The Undercroft was colder than Aelorian expected.

Not the bright, bracing chill of mountaintop air or the gentle kiss of the winter mornings with peppermint tea. No, this was a deeper cold. A breathless, waiting cold. A silence so ancient it had grown teeth. It wrapped around his ribs like a lover turned bitter, whispered stories in a language older than gods—tales of things that had died down here and never been mourned.

Above, the temple groaned with movement. Heavy footsteps scraped against stone, searching. The kind of tread that stopped often and turned back on itself, then started again--faster.

Aelorian paused mid-step. From the top of the stairs, a muffled voice barked, "Check the lower sanctum! He can't have gotten far!"

A pause. Then another, closer: "You'd think he'd be dumb enough to go down there?"

"He's not thinking. He's running."

Armor creaked. Boots struck the stone steps in staggered rhythm. Not in sync, not formal. They weren't patrolling, they were hunting. 

Aelorian pressed close to the stairwell wall, breath shallow. Somewhere above, guards were moving—slow, heavy boots, the metallic sigh of armor scraping against the railings, the sharp jangle of a dropped keyring quickly muffled.

"He came this way," someone whispered before pausing with the tension of a sword half-drawn.

Another voice, lower and nervous: "The ogre's down there."

The first scoffed, but not with confidence. "Oh, give me a fucking break. That thing's not real."

"He bit a god in the ass, Ren." The second guard's voice cracked slightly. "They sealed him with runesteel and forgot the key for a reason."

A murmur of uneasy agreement followed. Another voice joined, too close to a whimper:
"Didn't he eat a priest once?"

"No. He threw one," someone corrected, reverent and horrified. "Halfway across the altar room. They never found his ribs."

The conversation died as a brazier hissed behind them. The stairwell creaked with old weight.

Aelorian didn't breathe. Didn't move.

"You go first," one muttered.

"Fuck that."

"They say if you look the ogre in the eyes, he sees your death."

"Shut up."

"He has skin the color of rotten flesh, smells just as bad, and has ten rows of teeth."

"I'd fuck him." 

"You would, wouldn't you?"

A scuffle, shoving one another. A decision. One pair of boots started retreating.

"Let the High Flame sort him," one of the guards muttered. "We're guards, not sacrifices."

The sound faded.

Aelorian didn't move until the silence returned—thick, still, and waiting. Only then did he descend the final steps into the dark belly of the Undercroft, where something monstrous was chained. 

The stone gave way to shadow.

Not just darkness, but the kind that stared back. The elf stepped into the sanctum like a trespasser into a buried god's lung. Cold, damp, vaulted high above by ribs of forgotten architecture. Pillars swallowed in ivy and ash. The air was thick with old incense, still clinging to the memory of fire.

And then—he heard it.

A breath. Low. Animal. Not the sacred hush of prayer or spellwork, but something wrong. Caged.

Chains creaked.

Aelorian froze.

A second breath came, louder, ragged. Something shifted in the dark. He turned slowly toward the noise.

There, slumped against the far wall—barely visible beyond the broken halo of moonlight bleeding in through a crack in the ceiling—was the thing they had whispered about.

It was worse than the rumors.

And more beautiful.

Tall, massive, nearly filling the alcove even in repose. Arms spread wide, shackled above his head, back bowed with exhaustion or restraint. Green skin—not "rotten flesh," but deep and earthen, like something carved from the heartwood of a cursed forest. Muscle corded along thick limbs, scars rippling like tectonic plates. His head was lowered, hair falling in tangled dread-braids across his shoulders.

Thorne Harrowbranch. 

The ogre moved, a slow, hungry lift of the chin. Glowing gold eyes cracked open, and they saw him.

Aelorian's throat closed, but before he could even think to move, the chains rattled and the beast lunged. 

It happened in a blink. One moment, chained. The next, Thorne surged against the bindings, teeth bared, fangs flashing. He hit the edge of the binding circle with a sound like a thunderclap.

Aelorian was thrown back by the force of it, stumbled, and hit the ground with a sharp cry. By all instincts, something told him to run and never look back, but another screamed at him to stay.

Thorne stood over the elf, breathing hard, feet barely within the bounds of his circle. Shoulders heaving. His gaze was locked on Aelorian like a predator caught between hunger and curiosity.

And fury.

Deep and boiling, old as war and just as blood-slick.

