The doorway did not open.It answered.The hum that had begun as a distant vibration deepened into a layered resonance, low and resonant enough to rattle Clara’s ribs. The symbols carved into the chamber walls brightened in uneven pulses, as if reacting not to the room—but to Michael himself.He stiffened beside her.“Michael?” Clara asked quietly.He didn’t respond at first. His eyes were fixed on the sealed doorway, pupils dilated, breath shallow. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded… doubled. Not echoed—overlapped.“It’s not locked,” he said. “It’s listening for alignment.”Alistair’s gaze sharpened. “That’s impossible. This gate predates even the First Convergence. It only responds to absolute singularity.”Michael swallowed. “Then it’s already wrong.”The hum intensified.Fine fractures spiderwebbed across the stone floor, light bleeding through the cracks like veins under skin. Clara felt the air thicken, pressure building as though the chamber were being pulled inward towar

The ripple did not travel like sound.It moved like recognition.Far from the sanctuary—beyond stone, beyond wards, beyond even the maps Alistair kept hidden in locked memory—the world shifted in small, almost forgettable ways. A candle guttered where there was no wind. A watchman paused mid-step, heart pounding for reasons he could not name. A mirror cracked without being touched.And somewhere, in a place that had long forgotten its own name, someone opened their eyes.She woke with a gasp.The chamber was dark, lit only by thin veins of blue light crawling along the walls like frozen lightning. The floor beneath her was cold metal, etched with sigils so old their meanings had eroded into instinct rather than language.Her first sensation was pressure—not pain, but density, as though gravity itself had leaned closer.Her second was memory.Not of who she was.But of who she was not supposed to be anymore.She sat up slowly, breath unsteady, one hand pressed against her chest. Beneat