The diagram laid out a schematic for spiritual larceny. *Chamber of Siphoning, Beneath Ost-Kamen.* I traced the crude strokes, the central dais, the sluices cut to bleed one life into another, and gripped the parchment tight. This wasn't a sanctuary. It was an extraction rig. And rigs could be rerouted.
Then the rock groaned—a hollow, grinding shear deep in the load-bearing strata beneath our feet. Dust showered from the vaulted ceiling of the archive, and the oil lamps swayed wildly, casting monstrous, dancing shadows.
“Zosia!” Pike’s voice, raw with urgency, ripped through the chaos. He burst through the archive doors, his face smudged with soot, a short-bladed axe clutched in one hand. “They’re in! Shock troops, by the gods! Breach on the North Wall, right where that old supply tunnel was sealed.” His eyes, usually glinting with mischief, were wide with genuine alarm. “They knew exactly where to hit. Borin’s nephew must’ve spilled every secret.”
The roar of distant fighting reached us, punctuated by the metallic clang of steel on stone, too close for comfort. This wasn’t some skirmish. This was an invasion of the very heart of Kaskovia’s resistance.
“Marek?” I asked, my voice thin against the din.
“Leading the counter-attack on the main breach,” Pike barked, already pulling me towards a hidden service stairwell I hadn’t noticed before. “Fighting like a demon. But we’ve got to move. This whole place is a trap now. Where’s that thing you found?”
I gripped the journal, its brittle pages threatening to tear. “Below. Deep below. The lower conduits.”
“Conduits for what?” Pike grunted, half-dragging me down the spiraling stone steps, the air growing colder and denser with each turn. “Hope it buys us leverage, because we just ran out of time.”
The stairwell opened into a labyrinth of rough-hewn tunnels, smelling of damp earth and mineral deposits. The rumble in the stone floor thudded straight through my boots, steady and rhythmic. I navigated by the faded diagram etched in my memory, pointing Pike left, then right, deeper into the earth’s maw.
“This way, it’s closer to the geothermal vents,” I muttered, my mind racing. The journal hadn't just mentioned the rot; it detailed the volcanic vents below the fortress, thermal pressure harnessed to feed the initial mist-weaving. An idea, wild and dangerous, sparked to life.
A flicker of movement broke ahead. A figure stepped clear of the damp masonry, blocking the passage. Not a Voryan raider, but Senior Sentry Vlasov, a veteran from the outer curtain. He held a heavy crossbow, spanning lever locked and steel quarrel leveled at my chest.
“Vlasov?” Pike spat, stepping half an inch ahead of me. “What the hell are you doing with that cranked?”
Vlasov’s face, usually impassive, was now alight with a fanatic’s zeal. His eyes, typically dull, held a strange, feverish gleam. “The new dawn breaks, Scout. The old gods wither. The Mist-Lord claims his due.” He lowered the crossbow slightly, a sneer twisting his lips. “The true saintess will rise, not some blasphemous puppet.”
*A cultist.* It clicked into place with sickening clarity. Rurik wasn’t the only one compromised. The invaders had burrowed deeper than we’d imagined.
“Get out of here, Zosia!” Pike shoved me violently forward, drawing his axe. “Go! I’ll handle this faithless dog!”
Vlasov fired. The bolt whizzed past my ear, embedding itself with a sickening thud in the stone where my head had been moments before. Pike, a blur of motion, met Vlasov’s charge, axe clashing against crossbow stock. Pike was quicker on his feet, but the turncoat threw his full bulk into every swing. I saw Pike go down under a brutal, unexpected kick, but he sprang back up, a feral grin on his face. “Run, you idiot! I’ve been waiting to clear my name with more than just words!”
His voice, laced with a familiar bravado, was the last thing I heard as I scrambled deeper into the tunnels, abandoning my only companion. The guilt was a stone in my gut, but Pike’s sacrifice would be meaningless if I didn’t push on.
The passage terminated in a vaulted hollow, sulfur vapors jetting from jagged fissures in the floor. In the center, matching the schematics, sat the extraction array: an elevated round dais of polished obsidian, bordered by rune-cut drainage trenches. Sluice lines snaked from the rim straight into the abyss walls toward the volcanic flues. A cluster of iron control toggles projected from a stone plinth near the perimeter.
My fingers, already tinged with the black tracery of the Echo Rot, trembled as I touched the cold stone.
A freezing draft cut straight through the sulfur stench. The air grew heavy, like static before a storm. I spun, the journal clutched to my chest.
Standing on the raised floor, veiled by the curling vapors, was a man in dark, heavy wool, his face shrouded under a cowl. The Voryan sorcerer. The lantern light grew thin around his boots. He raised a hand, and the mist around him swirled into dark, grasping tendrils. “So, the false saintess finally shows her true colors,” he hissed, his voice like grinding stones. “You sought to hide the truth of the Mist-Lord, to deny his rightful claim. But the Echo will not be silenced. It hungers for power, and I am here to claim it.”
He assumed I had come to transfer the blight to an innocent to save my hide. He wanted the raw reservoir that fueled the fog. Stepping forward, the cowl fell back just enough to bare yellowed teeth as his fingers reached toward the central ring.
But I wasn't just some vessel. I was Zosia va Kost. And I had a different plan.
With a surge of desperate strength, I lunged for the control panel, my Echo Rot-afflicted fingers tearing at the levers. The sorcerer stiffened, shock cracking his composure. He didn't understand. He thought I would fight him, or beg. He didn't expect this.
My hand closed around the largest lever, scarred with age. With a grunt, I threw it down. Iron gears shrieked against subterranean granite. The runes on the platform flared, not with the sickly green glow of the Echo Rot, but with a searing, pure white light. The geothermal vents around us roared, expelling superheated steam in violent bursts. The runic trenches hissed as superheated fluid surged through the stone beneath us.
The black veins in my forearm pulsed white-hot, but instead of letting the rot eat inward, I leaned into the circuit, forcing the thermal surge into the necrotic pathways. The mist, always a passive presence, began to surge, not just around us, but throughout the entire fortress. It thickened, coalesced, became a living, breathing entity.
I met the sorcerer’s horrified gaze, a manic, triumphant laugh bubbling up from my chest. My voice cracked against the steam and iron. “You want an echo? I’ll give you a goddamn symphony!”
The entire fortress began to shake apart.