"Elf," Thorne growled. Not a question. Not even a word, really—just a sound dragged through clenched tusks like a splinter being pulled from bone.

Aelorian didn't speak.

Couldn't.

The ogre was a storm wrapped in meat and iron, and the air around him felt wrong, too tight, like the Undercroft itself was holding its breath. "You're not a priest," Thorne said after a beat, voice rough with rust and dust and disuse. "You don't smell like rot and oil."

Aelorian swallowed, spine stiff. "No."

Thorne's head tilted, just a little. His eyes scanned Aelorian—not hungrily, but like someone cataloguing a weapon. Or a threat. Or worse... a key.

"I should kill you," he said, almost gently.

"Dying by your hand," Aelorian said quietly, "would be a mercy carved in truth." His voice didn't tremble, but it wasn't steady either. He wasn't performing. He wasn't bluffing. This wasn't one of his rehearsed little barbs, the silver-tongued deflections he used like armor. No, this was him, as raw and exposed as an open wound.

"You'd do it clean. Quick, maybe even angry. But it would be real. Not wrapped in silk and holy lies or painted gold and called destiny." 

He stepped closer, not to challenge the ogre, but to surrender. Just a breath's distance from Thorne's shadow, his eyes bright with the kind of fire people mistake for courage. 

"If I have to die, let it be by something honest. Something that doesn't use me as a pawn and pretend to love me while it burns me from the inside out."

Thorne laughed—a horrible sound, too sharp, too dry. It echoed in the cavern like something that had once known joy, and now only knew the echo of it. "Elf, I've ended kings for less than what you just said." He stepped forward, just half a stride, but the chains groaned, shrieking in protest.  His voice dropped, lethal and low. "I'd kill you in one breath."

He turned suddenly, wrenching against the enchanted chains with a howl that made the stones above shudder. The runes on the floor flared bluer and gold, and screaming. Iron shrieked beneath his fury as he threw himself against the bindings again—and again—and again. Not to escape, but to feel it. To make the world witness his wrath.

Aelorian staggered backward, arms up in instinct, heart hammering against his ribs. "Stop—!" He shouted, caught between fury and fear. 

But Thorne didn't hear him. His voice fractured, turning into guttural snarls, not words but grief. He roared into the chamber like a storm breaking through a cathedral, smashing his fists into the ground so hard the stone cracked. He slammed against the chains again—not to break free, but because pain was the only language left to him.

"I tore open the sky for their wars," he spat. "They sent me to Embergate," he spat. "You know what I found there." Aelorian didn't know, and it struck him like a blade. Thorne growled, lips curling back to reveal more of those ivory tusks. "I found my kin. Burned alive. Strung up in the trees like warning signs. My little brother—still breathing, even as the cinders ate his lungs. And the priests just watched. Called it necessary. For the will of the flame."

The ogre trembled. Not just from fury—but from the effort of not crumbling. His fists clenched. The chains groaned. "I remember every scream. Every prayer I made before I stopped believing." He turned his head, eyes catching the slant of moonlight. "They didn't bury us. Didn't mourn us. Instead, they wrote songs about how brave we were, then locked me in a tomb for refusing to sing along."

Aelorian stepped forward, slow, hands half-raised, voice barely above a breath. "I'm not them."

"I know," Thorne murmured. "They'd never send a runty little elf down here. They're cowards. They think you're soft."

Aelorian's lip curled, chin raising in defiance. "I'll have you know, I'm deeply offended. I've stabbed three archpriests and slept with two, I'm not soft."

Thorne's laugh was bitter and brief. "Oh, Elf. Be very careful what you try to prove in front of a monster."

Another pause, and then, rasping with what felt like stone cracking in winter, he said, "Undo the chains if you dare. But know this—if I step into the light again, I don't kneel. I don't forgive. And I will never wear the sun kingdom's yoke again."

"Then, we're in agreement." Aelorian met Thorne's eyes, "Just as you say – know this – I don't want a soldier. I want your wrath. Your ruin. Everything they tried to bury in this godforsaken tomb." His words were slow. Weighted. "Give me the monster they fear in their hymns and I'll give you blood."

The silence that followed was not quiet. It was reverent. 

The ogre's smile was not kind, but a weapon rediscovering its edge. 

"Then gods help them," he said, low and sure, "because you just opened the fucking door, elf."