They stepped into the cave together, hand in hand, the dark swallowing them the same way it had years ago.
Cassian glanced down the tunnel. "Smells exactly as I remember. Damp rock and bad decisions."
Bathsheda didn't answer, her eyes tracking the curve of the passage.
The ground dipped slightly. The first rune sat half-buried under a thin layer of grit.
He crouched, brushing it clear with his fingers. The linework was shapr. Same as before. Not worn at all. Hadn't aged a day since it was carved.
As if it was freshly done.
"Still looks like it was carved yesterday," he said.
Bathsheda stepped closer, leaning in. "It's an amazing runework. It won't change in a few years."
"I was hoping ancient death caves might redecorate after nine years," Cassian muttered.
She ignored that, her gaze moving along the wall. More runes revealed themselves the deeper they went.
Cassian straightened slowly. "You feel that?"
Bathsheda gave a small nod. "It's guiding."
"Yeah. I don't like it."
"You followed it last time."
"I was younger. Dumber. Slightly less handsome."
She glanced at him. "Debatable."
He huffed, but his eyes stayed on the wall.
The spiral tightened as they walked, lines curving inward, pulling their path with it. The cave narrowed, forcing them closer together. Their shoulders brushed, neither pulling away.
They moved again, slower now. The air grew heavier, pressing in, though not enough to choke.
A flicker of light appeared ahead.
Cassian stopped. "That was not there last time."
Bathsheda's grip tightened slightly around his hand. "No."
They approached carefully.
A torch burned in a notch in the wall.
Cassian tilted his head. "Someone's been keeping the place tidy."
"No one comes here," Bathsheda said.
"Then something does."
He stepped closer, studying it. The fire didn't react to his movement. Didn't even flicker in the draft.
"Not normal fire," he said.
"Obviously."
He glanced at her. "Always helpful, you."
The chamber soon appeared. The walls curved up and away into shadow, carved rings circling inward toward the centre. Same as before.
But the pit...
Cassian stopped at the edge.
It wasn't dark anymore.
Light moved inside it. Threads of pale glow drifting upward like something breathing under the surface.
He frowned. "That's new."
Bathsheda stepped beside him. The glow reflected in her eyes.
Cassian glanced sideways and froze.
For a split second, the runes were there again. On her. Faint lines etched along her cheek. Down her neck. The same pattern from the vision. The same...
He blinked.
Gone.
Just her.
Bathsheda didn't react. She was watching the pit, completely still.
Cassian dragged a breath through his teeth. "You seeing anything odd, or is that just me having a brilliant time?"
"What kind of odd?"
"You. Covered in ancient runes. Very dramatic. Very hot, which is something we should discuss later, but for now, scary."
She turned her head slightly. "No."
"Fantastic."
He rubbed his face, then looked back into the pit.
Cassian's eyes narrowed. "Baths."
The light surged. Both of them flinched.
The glow shot upward in a thin spiral, stopping just short of the edge. It hovered, twisting in place.
Then a whisper that pressed straight into the mind reverberated.
Cassian stiffened. Bathsheda's fingers tightened in his."The marked one returns."
As soon as Cassian heard the voice, somehow he knew it wasn't the woman from the storm that was carved into his memory with blood and wind and dragonfire.
"Who's asking?" he said, squinting into the glow.
The light in the pit stirred. A woman stepped out of the light.
Her face was beautiful, runes threaded across her skin. But not carved like Yrsa's. These looked... artificial. Not natural the way they had seemed on Yrsa.
The woman raised her head, studying them. Then took a step forward. Her feet didn't quite touch the ground.
"I have waited," she said. "Longer than your kind remembers how to count."
Cassian let out a huff through his nose. "Who are you?"
The woman paused. Then, like the answer was obvious, she said, "I am a servant of Her Highness."
Cassian blinked. "And Her Highness would be...?"
The woman looked at him in disbelief. Like he'd just asked what water was.
"You do not know?" she said.
Cassian spread a hand. "I've been out of the loop. Enlighten me."
"Her Highness is the Lady of the Valley."
Cassian looked at Bathsheda, then back at the spectral woman hovering over the pit.
"The Lady of the Valley," He repeated. He'd never heard the Lady of the Valley or if the Valley had a woman. Then again, he kept seeing that woman in his dreams, the one standing by the great tree, her hands pressed to the bark as if holding the sky in place. "Never heard of her."
The woman clenched her fist. "They erased her," she said through gritted teeth. "They scrubbed her name from the scrolls and burned the tongues of those who spoke it. They turned her into a ghost before she was even dead."
Cassian felt Bathsheda's hand tighten in his. "Who did?" she asked.
"The ones who wanted the prosperity to end," the spirit replied. "The ones who found the Crown's whispers more enticing than the Lady's protection. As the people forgot her, her magic began to thin. Her voice became a whisper, then a memory, then nothing at all. And as her light vanished, the rot began to take root in the deep places."
