Under the beginning

The night after the interrogation did not give them rest. The air in the village still carried smoke and the faint stench of torches burnt to the wick, and even when the villagers had gone to their homes the silence pressed too thick against the walls of the spare house. Each of them lay half-waking, half-dreaming, the weight of the elder’s map and the captured words of the cultists refusing to release their hold. When morning came it was not with relief but with obligation. They rose because they had to, and because the day had already chosen them.

The villagers gathered at the edge of the green. Bread wrapped in cloth was pressed into their hands, skins of water tied to straps, patched cloaks offered without fuss. The people did not speak much, but their eyes did, and the looks carried a weight far greater than words. Gratitude lay behind them, but also fear—the knowledge that what had come once might return again. Children peered from doorways, and one boy carried a painted stone forward and left it on the step of the cart before darting back into shadow. The elder was last. He tapped his staff against the frozen earth once, the sound flat in the cold air, and met each of their gazes with the gravity of a man placing a burden on others because he could not carry it himself. “She is close,” he said. “Strike fast, or not at all. Stone eats more than sound.” Then he stepped back, cloak drawn tight, and they were left with no reason to linger.

The cart rolled out of the village as the sky bled pale with dawn. Frost clung to hedges and to the half-dead grass by the roadside. The horse’s breath smoked in the air, its tack creaking as Hibiki clicked his tongue and set the pace. Darius sat beside him, one hand steadying the reins when Hibiki’s temper threatened to drive the beast too hard. Ren and Miyako rode in the back, weapons hidden beneath cloaks, eyes fixed on the road unwinding between bare trees. The sound of wheels on ruts and the hollow rhythm of hooves became the only measure of time.

None of them spoke. The silence was not empty; it pressed in with weight, louder than the horns had ever been. Smoke clung low, curling around their boots, closing behind them so fast it looked as if no one had ever stood there at all. Even their own breath carried the taste of it, bitter and heavy, as though the chamber exhaled through them instead of the other way around. It wasnt from reluctance but from the pressure of what waited ahead. The city’s belly was no longer rumour; it was marked in ink on parchment, and that made it real. Every turn of the wheel carried them closer to stone that remembered screams.

By midmorning Lerenic rose ahead of them, its skyline jagged with chimneys and spires, smoke drifting heavy across the rooftops. The nearer they drew, the thicker the air grew, until frost gave way to grime and the smell of wet stone. They did not go by the gate—too visible, too exposed. Instead they cut around the outer lanes, cart wheels jolting over cobbles cracked from years of neglect. The alleys swallowed them, close and dripping, clothes strung between windows like veins across the sky. Every corner seemed to hold a shadow that watched and withdrew, and every shutter closed when footsteps rang too loud.

The elder’s map took them through backstreets marked by half-collapsed shrines. Stone figures leaned headless in niches, their bases carved with shallow lines that looked at first like cracks but on closer glance were deliberate—stitches of thread chiselled into stone. Some were fresh, edges sharp, others worn smooth as if by decades of rain. The marks whispered of a presence too long rooted to be new.

The granary ruin waited at the city’s edge, where warehouses slumped against one another like drunks sharing the same wall. Its stones were streaked black with mildew, roof half-collapsed, windows bricked in. Rats scattered when they approached, and the air smelt of rot and wet straw. At first glance it was only another carcass of a building in a city filled with them. But the symbols were there—stitched into the lintel, carved faint on the threshold. Faded at first, then deeper once they knew where to look. The place breathed differently, like air drawn through cracks below.

They left the cart tucked against a broken wall, cloaks drawn low. Hibiki muttered, chain heavy in his hand, but Darius silenced him with a look before leading them inside. The air changed the moment they crossed the threshold. Cold pressed deeper, sharper, and the smell of mould sharpened into something older—iron and damp earth, the scent of a cellar that had never seen light.

The floor was scattered with broken sacks, grain long since turned to rot. Mice skittered between shadows. Dust clung to the beams, disturbed only by faint lines where something had been dragged across recently. At the back wall a trapdoor crouched, its wood stained darker than the rest, edges marked with shallow symbols that had been carved over and over, as if to reinforce the mouth of the earth.

Darius’s fingers traced the cut of the wood, then hooked beneath the iron ring and lifted. The hinges groaned. A breath of air spilled up from the dark—wet, heavy, with the taste of stone that had drunk too much silence.

“Down,” Darius said. His voice did not rise above a murmur.

The ladder dropped steep into shadow. Hibiki went first, morning star strapped across his back, boots thudding against rungs slick with damp. Ren followed, gauntlet scraping wood. Miyako slipped after, knives drawn loose in her hands, while Darius brought up the rear, shutting the trap above them with a low finality.

The descent opened into a passage, narrow and wet, stone sweating beneath their palms. Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing in the dark. The air was thicker here, harder to draw into lungs, carrying the faint hum that the cultists had spoken of. Not song, not machinery—something between, as if the stone itself remembered vibration.

