Cassandra raised her hand.
Not in threat.
In invocation.
The ceiling's runes responded like loyal hounds, bursting into complex rotations, dragging unseen forces into alignment. My Grimoire shuddered violently. The script on its pages bled—literally—like ink cut open from veins. I pressed it closed and steadied my breath.
"You never wanted to be saved," I murmured, more to myself than to her.
She heard it anyway.
"No," she said. "I wanted to be understood."
A dozen shadowy figures formed behind her—echoes cast from the vault's history. Instructors, students, soldiers… All bound in runes. Their faces were featureless, but I felt them. Each one tethered to the heart on the plinth. Evanar's legacy wasn't just blood and bone—it was memory, stolen and sealed.
And Cassandra?
She was offering herself to it.
"You don't have to do this," I said, taking one step closer.
A thin barrier shimmered into existence between us—violet in hue, humming like a dying breath.