Cassian froze as he heard the word 'Crown.' "How do you know that name? Why would you name it? You'll give it power."
She let out a dismissive snort, her chin lifting. "This is Her Highness's domain. The Crown's reach ends here."
Cassian stared at her, disbelief plain on his face. "That's... even possible?"
Her eyes widened as she looked at him. "You really don't know? That shouldn't be. I felt the Crown awaken. And the one meant to stop it-" she faltered, searching his face, "knows nothing."
Bathsheda stepped closer to the woman, her hand twitching. "What do you mean she was erased?"
The spirit's eyes turned cold, the light within them sharpening. "Her Highness and the Lord of the Valley were the ones who sealed the Crown. They bled for this world. But after the battle, when the Valley entered its long slumber to recover, the Crown's rot didn't just vanish. It became a whisper in the ears of the weak and the greedy."
She drifted a few inches higher, her feet trailing light over the yawning pit. "The Crown promised power that didn't require sacrifice. It promised a world where men didn't have to bow to the balance of the Valley. People are remarkably quick to forget their saviours when a louder voice offers them a shortcut. They banded together, fueled by that whispered malice, and they turned on the very things meant to keep them safe. They sealed away the Valley's Guardians."
"The Crawlers," Cassian blurted out.
The woman nodded, her expression grim. "Yes. They were the hounds sent out to patrol the borders, to protect the world while the Lord and Lady slept. But the humans rose against them. They called them monsters. They used the very magic the Valley provided to build cages for the silence." The woman spat out in hatred, "The worst of all were the ones who accepted the benevolence of the forests, the light of the Valley, the Druids, who even eradicated the Blood Crawlers. And then..." She looked around the damp stone walls of the chamber. "They even attacked this place, where Her Highness's avatar resided."
Cassian's eyes went wide. The vision from nine years ago flashed in his mind, the storm, the jagged cliffs of Norway, and the woman with the bleeding runes carved into her skin as men with swords and prayers climbed the path to kill her.
"She was just an avatar?" Cassian asked, his voice sounding thin in the massive chamber. "The woman I saw... Yrsa... she wasn't the actual Lady?"
"She was a vessel," the spirit replied. "A fragment of the Lady's will given flesh to watch over this gateway. The people of this land hunted her like an animal. They thought that by killing the voice, they could ignore the warning. They sealed this cave, thinking they'd buried the past. They didn't realise they were just cutting the last tether holding the Crown back."
Bathsheda looked at Cassian, her face pale. "If the Crawlers were the immune system, and they were sent by the Valley... then everything we did in Australia, everything the Flamels did to 'protect' the world, was just helping the infection."
"We did exactly what the Crown wanted," Cassian muttered, rubbing his face with one hand. "We saw something ugly and scary, and we locked it in a box. Meanwhile, the real monster was underneath us the whole time, laughing because we'd just tied up its only predator."
They fell into silence. Cassian had already realised what they'd done to the Crawlers only served Marauder and the Crown. But it wasn't time for the regrets.
Cassian looked at the spirit, his brows knitted together. "Wait a second. What did you mean by 'the marked one'? I'm not marked. My skin is remarkably clear of ancient graffiti, thanks very much."
The woman gave him a look that suggested he was being intentionally thick. "It is her," she said, her translucent finger pointing directly at Bathsheda. "Not you."
Bathsheda took a sharp step back, her hand flying to her mouth. "Me? I'm the marked one?"
The spirit nodded, her glowing form drifting closer. "You are marked to carry Her Highness's legacy. Yrsa's spirit didn't just stumble into your mind nine years ago. She chose you to carry the weight of what was lost."
Bathsheda frowned, her eyes darting between the spirit and Cassian. "But you just said Cassian was the one meant to stop the Crown. Now I'm the one with the mark? That's a bit of a mixed message, isn't it?"
The spirit let out a long, weary sigh, her shoulders slumping as if the weight of their ignorance was a physical burden. "How can you not know anything? Truly, the erasure was more thorough than I feared. The Valley's magic isn't a linear thing you can hold in one hand. It is four-dimensional. It doesn't reside in one person or one moment." She looked at both of them, her gaze moving back and forth. "You two, together, carry the Valley. You are the anchor and the sight. The tether and the blade."
Cassian and Bathsheda froze. The words hit like a physical blow, knocking the breath out of them. At the same instant, they both remembered a conversation from four years ago, the talk they'd had when the world felt like it was shifting under their feet.
It was the year Bathsheda had suddenly started seeing the fractures in time. She'd sat Cassian down and told him about the memories that didn't belong to her, five years of Hogwarts where he didn't exist. A timeline where he didn't exist at all. And Cassian had finally come clean. He'd told her he wasn't just a Rosier who'd hit his head too hard. He'd told her about the interface, the memories of a different life, and the fact that he was an intruder in this history.
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