They moved in silence, torches guttering in the damp. Cells lined the passage at intervals, iron bars rusted and bowed. Some stood empty save for bones in corners, ribs picked clean, skulls with jaws cracked wide. Others bore the scratches of nails dragged across stone, marks of fists pounded until skin split. Torn cloth clung to corners—scraps of dresses, shoes small enough for children. Ren’s stomach twisted, his fingers biting into the straps of the gauntlet until they burned. “This is where they bring them,” Darius muttered, almost to himself. His words seemed to fall heavy, unwilling to echo.

The passage curved, narrowing, before opening into a chamber lit by torches wedged in brackets. The smoke stained the ceiling black, and the air shimmered faint with heat. At the far wall a figure hung against chains, arms stretched high, bloom pulsing faint beside her. Alice. Her hair clung to her face in tangles, her lips cracked and pale. Her body was thin, too thin, as if the weight of her had been eaten away by the dark. Her eyes opened at the scrape of boots and for a moment there was nothing in them but glass. Then recognition flickered, faint but there, and her mouth shaped words too dry to carry.

“I knew… you’d come.” Ren nearly broke at the sound. He stumbled forward, knees hitting stone, gauntlet pressed against the chain. Hibiki swore under his breath, the chain of his weapon rattling like a threat barely leashed. Miyako stepped sharp to the side, knives biting into links until the metal shivered. Darius kept back, eyes fixed not on Alice but on the shadows beyond the torchlight.The chains snapped, and Alice slumped into Ren’s arms. Her body was light, too light, her skin fever-hot beneath his touch. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, a shudder running through her, and whispered once more. “Thank you.” Then her eyes closed, breath shallow but steady.There was no time for more. The hum grew louder. Footsteps scraped stone, steady and measured. From the passage opposite, shadows moved.

Grey robes first, dull and worn, faces shadowed by hoods. Then black, heavier, the sound of blades whispering free. A dozen at least, maybe more, their steps in rhythm. Their voices rose low, chanting, syllables broken like cloth torn in half. “Most are gone,” Darius said, voice clipped. “Hunting. But not all.” The cultists surged. Hibiki was the first to meet them, chain lashing wide, the head of the morning star crashing into a hooded skull with a sound like stone struck hollow. The hum from his weapon rose, vibrating through the chamber until dust rained from the ceiling. Ren set Alice down against the wall, body trembling, then turned back, gauntlet raised. The first strike jarred through him, blade biting against steel, and he pushed back with the weight Darius had drilled into him: let the gauntlet take it, let the sword follow. The cultist fell, throat opened. Miyako darted through shadows, knives catching torchlight, her strikes sharp and precise. Every cut ended movement—no wasted motion, no flourish. Darius’s club cracked against knees and wrists, each blow deliberate, breaking the rhythm of the chant.

But for every body that fell, another pressed forward. Blood slicked the floor, boots slipping in it. The chamber rang with steel, with the hum of Hibiki’s rage, with the ragged breath of men who did not care if they lived so long as they dragged others down with them. Some cultists broke and fled back into the tunnels, shadows swallowing them. Others died with lips still moving, prayers choking into blood.

At last the chant faltered. The last of the black robes fell, throat torn open by Miyako’s blade, and the chamber stilled. Smoke curled from torches, blood pooled in cracks, and the only sound was Alice’s shallow breath. Then another voice cut the silence. “You think this ends here?”

She stepped from the passage like a shadow called into shape. White robes, edges stitched with red thread. Her face was bandaged, only the glint of her eyes showing through, fury bright enough to burn. Every step she took pressed against the stone as if the ground itself yielded to her. Beside her walked the soldier—the young guard from the gate, his armour dull beneath cult markings carved fresh across it. His hand rested on his blade, eyes locked on them with the zeal of a man who had found purpose in betrayal. “You,” Hibiki spat, chain rattling. The memory of the gate flared in his face, and his voice broke into a growl.

The soldier smiled thinly, drawing his sword. “I warned you once.” He lunged. Ren met him, gauntlet catching steel, the weight driving him back a step. Hibiki swung wild, the chain screaming through the air. The soldier ducked, blade carving sparks from stone, and for a moment the fight narrowed to the sound of steel on steel, breath ragged, blood slick underfoot. Darius moved to flank, club raised, but the soldier was fast, faster than men trained only for war. His strikes were precise, honed, meant to kill.

But he was only one man. Miyako slid behind him, knife carving deep across his thigh. He staggered, and Hibiki’s chain struck. The head of the morning star crushed his helm with a wet crack, the body falling limp to the stone. Blood ran into the grooves of the floor, pooling at their boots. The white-robed woman screamed. It was not human—not a cry of grief but a sound like something breaking in half, sharp and furious enough to make torches gutter. Her body trembled, her hands curled tight, and for a moment it seemed she would charge them herself. But then she stilled, robes shivering, and stepped back into the dark.

“You will not leave the city,” she said. Her voice was low, steady now, more dangerous for the control she forced into it. “We will surround you. We will take back what is ours. And you will know hunger as she has known it.” Then she was gone, her steps swallowed by the tunnel, the silence left raw in her wake. They stood in the blood and smoke, Alice weak in Ren’s arms, the soldier’s corpse cooling at their feet. The air pressed heavy, humming still, as if the stone itself had remembered what it was to breathe.

The rescue was done, but not finished. The belly of Lerenic had woken, and it would not let them leave quietly.