The depth of a shadow

The chamber held its breath after the first bloom of shadow. Cultists staggered, some bowing, some fleeing, others frozen mid-step as if the stone beneath them had turned to ice. The torches wavered in their brackets, the flames long and thin, their light bent sideways as though trying to escape the room. The air itself seemed caught between moving and not, heavy in their lungs, sharp against the skin. Miyako stood at the circle’s edge, her body shaking, her knives dripping, the pool of black beneath her boots spreading wider, as though the ground itself had begun to rot.

The black spread in veins, fine at first, then thick, branching like roots forced up through stone. Where it touched, the rock whitened, dust flaking as if the life had been drained out of it. The air above the pool shimmered faintly, a heat-haze with no heat, as though light itself warped in protest. The smell that rose was not rot alone but a sharper thing, iron and smoke and something sweet that turned the stomach, a scent that clung in the nose like poison.

The group stared at her. Ren’s knuckles whitened on his sword, the gauntlet burning cold where a lash of shadow had brushed it. Hibiki’s chain rattled as his grip loosened, the hum of his weapon faltering, stuttering against something deeper. Alice’s hands shook around her crossbow, but she did not lift it, her eyes fixed on Miyako with the rawness of someone who recognised the shape of a friend and the outline of something else inside it. Darius’s stance held steady, but his one good eye did not leave her, as though waiting for proof of what he already suspected. Then the horns returned.

The sound pressed through their bones, a pressure more than a noise, shuddering the marrow. Each blast scraped the lungs raw, as though the air itself had turned against breath. Dust cascaded in thin curtains from the ceiling, catching in their hair and lashes. Puddles on the floor quivered until the surface shattered, drops spattering their boots. The horns did not call as men call. They folded the tunnels into a single throat, and in that throat the group were nothing but prey.

They sounded deeper this time, closer, rolling through the stone like thunder that carried weight enough to bow ceilings. The blasts rattled grit from the walls, and new voices joined the chant—louder, more numerous, a tide gathering its weight. From the tunnels poured fresh ranks: grey first, stumbling and crooked, their blades jagged with use. Then black, their steps unified, their chant heavy, filling the chamber with rhythm like a second heartbeat. And finally, the white.

The woman led them, robes edged in thread that burned red in the torchlight. Her face was still bandaged from the wound she had carried before, but her posture was iron. The young soldier moved at her side, helmet gone, features drawn but eyes hard, the same boy who had stopped them at the gate and raised suspicion, the same who had fought Hibiki and left with the promise of more. They brought with them the silence of command.

The greys howled and shuddered like animals at a butcher’s block, but when the white entered they stilled, their madness forged into something sharper. Knives tapped once against shields. Feet struck stone in time. The black’s chant rose in response, a grinding rhythm that scraped thought away until only the beat remained. The presence of the woman and her soldier stitched chaos into order. The cult was no longer a mob. It was a mouth with teeth. Where they stepped, the cultists’ fear turned frenzy. What had faltered became stronger. What had fled returned, knives wet with their own blood as they renewed the chant with cracked voices.

Ren tightened his stance, the sword heavy in his arm, his shoulder screaming under the weight of each breath. Hibiki snarled low, chain tightening as he braced for another swing. Alice leaned hard on the wall, her body too weak to lift her weapon again, but her eyes wide, refusing to close. Darius lifted his club, his body worn but unbent. Miyako moved before any of them.

Her head rose, shadows dripping from her shoulders like water from stone. She looked at them only once, her gaze sharp, her voice barely a word—hoarse, almost soundless, but enough. “Back.” Her hand came up and shoved them all at once—Ren, Hibiki, Alice, even Darius. The force was not strength of body but something else, a push that carried weight beyond muscle. They staggered, boots scraping on the slick stone, the circle broken. She stepped into the space they had held, and the shadows followed.

The cult surged. Grey rushed first, knives up, throats screaming praise to whatever god they thought would save them. Black pressed behind, a wall of iron and chant. The woman in white raised her arm, her voice tearing through the noise, and the soldier at her side lifted his blade. Miyako’s shadows broke.

They lashed outward, faster than sight, tendrils of black stabbing through the greys in waves. The first rank dropped in silence, their bodies pierced clean through, lifted from the ground like meat on hooks before being thrown against the walls with cracks that shook the chamber. The black pressed forward regardless, but the shadows met them too, not lashes this time but spears—long and sharp, driving through armor, puncturing ribs, pinning men to the floor before dissolving and letting them crumple. The chant fractured, broken by screams.

