Where the Locket Breaks

The Door Beneath the Chapel

The world shuddered as the gate beneath the chapel split open.

Rain hammered the stones with a frenzied rhythm, but even the storm seemed to hold its breath when the air itself cracked. The seals along the chapel floor blazed with violet-gold fire, bleeding through the fissures like molten veins. Bella’s pulse stuttered, her instincts screaming to run—but her feet refused. She could feel the door calling her, as if something inside recognized her name before she’d ever spoken it aloud.

Gregor Valtier stood in the center of the ruins, motionless except for the slow, backward tilt of his head. He was listening to something deeper than sound—something only he could hear. Around him, the Bound had formed a ring, their bodies swaying in a cadence older than breath, their mouths hanging open as if in unending song. Each movement pulled the world tighter, twisting the air until the chapel groaned.

Liora’s voice was barely a whisper. “If that thing opens, it won’t stop. The city will drown in its own memory.”

Bella’s hand tightened on the Severing Blade. The runes along the weapon’s edge pulsed like a heartbeat out of sync with her own. “Then we don’t let it open.”

“You can’t just cut something like that!”

“Watch me.”

Bella surged forward, the Blade trailing light through the mist. Gregor’s gaze snapped to her, and for an instant, she saw him—not the monster, but the man buried beneath centuries of silence. His expression flickered with something like recognition… or regret.

He raised his hand.

The world folded.

Bella was thrown backward, skidding across the rain-slick stones. Liora shouted her name, but the sound came warped, as though she were underwater. Around them, the chapel’s walls were unraveling—layers of different centuries peeling away in ribbons of light. One moment the stones were blackened ruins; the next, pristine marble under candlelight; then, a skeleton of timber half-built under a red sky. The gate was no longer a single point—it was everywhere.

Gregor’s voice cut through the distortion. “This is what they built the world upon. Lies mortared with memory. You cannot stop what was promised.”

Bella forced herself up, coughing, her boots slipping on shifting ground. “Then I’ll unmake the promise.”

The Severing Blade screamed in her hand—an animal unleashed. When she swung it downward, it didn’t strike stone but the threads of something unseen, invisible cords that tethered the gate to the Bound. The moment the Blade made contact, the air broke.

A shockwave blasted outward, tearing through the ring of the Bound. Their song fractured into a thousand discordant voices before dying out in a sudden, awful silence. Light flared from the gate—then dimmed.

The chapel fell still.

Smoke curled upward from the seals. The rain hissed as it hit the scorched stone.

Gregor stood at the threshold of the half-closed door, his body wavering like a reflection on water. His voice was softer now, almost human. “You think cutting ends things. But the Severing was never made to close doors—it was forged to make new ones.”

Bella froze. “What are you talking about?”

“The Blade is part of the hinge,” he said, eyes bright with something between pity and awe. “You carry what the Order feared most—a choice that cannot be undone.”

The light beneath his feet twisted upward, snaking toward her like tendrils of molten glass. Liora grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back. “Bella! He’s binding it to you!”

“I can’t—” The words caught in her throat. The Blade vibrated violently, runes flickering between crimson and gold, trying to decide what they were. A sound filled her head—not a scream, not words, but names. Dozens of them, whispering like dust through her mind. The Bound. The Bargained. The Buried.

Every one of them was awake.

Gregor stepped backward into the gate. For a heartbeat, he was gone.

Then, impossibly, his voice echoed from behind her. “When the seams fall open, find the First Vault. The key was never meant to stay buried.”

Bella spun, but there was nothing—only the collapsing remnants of the door, sealing itself in a rush of heat and thunder. The last of the Bound crumbled into ash that dissolved before it touched the ground.

Liora dragged her to cover as part of the chapel roof gave way, the stones crashing into the street below. They ducked beneath an archway that hadn’t existed moments ago, panting, soaked, covered in soot and dust.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

Then Liora whispered, “He’s gone. Again.”

“No,” Bella said. Her voice was shaking, but her eyes burned with determination. “He left me the next place.”

She reached into her satchel and pulled out the fragment of the broken chain. It pulsed faintly—once, twice—and then stilled. The Severing Blade responded, its edge cooling to a steady glow. When Bella looked down, she saw faint words seared along the flat of the metal.

Vault of Saints. Beneath the Pale Citadel.

Liora swore softly. “That’s suicide. The Citadel’s their heart.”

“I know,” Bella said. She slipped the chain fragment back into the bag and stood, the storm’s wind lashing her hair across her face. “Which is why it’s where I have to go.”

Liora stared at her, incredulous. “You think he’s leading you there to help him?”

“I don’t think,” Bella said quietly. “I know he’s leading me there because the Order doesn’t want me to see what’s buried under their feet.”

She turned toward the horizon where the Citadel’s spire cut the clouds—a white fang gleaming against the storm.

The bells had stopped.

For the first time since Harrow Keep, the silence felt heavier than sound.

Liora touched her shoulder. “Then we’ll need help. The kind the Order doesn’t have on their payroll.”

Bella nodded once. “Then let’s wake a few ghosts.”

As they disappeared into the rain, the shattered chapel behind them began to hum again—faint, like an echo returning from a great distance.

The door wasn’t gone.

It was waiting.