The Under-Spine did not whisper.
It hummed.
Low, constant, like the breath of something too large to see all at once. Every stone Kael stepped on pulsed with memory. Not memory of the city above—but of what came before it. The city beneath the city. The real Spinedral.
The root inside him drank greedily.
[Synchronization: 51%]
[Dark Tome Resonance: Dormant—Awaiting Blood]
Thirn, the Worm-Binder, did not walk. She glided, as if pulled along by unseen veins. Her voice was the scraping of ink across rotting parchment.
"You carry the seed of Armin," she said without looking back. "But you are not him. You are worse."
Kael said nothing.
She paused at the edge of a bridge made from ribcages, the bones bound by thick black sinew. Below, a chasm stretched into nowhere. Screams floated up like pollen.
"You've heard it calling," she said. "The tower."
He nodded.
"It wants what you are becoming."
She turned, her paper-dress rustling with whispered verses.
"Are you ready to offer it everything?"
Kael's voice was a rasp. "Everything is already gone."
Thirn smiled.
"Then kneel."
He did.
From the folds of her dress, she pulled a knife made of ink and a cup made of tooth.
With one stroke, she opened Kael's palm. The blood spilled dark—but not red. It shimmered like obsidian.
The root inside him howled.
The tower above sighed.
She caught the blood in the tooth-cup and drank.
And the bridge screamed.
"I bind you to the Worm-God Below," Thirn intoned. "I feed you to the Tome That Wrote Itself. I pledge you to the Maw Eternal."
Kael's breath hitched.
[Dark Tome Activation: Initiated]
It appeared from his shadow—no dramatic flare. No light.
Just presence.
The Dark Tome.
Bound in human lips. Locked with bone. It opened.
And screamed.
Words bled from the pages like rot.
Kael smiled.
Because now it was speaking to him.
And then—he felt a new presence.
Behind him.
Clapping.
Slow.
Cruel.
"About damn time," the voice said. "I was getting bored watching you play priest."
Kael turned.
Kane.
Pale. Smiling. Shirtless, soaked in blood that wasn't his. In his hand, a weapon that looked like a spine sharpened into a blade. In the other—an eye, still blinking.
"Miss me?" Kane asked.
Kael nodded once. "Where?"
"Upstairs. Slaughtered a choir of skin-children. They were singing off-key." He chuckled. "Then the wall whispered your name. Figured you'd found something tasty."
His eyes fell on the Dark Tome.
"Oh, brother," Kane whispered. "Now that's what I call dessert."
Thirn did not speak. She bowed to Kane.
"You are the Other," she murmured. "The Shadow to his Bloom."
Kane winked. "Damn right I am."
The Tome pulsed. Pages turned on their own.
A new passage burned into its flesh:
"When the Bloom and the Blade reunite, let Spinedral fall. Let the God awaken. Let the seams split."
Kael looked to Kane.
Kane grinned.
"So," he said, licking blood from his fingers, "shall we rewrite a few things?"
Kael responded with a whisper.
"Let's start with a city."
And from the tower's peak—
A scream.
Not from a mouth.
But from a god.
They had heard the oath.
And they were hungry.