The cavern was pitch-black.
Not the comforting kind of dark—this was heavy, thick, swallowing even the faintest hint of light.
Celeste stirred weakly, her body half-submerged in freezing water. She coughed, the sound echoing off unseen walls.
“...Hello?” Her voice came out small, trembling, like it was shy to exist at all.
No reply.
Only the steady drip... drip... drip of water from above.
Her ears twitched, straining for sound—any sound—but all she could make out were faint shuffles in the distance. Wet, dragging footsteps. The kind she’d learned to dread.
“Zombies...” she whispered, her heart hammering.
She tried to see—cats were supposed to see in the dark, right? But even her sharp eyes met nothing but shifting black. The water came up to her chest, icy and slick with silt. She reached out, fingers brushing the rough stone of a wall... then nothing. The space felt too large, too open.
“Okay... okay, Celeste,” she murmured softly, hugging herself. “You’re fine. You’re fine. It’s just dark. Just... very, very dark. You’ve been in worse spots. You just... can’t remember any right now.”
Something splashed nearby. She flinched hard, tail puffing up.
“Um—hello? Please don’t be horrible.” she tried again, quieter this time.
Still nothing.
Her throat tightened, and a small, involuntary meow slipped out—a tiny, scared sound that echoed back at her like it belonged to someone else.
Then—
Her chest pulsed.
A soft, blue light flickered to life beneath her fur, spreading out from the core at her collarbone. The glow shimmered across the water’s surface, casting trembling reflections on the walls.
“Oh—oh! That’s better,” she breathed, blinking at the sudden light. “Don’t go out, please. I really don’t fancy dying in the dark.”
The light grew—just enough to push back the darkness a few feet. Enough to see the slick stones, the glistening ceiling, the faint ripples where something had been moving.
“It’s not much, but it’s better than bumping into walls,” she whispered, gripping her sleeves. “Alright then… let’s find out what’s lurking.”
Celeste took a slow, shaky breath.
“Alright,” she whispered to herself, her voice steadying. “Let’s see what’s hiding in here.”
And with her core’s glow lighting the way, she began to move—each step sending tiny ripples through the dark water as the undead shuffled somewhere unseen, waiting for her next move.
Her arcbracer flickered weakly, the cracked screen pulsing with static.
“Signal... lost,” it chirped before dying.
Celeste shook her wrist with a frown. “Lost? Oh stars, you can’t be serious. I finally need you, and you decide to nap?”
Nothing. Only the hollow drip of water and her own echoing voice.
“Mezzo? Ray? Arcade?” she called, voice shaking. “Please don’t tell me you’ve all been kidnapped by zombies again. Once was plenty.”
Silence.
She pressed her paw to the stone. “Um...If you’re out there, I could really use some not-being-alone right now.”
She took a few cautious steps forward, the water lapping at her ankles—then her foot slipped on algae-slick rock.
Splash!
She yelped, landing in a deeper pool, the cold stealing her breath.
Before she could push herself up—
“Are you lost, Mamgoleuni?”
The voice came from behind her. Smooth. Amused. Familiar.
Celeste screamed, spinning so fast she almost fell again.
“By the moons—don’t do that!” she gasped, clutching her chest. “You nearly made me shed my fur!”
From the darkness, the Lynx stepped forward, eyes gleaming like twin moons. His fur shimmered faintly with an ethereal glow, as though the shadows themselves bowed away from him.
“Why are you alone, Mamgoleuni?” he asked, circling her with lazy grace. “Where are your companions? The ones you clutch to for meaning?”
Celeste frowned, still catching her breath. “The cave collapsed. Everyone got separated. I was hoping—well, I was hoping you might know the way out. Do you—do you know the way?”
He smiled faintly. “You seek the way. Always seeking, always hungry for doors you don’t yet see. The world is full of doors, Celeste Astallan. You just don’t like what’s behind most of them.”
“That’s not fair,” she murmured. “I just don’t want to die in a puddle.”
He paced around her with lazy grace. “You’re searching in the wrong direction.”
“I am?” she said softly, blinking up at him. “Oh no. Don’t tell me it’s one of those ‘the real exit was inside you all along’ riddles. I’m dreadful at those.”
