blood mixed with rain... and something floral.
He didn't like it.
Behind him, Veyra's steps were near silent, her blade already drawn. Keera walked with her bow ready, her ears twitching constantly.
They had descended at least two hundred steps then the walls began to change. The rough dwarven stone gave way to something older—smoother, carved not by tools but by... something else.
"Elric," Keera whispered, "this wasn't made by dwarves."
"I know," he replied. "I think this is the Tree's domain now."
---
The stairs ended in a wide, circular chamber. The walls pulsed faintly with veins of red light, like a beating heart slowed to a crawl.
And in the center stood a tree—not alive, but not dead either.
It was stone.
Yet its branches moved.
The Tree of Chains.
Each branch held fragments—bones, rusted swords, masks, pages bound in sinew.
Keera froze. "I can hear it… whispering."
Veyra touched a mark on the wall. "So many names," she said quietly. "So many forgotten people."
Elric approached the base of the tree, his sigil glowing like fire.
He saw it—a symbol etched into the roots. A jagged spiral surrounded by thorn-like glyphs.
The same symbol from the blood-soaked message Selene had hidden in his clinic.
The very message that had warned: "It remembers."
His pulse quickened. The air around him seemed to shift—warmer, sharper, like it was listening.
And then he saw the name carved into the bark below it.
Eliora.
Not just a name.
A warning. A beginning.
---
"Veyra," he said slowly, his voice tight. "This Tree knew the pact. This is a memory Tree."
She nodded. "But this one... remembers pain."
---
A low rumble echoed through the chamber.
Keera spun, arrow nocked. "Someone's here."
A pair of red-glowing eyes appeared across the chamber. A form stepped out from the shadows—tall, armored in bone-plated leather, with a helm shaped like a vulture's beak.
Not undead. Not alive.
A Bone Watcher.
Veyra cursed. "We're not supposed to be here."
Elric stood his ground. "We're not here to desecrate. We're here to listen."
The Watcher didn't move. Its voice echoed without lips.
"Then answer. Why does a bloodmarked one awaken the buried?"
Elric stepped forward. "Because you buried the truth with them."
The Watcher turned its head slightly. A flicker of something passed through its aura—respect? Recognition?
"Then speak their name."
Elric looked up at the fragments hanging from the branches.
He remembered a line from the ancient notes Sylas translated: "She who bound the pact first, wore violet ash and crimson chains."
He whispered the name. "Eliora."
The chamber shook.
The branches stopped moving.
And the Watcher kneeled.
---
At the same moment, far above, Lira dropped her tea.
Cai blinked. "Did you just have a vision?"
"No," she said slowly. "I think my idiot is unlocking some horrors without me."
Sylas looked up from his scroll. "Elric?"
She nodded. "I felt it. Something… just shifted."
---
Back underground, the Watcher stood.
"You carry her blood."
"No," Elric said. "I carry her will."
It paused.
"Then we will wait."
With that, it vanished, becoming dust that settled over the chamber like memory.
Keera exhaled. "That went better than expected."
Veyra sheathed her blade. "I expected screaming. Lots of it."
Elric approached the tree's base and placed a hand against the stone.
Images flashed across his mind: Selene, chained; Cai's face twisted with fear; Lira, bleeding in snow; and a throne… broken in two.
He gasped and fell back.
Keera caught him. "What did you see?"
"Not what's coming," he said hoarsely. "What I have to stop."
---