The woman in white pressed forward, robes swirling, bandaged face tilted toward Miyako. Her voice rang clear, calling the cult to her. She raised her hand, and the air around her trembled as though she commanded the very breath of the chamber. The soldier roared beside her, charging with blade high, his eyes fixed not on the shadows but on Hibiki, as though their fight had never ended.

Hibiki moved to meet him, chain rising, but the shadows came first. A tendril speared the soldier through the side, punching out from his ribs in a spray of blood. His mouth opened, his shout breaking into a wet gasp. Hibiki froze, his weapon falling slack, as the soldier crumpled at his feet.

The woman in white screamed then, not with fear but with fury. Her voice carried like a curse, splitting through the chamber, her hand raised as though to tear the shadows apart by will alone. She charged forward, robes billowing, bandages dark with blood.Miyako’s shadows swallowed her. They rose in a wave, a black wall that split into claws, spears, blades, striking all at once. They pierced her chest, her throat, her limbs, lifting her into the air as her scream turned to a gurgle. Her body twisted against the lances of shadow, bones creaking loud enough to split through the chanting. Blood hissed as it struck the dark, steaming where it touched, as though the shadow consumed more than flesh. For a breath her hands clawed at the black as if there might still be a way free. Then her limbs hung slack. The shadows shook her again, a brutal snap that cracked her spine, before tearing her apart like paper drowned in water. Blood poured down her robes, staining the white red. The shadows shook her once, hard enough that her body cracked, then tore her apart. Flesh and cloth fell in pieces, and what remained dissolved into the black.

The cult broke. What had been frenzy turned to panic. Some fell screaming, clawing their hoods away as if to escape what had already claimed them. Others dropped to their knees, chanting louder, faster, their voices shrill with madness. A few fled, stumbling into the tunnels, but most were caught. The shadows lashed wider, filling the chamber, stabbing through bodies with precision and chaos at once. Men were pinned to walls, ceilings, floors, then shredded into mist. Blood poured in sheets, pooling black in the torchlight, indistinguishable from the shadow itself.

Ren tried to push forward, but another of Miyako’s strikes cut too close, a tendril stabbing the ground inches from his boots. The cold rolled up through his legs, numbing bone. Hibiki staggered back, his chain rattling as he raised it uselessly. Alice pressed against the wall, tears streaking her face, her body shaking too much to move. Darius planted himself in front of them all, his club raised, but even he did not step closer. Miyako’s body trembled in the center of it all, her head bowed, her knives falling from her hands. The shadows no longer answered her—they commanded. They rose and fell in rhythm, devouring, crushing, tearing, as though they had been waiting all along for the moment she loosened her hold.

She lifted her head once more, her eyes black pools without white, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Her body shuddered, and the shadows wrapped around her, folding her into themselves. For a breath she was gone. Then something rose from the pool where she had stood.

It was her shape, but not her. A perfect silhouette, black from head to toe, her outline exact but empty. No eyes, no face, no breath. It stood for one still moment, head tilted toward them as though recognising them and not. Then the figure cracked, lines of light searing through it, and it dissolved into ash-black mist that spread across the floor and vanished.

The silence that followed was not peace. It was the hush of something watching, a pause between breaths, as if the shadows themselves had only retreated into the cracks. The torchlight seemed reluctant to spread, flames thin, smoke rising low instead of high. The group could feel the residue in their bones, a cold ache that was not theirs, as if the chamber still held Miyako’s outline in its walls and waited for her to step out again

The torches sputtered back to life, smoke thick and acrid, stinging their throats. The chamber reeked of blood, of iron so strong it coated the tongue. Corpses lay everywhere, pinned, torn, shredded, their robes indistinguishable from the pools of black around them. The woman in white was gone. The soldier was gone. The cult was gone. But so was Miyako.

Ren lowered his sword slowly, his hand trembling. Hibiki’s chain slipped from his grip, the iron head clattering against stone. Alice pressed her hands to her face, her shoulders shaking. Darius lowered his club, his breath harsh, his eye fixed on the place where the black had vanished. No one spoke.

The chamber was theirs, but it felt empty, hollow. Victory stank like rot. The cult had been broken here, a leader cut down, their numbers butchered—but the cost was carved into the stone, in the place where Miyako had stood and no longer was. The four of them stood in the silence, surrounded by corpses, and understood that nothing had been won without losing more.