Chapter 42 severed in the Temple

The journey to the shrine was almost disappointingly normal.

No goblins. No trolls. No eerie fog swirling at the edge of vision. The trees didn’t talk, the ground didn’t tremble, and even the birds chirped like they had no clue what had been happening in the world.

The girls yawned through most of the trip.

Skye had taken to humming to herself atop her drake—her legs lazily swinging, arms hugging the reins like it was some old childhood friend. Every so often she’d rise in the stirrups, scan the ridgeline, and sit again with a small, frustrated sigh. Fara kept nodding off mid-sentence, startling herself back to awareness with an embarrassed grunt each time, ears flicking like she could shake the sleep off. Revoli wasn’t yawning, but she chewed on her third fruit and pouted that the drakes weren’t allowed to do flips.

Kai didn’t say much. He rode in silence at the front, eyes fixed on the horizon. He kept count: bends in the trail, ridge markers, where the wind shifted. If there was a pattern, he wanted it first.

It wasn’t that he expected something. It was that he always did. That way, when it did go wrong—and it always did—he was already prepared.

He glanced back at the drakes they rode. Beautiful beasts. All sinew and grace, glimmering scales with faint patterns reminiscent of the dragons in old stories. They smelled faintly of metal and clean rain. The guild rarely let parties take them out. Too rare. Too expensive. Too delicate.

This time was different. Elite status opened a few new doors.

Still, Kai pitied them. They would be left behind once they reached the dungeon entrance. That part always bothered him—leaving loyal creatures behind like equipment you couldn’t carry.

They were bred from dragons, after all. Still had that fire in their blood. Still knew what loyalty was. He wondered, briefly, what it’d be like to have a dog again.

He missed his Akita.

Old, quiet dog. Loyal as sunrise. Died of a heart attack.

Kai and his wife had been so anxious in those days. Fed off each other’s panic. One breath short and the other followed. Even the dog seemed to know when tension ran thick through the walls. The old boy would lie across the doorway and pretend sleep while watching both of them, like he could hold the house together with his eyes.

He hadn’t thought about that part of home in a while.

Not since he stopped thinking of it as ‘home.’

They crested a final hill. The Thorn Range hunched ahead, stone ribs jutting up through scrub and snow. The path dipped into a shallow vale where the cliff face opened like a held breath.

They reached the entrance of the temple near sundown.

No twisted architecture. No cursed runes or ghostly chains.

Just a stone building carved into the base of a cliff, hidden beneath overgrown moss and snow dust. Its age spoke louder than its menace. Steps worn by feet that had stopped walking a long time ago. Lintels carved with sigils soft as river stones.

Kai dismounted first. The girls followed, stretching their arms and brushing down their mounts. Skye pressed her cheek to her drake’s neck for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Fara checked buckles and feed straps twice. Revoli whispered a thank-you in the drake’s ear like it mattered.

“Do they wait here?” Skye asked, gesturing to the drakes.

“They’ll find shade and nest,” Kai answered. “They’ll be here when we come out.”

Revoli nodded. “I’ll miss them. They don’t judge me when I hug their necks.”

“That's because they don't speak,” Fara muttered, half teasing, half sincere.

Kai stepped toward the temple. “Stay close. I’ll lead.”

Normally he’d have Skye scout ahead.

But something didn’t feel right.

Not in the obvious way. Not a tingle down the spine. Not the air holding its breath.

It was the quiet.

It was too quiet.

He put a palm on the doorjamb. Cold. Not the kind of cold that bites—more like a refusal. He looked back once. Three sets of eyes. He nodded. They nodded back.

The moment he crossed the threshold, it hit.

The light shifted.

He didn’t notice it at first. The entrance behind him shimmered, then vanished. As if swallowed by the wall.

Behind him—nothing but stone.

Darkness pressed in.

Not the kind that blindfolds. It was an obsidian black, thick and soundless.

He spun, reached back for the wall, and hit solid rock. He knocked against it. No response.

He called out. “Skye. Fara. Revoli!”

Nothing.

His voice didn’t even echo. It died inches from his lips.

“Dammit.”

He turned forward again, squinting. Slowly, the shadows faded into definition. Not from light, but something else. Like his eyes adjusted to the absence itself. The hallway unrolled from nothing, edges soft, corners wrong.

He stepped forward.

Kai’s heart remained steady. But something in his chest coiled, twisted. The idea that this was just a dream—the old, weathered comfort—still clung to his thoughts. He repeated it under his breath.

“It’s a dream. It’s just a dream.”

His fists clenched. His boots echoed on the ancient stone.

“I’m still asleep. Just deep in it.”

He tested his power—small things. A breath that bent the air. A step that shortened the space. It worked, but felt like pushing through syrup. The place didn’t like being moved.

Meanwhile, outside, the girls panicked.

The door had swallowed Kai whole. One moment he was there—the next, he was gone. Skye ran to the wall and pounded her fists against it.

“Kai!” she shouted.

No answer.

Fara cast a detection spell. It fizzled in her hands, dissipating like smoke. The threads she felt every day—ley, heat, life—slipped from her grip.

“This place is warded,” she growled. “No magic’s getting through.”

Revoli stared, her expression uncharacteristically blank. “This wasn’t on the map.”

“I don’t care what’s on the map!” Skye cried. “He’s in there!”

“Then we wait,” Fara said, forcing calm into her voice. “He wouldn’t leave us. We don’t leave him.”

They made camp ten paces from the door. Skye took first watch and didn’t sit. Revoli built the smallest fire she could and then kept feeding it, one twig at a time, like the flame was a promise. Fara traced protective sigils in the dirt that didn’t glow and held anyway.

And so they waited. Long past sunset. Long into the dark.

Inside, Kai moved further into the gloom.

The temple was strangely pristine. Smooth walls. Symbols that pulsed faintly under his gaze. The air didn’t taste musty. No dust clung to the floor. It was clean. Maintained. Like something used it and then erased its footprints.

He came upon a corridor lined with mirrors. Dozens. Tall, ornate, pristine. Frames of stone carved like braided rope, or vertebrae, or vines—he couldn’t tell which, and that bothered him.

He walked through, catching glimpses of himself.

Each reflection was… slightly off.

One blinked slower. One smiled faintly. Another scowled. Another looked scared. One wore no scars. One wore too many. One was younger than he remembered being.

Kai ignored them. He’d dealt with worse.

But the one that looked back at him—middle mirror, end of the hall—stopped him in his tracks.

It was him.

But he was crying.

Kai stepped closer.

His reflection didn’t match him. His own hands weren’t trembling—but the image’s were. His lips weren’t moving, but the reflection whispered.

“Why didn’t you love yourself?”

The words slid under armor. Quick. Clean. He swallowed. His jaw set.

He turned from the mirror. Walked. Fast.

The question echoed in his chest, louder than the voice had.

He was alone.

But this world knew how to dig.

He kept walking.

Because the only way out was through