"You chipped it again."
Erion's voice wasn't angry—just disappointed in that calm, terrifying way only masters could perfect.
Kael squinted at the carved edge, then at his chisel, then back again. "It's not chipped. It's… naturally distressed. Authentic, even."
"Authentic? This is a ceremonial basin, not a war relic," Erion said, wiping soot from his hands. "Distressed stone says, 'I had no idea what I was doing, but at least I tried.'"
Kael grinned. "Which is honest, if nothing else."
Erion shook his head, though the corner of his mouth betrayed amusement. "You're seventeen and already making excuses like a tired politician."
Kael returned to the piece, softer now, letting the chisel glide. He liked the work. The rhythm. The way stone yielded if you treated it like something with a soul.
"So," he said after a pause, "are we really going?"
"We are."
"To the temple?"
"To the temple."
Kael looked up. "Why now?"
Erion leaned back on the old bench, the leather of his apron creaking. "Because for the first time in twenty years, the sands uncovered the mouth of it. Just a whisper of stone between the dunes. And someone else will get there soon enough."
"You think there's still something inside?"
Erion's eyes darkened slightly—not in fear, but in memory. "I don't think, Kael. I know."
Kael set down his tools. The air felt still all of a sudden.
"You've been there before."
A long silence.
"I left something behind."
-
The temple didn't rise from the desert. It sank into it.
Low and wide, like the earth had yawned and never quite closed its mouth.
Kael adjusted his scarf against the wind, sand clinging to every seam in his tunic. "I thought temples were supposed to be majestic. Grand. Lots of columns. Statues. You know—temple-y."
Erion chuckled as he unrolled the faded parchment map. "This one's older than the word temple. Back when people built down instead of up. When they were still afraid of what watched the sky."
Kael didn't reply. He didn't have to.
He felt it—the pressure in the air, like the silence before a scream.
They reached the edge of the sunken steps. Stone blackened by time and heat led down into shadow. Erion passed him a torch, which flared softly with blue light.
"Stay close. Don't touch anything carved."
Kael smirked. "You say that like it's the first time I've broken sacred rules."
Erion's look was flat. "Last time you touched a carving, it nearly bit you."
"One time."
They descended in silence, save for the crunch of sand beneath their boots and the occasional, echoing drip of water from somewhere impossibly far below.
But about halfway down, Kael stopped.
Erion turned. "What is it?"
He held up his hand. His torch flickered—not just from wind, but resistance, like the flame itself hesitated to burn. Kael turned slowly toward the side wall. Scratches. Recent ones. Someone had passed through.
Not long ago.
"Master…"
"I see it," Erion said.
And then, from deeper in the dark: a faint metallic rattle.
Chains.
And breathing.
Not theirs.
The chains weren't just lying there.
They moved.
Kael barely had time to shout before a shape lunged from the dark—massive, hunched, with skin like cracked marble and eyes glowing faintly blue.
"RUN!" Erion roared, grabbing Kael by the collar.
They bolted down the spiraling stairs, the creature's roar booming like a collapsing cliff behind them. The torchlight jerked wildly as Kael sprinted, legs burning, heart hammering like a smith's forge.
"I thought you said nothing would be alive down here!"
"I said nothing should be!" Erion snapped, diving through a broken archway.
The giant charged after them, its steps shaking dust loose from the ceiling. It was too big to be alive. Too wrong in how it moved—like it had forgotten how bodies were supposed to work.
Kael ducked under a low-hanging beam just in time. "Please tell me we're not just running in circles."
"We're not," Erion said grimly. "We're heading to the central vault."
"Where the ancient secrets lie?"
"No. Where the doors are thicker."
They twisted down another corridor, lit only by the sputtering torch and the glow of old runes half-dead along the walls. Behind them, the giant scraped through stone, groaning with every movement like it hurt to exist.
Kael risked a glance back. "That thing—what is it?"
Erion's voice was low now. "A Whisperbound. One who heard too much… and forgot who he was."
Kael didn't have a reply to that.
They turned a final corner—and there it was. A set of towering stone doors covered in silver script, flaking and old but humming with power.
The doors groaned. The mechanism clicked.
The creature howled.
And Kael, with one last look behind, saw its face—blank, mouth sewn shut with iron thread.
The vault doors boomed shut behind them, sealing with a hiss like the room exhaled after holding its breath for centuries.
Kael landed hard on the cold stone floor, gasping. Every bone in his body trembled with leftover fear. But Erion—Erion didn't collapse.
He stood.
Straight-backed. Eyes sharp. Quiet.
Kael rolled to his side, coughing. "That… that thing—you called it Whisperbound? What does that mean?"
Erion didn't answer.
Not yet.
Instead, he stepped forward, toward the wall where ancient inscriptions shimmered like veins of silver beneath thin dust. He raised his hand—and as the torchlight caught his arm, Kael saw it. The strange markings, like roots, etched into his skin.
Kael blinked, struggling to his feet. "Erion… your arm…"
"I hoped it wouldn't come to this," Erion said softly. "But the temple's awake now. It remembers."
