The cavern breathed around us, vast and cold, its darkness broken only by the crimson thread splitting the First Gate. The thing beyond the seal had spoken my name, and the sound still crawled beneath my skin like frost.
Caleb stepped between me and the Gate.
It was instinct, but he caught himself before his body fully blocked mine. Slowly, deliberately, he shifted half a step aside, close enough to shield, far enough to let me see.
That small correction nearly broke me.
Even here, with an ancient monster whispering through a wound in the world, he remembered I had asked not to be hidden.
“Do not answer it,” he said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
The crimson crack pulsed, soft as a heartbeat.
“Liar,” the voice whispered from beyond the seal. “You have wondered your whole life what you ar
