“Vanded Blazegrip is preparing a gift for me?” Veralyth asked.

  “Yes,” Gard replied after a brief hesitation. His tone came out slower than he intended, and he couldn’t entirely hide the resignation.

  “…Why?” Her eyes narrowed. “Does he know who I am?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.” Gard lifted his hands. “Rather, from his words, I think he is hoping the gesture might convince you to lend your aid to our Chapter against the Concord.”

  Her brow arched. “He wants to bribe me?”

  Gard opened his mouth to defend the man, then stopped. A quiet exhale left him. “I wouldn’t call it a bribe,” he finally said. “More… a goodwill offering. He knows we may soon need your strength, and he’d prefer to earn it without bartering away the Chapter’s integrity.”

  Veralyth regarded him in silence for several seconds, the emberlights casting dancing shadows over her currently disguised hair. “Where is he getting this ‘gift?’”

  “From the vault.”

  A flicker of surprise touched her voice. “The Marrowvault?”

  “Technically not.” Gard motioned lightly to the floor. “Hollowstone Table has… its own vault. It extends deep below the Chapter, similar to the Marrowvault, but it is in fact separate. I’m not sure how long he intends to be down there.”

  “Huh.” Her gaze drifted down, observing the floorboards as if she could see straight through them into the depths beneath. For all Gard knew, perhaps she could. “I didn’t know there was anything like that.”

  “It’s a secret known only to the Chapter-Master and myself,” he said carefully. “Though as a Kindled Mantle of the Table, you are entitled to know of its existence as well.”

  He had heard that Veralyth Mournvale was a high-ranking member across nearly all of the Chapter, but it wasn’t until after meeting her in person that he had taken the time that morning to verify her record in Hollowstone Table. She was one of four still living who held the mantle’s title at the Chapter.

  His eyes moved to the small girl standing at her side. “…With that said, I would ask that your daughter keep this between us.”

  “She will,” Veralyth said. “Right, Serel? We won’t talk about this outside this room.”

  The girl nodded earnestly. “Mmm! I’ll be quiet.” She raised a hand and dragged her thumb and index finger across her lips in a strange pulling motion.

  For some reason, that had the woman simply staring down at her. “…Serel, did you just zip your lips?”

  Serel blinked. “Zip? What’s that, Mommy?”

  Veralyth’s brow furrowed, and she crouched to meet her eyes. “Where did you learn that gesture?”

  The child tilted her head, face scrunching in exaggerated—and treacherously disarming—thought.

  “You did it, Mommy!” Serel said after a couple of seconds.

  Veralyth’s expression grew hard to read. Gard watched, confused at the exchange, though something about the look on the woman’s face told him the moment had struck deeper than it appeared. Eventually, she shook her head and rose, giving her daughter’s hair a light pat—to Serel’s mild protest.

  “Mommy, don’t ruin it!”

  “I’d recommend you skip that particular gesture from now on, kiddo. Not many people would understand what it means.” Veralyth paused, then smiled faintly. “You can do it in front of Caldrin, though. Just don’t tell him what it means.”

  “Okay…” Serel murmured, tugging her mother’s hand free and smoothing her black locks.

  Veralyth turned back to Gard, the trace of amusement leaving her features. “You really don’t know how long Vanded will be gone?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Given your situation, wouldn’t you call that a little irresponsible of him? Leaving his people now?”

  Gard rubbed a hand across his temple, feeling the pulse of the headache he’d been battling the entire day. “Under ordinary circumstances, yes. But despite his… temperament, the Chapter-Master knows when to act and when to wait. He must have judged we’re safe from open attack until his return—and I’m inclined to agree.” He hesitated, fingers tapping once against his sleeve. “Also… I suspect the gift isn’t his only reason for going below.”

  “No?” A trace of interest showed in Veralyth’s eyes. “Then what else is he doing down there?”

  “I couldn’t say. I haven’t actually entered the vault myself. Each Chapter-Master keeps its secrets close. But he’s not one to rest all his intentions on a single whim.”

  “…You sure?” Her voice thinned. “The Vanded Blazegrip I remember wasn’t exactly famous for his restraint.”

