I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
The flames close behind her, and the cold of the Hollowed Grounds settles in Zairah’s bones like an echo. Dantalion’s presence fades with his last words, and she stands for a moment beneath the broad shadow of the temple.
The door groans open at her push, heavier than it looks. Inside, the temperature is steadier, warmer. Flickering firelight greets her in the entry hall. The inside of the temple is just as grand and tall, made with straight lines and sharp corners, built for function. Her steps fall soft against the old stone, whereupon — unrealized by her — many others have come and gone before.
She walks, or wanders, without direction. The temple smells of dust and cold stone, with the faintest bite of iron beneath it all. Once, maybe, it was louder: with crowds, sermons, rituals. Now, it’s quiet.
She finds the shrine by accident, or fate. Tucked into a broad alcove somewhere, it doesn’t call to her so much as stand waiting, unmoved. The obsidian slab looms tall and black, its surface slick with age on one side and shattered raw on the other. A strange symmetry. The edges gleam faintly, cracked and razor-sharp. The rest of the alcove is spare; no silk banners or polished pews, just stone and flame and the quiet red stain of prayers painted with fingers and blood.
Zairah stops in front of it and says nothing.
She doesn’t kneel. Doesn’t touch. Just watches. Breath soft. Spine straight. A thing drawn and pulled, but not yet claimed. Not yet undone.
It’s hard to tell what she feels. Awe, maybe. Fear, maybe. Or something simpler—a tension beneath her skin, an old wire strung taut, beginning now to hum.
She lingers, long enough for the silence to take shape around her, until footsteps or voices or the warmth of someone else might find her.
The door groans open at her push, heavier than it looks. Inside, the temperature is steadier, warmer. Flickering firelight greets her in the entry hall. The inside of the temple is just as grand and tall, made with straight lines and sharp corners, built for function. Her steps fall soft against the old stone, whereupon — unrealized by her — many others have come and gone before.
She walks, or wanders, without direction. The temple smells of dust and cold stone, with the faintest bite of iron beneath it all. Once, maybe, it was louder: with crowds, sermons, rituals. Now, it’s quiet.
She finds the shrine by accident, or fate. Tucked into a broad alcove somewhere, it doesn’t call to her so much as stand waiting, unmoved. The obsidian slab looms tall and black, its surface slick with age on one side and shattered raw on the other. A strange symmetry. The edges gleam faintly, cracked and razor-sharp. The rest of the alcove is spare; no silk banners or polished pews, just stone and flame and the quiet red stain of prayers painted with fingers and blood.
Zairah stops in front of it and says nothing.
She doesn’t kneel. Doesn’t touch. Just watches. Breath soft. Spine straight. A thing drawn and pulled, but not yet claimed. Not yet undone.
It’s hard to tell what she feels. Awe, maybe. Fear, maybe. Or something simpler—a tension beneath her skin, an old wire strung taut, beginning now to hum.
She lingers, long enough for the silence to take shape around her, until footsteps or voices or the warmth of someone else might find her.
so i stayed in the darkness with you
Zairah
