The Silver Vein was nothing like Elias expected. The map Caedia uncovered made it seem like a simple detour through forgotten tunnels but the reality was a monstrous labyrinth of living metal, pulsing softly under the stone like veins beneath skin.Every surface shimmered faintly, casting ghost-white reflections across their faces as they stepped in. Seren stared upward, her hand tightening nervously around Elias’s.“Okay… this place feels like it’s breathing.” Elias nodded slowly. “Because it is.”Sylare, still pale but stronger than before, swallowed hard. “You mean literally?”Caedia touched the wall with her fingertips. The metal surface rippled faintly at her touch like water, or like flesh. “The Silver Vein was once the Bonekeepers’ primary energy artery.It carried resonance through the deep tunnels. It still retains fragments of that power.” Seren made a face. “Yes, great. Fantastic. A giant glowing tunnel with a heartbeat. Love that for us.”Elias smirked faintly. “You’re sca

The stone corridor tightened into a narrow throat of carved bone, each wall pulsing faintly like it remembered the living creatures it once belonged to.Elias led the way, but his breathing was tight, uneven. His resonance was unstable glowing through his skin in flickers he couldn’t hide anymore.Seren kept close behind him, her voice soft but steady. “Elias… you’re humming again.”“I know.” His jaw clenched. “I can’t stop it.”Caedia moved last, her bone-staff tapping softly against the ground. “You’re nearing your threshold. If you reach it before we find Lyra.”Elias cut in sharply. “I won’t break.”Caedia’s blind eyes glowed dimly. “You say that with your mouth, not with your marrow.”Seren stepped beside Elias, touching his arm. “We’re almost there. Just breathe a little slower, okay?” He tried. But the bone-song inside him only grew louder. Every throb felt like a countdown.The corridor ended in a circular chamber marked with seven bone sigils, each glowing a sickly emerald gr

The ascent tunnel opened into a chamber so vast Elias could feel the air shift before he saw it. A pale glow bled from every rib-like arch overhead, casting warped shadows across the walls.The room wasn’t just large it was alive with resonance, vibrating like a heartbeat beneath stone. Seren stepped in behind him and froze. “Elias… this place is humming.”“It’s not the room,” Caedia said quietly. “It’s the altar.”Sylare’s breath hitched. “Is that… where they meant to take me?”“No,” Caedia murmured. “This altar is older than the Alchemists. Much older. This belonged to the First Bonekeepers.”Seren tugged Elias’s sleeve. “So why does it feel… wrong?”Elias’s bones answered for him, the Echo shuddering beneath his ribs. “Because it’s active.”At the center of the room stood a towering circular platform of fused skeletal remains spines wrapped around spines, ribs twisted like crowns. Blue veins of old marrow pulsed through the structure.Seren grimaced. “That’s not an altar. That’s a

The palace undercorridors shook as another distant explosion rolled through the stone. Dust drifted from the ceiling like falling ash.Elias pressed his back to a pillar, pulling Seren close as a pair of armored palace sentinels marched past dark armor, alchemical sigils burning along their gauntlets.Seren whispered, “That was too close.”Elias nodded. “They’re sweeping the lower levels. They know someone’s down here.”Caedia crouched beside a cracked wall, tracing her hand along the bone veins beneath the marble.“They’re not searching for someone. They’re searching for you, Elias. The palace feels your Echo like a tremor.”Seren grabbed his arm. “Then we move fast. Lyra’s somewhere above us. Maybe the old council chamber, maybe.”Elias shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t be in a place that public. They’d hide her somewhere where screams won’t echo.”Seren swallowed hard. “So… the vault floors.”Caedia’s blind eyes flickered faintly. “Yes. Below the ritual hall.”Elias’s jaw tightened

The storm over the Bonekeeper citadel cracked open with a scream of fractured lightning, illuminating the ruins below in split-second flashes of white.Elias stood on the balcony overlooking the shattered courtyard, hands gripping the railing so tightly the stone groaned. Seren approached him quietly. “You heard Caedia.”“I heard her,” Elias said, voice low. “I just don’t accept it.”Seren stepped beside him. “You can’t face a Heartbound Circle alone.”“I wasn’t planning to.” Elias’ jaw tightened. “But Caedia thinks my Echo won’t hold through the Binding.”Seren frowned. “Will it?”“Yes.” He said it too fast, too sharp. Seren raised an eyebrow. “You know lying to me has never worked.”Elias finally exhaled. “My Echo… it’s changing.”“Changing how?” He opened his hand. A pale resonance flickered beneath his skin gentle at first, then pulsing violently, cracking the air around his palm like distorted light.Seren flinched. “That’s… new.”“It started after the Remnant horde,” Elias said.