  Gard’s mouth twitched. “I’m confident he’s being slightly less reckless than usual given the situation,” he said.

  And he did hope he was correct.

  “Hahahah! Is that all you’ve got!?”

  Vanded’s voice thundered through the bone halls as his fist came down in a blur of dark light. The impact cracked the air, sending dust and marrow fragments cascading from the vault ceiling. The Splitjaw Cryptling beneath him barely managed a shriek before his blow crushed it flat against the shale.

  A second creature lunged from the gloom, its twin jaws unhinging in mirrored halves, scream echoing against the walls. He pivoted—armor plates whispering under his storm-gray coat—and his second strike came before the first had even finished its follow-through.

  Redoubled Grasp.

  A mirrored echo burst from his knuckles half a heartbeat later, rebounding from stone to cleave the Cryptling’s spine backward into itself.

  Ash bones rattled across the floor. The air stank of rusted iron and old decay.

  Shifting Frame.

  His outline flickered, body blurring one pace to the side as a Veil-Tethered Phage tore free from a fissure in the wall. Its tendrils lashed toward his shadow. His palm flared with glyphlight.

  Mark of Hollow Binding.

  The creature froze, its own silhouette pinned screaming to the ground until Vanded’s gauntleted fist ended the unspoken argument.

  Silence descended, broken only by the faint crackle of spent Resonance crawling through.

  Vanded exhaled through a grin, rolling his shoulders until the joints in his sigilplate popped. “Hah. Guess the bastards have been piling up down here. Should’ve come earlier and cleaned house.”

  The floor shifted beneath his boots. A thin crack webbed across the wall to his right. He turned just as a Hollowed Mirekin slid out of the crack, its face rippling as it parroted his voice perfectly.

  “Should’ve come earlier.”

  “None of that,” he said.

  The wall exploded as his elbow slammed through it. Shale and stone sprayed outward. When the dust settled, the Mirekin’s half-crushed body hung embedded in the debris, still trying to mouth his own laughter.

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  Chunks of ceiling shale tumbled down in protest, the chamber groaning as if deciding whether to collapse. Vanded brushed the dust from his shoulder and glanced up. “Bah. Bit much on that one, I guess,” he muttered, waiting a moment to see if the ceiling would bother burying him.

  It didn’t.

  That was a good thing, of course. Though part of him was disappointed. He wouldn’t have minded reenacting Olric the Black’s legendary ‘Buried Helm’ escape, just to see if it really worked.

  Cracking his neck—three times each way, for good measure—he slammed his gauntlets together once and started deeper into the tunnel, ignoring the dying Mirekin. The light from his chestplate’s sigils stretched long against the walls, painting the way forward in dim amber.

  The deeper one went here, the cooler the air was. Hints of thin, metallic whispering always seemed to drift through it, like one could hear breathing through the marrow.

  A voice drifted from the far dark ahead.

  Vanded paused mid-step, head cocking. For a moment, he braced himself to put down another Mirekin, but then his grin returned, sharp and wolfish. “Haha! I was starting to wonder if you’d finally gone to dust. Come now, don’t play shy all day. Get out here.”

  The shadows stirred. Veins of pale silver and gray bled from the walls, coalescing into a figure half-formed from light and bone fragments like memory congealing into flesh. Chains hung from its limbs, along with tattered sigilcloth that fluttered without wind. Where its face should have been was only a hollow of light.

  “Blazegrip,” it said, voice low as grinding stone. “I had wished you weren’t still around.”

  Vanded barked a laugh. “And miss your lovely company? Not a chance. I’m younger than you by a few funerals yet. You’ll be going first, old friend.”

  “You mock as ever,” the specter rumbled, turning as though to drift back into the gloom.

  Vanded caught up in three long strides, his boots ringing against the stone. “Come, don’t sulk. I’ve business below, and your miserable expression’s half the atmosphere of this place.”

  With a couple more strides, he’d moved past it. Chains rasped. Reluctantly, the specter stirred into motion, drifting up alongside him to eerily match its pace to his.

