The forest before them did not breathe. It watched. Kael stepped between twisted roots and silvered trunks, the world around him draped in a silence that was far too complete. No birds. No rustle of leaves. Just the faint crunch of ash beneath his boots and the dull pulse of the mark on his chest. Nyra moved beside him, each step as quiet as falling dust. “We’re close. The Court should be just beyond the Hollow Trees.” Lira walked at Kael’s other side, her hand never far from the hilt of her blade. Her eyes scanned the trees like they might peel themselves open at any moment and speak. Kael touched a nearby trunk. The bark was cold. Too cold. “Is this even still part of the world?” he asked. Nyra gave a short breath. “It’s a scar. When the gods tore each other apart, the Court stood between their realms. The forest soaked up what was left.” “And what’s left?” Lira asked. Nyra turned toward her. “Madness.” They reached the clearing. The trees opened like a wound. And there, r

The descent was not natural. The stairwell beneath the ruined spire curved in a sickening spiral, wider than it had any right to be, and Kael felt the pressure of something watching from beyond the stone. It was not the gaze of a creature or a god. It was the weight of memory. Of a truth buried so deep even the Veiled God had forgotten it.Lira walked beside him in silence, her blade drawn, the shimmer of its edge drinking the torchlight. Nyra followed, fingers brushing the wall as if it might whisper secrets. None of them spoke. Words felt useless here. Every step was another taken away from the world they knew and deeper into something that should have never been unearthed.They passed the first sigil at the fourth turn. Carved into black stone, not drawn — a spiral made of slashes, identical to the mark that had haunted Kael’s shoulder since the night he touched the dying priest.He touched it.Pain flared through his chest, not from the sigil, but from the spiral on his own skin.

Kael did not flinch.The scream that erupted from the beast’s mouth was not sound. It was force. A raw tide of anguish and will, enough to crack the dome’s walls and split stone from stone. It struck Kael full in the chest, flinging him backward. He hit the floor hard, sword skidding out of reach. His ears rang. His vision blurred. He tasted blood.But he pushed up.He had to.Nyra was already on her knees beside him, shielding his body with her own despite the trembling in her limbs. Behind her, Lira faced the creature alone, blade pointed at its chest.“You shouldn’t be able to move,” the beast said through many mouths. “You bear the mark. You are mine.”Kael spat blood. “Then take me.”The spiral on his chest burned again, but this time he did not resist it. He reached for the pain. Drove into it. Beneath the searing agony was something else. Something alive. A memory that was not his. A power waiting to be claimed.The spiral pulsed.And the dome changed.Light ignited along the w

Kael’s hand hovered above the handle.The door pulsed with cold light. Not warm like flame or golden like the Archive. This glow was a bruised silver, like moonlight seen through a corpse’s eye. The bones that framed it shifted subtly, not carved but grown, each a different shape, different creature. Some he recognized. Wyrm ribs. Hollow fangs. A horn that belonged to a thing he had once slain in a dream.The glass center showed no reflection.Only swirling fog.“Don’t open it,” Lira said behind him, her voice low.Kael didn’t move.“I have to.”“No,” Nyra said. “You don’t.”Kael looked back at them. Their faces were drawn with dread, but it wasn’t just fear for themselves. It was fear for him.That made it worse.Kael’s voice was calm. “You heard the voice. Same as I did. There’s something on the other side. Something tied to me.”“That’s why we don’t open it,” Lira snapped. “We don’t even know what it is.”Kael placed his palm on the door.It was warm.Alive.It responded to his tou

The ceiling collapsed behind Kael just as his feet hit the uneven stone floor of the corridor. Dust surged like a wave, swallowing the scream Lira had shouted from the edge. She was gone from view, the arch sealed by rubble.Kael staggered forward through the dark tunnel, his boots crunching over loose rock and broken tile. His breath came fast, not from the fall but from what he had seen just before the ground gave way. The figure waiting in the chamber below. The one with the spiral mark carved into his chest.Not another cursebearer. Not another illusion.A mirror.Same eyes. Same jaw. Same old burn scar riding along his collarbone.And yet… not him.Kael moved fast through the narrow corridor. He could still hear the low groan of shifting stone above. The entire section might collapse if he hesitated. He passed a fresco that had been half devoured by age, showing a golden beast swallowing the moon. The air grew colder as he descended.Light flickered ahead. Not torchlight. Not mag