His paw touched her chest—lightly, just above her glowing core. “You jest, but you’re not wrong. What you seek is already there.”
Celeste looked down at his paw. Her light pulsed brighter. “I saw something,” she whispered, almost to herself. “In that last fight. My core. When it glowed... a city. Tall, gleaming. People I’ve never seen before. It felt like... remembering something I never lived.”
The Lynx tilted his head, whiskers twitching. “Are they not?”
“No,” Celeste said, shaking her head. “They can’t be. I’ve never been there before.”
“How would you know?” the Lynx murmured, stepping closer, his eyes catching every glint of her confusion. “We are all so eager to accept what’s presented as truth. Which truth is yours, Mamgoleuni?”
Celeste’s tail trembled. “I don’t understand… it doesn’t make any sense. I saw it, but I know I didn’t live it.”
The Lynx tilted his head, his voice cool and patient. “Memory is a strange currency. It spends itself even when you don’t recall earning it.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “They can’t be my memories.”
“How do you know they aren’t?” His gaze sharpened. “Truth is not a possession. It’s a debt paid by the curious.”
Celeste’s tail drooped. “That’s not helpful, you know.”
“It’s not meant to be,” he murmured, almost kindly. “Understanding is the slowest poison.”
Celeste blinked. “That’s…ominous.”
“Perhaps you will remember,” the Lynx said softly. “Perhaps you will not. It makes no difference. History always forgets—twists and changes itself until it no longer is what it once was.”
The pulse of her core slowed, dimming again. She looked up, ready to demand more. “Then whose memories are they?”
But the Lynx only smiled that ancient, knowing smile. “You are asking the wrong question.”
Celeste blinked, looking down at his hand. The light from her core pulsed once, brighter. When she looked up—
He was gone.
She gasped and spun around. The cavern looked different—twisting, reshaped. A tunnel yawned open behind her, one that hadn’t been there before.
The Lynx’s voice drifted from the darkness, soft and echoing.
“You are never alone, Karethiel… for you walk with many.”
His form faded into the shadows.
“Wait!” Celeste called, splashing through the shallow water after him, her glowing core flaring brighter with every desperate step.
“Please—come back! I don’t understand!”
Her light carved through the dark, the new passage opening before her like a heartbeat—each pulse leading her deeper into the unknown.
The walls pulsed with light with every stride she took, as if alive and breathing with her. She tripped once—but it didn’t feel like she hit earth. It was softer, stranger, like falling into smoke. The air vanished from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. It felt like the weight of a thousand hopes, dreams, and expectations were pressing her down, suffocating her—and it terrified her.
Inside, her core echoed with something familiar.
Outside, every instinct screamed: You’re in danger. Run. Hide. Don’t get caught.
Celeste forced herself forward through the twisting tunnel, the glow from her core lighting the slick stone like a living lantern. Each cautious step echoed into infinity.
Then—she noticed them.
Tiny lights, soft and wavering, drifting after her like motes of dust in water.
At first, she thought they were reflections—but no. They moved with purpose, following the rhythm of her heartbeat.
Her ears flattened. “Wh-what are you…?”
The lights began to hum. A low, haunting melody filled the air, not sung but remembered. Faint voices whispered through the cave—ancient and aching, speaking in Bardic tones so old they felt carved into the air itself.
Celeste’s breath caught as fragments reached her:
“ᚴᚨᚱᛖᚦᛁᛖᛚ... brenn y goleuni…”
“Save us…”
“Bring back the light…”
“Heal the corrupt…”
Each word pressed against her chest like a heartbeat not her own.
The voices rose—pleading, desperate—until the sound became a chorus of grief and hope tangled into one.
Then—silence.
Her light carved through the dark, the new passage opening before her like a heartbeat — each pulse leading her deeper into the unknown.
The cavern was pitch-black.
Not the comforting kind of dark.
This was heavy, thick, swallowing even the faintest hint of light.
Celeste ran anyway.
Her paws slapped against wet stone. Her breath came sharp and ragged. The glow from her core flickered over the walls in broken flashes, catching on slick rock, hanging roots, old cracks—
Then something answered.
A line of blue light sparked beneath her paw.
Celeste stumbled.