  “You made promises,” it said. “The vault was to be left undisturbed.”

  “Mostly undisturbed,” he corrected. “You’ve never minded when I clear out a few stragglers before. And don’t worry, I’m only here for a little something. A gift.”

  “…A relic?”

  “Not quite.” He grinned sidelong. “It’s been about… fourteen years now, I think? Seems about time for another of those Wicks to have bloomed.”

  The specter’s head turned, darkness sharpening. “There is only one. Barely formed since you took the last.”

  “Hoh? Perfect timing, then.” He clapped his hands once. “I knew the vault liked me.”

  Its voice deepened. “You would steal from the bones again? And for what this time?”

  “Same as last time. It’s for a child.”

  The chains clattered. “A child will have no use for it.”

  “Wrong.” Vanded vaulted a shallow crevice littered with shattered remnants and landed with a crack. “My daughter loved it. Said it kept her favorite day in a bottle.” He flexed his hand, opening and closing his gauntlet. “A diary you don’t have to write. Who wouldn’t want that?”

  A wistful smile tugged at his mouth, old memories surfacing.

  “Such sentimental waste,” the specter murmured. Its glow flared, threads of sigilcloth rising like hackles.

  Before more words could follow, the vault itself stirred. From a side corridor came a sudden clatter and the scrape of bone-iron limbs striking sparks as something lurched toward them.

  Vanded sighed as his hands moved to catch the Ash-Harvester Drone’s bladed arms.

  Just as he was starting to get sentimental.

  He stepped forward, flame crawling up his forearms.

  Emberchain Grip.

  The Second Seal Form surged, the fire coiling into chains that wrapped the creature in burning links. It shrieked in fragmented tongues as its limbs twisted and buckled beneath the heat. Vanded drew both arms wide, tearing the thing apart.

  What remained collapsed and smoldered in a bloom of orange cinders.

  He brushed stray sparks from his coat. “There we go. Quick and tidy. I don’t see why you’re always so grim and moody about it when I do your housework.”

  The specter stared. “You treat desecration as jest.”

  He frowned. “I’ve nothing but respect for the dead. These are not them. You’d do well not to let them fester.”

  His companion didn’t bother replying.

  A shame. He rather liked their talks.

  They moved on, descending deeper into the ageless vault that had slumbered beneath Hollowstone Table since the Chapter’s founding. Vanded walked by memory through chambers and tunnels, passing the remains of creatures the size of houses and cutting down the occasional straggler that crawled from the cracks.

  The walls grew darker. Faint veins of Resonance pulsed through the bone strata as the air thickened with power. The ever-present stale scent changed, mixing with ozone, melted marrow, and something faintly sweet.

  He angled down a narrowing path, the atmosphere growing heavier, more charged. Soon he stepped into a cavern where the haze shimmered like heat. Pale veins of light ran through the walls, gathering in shallow pools across the uneven shale.

  At its center lay a colossal ossified carcass, ribs arched high as towers. It had been there longer than the Chapter itself, its origin long forgotten, though every Chapter-Master made certain the next knew of the relics and secrets kept in this vault.

  From the cavity in its chest, dwarfed by its ribs yet glowing like a living pulse, jutted a slender growth upon a spur of bone—a candle-thin stalk of pale light.

  The Wick of the Quiet Wake.

  Vanded’s grin was back, soft and almost fond. “There you are. You’ve grown up, haven’t you?”

  Mark of the Fractured Veilguard.

  He stepped into the haze. The ground hissed beneath his boots as corrosion bit into armor and skin. Behind him, mirrored silhouettes flared into being, only to dissolve into ashen husks before they could follow, bearing his damage. Even still, veins of dull color spread across his armor and up his neck, creeping upward to stain his jaw.

  “Blazegrip,” the specter began.

  He ignored it, pressing on through the haze toward the center. The corrosion gnawed at him harder with every step.

  Vanded stopped before the bone outcropping where the Wick grew, looking down at it. He reached out. The pale light slid over his gauntlet, sigilplate groaning and the flesh beneath it blanching as color itself drained from his hand. A strange steam rose from the join at his wrist.

