Breach
It began with the candles.
One by one, their flames extinguished within the sanctuary of the Circle—not by wind or motion, but as if the darkness itself had drawn breath and snuffed them out. Shadows spread across the stone walls like ink blooming in water, swallowing warmth and light with quiet finality.
Isabela stood at the center of the great hall, her gloved hand resting on the hilt of her blade. She didn't move. Didn't speak. But something in the marrow of her bones had shifted.
Something was wrong.
Not beyond the Circle's walls.
Inside.
She turned sharply. "Where's Cuco?"
The question cut through the silence, but no one answered.
Across the chamber, Nox was already moving. Her boots echoed in the vastness as she approached one of the arched doors. Her eyes narrowed when she saw what waited for her.
The runes inscribed along the threshold—old magic, meant to seal, to guard—had been altered.
Not broken.
Rewritten.
Slashed through with surgical precision, rearranged into something unholy. Familiar lines inverted, protections undone from the inside out.
Tariq stepped up beside her, the color draining from his face. "That's… a breach symbol," he breathed. "A reverse bind."
Nox didn't look away. "Someone opened the gate. Not fully. Just enough."
A breath. A chill. A tremor in the floor.
"Enough to let something in."
Then—behind them—a sound.
Soft. Low.
A humming.
They turned.
Lira stood in the center of the Circle. Her eyes were closed, her expression slack and strange. Both hands shimmered with a black, viscous light. She was humming an old melody, broken and eerie—a lullaby from some forgotten place.
Isa moved to step forward—but Tariq caught her wrist.
"Wait," he whispered, voice thin with fear.
Because Lira wasn't alone.
In the farthest shadows of the chamber, barely visible beyond the curve of light, a figure watched. Faceless. Motionless. Not part of the world as it was. It stood like a cutout in space itself, wrong in shape, wrong in weight.
And then—it spoke.
The words hissed through the air like ash scraping over stone.
> "They don't belong here, Lira. But you… you remember the stars."
Lira's lips curved into something not quite a smile. Haunted. Empty.
"Let them dream," she murmured. "Let them all dream."
Then she screamed.
The sound split the air like lightning.
A shockwave erupted from beneath her feet—dark energy surging outward in a blast that cracked the marble floor and threw everyone from their feet. The Circle trembled. The high ceiling groaned. Dust rained down in choking clouds.
The flame runes died.
And then—
Laughter.
Not Lira's.
From below.
From beneath the Circle.
From the Hollow Ones.
They rose from the ruptured stone like rot surfacing in water—limbs made of twisted flesh, stitched hands, too many mouths whispering lullabies in unfamiliar voices. One climbed the wall like a spider moving in slow, deliberate motion. Another spoke in the voice of someone's long-dead mother, cooing as it crawled.
The Dreamers moved fast.
Nox was already slicing through the first Hollow One with blades glowing silver. Echo stepped forward and opened his mouth—no words, just resonance—and three of the creatures collapsed instantly, black blood spilling from their ears.
Tariq dragged Isabela out of the way as a stone throne shattered beside them, crushed by falling debris.
But then—
Lira turned.
Her eyes were black voids now.
Her sigil blazed on her skin like a constellation.
She was no longer Lira.
> "The Dreamer's gate is open," she intoned.
"And the fire you buried… is waking up."
Her voice carried not just sound, but force. Another pulse of energy surged outward, shaking the Circle down to its roots.
And then—
A new presence.
From the archway, dust-covered and wild-eyed, Cuco appeared.
He was breathless, soaked in dirt, the Rootbound Tome clutched in his arms like a lifeline. His gaze swept the ruin—the shattered Circle, the Hollow Ones, the broken runes.
And Lira.
His friend.
His ally.
She looked at him—still glowing, still not herself—and smiled with something like sorrow.
Then she whispered, as the ground cracked again beneath her feet:
> "You're too late."