The wall beside her lit up.
One rune became three.
Three became dozens.
Dozens became hundreds.
Bardic symbols flared across the stone in rippling lines, spreading down the corridor like veins waking beneath skin. They curved around archways. They climbed pillars half-buried in mineral growth. They lit the floor beneath the water, revealing patterns too deliberate to be natural.
Celeste slowed, staring.
“Oh…”
This wasn’t a cave.
Not really.
The stone around her was carved. Hidden under salt, silt, algae, and centuries of darkness, but carved all the same. Smooth pillars rose from the water like drowned bones. Broken archways leaned into the tunnel. Old crystal sockets, long empty, lined the ceiling where lamps or mana relays must once have burned.
She wasn’t underground by accident.
She was inside ruins.
Ancient ruins.
Older than the castles on the shore.
Older than the Shattered Thrones.
Maybe older than anything she had been taught to name.
Her mind flashed back to Skye pointing across the coastline, his huge ears twitching as he spoke about old castles and fractured Prydein. Those crumbling ruins above the water — the towers eaten by salt, the broken walls clinging to the cliffs—
Maybe they weren’t separate at all.
Maybe the ruins on the shore were only the top of something much larger.
Something buried.
Something waiting.
A soft light brushed past her cheek.
Celeste flinched.
A wisp.
Then another.
Then ten more.
They drifted from the walls, slipping out through cracks in the stone like fireflies waking from a long sleep. Blue, gold, silver, pale green. Their little bodies hummed faintly as they gathered around her, circling her core, drawn to the pulse beneath her fur.
“No, no, no,” Celeste whispered, backing away. “Please don’t do that. I’m very lost and extremely damp.”
One wisp brushed against her wrist.
The touch was gentle.
But the feeling behind it made her stomach drop.
Waiting.
That was what they felt like.
Not hungry.
Not hostile.
Waiting.
Like tools in a hand that had finally returned.
Like soldiers hearing a horn after centuries of silence.
Like a city holding its breath.
A whisper curled through her mind.
“I am a midwife. Tell me where the children are to be brought.”
Celeste froze.
Another brushed against her shoulder.
“I am a gardener. Tell me which roots must live.”
A third circled her blade-hand.
“I am a warrior. Tell me what must be killed.”
More gathered.
More voices.
“I am a librarian. Tell me what truth must be preserved.”
“I am a mason. Tell me what wall must rise.”
“I am a singer. Tell me what grief must be carried.”
“I am a watcher. Tell me what must be seen.”
The voices layered over each other, soft and aching and horribly obedient.
“Command us.”
“Name our work.”
“Tell us what to do.”
Celeste’s breath hitched.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
The wisps hovered closer.
Their light reflected in the water, turning the flooded floor into a trembling sky.
“I don’t know,” she said again, louder this time, panic rising in her throat. “Please, I don’t know! I’m not — I’m not whoever you think I am!”
The runes pulsed.
The corridor seemed to listen.
The wisps did not attack.
They only waited.
That made it worse.
Celeste backed up, then turned and ran.
“I’m sorry!” she cried over her shoulder, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you!”
Her paws splashed through the shallow water. Bardic runes ignited ahead of her with every step, guiding her whether she wanted guidance or not. The wisps followed, their small voices echoing in her core like prayers left unanswered for too long.
“Midwife.”
“Gardener.”
“Warrior.”
“Librarian.”
“Tell us what to do.”
“Please.”
She tried to block her ears, but the whispers were inside her—curling through her mana veins, resonating with her core.
“Please stop,” she begged, running harder. “Please, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do!”
Celeste blinked. The light from her core dimmed, flickering once… twice… and steadied.
She was no longer underground.
The cave had vanished. She stood barefoot on cool sand, her heart racing.
The faintest blush of dawn spread across the horizon—the sea calm, the stars fading one by one.
The air smelled of salt and sunrise.
The world was still.
Only her core’s gentle pulse remained, glowing faintly in rhythm with the first rays of morning.
Celeste hugged herself, trembling. “You never really tell me anything straight, do you?” she whispered to the empty air. “But... thank you, I think.”
The tide rolled in—soft and wordless—as if it, too, didn’t know the answer.