He moved with purpose, fingers tracing the script on the wall. Words Kael didn't recognize responded to his touch, glowing faintly. Like they knew him.
"Erion?" Kael said again, voice low, uncertain. "What are you doing? What is this place?"
At that, Erion turned—and Kael's stomach dropped.
Because this wasn't the man who fixed cracked hinges and etched charms into blades. His eyes were clearer now, brighter, too full of knowing.
"I am not who you think I am," Erion said. "I am the last of the Whispering Bloodline. And this place—this temple—was ours."
Kael stumbled back. "What do you mean ours?"
A deep shudder rippled through the stone—dust fell from the ceiling like snow. A guttural screech echoed from the other side of the vault door.
Erion didn't flinch.
"You know the stories. About the ones who could hear the Voice Beneath the World. The ones who listened too closely."
"The Whisperers," Kael murmured.
Erion nodded. "My ancestors built this temple. To contain what they'd heard… and those it had changed."
Kael's voice cracked. "And you never told me?"
Erion turned toward the door, drawing something from his belt. Not a blade. Not quite. A shard of crystal etched with the same silver runes. "Would you have believed me? Would you have followed me down here?"
"I thought I was your apprentice."
"You are."
Erion's voice was steady now, low but firm.
"But you're also something more. That's why I brought you here."
The wall behind them trembled again—cracks forming. A fist the size of a barrel slammed through the stone, fingers twitching and bleeding dust.
Erion stepped forward, calm, as if meeting an old friend.
"Stay back, Kael."
"Wait—what are you doing?"
"I'm going to remind him who he was," Erion said softly. "And buy you time."
Kael froze. "You can't—"
But it was already too late.
The wall exploded inward, and the Whisperbound surged forward with a sound like thunder and grief—
And Erion met it head-on, glowing blade raised, eyes lit with old, dangerous memory..
"Your name was Dhoren," he said. Calm. Sad. "You carved the foundation stones. You sang the Hall of Sighs into shape."
The Whisperbound hesitated.
Its limbs twitched.
"You were my ancestor," Erion whispered, lowering the blade slightly. "You were a Whisperer, not a monster."
It shrieked—louder this time. Conflicted. Splintered.
Then it charged.
Kael shouted something—he didn't even know what—but Erion didn't flinch. He raised the blade high, silver lightning arcing across its edge, and plunged forward to meet the monster's strike.
For one moment—
One breath—
It was light against shadow. Memory against madness.
And then—
Crunch.
The blade struck true—but not deep enough.
The creature's arms wrapped around Erion in a crushing embrace, dragging him into the dark maw, iron-threaded teeth closing fast. He fought. Gods, he fought. Kael saw the blade flash again, heard the crackle of power—
And then it was gone.
Blade. Light. Master.
Gone.
The Whisperbound slumped, shuddered… and rose taller, as if consuming Erion had fed it something more than flesh.
Kael stumbled back, horror clawing through him.
Erion's voice echoed faintly—words burned into Kael's skull like a brand.
"You are more than you know, Kael. When the temple speaks, listen. When it sings, answer."
And then—
Silence.
Just the crunch of bones and the sound of something unliving remembering what hunger feels like.
Kael turned and ran.
Kael didn't get far.
A shadow caught him, slammed him sideways into the wall with bone-cracking force. The world tilted. His vision swam.
Another strike—his ribs buckled.
The Whisperbound was on him.
It didn't roar now. It didn't shriek.
It watched, head tilted like it recognized something in the way Kael screamed.
Then came the fist.
A blow like a landslide, smashing into his side and flinging him across the chamber like a broken tool. He skidded over jagged stone, coughing blood. One leg bent the wrong way. His arms twitched, limp and useless.
And still, the beast advanced—slow, deliberate.
Kael tried to move. Just once. Just enough.
But his body refused.
He coughed again. Red mist sprayed across the floor, and something inside him gave.
This is it, he thought, oddly calm. This is how I die. Forgotten. Alone.
Another step. The Whisperbound raised a foot, shadow falling across Kael's battered form.
Then—
Drip.
A single drop of blood rolled from Kael's cracked lip, trailing down his jaw…
…falling…
…landing.
The droplet struck the stone pedestal beside him—an ancient, rune-carved slab almost buried in dust, overlooked in the chaos. The moment blood touched it—
BOOM.
The room sang.
Runes flared to life in molten gold, dancing like fireflies. The pedestal trembled. Energy rippled outward like a wave, passing through Kael, through the Whisperbound—through everything.
The creature staggered back, hissing, its body contorting as light seared its flesh. It howled in agony and confusion, smoke rising from the scars across its body.
Kael's body rose—limp, weightless—drawn into the light. His blood shimmered, suspended like a mist in the air around him.
The artifact had drunk it.
And it remembered something.
A name.
A song.
A lineage.
Stone shifted. The pedestal cracked open, revealing a chamber beneath—light spilling from it like dawn through a broken roof. Kael fell into it, vanishing in a heartbeat.
The Whisperbound lunged after him—
Too slow.
The light vanished. The pedestal sealed.
Silence returned.
Except beneath it… somewhere far below the temple… a heart had begun to beat again.
-