  He gripped the stalk and tore it free with a twist, lifting it high as its glow steadied into a slower rhythm.

  Flakes of lifeless metal drifted away from his gauntlet. He eyed the damage and chuckled. “Still stings the same. Worse back then, though. What do you think about this old man’s growth, eh, Witness?”

  The specter’s voice quivered with restrained anger. “You risk your life for a trinket that is not yours to take.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a miser.” He wrapped the Wick in sigiled cloth and disappeared it into his Vaultring. “All that walking here should amount to something, or what would it have been for?”

  He started back toward the tunnel. Once he was clear of the cavern, the corrosion eased. He downed an Echophial and an Emberphial to dull the pain and restore his Resonance. Color slowly bled back into his armor.

  “You have what you came for,” the specter said. “Leave. I have no wish to see you longer.”

  “Hmm. I suppose I should.” Vanded looked at it, then glanced toward the deeper tunnels. “Though… since I’m here, I might as well take a look further down. Haven’t checked the old bones in a while.”

  The specter stiffened. “The lower vaults are not yours to walk freely. Promises were made—”

  “Ah, there you go again. Always brooding with old, inflexible oaths. If Thane Embermaw had stopped to recount promises all the time, he’d never have cracked the Emberbound’s Gate.” He waved a hand dismissively, brushing the edge of a hanging chain. “What’s a promise between friends?”

  He strode onward, and though he heard the low mutterings trailing behind him, he was sure it wasn’t as angry as it pretended to be.

  The poor fellow had to get lonely down here.

  “Tell me,” he said after they’d walked for a while, “noticed anything strange lately? Disturbances? Movements in the marrow? Odd tremors in the Resonance?”

  The specter was silent for a long moment before answering. “Yes. The marrow has grown restless. Resonance veers off course. Something shifts below, outside the vault.”

  “Is that so?” Vanded’s eyes narrowed. “So that lady’s the real deal after all.”

  “That lady? Who are you referring to?”

  “Hmm. Well, not quite sure on that front yet,” he said, tone lightening. “Haven’t met her. But she’s an impressive one, from what I’ve heard.”

  A Tenth Binding woman of House Hollow he didn’t know… There weren’t many of that level around. At one time or another he’d fought beside most of them, and he couldn’t think of a single one who was both a Channeler and had a kid. None that made much sense, anyway.

  He was excited to meet her face to face.

  The deeper they pressed into the vault, the more the tunnels narrowed, growing jagged and cold. Their lines became lined with shards of bone that caught the faint light like frost, and dust glittered in his wake, stirred by each heavy step.

  The specter dimmed, but it kept pace. “Why do you walk this deep, Blazegrip? Are you here for the Heart? Even if it is you, you will not have it. I have sworn.”

  Vanded gave a short, indifferent grunt. “Not here for it. Just wandering.”

  “Liar,” it hissed, sharpening. “…The gift. That was an excuse. What are your true intentions?”

  He didn’t answer.

  The passage suddenly widened into a vast chamber, hollowed from black shale and ringed by the fossilized ribs of something too large to name. At its heart stood a dais of bone and stone, bound in sigil-carved chains.

  Or rather, should have stood.

  The chains hung slack. The pedestal was empty.

  The specter froze. “No… How…?”

  Vanded stepped forward, gaze sweeping across the bare platform. The heavy pressure that had filled this place ever since its sealing a decade ago was gone.

  He had been afraid of this.

  The specter trembled, chains clinking like teeth. “Impossible. The heart cannot move. I would have known. It was sealed by—”

  “Then someone unsealed it.” Vanded turned back, expression hard. His gaze lifted upward. “And I think I know who we’re dealing with up there.”

  His fists clenched, metal creaking under the strain.

  He had truly hoped his fears would prove unfounded. If they had, he would have marched on the Pale Hall tonight with his Chapter at his back, thrown every last Concord member into the street, and found his friend—alive or dead—to set this city right himself.

  But now…

  Even if that other woman agreed to lend her aid, he couldn’t say for certain that even two Tenth Bindings would be enough to stop what was lurking within Marrowfen.