Chapter 8 — The Prime Gate Deal
By dawn, the Prime Gate glowed like a cathedral built from frozen breath.
Its arches caught the pale light and scattered it across the tundra, painting frost halos around our footprints. Runes along the base trembled, trying to remember why they still existed.
Chuck stood inside the ring, coat unbuttoned, hands bare against the cold stone. The air around him pulsed, faintly red beneath the ice. The hum coming from the Gate wasn’t music. It was mourning in mechanical form.
Dax and I stayed near the sleigh. We’d seen genius court madness before, and it always started with that same look in his eyes—the one that believed obsession was just another word for devotion.
“It’s beautiful,” I said quietly. “In the way broken things can be.”
Chuck gave a humorless snort. “In the way guilt is.”
He knelt, brushing snow from a central rune. The symbol flared red for a heartbeat, then dimmed, uncertain of his touch.
“This was the anchor,” he said. “Where belief met obligation.”
Dax crouched beside him. “You sound proud.”
“I’m explaining.”
“You’re defending,” I said.
Chuck looked up, irritation flashing before shame replaced it. “You think I did this for power?”
“I think you did it because the world stopped orbiting your grief,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. “So you built one that wouldn’t.”
The wind whistled through the Gate’s hollow frame, an exhausted ghost too tired to haunt properly.
He didn’t answer at first. Just pressed his hand flat against the foundation stone, and I saw something shift behind his eyes—memory, maybe, or regret remembering its name. “We called it the Pact. Gwen thought it could teach generosity. Nick thought it could unify belief.”
“And you?” Dax asked.
“I thought it could hurt less.”
He said it so softly the wind nearly forgave him for it.
His palm stayed on the rune. The light surged, steady now, until it filled the cracks with red fire. The hum grew deeper, thrumming through the ground beneath our boots.
“Chuck,” Dax warned.
I moved closer, squinting through the rising glow. “That pattern isn’t stable. You’re feeding it guilt.”
“That’s the point.”
“Point?” I echoed. “That’s not a point, that’s self-punishment with special effects.”
He laughed—short, sharp, and human only by technicality. “Worked for a while.”
“Until what?” Dax asked.
“Until Gwen’s rune cracked.”
He swept his sleeve over the stone, clearing frost, and there it was—her mark. Elegant. Intentional. A gold thread spiraling through the red lattice like mercy caught in machinery. But a fissure split it down the center, dark and jagged.
“Gwen’s mark,” I breathed. “The keystone.”
“She believed belief could be kind,” Chuck said. “I believed it needed rules. So I laid my sigil over hers. When she left… it split.”
Dax frowned. “Meaning?”
Chuck looked up at us, eyes hollowed by too many apologies. “Meaning this miracle runs on the grief of a man who mistook penance for purpose.”
The light flickered, then failed. The hum fell silent. Even the aurora above us dimmed, its colors retreating behind the clouds.
For a moment, the only sound was the wind moving through what was left of the world.
I swallowed hard. “You just killed it.”
“No,” Chuck said. His tone was steady, frighteningly so. “I just told the truth.”
“And what happens when the truth gets cold?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Dax stood beside him, the snow reflecting pale blue across his green skin. “You ever think,” he said slowly, “that maybe you weren’t supposed to fix anything? Maybe you were just supposed to stop breaking?”
Chuck’s mouth twitched. “Every day.”
He stepped back from the stone. “But the truth never stays dead for long.”
Behind him, the sleigh’s lanterns guttered. The world held its breath.
Then the Gate shuddered. Once. Violent enough to rattle my teeth.
Every rune along its arch blazed, then died again—except one. Gwen’s cracked sigil glowed faintly, stubborn and alive.
“Still wants to be heard,” I whispered.
Chuck closed his eyes. “Forgive me.”
The wind caught his words and carried them through the arches, down into the dark beneath the ice.
And something heard.
A sound rose from deep below, too low for ears, too heavy for air—a pulse from an old heart that hadn’t finished breaking.
The Gate trembled again. Snow fell in lazy spirals, glowing faintly in the half-light.
Dax stepped closer to me. “What’s happening?”
“Something old,” I said.
“Wait,” Dax choked, “Something’s waking?”
“Or something deciding whether to,” I said.
Chuck turned back toward us, the aurora reflecting in his eyes. “If it wakes,” he said, “it’ll want an answer.”
Dax took a step back. “If WHAT wakes?”
“To what question?” I asked.
“To the one I’ve been avoiding since the day I built it.” He took a slow breath. “Whether giving should ever have been forced.”
The Gate cracked once more—louder this time. Light poured from the fissure like truth demanding to be seen.
We braced ourselves.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of cedar, sugar, and something older than both.
Something was stirring beneath the Prime Gate.
And it remembered us by name.
