They left at dawn—or what passed for dawn three miles underground. The Deep Home's version of morning was a shift in the bioluminescent fungi, a dimming of the light that told the inhabitants it was time to rest.

  Kael's company gathered at the lowest tunnel, a dark maw that plunged even deeper into the earth. Mora stood at its entrance, leaning on her pipe.

  "Beyond here, I can't help you," she said. "I've never gone further. The tunnels are unstable, and the air gets thin. But if the maps are right, this path leads to the next prison."

  Kael looked at his companions.

  Corvus the miner was a mountain of a man, his arms thick with muscle, his face a map of scars from cave-ins and rock falls. He carried a pick that had been his father's and his grandfather's before that, and he claimed it could break any stone in the world.

  Elara the mapper was small and quick, with eyes that missed nothing. She'd spent twenty years exploring the Deep Home's tunnels, and she'd never gotten lost. Not once.

  Old Man Thend was exactly what his name suggested—ancient, bent, his skin like wrinkled paper. But his mind was sharp as a blade, and he'd spent decades studying the markings on the walls, developing theories about the Primordials that even Mora admitted were probably right.

  The others—Ren, Mira, Jax, Sola, Petir, Vex's-name-was-still-too-new—stood in a loose group, their faces a mix of fear and determination. They'd all failed the Rite. They'd all been told they were worthless. And now they had a chance to prove the Gilded wrong.

  "How long?" Kael asked.

  Thend shrugged. "The maps aren't precise. Weeks. Months. The tunnels shift, you see. The Aether moves them. We'll know when we get there."

  Not exactly comforting.

  Kael turned to Mora. "Thank you. For everything."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The old woman smiled. "Don't thank me yet, boy. Thank me when you've freed them all. Thank me when the Gilded are dust." She reached out and touched his cheek, her papery skin surprisingly warm. "You're something new, Kael. Something the world hasn't seen in a thousand years. Don't let them crush you before you bloom."

  She stepped back. Kael took a deep breath, nodded to his company, and led them into the darkness.

  The tunnels changed almost immediately.

  The path they'd followed to reach the Deep Home had been rough but passable—old mining tunnels, mostly, with occasional natural caverns. But this new passage was different. The walls were smooth, almost polished, as if something had worn them down over millennia. The air was cold and still, and it carried a faint scent that Kael couldn't identify—like lightning after a storm, but older.

  "The Aether is strong here," Thend murmured, running his hands over the wall. "Feel it. It's like the stone itself is alive."

  Kael could feel it. The Aether pulsed through these tunnels like blood through veins, stronger and more concentrated than anything he'd felt before. It made his skin tingle, made the spiral on his arm glow faintly even when Vex was sleeping.

  "We are close," Vex murmured. "I can feel one of my siblings. Sleeping. Dreaming."

  "How close?" Kael thought back.

  "Days. Maybe less. The tunnels are... confused here. The prison's Aether warps the space around it."

  They walked on.

  Three days into the descent, they found the singing stones.

  The tunnel had been narrowing for hours, forcing them to walk single file. Kael led, with Elara just behind him calling out directions based on her mental map. The air was thin and cold, and the only light came from Kael's hand, where he'd learned to maintain a gentle glow without exhausting himself.

  Then they heard it. A hum, so low it was more felt than heard. It vibrated in Kael's chest, in his teeth, in the spiral on his arm.

  "Stop," Vex said urgently. "Something is here."

  Kael raised his hand, signaling the others to halt. "Everyone quiet."

  The hum grew louder, resolving into multiple tones—a chord, almost, like distant music. The walls around them began to glow faintly, not with fungus but with their own inner light.

  "What is it?" Lyra whispered.

  Thend pushed past Elara, his old eyes wide with wonder. "I've read about this. The singing stones. They're supposed to be a myth—a sign that you're approaching a Primordial prison. The Aether is so concentrated that the very rocks resonate."

  Kael touched the wall. The stone was warm, and the hum intensified. For a moment, he felt something brush against his mind—not Vex, but something else. Something older. Sleepier.

  "Sister," Vex breathed. "You live."

  The hum changed, becoming a melody of aching beauty. And Kael understood, without knowing how, that they had found the second prison.