The descent into the Hollow Citadel wasn't swift—it was endless. Steps spiraled down in a cruel loop, the stone damp and cold with age. The walls around them seemed to breathe, slow and shallow, like some ancient slumbering beast wrapped around its secrets.
Liam pressed a hand against the rough wall as they moved, feeling something... pulsing beneath. Not magical—alive.
"This place wasn't built. It grew," Nyra whispered, her voice barely audible over the silence. "It's not stone. It's… bone."
Kael halted and turned slowly to face her. "What did you just say?"
Aeris didn't answer, but her knuckles tightened around her staff.
Liam moved closer to her. "You know something. You always do. Aeris… what is this place really?"
She hesitated, shadows dancing in her eyes. "The Hollow Citadel wasn't always hollow. It used to be Nytherion's keep—before he was corrupted."
Nyra looked shocked. "You mean this is—"
"Where he fell," Aeris finished.
They stood still, the realization settling like dust around them.
"Is this where… he was taken?" Liam asked, carefully.
Aeris nodded slowly. "Taken… changed… forged. By something deeper than the dark. This is where he was broken and remade into the beast we saw on the bridge."
Kael stepped forward and peered down the spiraling descent. "So we're walking straight into the belly of the monster."
"And we're being watched," Nyra added quietly.
No one questioned it. The silence below had shifted—an audible pulse, faint and rhythmic, now hummed from the unseen depths. And as they continued, so too did the voices.
Faint at first. Whispers in the corners of thought. But growing louder.
Liam…
You left us…
You failed…
You weren't strong enough…
He shook his head, the phantom voice stabbing deeper with each echo. His breath caught in his throat.
Nyra faltered next, gripping the wall with trembling fingers. "No. You're not real. You're not real!" she screamed into the dark.
Kael gritted his teeth and pressed on, but Liam caught a glimpse of tears in his eyes.
"Stop!" Aeris shouted suddenly.
They halted. Her hand extended outward, palm glowing with violet light. The spiral of the descent finally opened into a wide, circular chamber—pitch black and absolutely silent.
"This is it," she said. "The Citadel's heart."
Liam stepped forward cautiously. The floor was covered in a layer of black ash. Pillars of jagged bone jutted out from the walls, twisting upward like claws reaching for a ceiling that did not exist. And at the center of it all…
A throne. Cracked. Empty.
"No one's here," Kael muttered. "This place is a grave."
Aeris shook her head. "No. It's a memory."
Then the room began to move.
Not physically—but in presence. Whispers spun into voices, then into screams, and shadows curled from the walls like living smoke. The throne cracked further—and then, rose.
From its shadowed depths, a figure materialized.
Nytherion.
Not the beast. Not the half-shadow horror they had seen on the bridge—but the man. Regal. Stoic. Beautiful. With silver eyes filled with pain.
"Elira," he whispered, though no one had spoken her name.
Aeris took a shaky step forward. "Is that really…?"
"I am what remains of him," the figure said. "I am the shard of memory left in the marrow of this place. A final echo."
Nyra dropped to one knee instinctively. Kael raised his blade slightly, uncertain.
Liam stepped beside Aeris. "Then why show yourself now?"
Nytherion's echo looked at him. "Because Elira's light… has begun to stir again. And with her, so too does the power buried in this realm. The veil weakens. Choices must be made."
He raised his hand—and the entire chamber lit up in ghostly flame. Scenes flickered around them: Elira holding the spellbook… Liam's childhood reflection in a shattered mirror… Aeris standing in the ruins of a city, sobbing alone… Nytherion falling to his knees, chains of shadow wrapping around his limbs.
"You seek the third fragment," the echo said. "It was once here. But it was taken—stolen by those who betrayed her. The ones hidden now in your world."
Kael gritted his teeth. "Then all this was for nothing?"
Nytherion's eyes flared. "No. You came because the memory of what you lost is the key to what you need."
"What does that mean?" Liam asked.
"Each fragment is more than magic—it's tied to your soul. And Elira sealed part of hers in the next one."
Aeris closed her eyes, as if she already knew.
Nytherion continued, "You'll find it in the place where Elira was last human. In your world. But beware. She is no longer just a protector. Something feeds on her—something older than me."
Liam felt his breath catch. "What do we do?"
"Remember her. Not as an enemy. But as someone broken. And fixing her may be the only way to stop what's coming."
The room began to collapse—flickering shadows folding inward like dying stars. Nytherion's figure crumbled into ash.
And then—
Silence.
No throne. No flame. Just the group, standing in the hollow chamber alone.
"Did that… really happen?" Nyra breathed.
"It did," Aeris whispered. "And now we know. We go to the human world not to find the next fragment—"
"But to find Elira," Liam finished.
Kael turned toward the spiraling steps. "Let's get out of this grave."
But as they left the Hollow Citadel, Liam couldn't shake the last words Nytherion had whispered to him—only to him, just before fading.
"The darkness that took me… wants her next."